Three Bags Full
| Where | Cnr Nicholson and Mollison Streets, Abbotsford, 3067—View map |
Contact | 03 9421 2732 |
Website | www.threebagsfullcafe.com |
Open | Breakfast Monday to Friday 7:30 am to 4:00 pm, Saturday and Sunday 8:00 am to 4:00 pm |
Payment | EFTPOS, Visa, Mastercard, Cash |
Diet | Check with venue |
Seating | Inside and outside |
Kids | Welcome |
Pets | Welcome |
Wish full-filment
Rowena Robertson 12 February 2010
I think it can now safely be said that everything Sarah Foletta and Nathan Toleman touch turns to gold. The couple who founded Alphington's APTE and Hawthorn's Liar Liar have just opened a new cafe, the cutely named Three Bags Full, and it's an absolute winner. Located in Nicholson Street Abbotsford (not to be confused with the 'big' Nicholson Street closer to the city), the café has the same professional, friendly ambience of its predecessors and a similarly extensive breakfast menu.
Set in one ground-floor corner of the new Denton Mills development, Three Bags Full has a summery, airy atmosphere. There are polished concrete floors, a long, high wooden table down the middle and a generous number of other tables. I particularly loved the stools whose seats are made from old yellow highway and speed limit signs, the lights over the coffee bar made from colourful upside down cups and saucers and the 'shoe art' on the wall near the entrance. Yes, it's quirky, but somehow not remotely twee.
Anyway, enough about the interior design – let's get to the menu. There's a lot to choose from for both the sweet and savourily inclined. I had the parmesan eggs – poached free-range eggs on organic sourdough toast with prosciutto, parmesan and truffle oil. This dish might sound quite heavy, but it wasn't at all. It was the perfect size, with the eggs expertly poached and just the right amount of prosciutto and cheese.
Other menu standouts include the house-cured salmon served with a pea, feta and corn fritter, avocado, rocket and a dill sour cream; house-made baked beans with feta, gremolata and rocket on toasted organic sourdough; banana and coconut bread toasted with honey labna, pistachios and roasted seasonal fruit; ricotta hot cakes served with poached seasonal fruit, honey and orange-infused ricotta; oven-roasted field mushrooms stuffed with parmesan and parsley on organic toast; and sardine Provencale – sardines pan-fried with tomatoes, olives and basil on organic toast. The breakfast special the day I went was sticky black ginger bread served with mascarpone, roasted plums and praline – amazing. Three Bags Full does eggs poached, scrambled or fried, bircher and standard mueslis, and granola trifle.
The coffee was excellent, but perhaps even more notable is that this place really knows how to do a chai latte. At so many cafes the chai is incredibly bland – perhaps showing that said cafes consider it a poor cousin to coffee – but here it is super spicy, strong and bracing.
Apparently Three Bags Full is already bursting at the seams on weekends, which tells you more than any review ever could. In short: get down there.