Monday, May 31, 2010

1000 £ Bend, Melbourne



This warehouse space on Little Lonsdale street doesn't look like your average café.  Then again, Melbourne is a city full of surprises.  1000 £ Bend café is also home to a gallery space at the back.  Walk in and you'd be forgiven for thinking you were at a junk yard sale set up for your granny and her friends. 

It's kind of shabby chic, with mis-matched sofas (that look as though they could have been on  the set of Mad Men), low wooden tables (that wouldn't look out of place in a primary school) and a smoking room to one side with a metal barred window that looks out onto Little Lonsdale. 

They serve an assortment of baguettes and pides (pronounced pee-day) and a few hot lunches.  These were beef or veg burger, spaghetti and meatballs, and a lentil veggie curry.  All for $15 or under.   

I ordered a skinny flat white ($3) and was told they don't have skinny milk.  OK, so full fat it would have to be!  And seeing as I was pretty famished after my morning workout, I went for a salami and bocconcini pide, which was a reasonable $8.50.

The coffee came first and it was truly delicious.  Maybe I could be converted back to full fat milk?! 


My pide arrived a few minutes later with the bocconcini all wonderfully melted.  For those who don't know what a pide is, it's Turkish style bread and is wonderfully light and yummy.  OK, so it's not on my 'wholegrain' only list of breads, but this place only had pides or baguettes and I'm not a huge fan of baguettes. 

Still, this was OK.  But I did wonder why all salami had gathered together at just one end of the pide.  Personally I would have preferred it to have been evenly spread about inside so that I got a bit of salami with each bite, rather than a couple of mouthfuls and then nothing but bocconcini and pesto...but that's being rather picky I think...


Come here for something different, a great coffee and a bit of lunch (which is nothing amazing, but nothing terrible, just ordinary really).  With the exposed concrete floor and large warehouse space, it's not the warmest of places to chill out on a cool Melbourne day, but I can imagine it's a pretty cool place to hang out in the Summer.

1000 £ Bend
361 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000
No telephone number (and no skinny milk either!)

HOURS
Mon-Fri: 8am-7pm
Sat-Sun: 11am-7pm

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