St. Ali North - Cafe Review

BACON ICE-CREAM!

So I was meeting a friend for lunch last week and she promised me a "Totally rad cafe that's so fancy I have at least one word I don't understand in every menu item description!" and in house cured bacon! After I finished peeing myself with excitement (we're talking a good 16 hours here) I got to the cafe!

There are words you are supposed to use to describe places like this, but I'm not up with the lingo. I feel it's something like "chic" or "trendy" or "consecrated" or something.  The point is I could have entered through the window without comment. There's also a "ride through" section, which sounds fun, if morally questionable...

I really need to work on my photography (that is to say iPhone) skills. Specifically I need to remember to take out the phone and take photos of more than just half my plate.

My plate! (With stuff on it!)

I arrive and am promptly pointed to an apparent typo on the menu:

"Pan-fried stone fruit with brioche, bacon ice-cream and fruit jus"  Apparently "jus" is sauce.  Who knew?  But the point is, "bacon ice-cream."  Now I read that menu item and skipped by that entirely.  Obviously they meant "bacon, ice-cream," two independent things.  Surely we don't actually have a place nonchalantly serving actual bacon ice-cream, here in Melbourne?

I didn't much feel like eating a stoned fruit for lunch, so I ordered the plate you see above, with a side of BACON ICE-CREAM.  Apparently this isn't usual, because the waitress thought it was a typo too.  But another guy there explained to me that first they caramelise the bacon, then they dice it up, then they blend it with the ice-cream.  Do you see that picture?  DO YOU SEE IT!?  Those tiny little specks in the ice-cream are little pieces of pure happiness infused within.

If you are a normal person you probably think bacon ice-cream is a novelty, but not actually that great.  Understand this, bacon ice-cream is the single best flavour of ice-cream in three universes. After eating that ice-cream, I gave birth to a full size dragon!  And I'm a guy.  Don't ask for details...

The food and coffee were also good.  I think.  I don't really remember after the BACON ICE-CREAM!

The point of this is, if you want to give birth to a dragon, you need to visit this cafe.  And dragons will be useful this year.  After all - Winter is Coming...