Our second full day in Melbourne was even more food-filled than the night before. Let me preface this by saying that all the food we ate was excellent, but we ate so much that it was sometimes difficult to enjoy every mouthful, especially when it felt like we just went from meal to meal…regardless, I wouldn’t have had it any other way, so here is our Saturday spent at Top Paddock, Tipo 00, Shortstop Coffee & Donuts and Transformer.
I’d heard heaps about Top Paddock from various people – in my mind it was kind of like what The Grounds of Alexandria is like in Sydney – a bit of an institution where people are happy queuing for ages and always get an excellent meal. It is different to The Grounds in that it doesn’t have that urban hobby farm feeling, but it is definitely popular. We rocked up not that early (10:30am from memory) and were concerned when we saw people scattered outside waiting. However, the cafe is quite large and the tables turn around quite quickly, so we only ended up waiting for about 10 minutes!
The menu is very exciting, with many of your usual breakfast staples but also some really innovative dishes. S and I were toying with the idea of two dishes in particular, so we decided to order one each! I went for the Grilled broccolini & sugar snaps with avocado, toasted almonds, poached eggs and heidi raclette on toast ($18.5). Absolutely loved the colour scheme of this dish – so much bright green! To be honest, it was the raclette cheese that drew me to this dish…after having incredible raclette a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t resist getting more.
S had the Top Paddock: chorizo, pickled onion, peppers, basil, bacon, Adelaide green tomatoes, poached eggs and relish on toast ($22) which was pretty much the opposite colour scheme to mine! So many deep reds and pinks, not to mention really interesting flavour combinations! She was really happy with her dish too, but it’s definitely a heavy breakfast (perhaps not the best choice for a full day of eating!).
After a short break wandering through the city, we headed to Tipo 00 for lunch! I actually came across this restaurant through Eileen (@eilxrrr_)’s instagram and it instantly reminded me of my favourite Italian restaurant in Sydney, A Tavola. It’s classic Italian cooking with homemade pasta, with simple ingredients that let each flavour speak for themselves. The little restaurant is in the heart of Melbourne CBD and seems to be extremely popular!
We started off with some ricotta and bread, as well as the Burrata with heirloom tomatoes and sour dough ($16). Then I dared myself to have the Pappardelle with braised rabbit, marjoram and hazelnuts ($27). The pasta itself was top quality, but I just couldn’t get it out of my head what I was actually eating and that definitely tainted the whole experience unfortunately. Perhaps there’s still a bit of a vegetarian lurking inside me/I’ll just stick to the more conventional meats. S had the Rigatoni with sher wagyu ragu bolognese ($22) which was thoroughly excellent. Would definitely recommend this dish – a bit more special than your standard bolognese sauce!
Overall I must say I was a little disappointed with Tipo 00 but I also want to point out that that might be entirely my fault. I expected every mouthful to be so delicious it would blow me away (like A Tavola does) but maybe I ordered the wrong thing and to be fair, we had been eating pretty much non-stop since the night before and I was feeling quite full and wasn’t really feeling like eating at all (surprise surprise!). But that didn’t stop us from heading over to our next stop: Shortstop Donuts!
I’d been eagerly following Shortstop on Instagram for sometime now and was way too excited to take the short walk over from Tipo 00. When we got there, some of the donuts had sold out already so I would definitely recommend going first thing in the morning – donuts are breakfast, right? S had the beautiful Earl Grey & Rose donut which she LOVED. Get this if you’re a fan of rose-flavoured things. I decided to stick to the basics with a Vanilla donut – you can’t go wrong with that. I can inform you that the basics were great – so go for one of the more adventurous flavours when you’re there! 
After a short break where we rested in our hotel nursing our food bellies, it was time for dinner already! I had heard incredible things about Transformer from friends (did you know it’s the fine dining restaurant of Melbourne cult-favourite Vege Bar?) so I went ahead and booked a table – which I would definitely recommend if you want to dine there! 
Immediately after walking in I thought to myself: “How freaking cool is this place!” Something about the dim lighting with spotlights on your table, and the vines growing along the chicken-wire floor to ceiling fences that form partitions around the restaurant, you almost feel like you’re dining in some sort of a plant sanctuary. We started with some super fun drinks – I had a Green Juice which was the tastiest green juice I’ve ever had, and S had some sort of a red juice with salt and other herbs around the lip of the glass – very cool looking! We then tucked into the very morish Organic popcorn with Japanese spiced sea salt & crushed nori ($4). Then came the Smoked tofu & pickled ginger brochette with dried miso ($4.5 each) which was amazing. I’d never had smoked tofu before but let me tell you – it’s next level. Highly recommend! 
We then ordered a whole lot of small dishes to share as well as two dishes that were on special that night. Continuing on the tofu path, I ordered the Spelt & seed steamed bun, crispy organic tofu, pickled cucumber and gochujang mayo ($7 each) which was lacking in flavour a bit. Next up was the Steamed broccoli, chili jam & salted black bean dressing ($13) which was a bit of an odd combination actually. I’ve only really had black bean in Chinese food with meat or fish. This combination with broccoli seemed to miss the mark. The two most impressive dishes were the specials – the incredible pinky red dish you see is a Beetroot risotto with Chinese mushrooms and goats curd. This dish was beyond anything I’ve ever tasted. I think the bright colours of the dish definitely added to the effect! Wish we could’ve had more of this!
The other dish was Artichoke with onion puree which was also great. I always find that artichoke kind of looks like potatoes but then you bite into you and you’re like, oooooh! The onion puree was at times a bit overwhelming but apart from that, absolutely loved this dish as well.
Wow, that was a big day! Hope you enjoyed the long read and stayed tune for Sunday, our final day in Melbourne! x
Top Paddock
658 Church Street, Richmond
Melbourne VIC 3121
www.toppaddockcafe.com
