Stalker Zine

When breakfast is fucked, my day is fucked.

This is because breakfast is my most favourite time of the day - and it doesn't take a lot for people to fuck with it for me. Being 21, breakfast is often a thing that is overlooked in favour of "sinking bulk piss" and "not eating", but I for one have never ever sacrificed my weekly cafe visits for a goon sack. But with this breaksession, comes an overwhelming sense of expectation when I visit a new place. The menu, the atmosphere, the company - all have to be on tee. I visit so many places in every suburb and in Melbourne you are rarely disappointed. If I am disappointed, I need good, stable company that can calm this bucking horse that is my ego and prevent me from not monkey screaming down the baristas throat to make my coffee the temperature of coffee, not a milkshake. It is called coffee. Not milkshake. Unless you have toes for fingers and an IQ of room temperature, this should be a given. And if you do have the unfortunate limb disfunction and lack of neurons - then you my friend, should not be making my coffee, you should be learning to spell N-E-S-C-A-F-E in after school care and sucking your mother's teat. 




As you can see, when my breakfast is fucked, then the rest of my day is fucked. Normally I'm quite good at letting things slide after a moment's unhappiness.

I could be walking along the road on a muddy day and a passing car splashes gutter scum directly into my eyeball holes, my mouth holes, my ear holes and potentially my nether regions (if on a hot Summer's day and the need for underwear didn't arise) and momentarily gasp and shout a, "sexy", word in their direction, but ultimately I will shake the poo flavoured roadside crust from my dangling locks, wipe the hobo's sputum from my corneas and be on my merry little way - forgetting everything. 

Perhaps my utter distaste for an average breakfast experience stems from my hospitality experience. Having worked in cafes and restaurants for over seven years, perhaps I have spent far too much time making average peoples' experiences the happiest of all time? Am I that keen on Urban Spoon reviews?  Do I care if eggaholic415 or mmmuesliishealthy_bakedbeanz2 trolls me on a Broadsheet forum feed? 

I just want everyone to enjoy something I enjoy, just as much as I do. I couldn't give a flying fuck about attending your football game, netball game, wedding or birthday party - but I will be the one you remember at your Sunday bruncheon. You should grant me the same satisfaction by making mine lovely too. Otherwise I will put mud on your wedding dress. THERE! I SAID IT.

Now, after all of this ranting and raving, I only have good news to report.

I went to one of the best places I've been to in the last couple of months, and it was certainly the best coffee I have ever had in Melbourne.


Enter - Little Big Sugar Salt. A quaint and quirky little nook on Victoria Street that's "right between the pho and the heroin" in Richmond's finest Asian drug vending district. It's not somewhere that you would normally expect a hip-to-be-square little cafe, but every revolution has to be somewhere, and I feel that this hotspot will pave the way for future businesses in this somewhat "derelict" part of Richmond. 

Me and one of my best breakfast partners came here early one morning expecting great things. My breakfast buddy was still pissed from the night before and had a horrible case of the drunk munchies. While I was on the opposite end of the spectrum that was starting a health kick for the fourth time this week that would more than likely end with me curled in the foetal position on my couch nursing a 2L tub of choc mint ice cream about to shit my pants from a lactose overdose. Denial is an ugly thing kids.


We sat down on a sort of Oriental/Modern French decor - think lots of wooden slats, duck egg blues and minimalistic table ware. It's an extremely inviting space. Nooks, crannies - it's like dining in an eccentric Parisian's apartment on the 8th arrondissement. I am one that usually gets excited my well decorated bathrooms as well. Peeling paint, antique looking mirrors and big high ceilings. So sold. So sold.

There's some exciting reading material loitering in the wooden slats as well. While you wait for your heavenly coffee you can read "Useless Japanese Inventions" or "How to Read Palms".

After downing what was the most delicious coffee I have honestly ever had. I can't figure out what they're roasting but it tastes like Daenerys Targaryen got one of her baby dragons to do it - whilst she bestowed her best wishes upon it. Flamingly delicious.

With only 8 items on the menu and each lovingly categorised (2 big, 2 little, 2 sugar, 2 salt - cute, I know!) I chose the granola for girlfriends (oh my god I'm so healthy getting sugar glazed oven baked carbohydrate explosion!) and my mate chose the hashcakes. 

What ensued was beyond expectation, beyond notation, beyond elation, beyond masturbation. 

The granola was coconutty and full of these unreal, plump little strawberries. If ever you have looked at the muesli getter on a breakfast date being like "oh, look at that sad sack with her lonely bowl of oats and cow period while I mouth orgasm on hollandaise and mega hot scramblies that are like clouds" then you are going to eat your words my FRIEND.

The hashcakes were just as exciting - albeit...alternative. A nest of "McDonald's-esque" hash brown on a salad of pomegranate, apple, parsley and a yoghurty dressing - this bad boy slipped down the throat like pineapple flavoured...juice. Mmmmymmumumum.

So, after eating our fill and mindlessly chatting to the happy staff I can say that this is one breakfast that was certainly not ruined. Five stars yo.

Little Big Sugar Salt