Street art in Melbourne: Preston

Last year I took quite a few street art photos around Preston.  When I saw a lovely piece of artwork last week, I decided it was time to collate as many of my Preston street art photos as possible, dating back to 2014.  I could not find a few but there is plenty of colour and imagination here.  Above is one of my fave artworks from the walls of Jackson Dodds cafe.  Another bird - a parrot - can seen below.  Enjoy.

 The bike rider on a wall at Northland, 2014.

 An angel at Northland, 2015.

Above and below - a couple and bird art, 2017.

I get a laugh every time I pass this old Real Estate business where someone has painted the words Secret Agents.  It is so Get Smart.  (below)

Below are photos from  2024 (around Gilbert Road, Plenty Road, the Nevoliany Scopia Social Club at 1 Miller Street, Circus Nexus on Chifley Drive)

This last photo was taken just days ago on the wall of Newlands Primary School.  It is so beautiful and immersive.

More posts with street art from the inner North of Melbourne:

• Street Art in Melbourne #2 Ann Street, East Brunswick
• Street Art in Melbourne: Brunswick 2024
• Street Art in Melbourne: Coburg III 
• Street Art in Melbourne: Coburg VI 
• Street Art in Melbourne: Northcote 2023

In My Kitchen: April 2025

April has been a month of big moments: Daylight savings ends, School holidays, birthdays, my annual leave, Easter, ANZAC Day and my blog birthday. And a federal election campaign squeezed in between all of this. (Spoiler: Labour won!)  My bike rides have been much colder in the morning.  In the evenings it is getting dark so early I need my lights on my bike on the way home from work.  At home the garden is enjoying cooler weather with some rain showers.  In the kitchen we've had creative moments, lazy evenings, exciting purchases, a few days without a door on a kitchen cupboard, 

We have had so much furikake sprinkled on our meals that I decided to try making it at home.  The seasoning needed a slight adjustment but it was very good.  As you can see on the label on the jar above it was made with sesame seeds, seaweed, nutritional yeast flakes, salt and sugar.  I will experiment further with roasting nori, adjusting seasoning and the best way to grind the mixture.  Stay tuned...

One of my favourite new recipes in April was Gnocchi with Broccoli Pesto.  It was so good we made it twice.  The first time, we didn't have spinach as there had been a recall of baby spinach in the supermarkets.  I added lemon juice, cooked the broccoli for a minute and substituted basil for mint.  We enjoyed it with tofu bacon.  The second time I had the spinach and peas in the recipe but added edamame and served it with goats cheese.  It is so easy and delicious for a quick meal after work.

This was a sandwich I made with the broccoli pesto that I made for the gnocchi above.  It was a simple sandwich of pesto, cheese tomato and lettuce.  I used Burgen bread which I have been buying quite a bit lately.  I especially love the soy and linseed which was a preferred bread in my student days.  Sylvia is not keen on seeded bread but I love it so I have been eating this bread myself.  When I have too much at the end of the week, it freezes well.  

I wish I had had some leftover tofucado to add to the sandwich.  Check out my Tofucado post this month for this easy dinner that is a cross between a stirfy and a salad.

I was excited to see the Lowland Celery Salad recipe on Joy the Baker recently.  I was enjoying raw celery over summer and loved the sound of this salad with lots of walnuts, dates, cheese and mint with the celery.  I even put in the shallots which I don't usually use.  It was lovely and made some great work lunches.  For fun I put my muppet lemon in the middle.  My lemons have not been great lately but I am hoping they might improve this winter.

We had a great meal of vegies, hummus , falafel and turkish bread.  We bought my favourite local falafel at Half Moon Cafe and the best soft fluffy Turkish bread at Melbourne Kebab Station.

 

A few weeks back I was having a stressful day and decided to make "grubs" which were my childhood fave.  I tweaked the recipe to have black cocoa and chocolate ripple biscuits so the mixture was particularly dark.  I also added 2 tablespoons of white miso.  It made the condensed milk mixture much less sweet but it was also quite sticky.  Instead of rolling into balls I made it into a slice with plenty of coconut sprinkled on the bottom and the top.  It was great comfort food and fun to experiment with a favourite recipe.

We went to a surprise birthday party at the Royal Hotel in Mornington.  Sylvia made a lovely birthday card (that our friend was keeping til his birthday which has now yet occurred.)  She ended up making quite a few cards.  I really loved this lighthouse one that she made (which was not the one that we gave to our friend).

In the week before Easter, I rode to Back Alley Bakes to buy some fancy hot cross buns.  It was busier than usual.  No wonder!  Their traditional hot cross buns were so good.  This was reflected in the prices with a single bun selling for $5.50 and half a dozen for $30. That's more for one bun than a 6 pack but it was worth it to have such good buns and support a local business.

I also enjoyed a vegan Tempeh-stuous Pastrami sandwich made with smoked tempeh coated in pastrami spices topped with dill pickles, sour cream and purple kraut.  The tempeh is from a local business called Wilder Foods.

While I was very happy with the traditional hot cross buns from Back Alley Bakes, Sylvia was delighted with her brulee hot cross buns.  She gathered that the baked hot cross buns had the top scooped out and filled with custard and caramlised on top with a flame.  She loved that it was crisp enough at the top to satisfyingly crack with the tap of a spoon.

On Good Friday I baked my own overnight sourdough hot cross buns that I have been making for years.  For the dried fruit I used currants and dried peach chunks.  As always I made the crosses a bit thicker than most commercial buns because I love thick chewy crosses.  We both loved these hot cross buns.

For Easter Sunday lunch in Geelong, I made these GF snickers nests with gluten free rice bubbles and  mini eggs on top.  The nests were made using Snickers bars in the Mars Bar Slice recipe, dabbing some melted choc chips into the groove and placing mini eggs on it.  Shaping the warm rice bubble mixture as nests in the cupcake holes was challenging.  Once they had cooled in the fridget I was gad I had put circles of baking paper at the bottom of each hole before adding the mixture.   They looked really cute as part of the Easter desserts. 

My parents did not have an Easter egg hunt this year.  Their grandkids are getting too old.  Instead they did an Easter quiz and each kid got a chocolate bilby when they had completed it.  My neighbour has younger grandkids.  We helped my neighbour hide the Easter eggs in the front garden while they were having an early Easter lunch on Good Friday.  Sylvia was very happy to go from being the egg hunter to the egg hider.

I dropped into KFL, our local Asian supermarket, for some supplies that are harder to find at the supermarket and a few temptations.  According to the owners' website, most of the food is from China.  So it is easy to find frozen udon noodles, edamame and dried bean curd.  These bean curd sticks were pretty odd when soaked as they became pretty flaccid but I fried them up so they had crispy edges and we enjoyed them in a stirfry.  The multicoloured chocolate wafer sticks were so cute I could not resist.  

I was disappointed that the furikake only came in sachets and not in larger containers.  Nor was there many vegan choices  The one on offer was almost $5 for 30g.  It was delicious (ingredients: sesame seeds, sugar, seaweed, salt, yeast extract, corn starch syrup, dextrin) but not a regular purchase.  Hence my decision to try home made furikake, as you can see at the top of the post.

During my week of annual leave after Easter, we were going to go to Pentridge Palace cinemas but could not find the right film at the right moment so instead we had lunch at Lucky Little Dumplings.  Afterwards we went to Pentridge IGA and bought a few treats.  Sour blueberry twisties, discount Lindt Easter chocolate, Dubai chocolate cake bar and Honest eggs.  Yes it has come to the point where eggs seem like a treat as they as so scarce in the supermarkets.  

It was great to try Dubai chocolate, which has been a viral sensation and for good reason.  The pistachio kunafa layer was delicious though Sylvia was less enamoured with the cake layer.  I have had the creamy kunafa dessert (aka knafeh) and it was not my thing but I loved how the spun pastry gave a pleasant crunch to the green creamy pistachio layer.  I heard recently that the popularilyt of Dubai chocolate had led to a shortage of pistachios.  I can see why.

The sour blueberry Twisties that we bought at IGA were unsurprisingly on special.  They were really odd and disturbing.  Even the fluoro green glow of them was so unnerving that I had to take a photo.  We decided they were truly alien food.  Sylvia refused to eat them.  I ate them in a car crash fashion - it was bad but I kept having to eat another to tell myself that the sour and sweet flavours were just wrong in what is usually a savoury Twistie.  I would not buy them again but I am glad we tried them, though I could have done without the blue tongue afterwards.

Onto more serious things, a hinge broke on a kitchen cupboard door.  It was just hanging in there on one hinge.  Literally.  I tend to think a 1960s kitchen is a bit retro but not in the vintage-don't-make-them-any-more category.  I thought it would be a quick fix by my dad.  He spent a while mulling over the oddly shaped hinge and then spent a few hours trailing through six different hardware stores before he found similar hinges.  The sixth was a cabinet maker who told him that these sort of hinges were no longer made.  

The last place was a restoration place with lots of old hinges that my dad sorted through to find some we could use.  I had a couple of days without a door on the cupboard and was constantly resisting the urge to shut the door.  Once my dad had done an amazing repair job, we found that there was another type of hinge in the kitchen that was easier to do but that the original hinges were fashioned to be hidden away neatly.  They really don't make kitchens like that any more!

I had a yen to ride to Iris the Baker in Brunswick for bread but by the time I arrived, they were sold out.  I consoled myself with a wonderful cinnamon and citrus Morning bun for Sylvia and I to share.  Then I rode on to the Village Bakery in West Brunswick to buy a Potato, rosemary and honey sourdough loaf.  Once I got home I made fantastic salad sandwiches.  If you have good bread, you can easily make a good sandwich.

A while back, my dad put up a shelf for Sylvia to put pot plants.  Sylvia has so many plants that she is looking at the real estate on the fence for places to put the plants.  You can see she also has some hanging baskets on the fence to plant in.  Once the shelf was up, we had fun painting flowers on it.  Now Sylvia needs to find some low maintenance plants to grow up there.

Lastly is what Sherry calls a curveball.  She hosts the In My Kitchen event (see below) and I am so pleased she continues to host each month with great enthusiasm and generosity.  Sherry's curveballs are something not quite kitchen.  Often her curveballs are fun local works of art.  My curveball is a pottery toadstool house that Sylvia made over a few months at her fortnightly art sessions.  It was so thoughtful of her because she knew that I had been admiring toadstool houses at markets.  Isn't it gorgeous!

I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens and her gorgeous hand drawn header.  Thanks to Sherry for continuing to host this even that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.

Note: although I would love to be organised enough to publish my In My Kitchen post on 1st of the month, I am pleased to post on 5 May 2025 which is Square Root Day because 5 x 5 is 25. Yay to days with fun numbers!

Tofucado - with rice and cucumber

One of our favourite easy meals of Summer was Tofucado.  It is one of the meals that Sylvia kept requesting, especially on a hot day.  The clever portmanteau name is so much fun to say.  I am pleased to report that the meal is every bit as good as the name!  It is a simple cross between a stirfry and a salad.  Grated tofu is fried, then mixed with mushed avocado, carrot, spring onions and seasoning, and finally served with rice, cucumber and roasted seaweed. 

This is a recipe that needs patience.  The patience is in preparing the tofu.  The more you press the moisture out of the tofu, the better the tofu fries.  On one occasion we started to press the tofu one evening and then decided to make the tofucado the next night.  As the tofu was already in the press, we left it for 24 hours and it made really good fried tofu.

Patience is also needed for frying the tofu.  It needs to only be stirred from time to time so it has an opportunity to get crispy and golden.  I find it helps to get distracted by something else because otherwise it seems to take forever.  We usually buy a 500g block of tofu and use the other half to make tofu bacon.  However the crispy fried strands of tofu are so good that I could just eat them as a side dish, especially once the tablespoon of soy sauce is stirred in.  But I like to do only 250g at a time because it has room in the cast iron fry pan to crisp up.

The other part of the recipe that requires time is cooking the rice.  In I'm a Food Blog's recipe, they have white rice.  Since we have started to make tofucado we always serve it with brown rice.  I much prefer it.  Once you get used to brown rice, as we have recently, white rice seems to lack substance.  As you can see in the photo above, we made a much bigger pot of brown rice than we need for the tofucado.  Leftover brown rice is great to have on hand for all sorts of meals.

When the rice and fried tofu are ready, it is pretty quick to put prepared the vegetables and mix the avocado mixture.  In our house, I usually get the rice and tofu together and Sylvia puts together the rest of the meal.  It works really well for us when I have been working in the office all day and come home with very little energy to put dinner together. 

Most times that we have made the tofucado, I add more vegetables.  There have been one or two nights have been really tired and don't add a thing.  It is great as is or with extra veg.  If you have furikake, I highly recommend sprinkling some over your meal before digging in.  You can see fuikake on the seaweed in the above photo.  The top photo had celery and cherry tomatoes added.  The below photo has the addition of rice, lettuce and tinned beetroot. I love how this recipe can be simple or packed with vegies.  And it is both vegan and gluten free.

There have been many new terms that I have learnt over the last few months - DOGE, SLAPP, perseverating, hetero-pessimism, kuchisabishii and the Finkbeiner test.  So many new ideas.  I am pleased to include tofucado among my new words.  It sounds like a fantasy vegetable that might be like an avocado with tofu instead of the stone.  This dish is a winner because it is quick, easy and nutritious.  Having a fun name is just another reason to love it.  

 More avocado in salad on Green Gourmet Giraffe blog:

• Avocado green goddess salad dressing, served on spinach, tomato, avocado, cucumber, walnuts (gf, v) 
• Avocado, pear and pecan salad (gf)
• Avocado, pickled ginger and tofu soba noodle salad (gf, v)
• Leon superfood salad (gf) 
• Strawberry, avocado and walnut salad with a chocolate vinaigrette (gf, v)
• Sushi (purple) salad with tofu nuggets (v) 
  
  

Tofucado
Serves 2
Adapted from I'm a foodie

• 1 tablespoon oil
• 250 g tofu extra firm, grated
• 1 large avocado
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce, divided
  
• 2 tablespoon mayonnaise
• 1/4 tsp chilli paste
• 1 to 2 carrots, grated
• 2 spring onions, sliced

 To serve:

• 2-3 cucumbers, finely diced
• 2 packs roasted seaweed
• 2-3 cups cooked brown rice
• furikake, to sprinkle

[Before starting the recipe, we will cook the brown rice and press the tofu, but if you have cooked brown rice and extra firm tofu, you can skip this step.]

Heat oil in a cast iron frypan and then fry the grated tofu, leaving for a minute or so at a time before frying it so it becomes golden and crispy.  It will take 5-10 minutes to fry the tofu.  

While the tofu fries, mash avocado and mix with 1 tbsp soy sauce, mayonnaise and chilli paste.  Mix in grated carrot and sliced spring onions. 

When the tofu is fried, stir into the avocado mixture.    Arrange in bowls with warm rice, diced cucumbers and roasted seaweed sheets.  Serve sprinkled with fuikake if you have it.

NOTES: For a vegan version, use vegan mayonnaise.  For a gluten free version, make sure the soy sauce is gluten free.  This dish works well with either white or brown rice and vegies of your choice on the side.

On the Stereo:
Be OK: Iris Michaelson

Matcha cake with strawberry and cream for 18th blog anniversary

It has been busy but not too busy for cake!  Every year I share a cake for my blog anniversary on this day.  I posted the first post on my Green Gourmet Giraffe blog 18 years ago today.  This year we had a matcha layer cake with strawberry chia jam and whipped cream filling.  It was like a hipster version of Victoria Sponge Cake.  It is a fine way to celebrate my blog with some of what I have learnt over the years.

The cake was a compromise.  We considered a matcha forest cake, a chocolate cheesecake with a miso swirl, a fairy sprinkles cake, Sylvia Plath's tomato soup cake.  In the end we went simple with some of the elements we wanted in a cake.  I wanted to try a vanilla version of my favourite vegan wacky chocolate cake.  Sylvia wanted to add matcha and cover the cake with frosting and sprinkles.  We went with some strawberry chia jam because we love it and whipped cream because there was leftovers from covering a pavlova my mu made for Sylvia.  I tinkered with the whipped cream and added some yoghurt and maple syrup rather than just adding a icing sugar that my mum always does.  It was a fun project.

We agreed to do it as a layer cake.  Keeping layers together is always a challenge for me.  They always look like they should to sit on top of each other but I have made some that like to slide.  Cream and jam can be challenging.  (And they took a vegan cake back into the world of dairy.)  The first thing to do is to try and cut the cake evenly.  So I measured at points around the cake and stuck skewers in there.  (Later I thought perhaps toothpicks would have been better.)  It worked.  Mostly. 

I didn't know how much jam and cream to put in the filling.  So I was generous and when I cut the cake the ooze was generous.  The cake was pretty messy but it tasted really good.  Sometimes I think I am not getting neater but I am learning ways to make it look better.  There are some mistakes I make over and over.  When I read an American recipe that says baking soda, I still often think it means baking powder.  It usually works ok but bicarb and vinegar are more fun to see fizzing together when they meet in the mixing bowl.

I preferred the cake with just a scattering of icing sugar on top but Sylvia wanted the frosting and sprinkles.  It was a  easy cake for a busy time.  It is hard to believe that we are in the middle of four big weekends: Easter, ANZAC day, the Federal election and Mothers Day.  It seems that as soon as we get over one weekend another one looms large.  A bit like life: constant change with no sooner is one situation dealt with than there is another to confront.

When I first started blogging 18 years ago I never thought I would be still be at it so many years on despite how much has changed in the online world and my world.  At the end of each year I reflect on my blog and my life - you can read about the last year on my Reflections 2024.  Meanwhile I will continue on this journey with more good food and fun adventures.  Thanks to everyone who has shared food with me, took the time to comment and inspired me to make great food!

More layer cake recipes on Green Gourmet Giraffe blog:

• Butterscotch layer cake 
• Creme Egg chocolate drizzle cake 
• Floating malteser cake with fudgy buttercream frosting
• Vegan chocolate (layer) cake (v)  
• Victoria sponge layer cake
• Zucchini layer cake with cream cheese frosting (gf, v)
  
  

Matcha cake with cream and strawberry chia jam
Adapted from The Big Man's World
Makes 1 x 20cm cake or a 2 layer 15cm cake

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 cup sugar (I used raw sugar)
2 tbsp matcha powder
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 tablespoon canola oil
1 cup water

To serve (optional):
Strawberry chia jam
Whipped cream
Frosting
Icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 180 C.  Grease and line a 15cm high walled round cake tin or a 20cm cake tin.  (The smaller tin gives an option for a layer cake.

Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir until combined.  The batter should be quite thin.  Scrape into the prepared cake tin.  Bake 30-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.  (I baked mine 50 minutes but my oven bakes slow.)

Cool cake on a wire rack.  You can it it plain or decorate with cream, jam and icing sugar as in the below options:

Option 1: If you have a 20cm cake spread the top with strawberry chia jam and whipped cream.

Option 2: If you have a 15cm cake, slice in half and spread the bottom half with strawberry chia jam and whipped cream, then place the top half on top.  Sieve some icing sugar on top.

Option 3: If you wish to frost, do Option 2 and instead of sieving icing sugar on top spread the top of the cake with frosting.

Strawberry chia jam:
Adapted from Green Gourmet Giraffe

250g (about 1 cups) strawberries
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp chia seeds

Hull strawberries (ie slice off green leafy tops).  Chop finely by hand or in a food processor.  Mix berries, maple syrup and chia seeds in a small saucepan.  Bring to the boil over low heat and simmer uncovered for 10 to 15 minutes until it is just thickened, stirring occasionally.  It will thicken as it cools.  Keeps in the fridge in a jar or tub for about a week.

Whipped cream:
Inspired by Serious Eats

6 tbsp thickened cream
2 tbsp Greek yoghurt
1 tbsp maple syrup

Beat all ingredients in a small mixing bowl until thickened and holds its shape when you run the beaters or a spoon through the mixture.  (I used electric beaters but a whisk can do it too if you have the energy.) 

Frosting:
Adapted from Green Gourmet Giraffe

75g butter
150g icing sugar

Beat butter in a small mixing bowl until pale and creamy.  Gradually add the icing sugar until it is all beaten in.  It was quite a soft icing but worked fine.

Variation:
The cake can be made as a vegan Victorian Sponge Cake if you use regular jam and buttercream (with vegan butter) between the layers.  It is even possible to make the sponge without the matcha.

On the Stereo:
The Purple Bird: Bonnie Prince Billy

Tylers Milkbar, Preston

Tylers Milkbar is a cafe with a great deal of heart and a touch of nostalgia.  Upon entering it feels friendly and fun with retro baking and locally sourced groceries.  We've had such great meals there since first visiting mid last year and are always welcomed warmly.  Sisters Sam and Ali Fisher run the place with their mum helping with the baking.  They are friendly with a sense of fun and when taking orders they are always sure to check about dietary requirements.  The menu changes occasionally but always has lots of amazing toasties, sandwiches, baked potatoes, coconut bacon and an appropriately named "Epic" salad. 

The decor has a lot of orange and pink with a retro vibe that acknowledges that the Australian tradition of milkbars that infuses this place.  When I was growing up in the 1970s our milkbar was the general store where we knew the staff well and could buy anything from hot pies and pastries to mixed lolliies to swapcards to freshly baked sponge cakes to baking ingredients.  In a small town without a supermarket, we depended on the milkbar for basics such as milk, bread and newspapers.  

The glass display cabinet, the drinks fridge and the small area for shelves of locally produced groceries are reminiscent of the old school milkbars.  Tylers also has a modern touch with good coffee, vegan and gluten free options and an Indigenous version of kombucha. 

Sylvia tells me that I was the one who suggested Tylers Milkbar.  However it was Sylvia who went there first with a friend.  She ate lunch in the backyard and loved it.  You can see the backyard above with its bright orange umbrellas and the greenery along the fence by the stepping stone on the path.

Here is a close up of the garden with its splashes of orange.  The sign reads "unless you are a gnome, please keep off the garden".  It is the spirit of fun that you will find throughout the milkbar.

This is my first lunch at Tylers in July 2024.  I had Kasundi pumpkin soup with a cheese and coconut bacon toastie.  Sylvia had a vegetarian Top of the Morning Burger: fried egg, baked potato hash, grilled halloumi, jalapeños, spring onion, rocket & smoky mayo ($18).  It is not often these days that I come across a cafe with coconut bacon.  It was excellent as an extra in the cheese toastie that is made with sourdough bread from one of our favourite bakeries (Back Alley Bakes in North Coburg).  And it is a bargain at $7 for the cheese toastie plus $3.5 extra for the coconut bacon.  The pumpkin soup, a special of the day, was a lovely accompaniment.  And Sylvia loved the retro tomato soup mug so much that she has since bought one in an op shop.

While Sylvia quickly chose an iced soy latte, I wanted some more information about the cold drinks.  The staff explained that the Ooray Plum & Wild Hibiscus Gurbuchi by LORE 8 was a kombucha made from a tea of Indigenous leaves.  As a lover of kombucha, I was delighted to try it and was not disappointed.  It is my drink of choice at Tylers.
 

We always stop to look at the display of baked goods on the way to our table.  It always has more temptations than we can ever sample.  So much temptation!  Perhaps that is why only recently did I notice the loaves of bread for sale on the back shelves.

The baking display regularly changes but always is full of beautiful food and it has something for everyone:

• Tylers favourites such as "Very vanilla cupcakes" and "Someone's Birthday Cake".  The latter is slabs of vegan chocolate cake with lots of frosting and sprinkles.  Such a fun name for a cake.
• Home made versions of Aussie classics such as Monte Carlos (see further down the post) and "Kimston" biscuits from the Arnotts Assorted Cream packet.  The Kingston was my favourite with two slightly chewy oat biscuits  sandwiched together with a creamy chocolate filling.  The "Kimston" is based on the Kingston but named with a nod to Kim who bakes them.  They are bigger and fresher but have the wonderful oaty chocolate combination.
• Seasonal treats such as the Minty Grinch Slice.  I have not tasted this but it looked so cute with the candy eyes in the green minty filling.
• Interesting flavours that I want to try such as the Orange Cranberry Loaf (pictured above) and Rhubarb Raspberry and Ginger Loaf.
• Savoury bakes such as the Roasted Zucchini and Capsicum Breakfast Tart that I had recently (not pictured) and the Asparagus and Warrigal Greens Breakfast Tart that I would love to try.
  
  

This Sticky date pudding was shared with Sylvia on my first visit.  It was up there with the best of sticky date puddings!  It was fresh and soft with great flavour.  Most impressive was the dulce de leche frosting that was delicious without being really sweet.

In November we returned for lunch.  I had an amazing lunch with the humourous name "Oh Honey!" ($16).  It was a toastie with sweet potato, leek, goats cheese, hot honey and spinach.  Wonderfully sweet and salty, a little spicy and very messy.  I had to wash my hands after it but it was worth it.  Sylvia loved the Top of the Morning burger on the previous visit that she had it again.  I tried the Lemon Myrtle and Finger Lime Gurbuchi and it was good but I preferred the Ooray Plum and Wild Hibiscus version.

We could not resist sharing a home made Monte Carlo after lunch.  On instagram it was described as "honey & butter cookie filled with whipped cream cheese and raspberry grappa jam".  This was a triumph of flavour over sweetness.  The Tylers version was far superior to Arnotts.  The indoor cafe space has a small shelf of foodie books that I quite enjoy checking out to browse during each visit.  On this occasion, I enjoyed reading Eamon Donnelly's Milk Bars Book Vol II. 

In December when we visited I was delighted that there was a new salad on the menu.  It was so good I begged one of the owners to keep it on the menu and was glad to hear it was popular.  It was called the EPICCC Salad from a Jessica Prescott cookbook and had "roasted corn, chickpeas, sweet potato, smoked almonds, spinach, ricotta salata, coriander, pickled red onion with house-made chipotle dressing and lime."  I left my coriander on the side, could have had slightly less spiciness but found it such an enjoyable and satisfying salad, especially with the smoky addition of the optional coconut bacon .  At $18.50 plus $3.50 for the coconut bacon, this is a fantastic choice for anyone who wants to see how good salad can be and suits those wanting healthy food with vegan and gluten free options.

At the same lunch Sylvia had a cheese and coconut bacon toastie because they are amazing.  She drank an iced soy strawberry matcha and I had the Festive Spritz which was a spiced orange and mandarin syrup with rosemary & thyme served over sparkling water.  Our drinks were pleasantly icy on a summer day and we had special sweet treats for the festive season.  The vanilla cupcake was very cute with a green Christmas tree piped on it and the toasted spicy gingerbread with butter was just delicious.

On a visit in March, Sylvia had her favourite cheese toastie with coconut bacon and I tried the Tyler's Lemony Tofu Roll ($15.50).  It was described on the menu as "Just like Mumma's, but tofu! Lemon & herb roasted tofu with mayo, celery, seeded mustard, dill, cucumber, spring onion & alfalfa on a soft, buttered roll."  It was based on a lemony chicken roll but updated to be vegan with a gluten free option.  I enjoyed the generous green salad and mayonnaise covered chunks of tofu in my roll. 

It was a cool day so I warmed myself with a pot of Digestive Tea by Beit e Shei with the flavours of liqourice, peppermint and fennel.  It was a pleasing combination of herbal flavours.

In early April, we had a quick visit where we ordered and paid as we walked in.  Sylvia had her favourites: a cheese and coconut bacon toastie, an iced strawberry matcha and a vanilla cupcake with cute pink frosting.  I had the French Onion Toast ($19).  This was described as "a grilled cheese toast with French onion dip, mushroom medley, dressed leaves".  I was pleasantly surprised at the pile of fried onions under the blanket of melted cheese and I really loved the beautifully cooked mushrooms.  It was an unusual but great variation on a cheese toastie.

Our last visit was last weekend on Good Friday for their annual Easter egg hunt.  Tylers places paper Easter eggs around the nearby streets.  Customers search for the eggs and take them inside for a prize.  At first we thought we would never find an egg.  Then we found the one in a tree.  In the above photo the egg looks huge but actually it was quite small and hard to see.  We almost missed it.  Then a couple in a car stopped to tell us they had seen an egg when driving past.  It look more searching to find that second egg they alerted us to and then soon after we found one more.  We left the third egg as it seemed like two was enough for us.

These two dense and intense Chocolate brownie with swirly frosting and sprinkles were our prizes.  They were so good, almost chewy.  It was fun to watch a pair of cute little kids with their brownie prizes sit at a table and dig in with excitement.  Tylers was pretty busy but we were shown to a couple of stools at the window bench.

Sylvia had the Sourdough Crumpets by Holy Crumpets served Canadian style with Fried eggs, tofu bacon and maple syrup.  It comes as either a single or double serve but a single was enough for her.  She raved about how good they were.  I love a cafe that serves crumpets.  We have been very tempted by a dish called Princess Peach which comes with whipped honey ricotta, good ol' canned peaches, ginger biscuit crumb, maple syrup, olive oil & thyme glaze served over a hot crumpet.  We were sad it left the menu before we had a chance to try it but Sylvia assures me it is on the menu from time to time.

 

To drink, I had my favourite Gurbuchi and Sylvia had an Iced soy strawberry matcha.  As a matcha enthusiast, she has noted that the matcha has got better since she first had it.  You can see how good her matcha looks in the above photo.  She also had a really cute vanilla cupcake with a mini Easter egg on top.

This is a fun and welcoming place that is a family affair, where they know their regulars and have community events like the Easter egg hunt.  On their facebook page, they rightly claim to be "reimagining the times where the milkbar was a meeting place for the community".  We will be back soon for the retro vibe, the delicious food and the friendly welcome.

Tylers Milk Bar 
656 Plenty Road (near the corner of Tyler Road)
Preston, Victoria 3072
Open: Mon-Sat, 7am-4pm
https://www.tylersmilkbar.com.au/