Flow
| Where | 4/663 Victoria Street, Abbotsford, 3121—View map |
Contact | (03) 9421 6762 |
Website | www.flowcafe.com.au |
Open | Breakfast Monday to Friday 7:30 am to 3:00 pm, Saturday and Sunday 8:00 am to 3:00 pm |
Payment | EFTPOS, Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Cash |
Diet | Soy, Caters to special diets |
Seating | Inside and outside |
Kids | — |
Pets | Welcome |
The river of goodness floweth
Jane de Graaff 20 February 2009
Anywhere that lists ‘soft-boiled eggs with buttered soldiers' on their breakfast menu is automatically my friend. I suddenly feel safe and warm and about four years old, full of the certainty that after breakfast, everything is going to be ok- no matter what monster is hiding under the bed!
But things get a bit tricky when the same menu also includes ‘French toast with a cornflake crust and maple syrup'- my four-year-old sensibilities go haywire!! Cornflakes and French toast? Crunch and maple syrup? Oh the dilemmas of being a fully-grown adult with no one else to make the decisions for you!
So I take the initiative and with my adult status, I sensibly opt for the sweetest.
Another thing about Flow that takes me back to my childhood is that it's a little bit secret, a little bit hidden. It sits at the far-far-away end of Victoria street, just before the Yarra, ferreted away amongst Richmond office blocks. This makes the bluestone cottage hideaway feel like a secret cubby house, with its exposed timber beams, vine fringed windows and paisley fabric covered walls... a secret cubby house that serves Supreme coffee nice and strong and has a chef called Nathan who likes to come out and chat to the kids.
Nathan has perfected breakfast menus all over town and in the absence of parents watching over me, suggests naughty little extras like crispy bacon with my maple syrup. He's the cheeky older brother that might have bought you your first beer while mum and dad weren't looking... but if they were looking, he'd probably suggest they try the ‘scrambled eggs with smoked ham and fresh herbs, served on puff pastry'-it's the grown-up version of eggs on toast.
As my French-cornflake-toast arrives, I'm just so... happy to be snuggled away in this secret space playing at being a kid again, and it's not even the weekend! Then the adult in me spies ‘bowl of cafe latte and caramelized sourdough' on the menu- am I old enough to drink coffee? I forget... so I spread out my newspaper by the window in the sun, scan through the headlines... and then flip to the comics.