Pillar Of Salt

Pillar Of Salt

January 28, 2012 · by Fatboo · in ,

541 Church St
Richmond, VIC 3121
03 9421 1550
pillarofsalt.com.au

Pillar Of Salt
Today, I’m introducing you to a new character in fatbooo’s never-ending food saga: PixelAnt! PixelAnt is a photography enthusiast and a bit of a CANON freak. He’s also got a curiously weird bunch of (mostly Asian) friends… they’d frown over food photography! Asians against food photos… is that possible? There was noticeable pixel-envy when he heard about my blog-life, and how I’ve ‘trained’ my friends to wait (read: let their food to turn cold) until I’ve finished capturing their dishes.
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You should know by now how magnanimous a person I really am, and how I really want to give something back to the community. That’s why I agreed to meet PixelAnt so that he can (OMG finally) satisfy his food photo-taking fetish. *Gasp*… I’m so selfless… can’t believe it… tissues…!
Pillar Of Salt
Hahaha… that aside, it’s obvious PixelAnt and I have much in common, both of us want to take food pictures without fear of friends getting annoyed. A perfect dining-slash-photography partner in crime! So for our first food outing, we picked —> Pillar Of Salt.
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Being a Saturday, that popular corner café was of course crankingly busy, but we only waited 15 minutes. Regrettably, PixelAnt did NOT bring his camera to this meet-up, so it was just me taking pictures (and making a fool of myself) while he observed how I was like when I’m on assignment. Probably not a good look, but… oh well…

The café was quite cramped and busy that morning, but I liked the fit-out out front, especially how you can sit against the wide open front windows and gaze out over Church St. 
Pillar Of Salt
El Salvador Finca Alaska 6hr cold drip $4
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Unfortunately, we couldn’t score such prime spots, we were instead seated at the sheltered back courtyard. To keep us happy, coffees came pretty quick. Cue: me taking out my cam and half-embarrassedly snapping our coffees with that quick efficiency that I normally reserve for when I’m with people I don’t really know fully. The container looked so much like a urine specimen bottle, if I may add. As for how the coffee tasted, my cold drip packed a decent punch, with a thickish medium astringency and notes of chocolate, if I remember correctly. Not too bad.
Pillar Of Salt
House (Pillar) Blend Soy Latte from 5 Senses $4 (top left)
Single Origin Costa Rican Coralillo Piccolos $4 (bottom right)
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PixelAnt had a soy latte to start with, which I didn’t get a sip of. At the end of the meal, we both grabbed a single origin piccolo each. They look really nice in the picture (although the foam caps had different levels), but I honestly can’t remember what I thought of it, except that it leaned towards ‘okay’ rather than ‘WOW!’. This is what happens when I don’t note down tasting notes for coffees, it’s impossible to remember the hints just by looking at the pictures.
Pillar Of Salt
House made corn fritters w smoked salmon, poached egg, coriander & avocado salsa $18
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I believe PixelAnt found his brunch offering quite satisfying… there were no complaints! I won’t comment on the fritters because I don’t like corn fritters anyway. But from my small sampling of the avocado salsa, I thought it tasted quite oniony. Chances are, it’ll probably carry well when eaten with the other components in the dish.
Pillar Of Salt
Red chilli scrambled eggs w julienne bacon, spring onion, parsley, a hint of parmesan & toast $16.5
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I think the description for my brunch dish sounds nicer than how it actually turned out. The flavours were pretty enjoyable, and I liked how they weren’t reserved with the use of chilli in it. But I think I’ll probably go classic next time and have scrambled eggs without any fancy add-ons. Conceptually, I thought I was having a just-undercooked omelette with yummy ingredients! But because my mind was thinking ‘oooo… scrambled eggs!”, I was just a teensy bit disappointed.
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While there’s isn’t much fault I could find about this place, I somehow was expecting more from it. Food and coffees were decent, and the staff were efficient and friendly. I don’t have any problems with brunching here again, but it just won’t rank all that high on my ‘must return’ list of brunch places.

 
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Pillar Of Salt