Brunch – Dani Valent

International Hummus Day

Have you got an hour? Ask a Middle Eastern person about their favourite hummus and be ready to listen long and hard! Hummus is an everyday traditional food all the way from Yemen to Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey but there are as many variations as there are eaters! At its simplest, hummus combines chickpeas and tahini, then there's the potential addition of salt, pepper, spices, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and water. Plus, there's the question of texture. Should it be smooth or sturdy? We dig in...

Oppen

Just when you thought there was nowhere new to go with avocado toast, along comes Oppen. The Scandi-style cafe specialises in smorrebrod (say "smairbrud"), a Danish open sandwich on rye, generally smeared with butter and topped with herring, cured meats, pickles and other such delights.

Ned’s Bake

Ned Radojcic didn’t get the memo about South Yarra being a gluten-free suburb and he somehow accidentally opened a bakery here. In come the locals, shimmering in their activewear, bemoaning the problematic and pesky presence of flour. Radojcic, a Yugoslav aircraft engineer who arrived from Belgrade in 1989 with $238 in his pocket, begins his ‘breaducation’.

Humble Rays

If you’re bored with breakfast in Melbourne, you mustn’t be trying. When you’ve munched too much muesli you can move to matcha bowls. If you’re tired of toast there are waffles in the wings. And when you’ve smashed every avocado in sight, you’ll see coconut pannacotta jiggling with excitement as its moment in the spotlight approaches.

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