Skip to main content

Mighty Boy Eatery

I went there for the breakfast, but ended up trying the lunch.



Late last year, Mighty Boy Eatery (59-61 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy) was all the rage, having taken opened on a prime corner location on the ever-popular Gertrude Street. Usually keen on brunch, I was initially dubious at the idea of South-East Asian inspired breakfast food. But then my sister visited from interstate, and I like to take visitors to new and interesting places. So we checked out Mighty Boy for a late brunch one weekday.



Unfortunately, after a sleep-in, we were *too* late! Breakfast was no longer being served by 12.30pm, so lunch was our only option. I had been eyeing off the haloumi sandwich, and there were no other cheesy options on the menu for lunch to satisfy my craving.

Pulled lamb shoulder roti wrap


The lunch options available were all Vietnamese/Thai style (noodles, salads, roti wraps and rice paper rolls) and, appealingly, very affordable - a stark contrast to next-door neighbours, Cutler & Co. (blog post on them coming soon!). I would have liked a bit more variety in the lunch offerings overall. It is odd that breakfast should have some 'regular' options plus a few Asian inspired (house baked eggs with an Asian spin) or unusual offerings (snickers toast), but lunch is just one straight cuisine. Why not apply the same approach as breakfast to the lunch dishes?

Tofu rice paper rolls


We ended up trying a variety of roti wraps and rice paper rolls, all extremely fresh and brightly presented. Although I like them, they are generally messy to eat, and this time was no exception. Even though they would not have been my first choice for breakfast, they were tasty and I would recommend them for lunch.

Tofu roti roll

Wrapping up

Pork & prawn rice paper rolls


The coffee (by Melbourne coffee house Niccolo) was decent, if a bit light in flavour, but again, beautifully presented. Other drinks included exotic looking juices and ice crushes with equally exotic ingredients - tropical fruit flavours, coconut and the like.


Ice tea? (which. for the record, should technically
be called "Iced" tea... harrumph!)


Decor is appealing: light and bright, but sparse. Floors are a simple grey, walls are white-painted brick. Fixtures are various types of wood, and brown-orange chairs and sun-yellow lighting (courtesy of Mark Douglass Design) add splashes of warmth.



Due to all the hard surfaces, there can be a lot of white noise inside - fortunately, there are also large sidewalk tables to choose from, if you are lucky enough to nab one. Service was unsmiling but relatively efficient - perhaps an element that needs a bit of work.



Mighty Boy is run by Mark Peou - owner of what must be Melbourne's tiniest cafe, appropriately called "Tiny", in Collingwood - and family, bringing the flavours of their Cambodian background into the food. The kitchen is headed up by Peou's former colleague at Prahran's Borsch, Vodka & Tears, Christian Simoni, who chalked up time at Chin Chin, and all rice paper rolls are personally hand-rolled by Peou's mother out the back.




Mighty Boy is open daily for breakfast and lunch, with dinner in the pipeline (pending the granting of their liquor licence).




Mighty Boy Eatery on Urbanspoon

Popular posts from this blog

Lane's Edge, Waiter's (Club) Restaurant

Meyers Place is one of my favourite Melbourne laneways to hang out in, not least because it offers a variety of bars to choose from. Yes, there are several, but together they form a chilled-out sanctuary from the ritzy, pricey hotspots around the top end of Bourke Street ( Siglo/Supper Club/City Wine Shop , Longrain , Madame Brussels , Gin Palace and 1806 all come to mind). Don't get me wrong - many of these are excellent; but when you venture out midweek on a regular basis, it's nice to know you have a cluster of affordable, more relaxed options available, as well as the schmancier, special-occasion places. Also handy is how easy Meyers Place is to find, compared to many other Melbourne laneways. "It comes off Bourke Street, near the Parliament end," is a phrase I'm sure I've spouted multiple times to uninitiated friends. Failing that, I tell them to look for the Palace Theatre - it's almost directly across the road. The Bourke Street entrance to Me

Kong

We'd been hearing about it for months and months. Chris Lucas and his never-fail Lucas Group venues had closed what was Pearl Cafe at 599 Church Street (corner of Newton Street), Richmond, and left the small 60-seater site to marinate for a while. Things went quiet next to  Petbarn , then suddenly the new fit-out was complete, and Broadsheet was running a competition in cahoots with Mercedes-Benz for winners to experience the as-yet-unopened restaurant, Kong , at a special (and very well-publicised) dinner. There were also tastes of the food - with mixed reviews - through Rue & Co , a pop-up Collins Street venture between Kong, Jimmy Grants and St Ali . Everyone was anticipating Executive Chef Benjamin Cooper 's menu - would it be all "chilli, chilli and more chilli", that he had proclaimed as his preference on a Masterchef immunity challenge? Or would his expertise from heading up the kitchen at the ever-popular Flinders Lane haunt,  Chin

Supernormal

Is it, though? So normal it's super normal? I think maybe not. There are a lot of 'normal' things at Supernormal (180 Flinders Lane, Melbourne) - you go in, get a table (if you're lucky), order food, eat it at said table. But there are a few things that set this restaurant apart. Kitchen behind the bar One is size. Supernormal is quite big for a Melbourne CBD restaurant. There are different sections: a looooong bar (behind which sits the kitchen, and which pretty much runs the length of the restaurant), a line of booth-style tables, a couple of walls hosting tables with bench seating, and stand-alone tables in the middle. Bench seating tables and random display flowers and bottles It also has a very high ceiling, which makes the interior feel very spacious and airy. Hard surfaces everywhere do echo the noisy chatter from so many covers, but the space above all the heads helps absorb it. Stand-alone tables in the middle and hi Another is