Lady Lunchalot

One of my favourite menus in Melbourne can be found at at the Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder, the place that I insist on calling “Stephanie’s”.

On Saturday morning Stu suggested that O and I meet him there for brekkie, as he had a hankering for Stephanie’s cheese on toast. You just haven’t tasted cheese on toast until you’ve been to Stephanie’s. (Ok, the Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder.) Stu insists on a piece of tomato underneath the cheese, and he always orders an extra slice because he knows I cannot be trusted around his. The truth is, I never order it even though I love it, because I’ll always end up having some of Stu’s and that way I get to taste two different dishes!

Even though the Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder attracts gaggles of Mercedes-driving pashmina-clad women with names like Prue and Pamela, it is also chock-a-block full of delicious goodies. I’ll never forget the time I tripped over one of these bejewelled ladies when I caught sight of the most unbelievably decadent cake sitting on the coffee counter. It was almost pornographic in its indecency, and when I saw it I must have looked like Kevin Spacey in that cheerleader scene from American Beauty.

On Saturday morning I restrained myself to a hot chocolate (you could really taste the cocoa) and scrambled eggs with parsley and a serve of perfectly cooked bacon. O and Stu, of course, had the cheese on toast. And they both ordered an extra slice for me. It’s nice to be loved. : )

And the Cheese Room is really something else. I could spend hours in there just soaking up the cheesy perfume. The staff are so helpful - not only is there nothing they don’t know about cheese, but they are completely evangelistic about it. I remember going in there once and receiving an impassioned lecture from the cheese lady about how we needed to petition our parliamentarians to allow the importation of Roquefort from France. (Which incidentally, has been allowed in Oz since 2005. Go cheese activists - yeah!)

O was a Cheese Room virgin. He was sufficiently impressed with the cheesiness, though he was a little cheesed out after his cheesy toast. He selected a beautiful piece of Pasti from Veneto, Italy for Signor Valvasori’s birthday present. I went with a soft squishy Clarine from the French Alps. That cheese was so ripe and runny you could suck it through a straw - but that would be a bit gross and spreading it on a nice slice of pumpernickel is a tad more socially acceptable.