A Pretentious Brunch to Cure the Homesick Australian
A Pretentious Brunch to Cure the Homesick Australian
Bengali Eggs in Amsterdam
It’s impossible to adequately describe or define Australian cuisine. That’s
possibly because such a thing doesn’t really exist, beyond Vegemite and Lamingtons—the sponge cakes that are, outside of Australia, either despised or unknown.
Nevertheless, I miss it. I miss how you can go anywhere in my home city of Melbourne and order an overpriced, wholesome, incredibly delicious dish that’s really just a fancy version of some other cuisine. I miss walking into a café with full confidence that my flat white can be made with some organic almond milk.
I miss sitting down to peruse the typewriter-font menus, bursting with inventive adjectives that serve not only to tantalize, but to justify the hefty price tags of the dishes. In their pages, strawberries are macerated, nuts candied, raisins drunken, halloumi molten, and avocado most certainly smashed.
While visiting Amsterdam for a weekend with my sister I happen to spot a café in the cool De Pijp district called Little Collins. I immediately know it must be run by Australians, and that I must visit. How do I know it’s Australian? Because Little Collins is the name of a charming street in Melbourne’s central business district, and because Australians love opening up cafés in hip corners of the world. Put two and two together and that little name is a promise of all the almond milk and smashed avocado a homesick Melbourne girl could want.
We saunter into the café on a Sunday morning and, sure enough, are met with a soundtrack of Tame Impala and brash Aussie accents. I opt for the Bengali Eggs, a skillet dish of spiced chickpeas with baked eggs, roasted peppers, coriander, feta and yoghurt, served with a devastatingly flaky house-made flat bread. The bread turns out to be the best part. The egg dish is good, though not the tastiest I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve no idea how faithful it is to the actual Bengali dish from which it borrows its name and flavors (but isn’t that the point of Australian cuisine?) And yet, its a welcome taste of home. This is what Melbourne café fare is all about.
One more almond milk flat white later and I’m ready to go. But not before I take one last, longing look at the nectarous language on the hip-looking menu.