Empire Strikes cafe

I love this place, it’s a guaranteed good day. A good day consists of a delicious hot breakfast, preferably eaten at lunchtime, eating with a group of friends who are also eating delicious food, and being at Empire Strikes Cafe.
The food is either organic or locally sourced. The coffee (femnisto-coffee?) is made from beans sourced from an ethical group, run by Peruvian women. The service is outstanding. It’s warm and welcoming, vibrant, and unbelievably generous.
Empire Strikes cafe (now ‘ES’) is also a gallery for some funky street art. Here are some paintings.

Chillaxed artsy scene/ As expected of Brunswick/ Look at the paintings

Delicious pancakes / Icecream, bacon and syrup / Pancakes level up

Banana pancakes with icecream, bacon and maple syrup. Canadian pancakes. (Bananas are also insanely expensive at the moment. $4 a pop for organic. $2 for the standard banana. Usually I just buy regular food, but a point made at ES is that they use organic or local produce whenever they can.)

Pretty clover leaf / Four leaves to give you good luck / Good start to the day

Clover in your long mac. Also, it has 3 layers. So pretty.

The dangerous stack / Every meal should be breakfast / But that makes no sense

Live dangerously. Do the stack. This is the fabled Dangerous Stack. The plate on the right came out first, (anti-clockwise direction, starting with the toast) sesame toasted (buttered, of course), 2 poached eggs with a thick mayonnaise (It might actually be a butter-based sauce, but it is sour like mayonnaise), sliced chorizo, 2 hash browns, roasted tomatoes, herbed mushrooms, baby spinach and bacon. Then came out the plate with sausages. Huzzah! More food! I thought that was all that was coming (seeing as that is what the entire stack entails), but not so! Along came an errant plate of bacon, finding its rightful place in the world.
“Anyone missing bacon?”
Nobody was missing bacon.
“If nobody claims it, we will,” I say, jokingly.
We got the bacon. What you see in the Dangerous Stack photo, is that plate of extra bacon.

Peel and cut pumpkin / Add salt and roast til done / My work here is done

Roast pumpkin, fetta, baby spinach toastie. Roasted pumpkin was prepared just a little while ago, just before people were arriving.

Holy moly steak / Portion size is mega-huge / Need more stomach space

Steak sanga. They are the size of two burgers. The steak is done medium (not shown in the picture.).

Vegetarian / But bacon makes its way in / So, best of both worlds?

Vegetarian breakfast. Two slices of buttered sesame toast, 2 poached eggs, baby spinach, roasted pumpkin, and I think there are olives, capsicum, eggplant and onions too. There is also bacon on the top-right. (That is from the extra plate of bacon.)

There was also an Eggs Benedict. Unfortunately, no photo of that. (Repeat after me, photograph food before eating it. Or before people eat it.)

Plateful of wedges / Goes down the hatchet with dips/ I have no regrets

Wedges too. Not your ordinary wedges either. Wedges baked with bacon, tasty cheese and spring onions. Served with sour cream, and sweet chili sauce.

Whoo Cowabunga! / Ninja turtles figurines / And a biscuit tin

Every cafe needs some figurines, and a vintage biscuit tin.

Warm and generous / Fantastic food and service / Go visit them now.

The folks at ES. It’s an awesome photo.

We need to go there again.