Snow Pony

Snow Pony is one of Melbourne's popular brunch places, and a restaurant which I've been eyeing for a while. The waitress tells us that Snow Pony sources its ingredients locally as much as possible, and the restaurant has some nifty home gadgets to minimise their environment impact. I was pretty impressed with their restroom set-up. The tap is connected to the toilet cistern. You wash your hands and the used water flows into the cistern, where it collects to flush the toilet for the person next in line. It's ingenious, and an improvement over a system that uses clean drinkable water to flush human waste down the drain. 
  

(Okay, so most food blogs don't start a restaurant post by with a discussion on toilets and human waste. But I'm finished now. It's out of my cistern.)

Ha. Pun intended. 

Okay, it's all out now.
I had the Slow-Cooked Lamb Open Sandwich ($19.90). The meat was well-flavoured but not gamey, and was cooked till soft and tender. The bread lent the every bite a crunchy texture.

I had a magic, which was pretty decent. J and R had the Latte, which I grudgingly admitted to myself tasted much better than my magic. Their latte also came with gorgeous latte art which my magic lacked. (EJ had the latte too, but his art was noticeably lacklustre. Too bad he wasn't born as a gorgeous woman.)

EJ had the Prawn and Chicken Burger ($18.90), which came with a side of potatoes. The entire dish was just ... meh. Guess today wasn't his day.  

On the other hand, J raved about her house-cured salmon ($16.90), while R  loved her Smashed Avo ($15.90) with an additional order of salmon. There's something pretty wow about their house-cured salmon.

House-cured salmon

Service-wise, there has been a recent slew of bad reviews online criticising their service. My two cents? It was not as bad as I feared: okay, I could not detect a smile from our server over the entire meal, which was unusual in Melbourne, but coffee was served quickly, we didn't have to wait long for the delicious food. 

This is no Axil Coffee Roaster, which set a new bar in my heart for brunch service. But in Snow Pony's saving grace, this wasn't the worst dining experience I ever had.  Fedele's Ristorante Italiano takes the prize for that category, and that's saying something considering I came from Singapore, which is nefarious for its brusque service, even if you happen to be an ex-Prime Minister of Thailand, or the Chief Executive of Hong Kong.)

Not a bad place for brunch if you're in the area, but don't bank your hopes on a warm, happy atmosphere.