Little Chloe

I read about this place in The Age a little while back. I do have a soft spot for steamed buns so when  found out they had a pork belly steam bun I was curious. Located in Malvern it was quite easy to find and park is not a nightmare (unlike for the brunch places in Richmond and Abbotsford).


The pork belly steam bun came with a shitake mushroom, cashews and wombok salad on the side. The actual steam bun had sliced pork belly with hoi sin sauce, picked carrots and cucumber. All those ingredients sound really nice and should be a good combination of flavours.... but I was disappointed. The pork belly was very fatty, so fatty that it made the bun a tad too soggy. There was far too much sauce in the bun. All I could really taste was just pork fat and hoi sin sauce. I think the concept and flavours are there, but refinement in the execution is required. 

To share, we got the hand cut chips with aioli. It was cripsy on the outside and fluffy on the inside (just the way I like it). Only thing the dampened the experience, I think the oil it was fried in has been reused too many times. I could taste that heavy oiliness the minute I put the chip in my mouth.

Also, got the thin crispy corn fritters with chirzo scrambled eggs, baked beans and avocado on toast. Unexpectedly I liked this a lot more than the steamed buns. The corn fritter are light and tasty. Chrizo scrambled eggs added that burst of flavour. This was a nice dish, but it was a bit too soggy, the sauce in the baked beans was a tad watery which made the rest of the dish a tad too wet.

The coffee was good but not outstanding. 

Overall it's a 12.5/20. This place has potential, good concepts and flavours but more attention to detail to smooth out those rough edges.