I Love Grub and breakfast sushi

I adore a breakfast that’s a relaxed affair and not a scoff-and-run bowl of cereal. These breakfasts are even better when they happen after a late morning awakening and there’s sunshine.

This was the scene one Sunday at Love Grub; an artfully graffiti-ed café cum Japanese tapas bar that doles out as many sushi rolls as sourdough sandwiches.

Part of the outside mural at Love Grub, Mitchell Road, Alexandria

The inside of the small restaurant is share-house cosy but the outdoor seating beckons on a sunny morning. Tables and chairs are set up alongside a colourful mural of flora and fauna, with a child-friendly area filled with toys and toddlers.

Casual table service brings a fairly large menu of all-day breakfast, sushi, bento lunches and sandwiches (‘Japaz’ – Japanese tapas – is reserved for evenings), with a large range of Parker’s organic juices in the inside fridge (as well as New Zealand’s Mac’s beer range, but it was a little early for that).

Sushi hand roll brekky

But it’s never too early for sushi. Having heard interesting things about the signature fusion innovation of bacon and egg temaki, I was ready to love or hate it. Served big brekky style with avocado, grilled tomato halves, potato hash cubes and scrummy pan fried field mushrooms, the two chubby, overflowing sushi hand rolls looked the goods.

The perfectly seasoned sushi rice was a good start as was the crispy, folded rasher of bacon. The scrambled egg was probably the oddest component (although really shouldn’t have been considering the other much more unconventional sushi fillings) and I’ll admit, I really enjoyed the tomato sauce in the roll, which seemed to bring it all together.

Corn and spinach fritters brekkie

A fairly classic breakfast menu item of corn fritters fell a little flat with dough-dominant pikelet-like fritters arranged haphazardly on the plate with two perfectly poached eggs, bacon, piles of unseasoned spinach, potato and a plastic-looking Hollandaise over the top of it all.

Both breakfast options were very substantial and well-priced, and combined with the sunny courtyard and late morning, make Love Grub the lovable neighbourhood all-day eatery it is.