Grind it, Glenelg by Big Fil

It was going to be a busy day. Five of us were off to Deep Creek to check out the troops of wild kangaroos, followed by an afternoon down at the beach house at Victor Harbour. However, first things first and first thing to be done first was breakfast.



Given that Adelaide is a bit short on for good cafes it seems a little greedy that Glenelg is blessed with two, Zest and Grind It.



These two cafes do however have very different feels to them. Zest is very much the beachside café, casual and sunny. Grind It on the other hand has much more the industrial café feel. Trendy street art style painting on the wall, lots of metal and wood, little window allowing you to view back into the kitchen, you could probably pick it up and put it on The Parade and it would feel at least as much at home as it does at the Bay.



Food wise it's mainly competent variations on familiar themes. For example, scrambled eggs with avocado and smoked salmon came with rye toast and a presentation that looked almost Japanese in style. All elements solid, particularly the quite fluffy eggs, but nothing that made me go 'wow'.



The homemade cinnamon crumpets with grilled bananas and honeyed mascarpone did have a couple of 'wow' elements, but unfortunately it wasn't the crumpets. I lurve cinnamon but the flavour in the crumpets wasn't really noticeable. I also thought they were a bit small and could have been a bit lighter in texture, finding them almost chewy. On the other hand, the mascarpone was delicious and the grilled banana, which I don't always like and can be pretty fussy about, absolutely spot on.



Overall
Thinking back about Grind It looking for one word or phrase to describe our experience the only thing I can really think of is very competent. Both dishes tasty and well presented, service a little slow (given that we got there pretty early) but not unreasonably, nice and comfortable and interesting place to eat. It didn't feel like it was something I hadn't seen in a café before but that they had picked up the industrial cafe theme and run with it well. Prices to me also seemed reasonable, pretty much par for the course, but from Hungry Pete's reaction I got the feeling that they might be slightly higher than most Adelaide Cafes. Still, for a better product in a good location you've got to expect to pay a little more.

Verdict
Food - 8
Ambience - 7.5
Service - 7
Price - 6.5

Address
4 Mosley Street
Glenelg SA 5045
Tel: (08) 8376 0049