Ph: 9429 2080
Open: Mon-Sat, 7am-5pm
I GO past Almost French on my tram twice a day and without fail I inwardly drool at the crusty bread and sugary donuts on display in the window. The classic French-style bakery seems out of place in grungy Swan St. But at the same time, every time I go past it seems so right.
Finally I found myself in Swan St on a Saturday afternoon with some time up my sleeve so I popped in. As it was late most of the selections were gone and I hadn’t really had breakfast, let alone lunch, so I was ready to eat.
A scrambled egg and bacon baguette looked pretty good ($7.50) as did the croque Monsieur (ham and gruyere cheese grilled sandwich) and croque Madame (same as Monsieur but with a fried egg on top). After a quick deliberation, I settled on a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich on wholemeal bread ($7.50) with a chai latte ($3).From the outside, the sandwich looked great mainly because of the bread, which had been thickly sliced. Unfortunately in reality it wasn’t so good. Even though I was attracted to it because it looked so filling, there was just too much bread. I’m not sure of the technical ham/cheese/tomato vs. bread ratio, but in this case it was way out of whack.
The chai on the other hand came in a big glass, was brewed with real T2 leaves (a rarity these days) and was steaming hot. There were funky tunes on the radio, both papers were on the paper stand just waiting to be read by me and the general atmosphere was laid back, which is just what I was after.While the sandwich didn’t really rock my world, the whole experience only stung me $10.50 so I haven’t totally knocked this one off my list. Why? Well, Almost French has a great selection of sweets in a display cabinet such as baked cheesecake, tiny apple crumbles and glazed fruit tarts. Add a chai latte to one of those and I reckon the Swan St bakery would tick most of the boxes.
Stay tuned and I’ll let you know.
5.5/10
- Zoe
