The Farm Café, Melbourne

Coffee is feeling like a kid again.

At the Collingwood Children’s Farm, a few kilometres north of Melbourne, chickens scratch for worms while sheep and goats alike graze placidly.

This not-for-profit community farm stretches over seven hectares of grassy land along the Yarra River. It’s quite unusual to find a slice of the (almost) countryside so close to the city.

Visitors can milk the cows and bottle feed young lambs, which makes this a great place for families to bring their children. It’s the Year of the Horse, after all, so why not sneak an apple for the gentle mare in the field?

And the barnyard animals aren’t the only ones that get fed; for those who skipped breakfast in their hurry to get here, there is an attached café housed in the former dairy where one can grab a bite. Aptly named the Farm Café, this brunch spot is a labour of love.

The owners, Pip and Tom Hay, met at the farm as student volunteers and eventually got married in the paddock. (One wonders if there were more four-legged wedding guests than two-legged ones?)

From humble beginnings with a coffee cart and serving scones on weekends, the menu now offers wholesome and sustainable fare to farm visitors.

Fresh, ethically-sourced produce such as beetroot and cauliflower are paired with nutritious quinoa and free range ham. Fans of Dr Seuss can go for Green Eggs (sans green ham) — an emerald platter of poached eggs served with spinach, herbs, parsley aioli, crispy fried onions, broccoli and almond pesto.

Those who have heartier appetites may happily engulf the popular Farmer’s Breakfast — this time, the poached eggs are paired with Berkshire bacon, smoky pork & fennel sausage, fried potatoes, and house baked beans on toast. Easily a meal for two, if one isn’t altogether famished.

Our flat white and cappuccino are made using beans roasted by the redoubtable Five Senses Coffee, a homegrown specialty roaster based in Rockingham, Western Australia. (A familiar taste for regulars of Top Brew Coffee Bar in Kuala Lumpur.)

Imagine having eggs and toast surrounded by paddocks, orchards and barns. Instead of jazz or slow rock, the only soundtrack is the quacks, bleats and woofs of creatures both feathery and furry.

Now who would want to miss a brunch like that?

在我的認知中，農場一般都距離城市蠻遠的。
可是在距離墨爾本市幾公里處；沿著亞拉河草地的地方，
卻有著那麼一個佔地七公頃的社區農場 – Collingwood Children’s Farm 。
在這裡你可以擠擠牛奶，餵餵小羊的。
不少當地人都愛帶著孩子來這；在消磨時光之餘，
還可以讓孩子們近距離接觸和認識這些動物。
是個週末的好去處。

我們嘛，當然不是為了參觀農場而來，
而是朋友知道這有家咖啡館，所以特地帶我們來喝咖啡吃東西。
也許是食材特別新鮮，感覺上這里的東西都很好吃。
光看外表就已經讓人食欲大開，讓我有每樣都想試試的衝動。
至於用Five Senses的豆子煮出來的咖啡，
無論是拿鐵還是卡布奇諾；也許並不特別，
可是卻讓人喝得心滿意足。
這裡沒有爵士樂，也沒有好聽的流行歌曲或輕搖滾。
可是邊喝咖啡，邊聽著不時傳來的馬嘶雞啼，鳥叫蟲鳴的聲音，
卻也是一種難得的體驗呢。