Grasshoppers Feast, CBD

I was immediately attracted to this little hole in wall cafe in The Causeway, CBD when I saw that it had its own little green-house in the middle of the cafe. Grasshoppers Feast aims to use as many home-grown leaves and vegetables in their meals as possible, and with my latest obsession with 'clean eating' this seemed like a really cool place to visit for lunch before seeing Annie on at the Regent this cold Sunday afternoon.

I loved the cosy lay-out of this little cafe, with people literally sitting in cushioned windowsills, the tables sprawling out into the laneway. The inside area is bathed with a greenish light reflecting off the very visually appealing indoor greenhouse.

We started off by sharing some eggplant chips. I am a sucker for interesting chips- polenta, sweet potato, zucchini, eggplant... you name it, I will probably order it. These were big, juicy pieces of eggplant coated in crumbs and fried. Not the healthiest choice, but with some beautiful aioli, they were a yummy choice!

I am really bad at choosing from a menu as extensive as Grasshoppers Feast offers, so its lucky my Mum is always willing to share with me! The feta, tomato and basil baguette sounded too good to pass up, but it wasn't as amazing as it sounded. The baguette was a little chewy and stale (I love crunhcy bread) and the filling quite sparse. I would have liked to see a crunchy roll overflowing with beautiful fresh picked herbs and salty feta, but it didn't have much substance to it at all.

The calamari salad was enjoyable, although the lettuce leaves here were actually the star of the dish. You could tell they were freshly grown and they actually outshined the calamari, which was a tad overcooked and chewy.

One of our other dining friends order the proscuitto pizza, which looked really good. Unfortunately though, it was a little dry. We overheard other customers making the same comments about other pizzas- definitely missing a little cheese!

The last dish ordered at the table was the zucchini fritters with poached eggs. I was lucky enough to have a taste of these and the fritters themselves were chunky, moist and tasty- almost like little zucchini muffins. They definitely needed the poached egg, tomato and guacamole to add more flavour to them.

I really loved the concept of Grasshoppers Feast, but unfortunately the food didn't meet the standard I expected. The meals were a little hit and miss, and the eggplant chips (the cheapest dish) was probably the stand-out. A very cool little place to visit, and the salads definitely are enhanced by the indoor greenhouse but on this particular day we enjoyed our meals but were not blown away.