The Daylesford Edition- Larder

This was a really cute little cafe that caught my eye with its 'larder' style appearance and big funky green sign. It was perhaps a little pretentious for Daylesford, and we probably did prefer the homeliness of the Himalaya Cafe but an enjoyable lunch nevertheless.

I did really love the vintage style kitchen-ware for sale on the shelves- a little pricey but very cool!

I was really excited to see that they served Chicken Pho on the menu (most of my regular readers will know my love affair with Vietnamese food, and especially pho!). I probably should have listened to my gut when I thought that surely a cafe couldn't do legit pho, but my fear of food envy got the better of me when some of my friends ordered it. The soup was nice, but it just wasn't 'pho'- it lacked the traditional Vietnamese broth and was desperate for some star anise! It was also lacking onion in the soup and there were not enough bean shoots for my liking! I probably should have stuck with something more 'cafe-ey' as there was an awesome selection of foccacias and breads!

The roasted vegetable salad with a fried harissa egg looked and sounded amazing! It came with a really nice selection of vegetables and both of my friends that ordered it commented that they were very full after-wards- hard to do with a traditional salad.

My other girlfriend had the soup of the day- pumpkin. It looked a little watery for my liking- I like my soup thick! But she enjoyed it and it came with some crusty sourdough toast.

Larder is the kind of cafe that would quite comfortably fit in to Fitzroy or Northcote- funky, a little pretentious and food that is good but not overwhelmingly good. I would probably give it another go when I went back to Daylesford though- the toasted tallegio and mushroom toast sounded pretty amazing, I think next time I would give that a go :)