EARL Canteen

I would have to be the last person in Melbourne to have tried EARL and the 1000th person to take photos and put it on a blog. The last time I thought of visiting there was a line outside the door so I didn't fancy waiting. Truth be told, I wasn't really planning to goto EARL today, but I was in the city and had a few minutes to spare before I headed off to VIC markets for some grocery and produce (I bought some french butter from the French shop - is it wrong..that I'm excited about butter? When the lady tells you "blue is the ocean, is salt", I can't help but smile, now I know which one is the salted butter and which one isn't).

Anyway, EARL is situated at 500 Bourke (via Little Bourke), right below MoVida Aqui. Looks pretty much like any other cafe except their offerings are gourmet sandwiches...why am I even writing about this? There are about 100 blog posts about EARL.
 

The space is like any other cafe, with small kitchen space, and fridge cabinet. Macarons to the right (I would've bought some macarons, but you all should know by now I try not to eat anything sugary unless it's damn worth it - macarons aren't on that list).






Of course, I had to have the famous pork belly roll/sandwich. I mean seriously, if I didn't, I should be shot. Verdict? It was ok. It was pork belly - good pork belly. Not crave worthy. The Brunswick St Alimentari's roast beef sandwich is crave worthy!




I also had a chicken and rice salad of some sort. This..was not so successful. Just nothing to rave about to be honest. I'm not sure how much it was, I think $13 or $14? I don't think it was value for really...a cold fried rice. Oh that was harsh!!





This place is great for a quick dash and grab if I worked in the CBD (nearby), but I don't. So would I trek the streets of Melbourne to eat another roll? Probably not. In all fairness, it wasn't that it wasn't good, just that they are only nice sandwiches....

Where?
EARL Canteen, 500 Bourke (via Lt Bourke), Melbourne, CBD