The Grounds Of Alexandria | Alexandria

Today was a day for catching up with some of my old school friends that I haven't seen in ages :)
We took literally the whole holiday (around 4 months) to finally decide where to go, initially it was let's go hiking, and then we made a date, but then someone had plans on that date so we kept on pushing it back. I started feeling lazy and said "let's go out to eat somewhere... maybe... think about it!" to which they did and so we changed it to brunch, then dinner, then a different day until eventually we went back to hiking :L The date where we planned to go was coming, and literally the day before then I said "I'm lazy again, let's just go for lunch" an lo and behold, we did!

Someone suggested The Grounds of Alexandria (it wasn't me I swear) and we went :) It was good to see them, one in particular because I haven't seen her in ages and it was a nice little catch up.  Okay, so how the restaurant worked was that you had to get a buzzer (if it's extremely packed) from the front desk, and wait until it starts buzzing for you have a seat. We went around 2pm and it was still pretty packed! This was also the second time I've been there, so I got to show them around the place, pet a few of the barn animals and watch the animals eat whilst we had to wait, which was undoubtably cute.

It was about 15 minutes before we got a seat, and then when we were seated, the service kind of just died from there onwards. It literally felt as if the waitress who was looking after our area blatantly ignored us for the whole entire time, and it was kind of obvious that the people at the front desk we're realising it too as they kept on staring at the waitress as she was ignoring us. So if we wanted to order something, we had to wait for someone from another area to walk past us for us to order. Truly tragic service, and to some extent felt it was due to racism (because we're all asian women). Luckily, the other waiters and waitresses weren't bad at all and so we ordered and waited about 10 minutes before our food arrived.

For the day, I ordered the Roast Salmon Fillet ($22) with a latte ($4), and my friends decided to share the Poached Eggs on Toast ($13) and both bought the Melon Crush beverage ($10).

Roast Salmon Fillet ($20) - Poached Eggs On Toast ($13) - Melon Crush ($10) - Latte ($4)

I didn't try any of my friends' dish since they were sharing such a small amount together, but from what they told me and how it simply looked, it seemed pretty plain. There was no dressing on the salad they had, the pieces of bread were just plainly toasted, no butter or anything extra.  They've also never had sourdough bread before, so when they took a bite out of it they realised it was rock solid, and so they felt a little disappointed. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't worth $13, which isn't much at all, but overall was a fairly plain dish. Overall, would not recommend unless you're just there for a small snack, which my friends were there for :L

Melon Crush ($10)
Crushed ice with Fresh Watermelon, Strawberry & a Twist of Lemon 

They did, however, enjoy their Melon Crush beverage, as the strawberries were sweet and we went on a hot day so it was really refreshing. The Grounds also doesn't have any air conditioning, just a few fans here and there, which makes sense since the restaurant is quite an open space, but it does make it difficult when you're already sweaty  because it's 30+ degrees outside and there's little to no difference on the inside either. What was really interesting though, was that they actually stabbed the straws in to the strawberries. leaving a bit at the top of the straw, which really made it look a lot more appealing as well. That was a very cute addition, completely unnecessary but you know A+ for effort :L 

Roast Salmon Fillet ($22)
 Served with Broad Beans, Cannellini Beans, Baby Spinach, Dried Cherry Tomatoes, Pumpkin, Cauliflower Puree, Micro Basil and Tomato Dressing  

 My Roast Salmon Fillet was absolutely delicious, the crispy skin was perfectly cooked and was not soggy at all! It doesn't exactly beat Breakfast With The Sukuma's @ Devon Cafe for me personally, but it is still a really great dish. The salmon was perfectly cooked where it was done kind of medium rare, leaving the inside of the salmon deliciously moist. I don't even like cauliflower, or beans in general, but when you put everything in to one bite, it all went well together. I would definitely recommend this dish, as it overall was a lovely and fresh dish that was very pleasing to simply just look at! Would definitely order this again one day :)

Latte ($4)

 One of the prettiest and cutest hearts I've seen in terms of coffee art, and I think I've seen a fair amount, as usually they're a lot smaller and closer to one side rather than directly in the middle. It was quite nice and refreshing, I was craving a latte that day so this really did it for me :)

 Overall, this place is extremely hipster, very cute and incredibly pretty. A LOT of mason jars EVERYWHERE and flowers, it was actually quite a large space that was incredibly well laid out. I'd definitely come back here again just to try something different, and would highly recommend it, as long as you don't mind subpar service, it is a really nice place to try at least once.

[THE GROUNDS OF ALEXANDRIA MENU]