Cafe #26: il Fornaio

Date: Saturday, 11 August 2007, 4.30pm
Location: 2 Acland Street, St Kilda
Coffee: $3.20 - latte, very average
Reading: Truth: A Guide

This is an industrial-style cafe/bakery, with grey stone floors, silver stage lights hanging from exposed black piping and grey cement brick walls, although there is purple inch-thick attached walling behind the bar on one side of the upper level and shelves and a fridge on the other. Up a wide set of four wooden plank steps is the pastry counter, fronting a steel-screen backdrop from which wicker baskets of bread hang (supported by a shelf). Behind that I can see a sous-chef working and in front the 'il Fornaio' hangs dramatically in large, long matte-brass lettering. On the lower level there are grey plastic chairs and wooden tables, as well as low leopard-print benches on either side of the stairs. There is pounding industrial trance music in the background (not that I really know what industrial trance is but I think it must be this). The cafe is loud with vibrating voice waves, which is good for reading because no words are distinguishable and thus distracting.

I wanted the last little chocolate tart but someone bought it out from under me.

It has been a beautiful warm morning. I was out late at a party last night. It began as a work party on the Clayton campus, and after drinking wine and beer courtesy of the bookshop the leftover party-goers were locked out of the venue at 10.30. Several of us made our way to S's house - which turned out to be a real treat. He lives with an older man in an art deco pink-brick house with an enormous second-level balcony with a view, two enormous bathrooms (one a green and pink marble Barbie dream bathroom), a bar and generally full of stuff - strange instruments and statues of camels, worn oriental carpets and other assorted cool and kitsch clutter. It was a fun place to be in and we drank and danced and ogled the house. I went home with a fellow workmate to her house in Balaclava, right next to Glick's Bakery.

In the morning I bought latkes and perogies (YAY!) from a Polish deli and ate a sesame bagel and a slice of poppyseed cake at a bakery, then took a long tram ride home. After napping and showering and making latkes with a side of sliced soft-boiled egg and avacado for A and, I decided to say hello to the beach that I didn't have time to greet when I was in Balaclava. I walked to Smith St, picked up a few cans of Amy's refried black beans from Soul Foods, then caught the tram to St. Kilda. I meant to go t Port Melbourne but I didn't quite know when to get off.

By the time I arrived at the beach around 3.30pm it was no longer warm and a bit windy so I only walked the beach for a bit and then found this cafe. I may walk a bit more along the tram line and then hop on when I'm cold. I expect to have a quiet night at home, hopefully finish this book about truth and maybe work on some Heidegger. I am still having trouble concentrating and still feel very melancholy a lot of the time. I don't feel like me. The party last night was a good distraction. I need more parties!

A and I are having one next weekend but we have little idea of who will come as only several of
A's friends have RSVP'd.

Alright, I'm off.