ABOUT GFGM

gastronomy
ɡaˈstrɒnəmi/
noun
  1. the practice or art of choosing, cooking, and eating good food.



Good Food, Good Mood was established after I realised how often I was asking myself the difficult question of "Where and what should we eat today?". The Melbourne food scene truly makes us spoilt for choice, so I am hoping my honest reviews can act as a guide for any occasion - from cheap eats to fine dining, to burgers and pizza on cheat days, to fresh and healthy on cutting days. Recommendations on places to try and review are always welcome, just leave a comment.

All photos are taken with my Samsung Note 4 or Sony NEX-F3 unless stated otherwise. Thanks for dropping by!

- Lisa Pizza xo


P.S. Shoutout to my friends and family who dine with me - thanks for not picking up your cutlery when the food comes out so I can take all my food photos... y'all know my camera eats first haha.

Snow Pony

My favourite meal of the day is breakfast. 
2012 Lisa would have hated the thought of getting out of bed before 12pm, ignoring everyone's attempts to wake her up. But since I changed jobs, 6am wake ups are compulsory and breakfast was fortunately in my diet again. Breakfast is most definitely the most important meal of the day, as it fuels you with energy and keeps you full for longer. 

Sometimes when I ponder about my gastronomy adventure, I think to myself... how do I justify spending $20 on a big breakfast? What's so good about drinking liquids from a jar through a striped straw? Do I want to order a tea or coffee? All my questions were answered at Snow Pony , a quaint little cafe in Balwyn.

Freshly squeezed OJ - $4.50
This wasn't that great to be honest... just tasted like they poured juice from a big Daily Orange Company bottle. It's probably because the juice was served 'in a jar' which makes it soOOOooOoOoo much cooler. A lot of places are doing that now, which makes my photos look much more interesting! Let's be honest, it wasn't worth the $4.50 just for an aesthetically pleasing way to drink your beverage. But juice is better than coffee I guess.

~ Welcome to the Side Courtyard ~
Snow Pony looks small on the outside but is extremely spacious on the inside. There is the main area when you first walk in, there's the side courtyard where I was seated, there's an indoor room for groups and there's the back courtyard. Fortunately for the patrons, there were 8 waiters working, four gals and four guys so everything was prompt and efficient. 

Chai Latte
One word: crap. They didn't leave it in long enough so it was bland. One of my favourite chai places is HANDS DOWN the Little Creatures Dining Hall and the Iced Chai at Lazy Moes!
I was going to order a coffee but I didn't want to stay awake all night so I opted for a different option. I only found out recently whilst having coffee with an old friend that a Chai Latte isn't actually coffee... The barista at Cupcake Central told us that instead of the 'espresso' shot, it's replaced with tea extractions. I did some google research and apparently Chai Latte was 40g of caffeine compared to 120g in a coffee, so despite the name it's not actually classified as a coffee. Can anyone confirm this for me ??? I'd love to know!

Look at that portion size! Amaze!!!

Giddy Up $18.90
I've had a lot of big breakfasts in my time, and this has got to be one of the FRESHEST I've ever eaten!!!!!!!!! The serving of smashed avocado was too large, I would have much prefered a bigger serving of the mushrooms because they were delish! The organic toast was a bit too tough for my liking, I couldn't even cut it with my knife so I wasn't sure how my teeth would handle it. Overall it was definitely worth the money. Everything was so perfectly put together, and it tasted just as good as it looks :)


Smashed Avocado with Poached Eggs $18.90
I could never be a vegetarian. I love meat too much. This dish had no meat, but was still very nice. I don't really like goat cheese as the flavour is too overwhelming. The colours go well together so well, and I can tell that they pride themselves on presentation. The poached eggs were perfectly cooked on both dishes. Well done Snow Pony chefs! 

The side courtyard. It got a bit warm after a while. The guy sitting by himself complained and asked the waitress to turn the music down because it was too loud. Good on him, I couldn't even hear myself think for a long time but didn't think anything of it at the time.

Peek a boo! A canvas on the back of the wall of the cashier! I definitely would recommend this place to anyone who loves a good brunch. It's located in a random space but worth the travel if you live far. The only thing that annoyed me that it was CASH ONLY, meaning we had to go to Caltex across from Balwyn Cinema to get cash out. 

How cute, the business card matches the big canvas (pictured above)! 
I love it when things are matching :)



Snow Pony
Address: 95 Whitehorse Road Balwyn VIC 3103
Contact: 9816 8911
Hours: 7 days a week, 8am - 4pm but kitchen closes at 3pm
Price: $$$

Snow Pony on Urbanspoon

3 comments:

  1. Oh gawd that looks delicous. I actually live (sort of) in the area but I've never gotten around to visiting because I sort of accidentally never got around to getting my driver's license - oops! Great photos :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was shocked to know that the chai latte was crap because it looked so great in your picture. Looks can be deceiving I guess :P

    I find it quite frustrating that eateries are charging such extravagant prices for drinks, and sometimes they're not even good. $4.50 for low quality OJ? I'd be pretty miffed if I were you!

    The Giddy Up looks simply amazing. BACON? YES PLEASE. I think it would've been perfect if not for the hard toast, sounds like you had a tough time eating it. Haha get it? Because the bread was tough? Okay I'm gonna stop now.

    Really enjoyed reading your posts and I especially love the hunger-inducing photos and descriptions of food. It'd be great if you could check out my blog some time!

    Cheers! ^_^

    http://puddingfancy.blogspot.sg/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah I've never come across a chai latte with any actual espresso coffee in it by default either (though I've seen people order it with an espresso shot at Starbucks). The only reason I can think to explain the name 'Chai Latte' is that the 'latte' part really just refers to the amount of milk that's in the beverage and also the way the milk is poured as well, with a small layer of froth hehe :) because theres always either a chai latte which is the brewed tea with the milk element or a chai tea which is just the brewed tea (which lactose intolerant people usually ask for). P.S I love your blog, though can never read it right before dinner though because I am always so disappointed with my dinner whenever I see all your gorgeous food adventures beforehand, hehe.

    ReplyDelete