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In St Kilda, local favourite Saigon Street Eats has bunked in with Trouper cafe after operating out of a nearby Carlisle Street shopfront for over 10 years. The Chapel Street corner premises now serves coffee in the morning, then morphs into a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch and dinner. At 11.30am, the milk cartons are put away, teaspoons are replaced with chopsticks, and customers come for pho instead of a flat white.

But the upbeat feeling remains at this Vietnamese canteen, always bustling with soup slurpers, spring roll munchers and busy folks grabbing takeaway. Slow-simmered pho is made to an old family recipe, but there’s a keen eye on innovation in dishes like the panko-crumbed eggplant bao and salt-and-pepper tofu banh mi – both vegan and rocking with flavour.