Taking Care of Breakfast

Woolloongabba

I wake up on most Saturday mornings to the same sight on my bed side table: a half finished Gatorade and a phone with between 1 and 6 missed calls from the GZA and a text which he presumably has saved as an auto precedent: “are you alive? I need breakfast”.

What is different today, however, is that my main man has had a severe bout of food poisoning so this will amount to his first solid meal in 48 hours. So, once I get over the laughing fit of picturing GZA crippled over on all fours in the shower, expelling the venoms of Thursday’s suspicious Italian BMT from both ends simultaneously, I swoop through in the coop for the rescue.

Baked Eggs

Paw Paw (Green Papaya Thai restaurant by night; trendy popular cafe by day) has been on the hit list for a while following some glowing reports from some regular TCB readers (see, we do actually listen!). Our party of three assumes position, and two things become clear immediately: the menu is excellent, with plenty of interesting options making indecision rife; and second, the GZA has just been caught staring at the shaved legs of a man.

While the service is not of the friendly nature to which TCB has become besotted in recent times, it is very efficient, with coffees coming in good time, even at breakfast peak hour. The familiar assurance of quality that is the brown Campos cup fails to disappoint.

Breakfast burrito

Food is not far behind. From the aforementioned wonder list of a menu, there is fierce competition for the right to order the breakfast burrito, but, chivalrous as I am, I let our guest take the prize. Judging from the ropes of melted cheddar swinging from his chin, sour cream smeared all over his face and the whimpers of joy as he shovels mountains of bean chilli, scrambled eggs and bacon into his gullet, the burrito gets the tick of approval.

An understandably ravenous GZA makes short work of his baked eggs, commenting on the smokey chorizo and crumbled feta combo, along with the spicy tomato sofrito and dukkah (perfect for someone with an unsettled stomach!).

I perform some customisation on the listed quinoa and potato hash cakes, deciding that the grilled halounmi and beetroot relish could use the edition of some poached eggs.

Hash cakes

The hash cakes are fantastic, with a zesty citrus flavour, strangely complemented by the beetroot relish, that prevents it from falling into the all too regular starch trap of most hash. Perfectly poached eggs were obviously a great compliment, but the highlight is the grilled haloumi: not a trace of rubbery texture, it tears apart with a gooey melt usually associated with softer cheeses. I would have to say, it is the best breakfast haloumi I’ve ever had.

Already popular, Paw Paw is making a huge statement to take over the south side of the river with its great food and interesting menu. Cullinarily breakfast was fantastic, but as I’ve been emphasising for the last little while, breakfast should be about an overall experience, which was unfortunately not quite complete, as those working there made it clear they were at “work”. I’m not saying I want a dog and pony show, but is a bit of chat and maybe some mild flirting too much to ask for?

Coffee: 8.5          Menu: 9.0           Food: 9.0             Service: 7.5         Ambience: 8.0

Reviewed by AMac & the GZA

Auchenflower

Black Star Ice

Does absence make the heart grow fonder, or is it out of sight out of mind I wonder? Just like your favourite TV show, TCB left you on a cliff hanger at the end of last year and have been on summer hiatus. So what’s happened over the last two months? Not much really: a shenanigan riddled party junket to the USA; a sickening obsession with the songs “Thrift Shop” and “Swimming Pools”; benign racism and casual property damage, masked as patriotism, on Australia Day; and the GZA kicking carbs and starting a diet. No biggie.

After several trips to breakfast through the start of the year, nothing kicked the creative juices into gear. Uninspired and disenchanted, TCB has lay dormant. Let’s see if a trip to the GZA’s new local spot, Cafe Auchenflower, provokes a passionate eruption all over 2013.

Avocado Smoothie

Inhabiting the guts of a classic suburban Queenslander, Auchenflower cafe has a homely, cosy feel. An interesting clientele of families, young trendsters and obligatory cyclists set the backdrop as AMac, the GZA and a guest who insists that we “send our selves” take a seat at one of the rustic wooden tables. The incredibly friendly waitress (we find out later that she is the owner) is quick to take care of our beverage orders. The standard coffee order is taken, but to change the game, I take a chance on the avocado smoothie, while GZA continues to cool off with a black star ice coffee.

Bernie's breakfast

The menu is solid, with the savoury mince apparently a crowd favourite, but I opt for “Bernie’s breakfast”: poached eggs, Bangalow pork sausage, bacon and grilled mushrooms.

GZA sticks to his “diet” and orders the vegetarian breakfast, but of course chooses to accompany the standard poached eggs, spinach and haloumi with bacon (some would say this defeats the purpose).

The black star coffees are very pleasing, but the star of the show is the avocado smoothie, which is not only unique, but boasts a confusing pistachio flavour: delicious. The meals arrive and are very good, but alas, are let down by over poached eggs – a strict deal breaker.

GZA's "vegetarian" breakfast

Usually, this would send TCB into a rant and rave and cause the besmirchment of the entire establishment, but somehow, I seem to be, for the most part, letting it slide. Maybe it’s because I really want to like Cafe Auchenflower.

It’s dawned on me that one of the true qualities of a cafe is a genuine passion for what they do. Seeing the owner go about business with a smile, actually wanting to be there, wanting her customers to have a good experience, seems like a treat. Or it could simply be that the avocado smoothie was a huge wig out.

Welcome to 2013.

Coffee: 8.0          Menu: 8.0           Food: 7.0             Service: 8.5         Ambience: 8.0

 Reviewed by AMac & GZA

Spring Hill

Ice Latte

Having graduated University, but yet to commence a proper, full time, soul destroying legal career, the two most poignant descriptors of my weekends are becoming clear: luxury and leisure. My mother is worried that I am spending an unhealthy amount of time by myself, as my weekends consist of pool side lounging and luxuriating, sipping daiquiris and listening to the cricket on the radio. She claims this can’t be good for me, but aside from a drunken pool incident which may require stiches, it has been luxuriously uneventful.

Alas, sometimes you need companionship, and always do you need sustenance, so before I commence another sun soaked day of leisure to work on my tan/sun stroked delirium, I’m hit up by the GZA for breakfast, as he is jealous that I dared saunter to breakfast solo on the previous occasion.

Spring Hill Deli is a relatively new fresh produce store come gourmet café operated by a rag tag bunch of alternative foodies. We waltz in and ask for a table for two, and the friendly young waitress informs us that “the couch in the corner has your name on it.” She has obviously spied our need for luxury from ten paces. Her dutiful and incredibly helpful service continues when upon giving us the menu, she tells us that if we’re quick with our selections, we’ll jump the queue in front of the table of 12 next to us.

Fried eggs and pancetta

Notwithstanding the wealth of excellent breakfast items on the menu, such quick decision making is not a challenge, as the only thing more steadfast than TCB’s desire for luxury is our demand for ruthless efficiency. From a list of incredibly enticing meals, I go for the haloumi and zucchini fritters, with avocado, bacon and poached eggs, while the GZA is smitten by the mere mention of homemade German bread loaf and pickle, opting for the fried eggs with pancetta.

Deciding to join the GZA in his world-on-ice, our iced lattes arrive and I’ll be damned if the sly son-of-a-bitch hasn’t been onto something for the last couple of weeks: they are delicious. A great tip of the cap not only to the institution of iced lattes, but to Spring Hill Deli, as they are made with beans sourced from West End’s much touted bean purveyor Cup, and provide a great coffee flavour, without the calorie abundance of cream and ice cream, or an increase to the core body temperature.

The food arrives quickly and is immediately appealing. The fritters are perfectly constructed, with a moist texture rather than the all too frequent dry, chalky feel, boasting a great mix of full flavors. Adorned with a well poached egg and sided by sweet, crispy honey glazed bacon and a spicy relish, this is a fantastic breakfast dish.

Haloumi & zucchini fritters

GZA gives a glowing report of his meal, noting the quality of the ingredients as a huge contributor to the breakfast success. The dense, heavy German loaf combined with the cheese and pancetta combo is a very European taste, but it is given a breakfast injection with the fried eggs. And a note for the ladies, watching the GZA eat a whole pickle is definitely a treat.

In recent memory, TCB have been covering a lot of solid breakfasts, without anything really standing out. This is what is so exciting about Spring Hill Deli: it’s new, it’s not over hyped,  it’s gourmet, and it’s trendy without being too hip.

Alternative itmay be, but unlike other new “it” venues, you get the distinct impression that the operators have a passion for quality food, rather than a passion for looking uniformally different and aloof. AMac and the GZA both agree that this is the best breakfast we’ve had in quite a while.

Interesting factoid for those playing at home: the words “luxury”, “leisure” and their derivations were only used 7 times in this article.

Coffee:      8.5          Menu:  9           Food:    9.5          Service:   9      Ambience:      8.0

Reviewed by AMac & the GZA

Spring Hill

Conscious of the fact that my mother is a regular TCB reader, I will keep this as PG13 as possible, but one thing is becoming very clear: ladies love TCB. This is not a bragging of conquests and sexcapades, nor is it an open invitation to transform a breakfast blog into a dating website; rather, it is a statement of recent fact. From a girl erupting with excitement at meeting “that breakfast guy from the law school”, to Facebook posts requesting “fun and flirty breakfast date suggestions xoxo”,  it would seem that the semi factual pseudonyms of AMac and the GZA are far greater hits with the ladies than their hamstrung-by-reality counterparts.

So what better way to celebrate this recent female attention than with a breakfast date…by myself? My crippling narcissism and general self obsession means that I am smitten by my own flirty banter, so a solo sojourn to Spring Hill’s Sisco is a great way to spend a Saturday morning.

Unassumingly quaint from the street, Sisco opens up inside to reveal a very hip and trendy dining room, and gorgeous alfresco garden dining area out the back. Handed a clip board menu, I’m directed to my solo table for a relaxing morning of breakfast and Bill Simmons blog reading.

The menu is very simple, but I am excited by their egg process: choose your style of eggs, then compartmentally add their gourmet options.

Of course, I am the poached eggs man, but I choose to add the shaved Bangalow ham and the very intriguing black bean guacamole.

While brushing up on my historical Bill Russell knowledge, I wait a little while for my coffee. Not to worry too much, as the food is presented strikingly quickly. My flat white is perfectly fine, but nothing special, and at first glance of the meal, while it looks fantastic, I am glad I’m not destructively hung over because it definitely appears “light”.

Poached eggs, Bangalow ham and black bean guac

The eggs are poached perfectly, and spill their delicious yolk all over the thickly sliced ham, and crunchy toast. While perfect eggs and gourmet pig are always great, what makes this dish is the black bean guacamole. Not only a change of pace for breakfast, but different from most other guacs I’ve had, it is a revelation.

In answer to the initial question of breakfast date suggestions, with light meals and a trendy atmosphere,   Sisco would be perfect, especially if you haven’t been before, giving you the easy small talk option of “yeah, I’ve been wanting to try this place for a while. I read this fantastic breakfast blog written by this incredibly handsome guy, who recommended it for a date *giggle*.”

Coffee: 7.0          Menu: 7.5           Food: 8.0             Service: 8.5         Ambience: 8.5

Reviewed by AMac

New Farm

On a weekend hallmarked by archetypal Queensland weather – 35 degrees, 99% humidity, afternoon hail storms and an elderly man hospitalised by a lightning strike – there was a small window on Sunday morning with a shred of sunlight, a hint of non-equatorial jungle temperatures, and a promise of breakfast. Waking to the usual array of left over couch dwellers covering my living room, I martial the troops and take advantage of the small let up in tropical meteorology to pay a visit to Double Shot Espresso in New Farm.

Ice Latte

Initial worries of their capacity to house breakfast going frames are put to bed, as the manager dutifully organises a chair rearrangement to squeeze us into the packed, cosy café. Double Shot’s demographic is quite mixed, but seems to be at the more comfortable end of the often too trendy New Farm/Valley scene.

The GZA is torn this morning as to whether he should, given the overcast conditions and cooler temperature, imbibe his first hot coffee of the Spring/Summer season. Alas, he is too committed to his previously toted life on ice, and orders an Iced Latte. While the iced variety was expectantly refreshing, the regulation coffees were really nothing special, lacking umph and flavour.

Spanish Sardines

Double Shot’s menu is deceptively good, with an entire section dedicated to variations of eggs. GZA, having identified the possibility of a DIY sardine sandwich from a mile away, makes an early territorial call for the Spanish sardines and garlic mayonnaise, while I go for the Croque Monsieur topped with poached eggs, and our regular TCB Guest Crish chooses the special house smoked baked beans and poached eggs.

Service marks, of course, must note the counter ordering set up, the seemingly ever present bane of breakfast, but the kitchen service is reasonably efficient, and our meals are presented without too much delay. GZA immediately enters construction mode, piling his tin of spiced sardines onto toasted ciabatta smeared with garlic mayonnaise and topped with various accoutrement. While some grow frustrated with the trend of building your own meal, presented on a chopping board, TCB love a good structural development, and the GZA gets down to literally getting his hands dirty.

Croque Monsieur

With four poached eggs present over the remaining two meals, it is pleasing to note a perfect success rate on the poaching. Crish’s smoked beans and bacon roulettes receive solid reviews, while my Monsieur is excellent: perfect ratio of gruyere to mustard, a good amount of ham, topped with noticeably sweet caramelised onions, creating a very interesting contrast with the yolk.

House Beans

Efficient and friendly, the great food and menu make this a very sound local breakfast haunt. Double Shot, a confusing name for a café with lack lustre coffee, stays off the “must make the trip to try” list for exactly that reason. I would not wish anyone a trip across town for caffeine disappointment, but if you’re in the area, it is definitely worth a go.

Coffee: 6.0          Menu: 7.5           Food: 8.0             Service: 7.5         Ambience: 7.5

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

Burnett Lane, Brisbane CBD

The waves of nostalgia crash into the beaches of my emotional core while I write, a thunderous metronome accompanying the clickety-clack of the keyboard. This is not a tale of heartbreak, a tale of loss, a tale of tragedy. It is simply the end of an era: TCB is finally leaving school. After 6 years, 12 semesters, a cumulative total of approximately two weeks actual study, numerous skipped classes, countless coffees, and ALL the beer, AMac is set to ultimately depart the hallowed sandstone monolith in two weeks. This brings with it a consequence for loyal TCB readers…this will be the last exam bloc TCB review. No longer will there be tips for west side student hot spots; no longer will we be discussing a mid week 10.00am brunch; no longer will you share TCB’s child like laughter. It is time to grow up.

Having been couped up in self sentenced solitary study confinement, I’m relieved to be hit up by the GZA for a pre NBA Saturday binge breakfast at one of Brisbane’s subterranean hipster temples, Brew. For months, TCB has received suggestions to visit Brew, with people raving about how good the food is, how trendy the atmosphere is, how bangable the waitresses are.

Rolling down the lowermost part of Burnett Lane to enter the cavernous cafe, we are informed that menus are on the table, but we can order at the bar when we’re ready…bad start.

The feel of Brew lives up to its reputation, as it is quite a trendy establishment, are hip and indie bar filled with mismatched art work and pierced and tattooed wait staff. While tempted to blow the top of a breakfast cider, we keep it simple and go for a flat white and a coffee on ice (not to be confused with an ice coffee). An important sidenote: the GZA is now putting his entire world on ice, placing an embargo on hot beverages between November and March.

The menu has three options of allure: the big breakfast, the haloumi and the huevous rancheros. Everything else is pretty much standard. Obviously if it is as hyped as people say, Brew must surely let its meals do the talking, rather than the menu.

Haloumi

It is lucky that the GZA and I have the pending NBA season to frantically discuss, because we seem to be waiting a long time for anything to happen. In keeping with the hipster theme, the attractive waitress seems fairly aloof, while the skinny male waiter is just high confused.

The meals arrive first, delivered by our confused friend. He states “oh wait, did you guys have coffees coming? Oh yeah, I’ve got them over at the bar, I didn’t see you guys.” Ok, that’s fair enough, I know how hard it is to see a table number printed on a novelty 10 inch playing card on a four seat table that is positioned DIRECTLY NEXT TO THE BAR AT WHICH YOU HAVE BEEN STANDING FOR 30 MINUTES. You must have confused us with two of the other ten people in the place. But you are correct my friend, better let the coffees sit undelivered than confirm the order…that would just be embarrassing.

For the GZA this doesn’t matter, his coffee on ice is still a cool and refreshing hit of caffeine. But I can’t exactly say that my bland and flavourless flat white was helped by being served a degree above room temperature.

Bigger breakfast

The food, to start, looks very appetising, and upon inserting the knife into a poached egg, the yolk dribbles out as it should. This is the high point of the meal. The GZA’s haloumi is rubbery and the roast tomato is cold and firm. I suffer the same fate with my tomato, but with the additional disappointment of a very firm, unseasoned avocado which I must pepper the shit out of for flavour. The chorizo is bland and seems heated up rather than grilled. The bigger breakfast is quite aptly named: yes it is bigger than the other breakfasts, but it is hardly a a galaxy of prawns (if you don’t get this, youtube simpsons Gary Coleman galaxy of prawns). Wholly average meals to be frank.

I don’t know whether my pending graduation has tainted my view of all things cool and hip, but my experience at Brew leads me to leave you with my final two poignant TCB thoughts as a student:

1. Brew is ordinary, overrated hipster garbage; and
2. Please stop telling me this place is awesome (refer to point 1). If you are like me, you are not a student any more. You are not trendy. You are not cool. This place is not good for breakfast. It is not good for Friday night drinks. Just admit to yourself that you are a 23 year old working drone, and that you belong at Fridays with the other desperados. Your days in vogue are behind you.

Apologies if this review has sailed way off course, but this is me signing off from my cool early 20’s and into the rest of my life…

Menu:  6.5   Coffee: 6.0  Food:    6.0   Service:  3.5    Ambience:  7.5

Reviewed by AMac and GZA

Coffee...on ice

Vernon Terrace, Teneriffe

“What’s that AMac? You took a 14 inch plastic garden owl named Garth as your date to a black tie event? That’s a little eccentric…wait…that’s weird…no wait…that is super weird. That’s down right fucking creepy!”

Yes, I know it looks a little odd, a grown man creating a fictional anthropomorphic personality for a garden ornament designed to scare off birds, then taking “him” out in public, to a black tie dinner no less. But for those of you who met Garth in the TCB Tour of Sydney, you know he is a pretty big part of many of our recent Law School experiences. So when it came time to head out to my last TC Beirne School of Law event, why should Garth not also get a chance to bring a little ruckus? Sidenote: while originally designed to scare off birds, Garth had the exact opposite effect on the D-floor…if you catch my drift (zing!).

But before all of this nonsense, the GZA and I had breakfast. Keeping it local, we take a quick stroll down the block (read: got in the car and drove for less than a minute) to Brio in Teneriffe. An incredibly popular venue for a lazy weekend breakfast, we are warned upon taking a seat that food will be at least 25 minutes: no fuss, at least we’ve been warned.

Breakfast salad

Perusing the menu, it becomes very apparent that the huge variety of interesting food and beverage options is definitely Brio’s strong suit. Elaborate juices and smoothies capture an entire page of the menu, while your usual staples are kicked up a notch or shattered completely.

Trying to balance a crushing need for caffeine (we may have had a few beverages the prior evening) with the dire need to be cooled on such a steamy day, ice coffees are the order of the morning, alongside a short mac.

Enter flip mode and choosing a meal for the morning, I try and get a dose of vegetables for the day through the smoked salmon and asparagus with capers and poached eggs. Envious of my light and fresh approach to the morning, GZA goes for the breakfast salad…of course with a side of dirty great chorizo, just to well and truly ruin the point of a vegetarian breakfast.

The drinks arrive in no time, and are particularly delicious, and no, neither of us felt at all infantile/effeminate eating ice cream for breakfast…thank you for asking.

Mindful of the promised wait, we set an agenda of business to discuss. As there is only so much shit one can talk in a morning, luckily the wait is more like 20 than 25. GZA tells me that the salad is fantastic, and while it may be because of the auxiliary chorizo, he is pretty convinced it has something to do with the freshness of the greens, tomatoes and avocado, and the novelty of perfectly poached yolk running through the salad.

Salmon breakfast

I get the same feeling with my dish. The asparagus, if asparagus is your thing, is ideally crunchy, and goes beautifully with the egg, caper, aoli power combo. The salmon is high quality and plentiful. The only disappointment is that while one of my eggs was perfectly poached, the other was over poached, and not just a little bit. I toyed with the idea of underplaying this aspect as a really want to love Brio, but I had to keep it real.

All in all, Brio is a great breakfast spot: great menu, friendly service, fresh ingredients and exotic beverages hallmark this very trendy cafe. I was forced to make a deduction for the over poached egg, but really, you should all by now be aware that the numerical rating system we employ is not exactly transparent and accountable.

As for how Garth went at the dinner that night? He still hasn’t returned to the nest. But don’t worry, he knows where his home is.

Menu:   8.5          Coffee:   8.0          Food:   8.0          Service:   8.0          Ambience:   8.5

Reviewed by AMac and the GZA

Given Tce, Paddington

Pandemonium was a strikingly ordinary cafe that managed to carve itself a nook in the Paddington breakfast scene and become a stalwart for decades. Luckily for the institution of breakfast, its mediocrity finally wore thin and the trendy new Kettle & Tin rests in the blue Queenslander atop Pandemonium’s burial site.

So after hearing from multiple sources about this new Paddington cafe, I meet one of the OG TCBers early on a Saturday morning to give Kettle & Tin a TCB work over.

Kettle & Tin has a great feel to it when you walk in. There is a porch area offering sun kissed morning dinning, and a breezy open plan dining area with a mix of tall and short tables, catering for any size of group. There is also a large selection of the morning’s periodicals for the news hungry breakfast goer.

My initial excitement, however, flattens. The menu has some different varieties of omelette, and some other breakfast staples, but on the whole is pretty standard. I opt for one of the omelettes with three egg whites, one yolk, and mushrooms. My colleague goes for the eggs Benedict with salmon.

When the coffees arrive, my excitement really starts to dissipate. When the flat white is weak and watery, I order an additional short mac to really test the coffee…same result: a bland, weak coffee.

Omelette

After a wait, the food arrives. The omelette is good, but nothing special. The highlight of the dish is the olive oil drizzled on the plate. (Just a side note about omelettes in general: I am almost always disappointed when I get an omelette. Every time I think it will be different than the last 400 omelettes I’ve had, but they almost always range from disappointing to alright.)

The eggs Benny on the other side of the table is met with a cry of “Tears, these eggs are fucked”, as my colleagues knife slides in to reveal an over poached, unyielding yolk.

Eggs Benny w/ Salmon

The service is friendly, but both the coffee and the food took noticeably longer than it should have for a not particularly busy morning.

I was initially excited about trying a brand spanking new breakfast establishment, but unfortunately, just like a house built on an ancient Indian burial ground is forever haunted by various ghouls, Kettle & Tin appears to be haunted by Pandemonium’s deceased mediocrity.

Coffee: 5.0          Menu: 7.0           Food: 6.5             Service: 6.5         Ambience: 7.5

Reviewed by AMac

How did we get here? Catch up on the facts in Part 1.

Toby’s Estate Espresso

I’m first awoken at 7.30am on Saturday by what could only be a large farm animal slowly and painfully dying…or just the violent snoring of the ever popular Leon, one of the eight guys sharing our multi bunk room. Not to worry, I punched out a good…three hours of sleep.

While Garth and the TCBRXV graced/soured/will never be allowed back to a vast assortment of Sydney establishments, it was for good reason: WE WON. Tough and clutch are the two most poignant adjectives to describe the hallmarks of an inspired come from behind win over a very talented University of Sydney team. But with the full time whistle blown and the score settled at 29-26, the night then becomes a whimsical, diabolical, beer-filled blur.

So once up and functioning as close to a normal human being as I can possibly get, I lead a vanguard of those alive enough to get breakfast around the corner at Toby’s Estate. Known as a nation wide coffee bean specialist, this pokey, trendy little cafe would have been a good option for me to venture solo to collect my thoughts. Not, however, such a good venue for 8 obscenely hungover rugby players looking to banish the booze demons.

My flat white is disappointingly watery, so once I realise that my morning is definitely not getting any better with only one caffeine hit, I order a short mac to see what the beans are made of. The second coffee is much better, a good full flavoured blend that delivers a strong punch to the nervous system.

As for the food, some of the team members rushed into ordering the egg or breakfast board, and while at any other juncture, the wooden board of breakfast assortments would be quite decadent and pleasing, it was not ideal for their current state.

Salmon benny

On the other hand, I of course ordered wisely, opting for the eggs Benedict with salmon. Two extra large poached eggs were bathed in rich hollandaise, with seemingly endless amounts of salmon leaping out of the stream of sauce. A great option, not only to test the mettle of a Sydney chef’s ability to poach an egg and get a flavour injection, but also to get me back up on the horse to keep the tour rolling.

If anyone thought they would be afforded due recovery time…they were wrong. The Tour Sponsor’s lunch is scheduled for midday sharp, where a three hour “meal and beverage” package awaits.

 Miscellaneous Pub

The Sponsor’s lunch and following night time shenanigans played out exactly how you think they would (apart from a Police Officer saying “Fuck Off, if you want to complain about your fucking civil liberties then fuck off to a different part of the Rocks!” that seemingly came out of nowhere), so marshalling 23 hollow men to check out, especially after day light savings have robbed us of an hour from an already brief sleep, is like organising 23 hollow men who have had very little sleep and are incredibly worse for where…there is no point creating an analogy because it is pretty self explanatory.

With the Australia v Argentina game scheduled to kick of momentarily, the only thing we can think of is to get to the nearest pub and park in front of the television.

Along the way, a mentally deranged, elderly and most probably homeless man, confronts the tour party screaming “I’VE GOT FUCKING CATARACTS. HANDS OFF! DON’T TOUCH ME! YOU’RE A PACK OF SICK FUCKS!” Obviously the city of Sydney is summoning wards from its deep underbelly to send the message that we are no longer welcome.

At no point to I get the name of the pub we go into. A friendly Irishman dotes on our pathetic needs of $10 greasy big breakfasts, vodka OJs, Test Match rugby and bulk Keno to try and win back some money.

The breakfast consists of straight out of the can baked beans, heavily buttered white bread, mountains of fatty bacon, a mess of scrambled eggs and some sausages…and I couldn’t be happier.

While some attempt to drink this one out to stave off a hangover, most are simply broken men. As we touchdown in Brisbane, on cue, one of the younger members vomits into the sick bag provided, possibly the first non-infant to do so in quite some time.

As we file out into the Brisbane Domestic Airport, no one says anything. There is no meeting to declare the tour over. There is no ceremonial farewell. Just 23 blokes, vacant, wrecked, departing their different ways. Their souls, you ask? Don’t worry…Kings Cross has them now.

Story by AMac

Garth the Great Grey Owl

What is the first thing that pops into your head when you think of a rugby tour? Athletic pursuit? Interstate networking? Canterbury Bulldog style sexual harassment? Cronulla Shark style team bonding orgy?

Well put away your preconceptions about the mead-headed sexual misadventures of other sporting teams on leave from home. The TC Beirne School of Law Rugby Union Football Club is here to shatter perceptions of how a rugby team operates (please also not the synergy between the two TCBs. To avoid confusion, Taking Care of Breakfast will remain TCB, while the rugby team will be referred to as TCBRXV). The fine upstanding gentlemen of Queensland’s finest legal academic institution, led by their terror inducing mascot Garth the Great Grey Owl, are headed to Sydney to take on the University of Sydney Law School.

While the old adage “what happens on tour, stays on tour” rings loudly throughout rugby traditionalists, the loyal members of the TCB community should not be deprived of the TCBRXV’s particular brand of ruckus.

Details may be as hazy as the memories that recall them and events may have been changed for thematic purposes, or simply for codes of decency, but prepare for a brief insight into the breakfasts that were consumed during the Second TCBRXV Tour of Sydney.

Harry’s Cafe de Wheels

Our privileged Queensland feet hit the filthy metaphorical soil of draconian New South Wales at 8.30am, so after a convoy of taxis deliver the team to the salubrious Woolloomooloo hostel, the Elephant Backpacker, the first order of business is breakfast. It goes without saying that I’ve done some prior reconnaissance of our surroundings, which leads me to the first venue, the very popular pie man, Harry’s Cafe de Wheels.

You may not necessarily connect a pie van with a gourmet breakfast, but when said pie van has been an Eastern Suburbs staple since 1938, and boasts celebrity clientele from all over the world including Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, the douche bag who plays Vincent Chase in Entourage (I know his name is Adrian Grenier, but I want to emphasise that he seems like a douche and that the character of Vince is the biggest problem with that fantastic show), the kid from Malcolm in the Middle, the three dudes from American Chopper, and Mark “Chopper” Reid, surely it is worth a visit. After all, as the framed photos on the outside of the van show, if Harry can satisfy Pamela Anderson’s enormous rack appetite, surely 23 ravenous rugby players shouldn’t be too hard a task.

Of a host of pie variations, pasties, hot dogs, chilli dogs and breakfast rolls, there are an assortment of orders made testing out the variety of the menu. I personally go for the classic, traditional Harry “Tiger” Edwards: a slow cooked beef pie piled high with mashed potato, mashed peas, and drowned in gravy.

The beef is beautiful and tender, the pastry is a perfect texture of a crunchy top and soft sides, but sound enough to contain the piping hot innards of this fantastic gourmet pie. Not to mention, if you don’t like a mashed potato/pea combo smothered in not-too-salty-gravy, then you are a Hall of Fame curmudgeon and don’t deserve to derive any fun from life ever.

With breakfast downed, names are drawn out a hat to determine bunk mates, and the TCBRXV breaks into splinter factions to explore the city. Our rendezvous will next involve preparing for the big game.

Stay tuned for Part 2 to find out if the game was won, if Garth survived and if the TCBRXV made it home alive…

Adventure by AMac

Boundary Street, West End

Waking up on a Saturday morning hangover free is severely overrated. It’s 8.00am and I feel fantastic, ready to tackle the day, until I realise I have nothing to do. My internal monologue goes something like this: “Why don’t you do some exercise?” “Well I’ve already done weights in the last 18 hours, and I refuse to do cardio by myself.” “Why don’t you get some friends?” “They all probably have hangovers and aren’t ready to function.” “Why don’t you do some work?” “….next question.” “You should probably go and get breakfast!” “What, so I’ve got to sit there and eat by myself like I’m fucking Steven Glansberg?!” (yes, for all of you playing at home, my inner self enjoys Superbad references.”

This goes on for a little longer, until I start working my way through my contacts list, looking for a breakfast buddy. Luckily, a friend who I can regularly count on not to be doing anything, comes through in the clutch and we head to Atomica in West End.

Tucked in adjacent to PJ’s Steaks, my favourite new purveyor of authentic Philadelphia Cheese Steaks, Atomica is completely full when we roll up. When we ask for a table for two, the waiter says “I’ll have a quick look” as if we can’t see the entirety of the narrow dining area from where we are standing. Luckily, a very nice woman signals that she is finished and grants us her table.

Avocado & Tomato

The menu is quite extensive with a wide range of options. One of the standouts is the lamb and rosemary sausages with poached eggs and mushrooms. However, this morning is not a post work out or hangover breakfast, so something a little lighter is on the cards. We’re advised that this morning’s special of crispy corn fritters with poached eggs, avocado, tomato and bacon is very popular, so as a slave to fashionable opinion, I give it a go. My guest is very excited, for some reason, to order the avocado and tomatoes with a side of mushrooms.

The coffees arrive in good time, and while initially disappointed with the sight of a Merlo sugar packet, the barista has done a decent job to get the consistency to go part of the way to making up for the bland taste.

When the food arrives without delay, it proves to be very good. The avocado, tomatoes and grilled mushrooms are exactly what you’d expect when you order avocado, tomatoes and grilled mushrooms. While there are no surprises, I’m advised it was a tasty meal.

Corn fritters w/ poached eggs, bacon, avocado & tomato

The corn fritters, on the other hand, are an assorted array of tastes, with a pea here and a corn kernel there, all mounded with olive oil drizzled tomatoes and avocado, crispy bacon, and two perfectly poached eggs. A very good breakfast option.

With very good food, a wide menu and efficient service, Atomica is a solid breakfast venue if you are in the area. Unfortunately, there is no X factor to really kick it up a gear. You get the feeling that its popularity is perpetuated by local, hippy-chic West Enders, and unlike fellow West End breakfast specialist The Gun Shop, doesn’t draw crowds from all over Brisbane.

Notwithstanding, with nothing on the agenda, quite a neat little Saturday.

Coffee: 6.5          Menu: 8.0           Food: 8.5             Service: 8.0         Ambience: 7.0

 Reviewed by AMac

Kedron Brook Road, Wilston Village

The GZA is in pain. A grimace is firmly plastered across his face. He is communicating in monosyllabic grunts. He is sweating profusely. You may be thinking “that sounds pretty standard for a Saturday morning, the TCB Crew are hungover, non functioning idiots”. Well I’ll have you know, you judgmental douche (side note: douche is now in the Oxford Dictionary), that it is in fact 7.30am and the GZA has just finished a gruelling work out. That’s right, the Big Dog, Daddy Fat Sax, the GZA has started a fitness kick, so gingerly stroking his newly developing muscle tone, the morning sun glistening off the sweat beads cascading down his forehead, we roll into Alcove: a produce market/cafe the ilk of the Sourced Grocer, which to this day holds the lowest ever ranking on TCB.

Luckily, the House of GZA is well represented as his sister is along for the ride. A long time TCB fan, she has had her fingers on the breakfast pulse and often recommends new venues, including today’s location. Also, she can translate GZA’s post exercise whimpering. We are one of the first groups of customers to grace Alcove this morning, so we are instructed by the friendly waiter to peruse the menu at our leisure and order at the counter when we’re ready: cue the fake “ok thanks mate” *stifle urge to burst into a screaming fit of “how fucking hard is it to take orders at the table!?!?!”*.

Choc Orange Muesli

The menu is split into a regulation section and weekend specials. Fearful of his trainer, GZA opts for a light, “healthier” alternative in the scrambled egg and smoked salmon toastie (I did not have the heart to tell him that scrambled eggs is the least healthy way to have eggs). GZA’s sister, of course, chooses the token female breakfast of muesli with orange, chocolate and yoghurt. Under the guise of “bulking” I select the big breakfast.

With a small crowd, both the coffees and the food come very quickly. The coffee is very good, but the food is definitely the strength. GZA’s sister informs us that the muesli is very good, with the orange and chocolate quite a subtle flavour infusion. GZA, having finally regathered the ability to talk, gives good reports of the scrambled eggs and salmon. The big breakfast, however, is the obvious winner of the day. Six slices of butter bread accompany two bowls: one filled with a cacophony of two types of sausage, bacon and haloumi; the other with two poached eggs. I slam the eggs into the meat bowl, throw in the entire spoonful of delicious chilli jam, mix it all up and go to town. A great big man breakfast.

Scrambled eggs and salmon

Just as we’re finishing up and preparing to order a second round of coffees, we realise that the place is now full. There are prams, whining children, tables of snarky women doing whatever it is tables of snarky women do: all the breakfast demographics are covered. It is now that things get hectic. The friendly, quick service is now riddled with mistaken deliveries and has slowed to a crawl. GZA is queue jumped while ordering coffees. The place has buckled under its own popularity.

Big Breakfast

Had we just left immediately after finishing our meals I would have nothing but praise for Alcove, but this did give us a chance to provide more poignant consumer advice: get in early or suffer the consequences.

The best way to assess Alcove is by comparing it to its contemporary The Sourced Grocer. In this regard, it is a firm no contest, as Alcove is a similar, just more efficient, tastier, less pretentious version of that black hole of wankery in New Farm.

Coffee: 8.0          Menu: 7.5           Food: 9.0             Service: 7.5         Ambience: 8.0

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

Broadbeach, Gold Coast

One eye hesitantly cracks open and my vision is exactly at floor level. I’m lying face down on an assortment of leather coach pillows on the floor. Sunlight pours through floor to ceiling glass doors, glinting off the Pacific Ocean, to reveal prone bodies strewn throughout the floor and couches of what can only be a Surfer’s Paradise apartment. In my direct line of sight are two mashed Chupa Chups – I wish they were a mystery, but unfortunately my memory comes flooding back and I know exactly where they’ve been. All the signs are pointing towards the obvious: this is the aftermath of when AMac’s birthday collides with a Buck’s party.

The GZA waddles out of a bedroom that he’s been sharing with another man, just in time for our good buddy the King, whom TCB readers met a couple of weeks ago, to roll out and announce that the only cure for a hangover is a ride in his convertible BMW.

So rolling through Surfer’s Paradise with the top down, listening to Rick Ross and looking like a triumvirate of drug dealers, GZA and I decide that the only way to avoid careening into a shame spiral this early in the morning is to escape the post code which provided the hilarious/entertaining/disgusting/never-again memories of last night, so we head for Broadbeach.

After a leisurely, headache and nausea filled drive, we arrive at Lola’s to be told that if we want a table we will have to settle for the couch area. GZA, a perpetual man of luxury, questions why anyone would opt for anything else if a couch was on offer, and we take a seat.

Hashstack

Lola’s menu provides a good selection of both sweet and savoury, varying from an Italian omelette to vanilla pancakes, but TCB head straight for the greasy hangover cures. I opt for Lola’s rosti stack with bacon, herbed rosti, avocado, hollandaise and a poached egg, while GZA does it big with Lola’s big breakfast: poached eggs, sausage, 120g steak, herb tomato, mushrooms and hash browns. As standard, the King refers his order to the “experts”, so while I struggle to order myself a smoothie, the GZA orders him the Hashstack, with Turkish, hashbrown, tomato, avocado, bacon, fried egg and aioli.

Coffees arrive and it is hard to tell whether they are good, or whether a warm, caffeinated beverage of any quality would have a similar soothing effect on a bumping head. A little later the smoothies arrive – a mango for GZA and a strawberry and banana for me – and are very therapeutic, thick and flavoursome.

Lola’s is busy so the wait for food is noticeable, but it is not too bad, as we sit and trade war stories from the night before…as some of the tales are less than 3 hours old, there pretty fresh in the mind. In fact, one of GZA’s anecdotes sends me into a child like chocking fit, coffee coming out of my nose and dribbling out of my mouth.

When the food does arrive, oh boy, it is a sight for sore, hungover eyes, as the portions are piled high with essential fats and cholesterol. The GZA’s meat fest is split in two by an enormous sausage (that’s naughty) and is flanked by all the hangover essentials, including two perfectly poached eggs. King makes slow progress of his hashstack, but reports it to hit the spot, with the fried egg a perfect sunny side up.

Big Breakfast

Of course, in famed AMac fashion (notwithstanding the shank debacle), I inhale my rosit stack with the usual chorus of GZA’s “damn how you gonna be so efficient?”, but not before noting the delicious crispy bacon, the rich hollandaise sauce, the gloriously textured and aromatic rosti and the perfectly poached egg.

As Lola’s is outside our ambit of power and jurisdiction, it does not get a five category score, but for three dudes who partied way too hard, I cannot think of a better venue to escape the vapid, superficial, excess of tourist trap Surfer’s Paradise.

Rostie Stack

For those who thought that the TCB crew were just a bunch of breakfast geeks who didn’t know how to party and don’t regularly do it big, the next time you wake up in the opening scene of The Hangover, in an apartment that may or may not be destroyed, with your head pounding, your stomach turning, and your will to live slowly draining…just remember that TCB did it first.

And that, my friends, is a birthday breakfast with the King.

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

Riding Road, Hawthorne

It is 5.50am on a Sunday morning and I’m awake. I have not just rolled in from a wild night of strippers and cocaine. I have not shot up feeling violently ill from a beef shank flash back. I have, in fact, woken up full of adrenalin and excitement. I am about to witness history. I am about to watch one of the greatest athletes of his generation transcend his own time and enter the stratosphere of all time sporting legend (I’ll give you the heads up now, this review is probably going to have more to do with Usain Bolt than it does with breakfast…Taking Care of Bolt).

So hangover free, riding high off watching Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake obliterate the 4 x 100 men’s relay world record, capturing the attention of an 80 000 seat stadium, not to mention the billion television viewers, with their this-can’t-be-human sprint performance, not to mention the sheer joy and camaraderie of their Beast and Bolt celebration routine, I call the GZA for breakfast.

He claims that we have almost exhausted the Valley, New Farm, Tenerife area so he directs us east, to Hawthorne’s very popular Pompidou Cafe.

Rolling into the busy breakfast spot, we immediately about face and head for a table outside, not only to bask in the sun, but also to escape the rabid hordes of children running amok inside. I have said it before, but I have a certain caustic reaction to child friendliness in restaurants.

Hash browns & aux

A very young waiter comes to take our coffee order, and it is hard to tell whether his tone and attitude is one of efficiency or him being a dick head. Perusing the menu there are some exciting items such as breakfast pork belly, but the GZA opts for Mexican sausage with the Los Dos Hermanos with poached eggs, because it reminds him of the cafe in Breaking Bad, and I go for the hash browns, possibly because I am intrigued by the concept of a breakfast auxiliary taking the title spot of a dish, but probably because it comes with poached eggs, an avocado and capsicum jam.

A Di Bella flat and short black arrive in decent time, and are very good. It is later discovered that the barista is an attractive blonde with a great set of…personality, which sparks a lengthy discussion on the correlation between attractiveness/blondeness/personality size and baristing talent (The GZA will be releasing a detailed graph shortly).

With our digestive systems started after the coffee, our hunger is forced to build, as there is no sign of our meals. Our 40 minute wait is broken up at once stage by a mother parking her child’s tricycle at our table so it does not roll away…with the child still on it! Last time I checked, neither the GZA nor I are convicted sex offenders…but if one of us was…nothing good comes from continuing this joke…I’m just saying one of us could have abducted that kid.

Los Dos Hermanos

Once the child is collected, and our lengthy wait over, the meals arrive. Between the two meals there are four poached eggs: both of the GZA’s are over poached; one of mine is severely under poached, so it will be days before I fully get that chalky taste out of my mouth, and one was almost just right.

Egg mishaps aside, the auxiliaries of the meals were very good. The hash browns were golden and crunchy; the avocado and capsicum jam was delicious; and the GZA tells me that the sausages were very tasty, and the ample spread of aoli a nice touch.

On the whole the food is good, but nowhere near worth the wait. The cafe seems bustling because there is a legion of uncontrolled spawn having their way with the dining room, but this shouldn’t make the kitchen busy enough to take almost an hour to pump out two pretty basic meals.

But at the end of the day, if you told me that once every four years, on the same day that I had to wait an inexplicably long time for an average breakfast, sporting history would be made and an sportsman would prove himself (maybe herself…maybe) to be bigger than the game, I would take it no questions asked.

Usain Bolt…I love you.

Coffee: 8.5          Menu: 8.0           Food: 7.0             Service: 3.0        Ambience: 5.5

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

Refresh yourself on how we got to this point here, then prepare for the final installment…

It’s a mission to keep going. And what makes it worse, when I inform my running mate of the immense pain I’m in, he simply tells me he’s keeping it casual. Somehow, the GZA is still in cruise control. His first sign of trouble comes with only a few bites left of the beef salad he has created, when he states: “maybe I should have gone the sweet potato, I seem to a have a shit load of chips left!”

I strip the rest of the meat off the bone to try and get a visual of how much is left, and with about 400 grams of meaty, coleslawry, sweet potatoy slop left on my plate, the waitress arrives not only to ask me if everything is okay, but to analyse the GZA’s plate. The son of a bitch has finished. Without a moan or groan, without a tear, this culinary titan has waltzed through 2.4 kilos of beef.

I can now sympathise with James Magnusson. I talked a huge game coming in, but have been made look ridiculous by more talented opposition. But unlike the Missile, this is just the competitive kick start I need. With encouraging words from the GZA, and Birdman still laughing at the fact that I have eating myself to tears, I just keep shovelling. The family of 4 children at the table next to us are quite shocked as I beat my chest and exclaim “I got this!”, the smokey BBQ glaze of the first few bites a distant memory as I wash each dry, chewy bite down with a huge gulp of water.

And then, seemingly an eternity after the GZA polished his bone, the last bite is down the hatch, as the waitress examines my completed shank and declares it finished (there were some dubious areas which could have raised questions of completeness).

The relief is only fleeting however, as we are then presented with the dessert menu. At the very least, we get to pick our poison. We both opt for the gelato, as it seems the safest option for the purpose of the challenge. Unfortunately, the wait for the dessert to arrive gives us just enough time for our minds to catch up to our bodies and realise just how stupidly full we are.

When the dessert arrives, it is accompanied with an absolute dagger, a last minute game changer. The three scoops of ice cream (berry, vanilla and chocolate) are topped with a giant, hard toffee spiral. We both opt for the strategy of breaking up the toffee and spreading it through the ice cream. After several bites, we both lock eyes and realise the huge mistake we have made, as inch long toffee blades slice their way all the way down. It is at this point, I try to throw in the towel. I try to tap out. I announce that I can’t do it. All the mental strength I was boasting of early has left me. I am a broken man. I get up and walk outside without saying a word, my engorged stomach leading the way. After a bit of fresh air, and fighting the urge to vomit in the park across the road in front of dozens of people, I return to SSS just as the GZA is licking the last bit of ice cream off his spoon. But unlike the shank, he did not make it look easy. He is in pain. He is struggling.

I look at my bowl. There is 1 and a half scoops of ice cream. Some has melted and can be slurped, which might just trick my stomach into thinking it does not need to expand. The spoon goes into the ice cream, it enters my mouth, I moan and cry a little bit. I repeat the process. I repeat again. I repeat once more. Then, like a torture victim who is finally given the sweet relief of death, there is suddenly no more ice cream left in the bowl. I am done.

While the GZA, without a shadow of a doubt, bested me and proved himself to be the TCB Big Dog, we both walked out of SSS “winners”. That is of course if your definition of “winning” includes two gluttonous gastronomes eating themselves sick (you’re kidding yourself if you think we both didn’t throw up almost immediately post consumption).

I don’t know whether completing the challenge is the most proud, or most ashamed I’ve ever been. What I do know is this: in my cupboard I have a 3XL t-shirt that comes down to my knees that says “I’ve been shanked”, and when you walk through the hallowed grounds of SSS BBQ Barn, the Shank Challenge Hall of Fame Board will read Tom “Glory” Gale and Andrew “Crash” Mackenzie.

Pain is temporary, but glory, eternal.

Ann Street, CBD

I have always loved the Olympics. Not just because for two weeks of the year I can become a dinner party expert on obscure sports such as European Handball and Women’s Team Archery, but for the sentimental feelings it stirs. The pride of watching elite athletes representing their country; the anger when those elite athletes only get bronze; the sympathy when an African nation competes in anything other than running; the confusion of whether one, as a 23 year old man, is morally permitted to find the 16 year old Eastern European competitors attractive. But most of all, it is the sense of competition. With that in mind, we are breaking our steadfast, formally unbreakable rule and will be discussing something outside of breakfast. So here it is: TCB presents – AMac and the GZA tackle the SSS BBQ Barn Beef Shank Challenge.

In the same vane as Man vs Food, the wild west themed steak house offers an eating challenge to test the fortitude of the cocky, swaggering young men and morbidly obese alike: if you can finish your choice of entree; a 2.4 kilogram beef shank, including a side of either chips, potato or sweet potato, and a dessert of your choice, you will attain eternal food glory by having your name etched onto the Wall Of Fame, and be given an exclusively reserved t-shirt commemorating your accomplishment.

Our two competitors for this evening are the GZA: coming straight from work, having eating a large lunch at 1.30pm, and an experienced competitive eater; and AMac: known for eating speed and efficiency but untested in the world of eating challenges, having not eaten all day, and talking a big game based around mental strength. We are also joined by the impartial, not competing Birdman.

In the interests of strategy, we both pass up the option of a succulent half rack of baby back ribs and go for less dense entrees: GZA the calamari and AMac the soft shell crab. These light seafood options, for all their bread crumbing and batter, hardly touch the sides, and after chomping through the entire base salad, we are both hungry for the main event.

Thow your 3s

Then, in one fell swoop, all the poise and confidence disappear when the almost 5 kilograms of beef is plonked onto the table. It resembles more a medieval weapon, something used to bludgeon the skulls of infidels in the Crusades, rather than a cut of meat. It’s hard to even picture which part of the cow this could possibly come from, unless the two shanks currently sitting on our table were previously the entire hindquarter of the beast. I would love to list off creative, funny analogies of what this shank looks like, but I am lost for words. Simply, this thing is fucking huge.

So with one last hopeful look at each other, we arm ourselves with oversized steak knives and tuck in. For any parents out there who want to teach their children the virtues of patience and planning, look no further than the story of AMac, the GZA and the 2.4 kilo shank. The next 30 minutes is the personification of the tortoise and the hare.

I shoot off true to form, attacking the shank with the reckless speed and efficiency for which I’m famed, carving hunks off the bone, mixing with sweet potato, coleslaw and side corn and shovelling into my gullet. In a little over 10 minutes I’m over half way there and powering on. A progress report from Birdman announces that while I’m just over 50%, the GZA has in fact just moved meat around his plate, and still has a ways to go.

Then…I hit the wall. My chewing slows to a grinding, masticating torture. My digestive tract swells like I’ve had a basketball wedged under my rib cage. I’ve got about a quarter of the shank to go and the mere sight of it is bringing me to tears (quite literally, the post-match analysis confirms that salty discharge did appear in my eyes). And the GZA? Somehow he has managed to strip all the meat and remove the bone, and now has a manageable pile of meat on his plate. In the time it has taken me to swell up and die, GZA has eliminated most of the shank. It just disappeared. I cannot stress the lunacy of seeing (or more to the point, not seeing) the meat just simply vanish. It must have been some form of meat hypnosis, as even after the challenge, the GZA could not remember where the meat went.

But…there is still a whole lot of meat and another course to go….

Did the TCB crew take down the Shank Challenge? Stay tuned for Part 2 of this epic journey!

Emporium, Fortitude Valley

Have you ever had that certain type of hangover where you’re not sure whether or not you are still drunk, and the first few hours of the day shoot by in that grey area between dream and reality? Today is one of those mornings.

I stumble out of my bedroom, a small marching band parading through my head, to be confronted with a sight too ridiculous to be real: the GZA, passed out on my couch, still wearing last night’s dinner shirt, buttoned right to the top, cufflinks still in place, tuxedo pants strewn on the floor, with the disk menu of The Office Season 3 playing on loop on the TV.

We both come to the crushing realisation that neither of us are in a position to drive, so we call back up.

Inviger8or

We hear it before we see it: the thumping bass of hip hop blearing from blocks away, as our evacuation driver rolls up the street in a silver convertible BMW. Is this really happening?

We roll into the Emporium complex to check out the often family friendly Buzz, Amili blearing so anti-socially loud that it attracts the disapproving stares of fellow patrons. Apparently parents don’t want their children hearing lyrics such as “damn I ate a shy bitch, she aint shy no more she changed her name to my bitch”. I reiterate: is this really happening?

Finally, we are onto breakfast. Buzz is packed, but we are lucky enough to score a table without having to wait. Examining the menu, there are a collection of staple options, a few interesting numbers, but the bulk of the menu is dedicated to a very large ‘build your own’ section. Our guest throws his menu down, and leaves it up to the ‘breakfast experts’ to choose for him, so we elect the roast pumpkin omelette. As for us, we are both intrigued by construction, so along with the standard ‘eggs your way’ (poached of course), we go with lambs fry and bacon, haloumi for AMac and potato rousite for the GZA.  Unfortunately it is a counter order situation, so as the biggest ticket at the table, I roll up to communally order the eight items required by our table, much to the chagrin of the line of people behind me.

Omlette with bacon

Our liquids arrive in decent time: a collection of coffees, inviger8or juices (tomato, chili, tobacco and celery), and a passion fruit smoothie. The coffee is decent, the juices are a perfect hangover cure, and according to the GZA, the smoothie is a ‘party’.

After filling in time using the “conversation starter topics” card placed on each table, and establishing that if he could go to lunch with any celebrity, the GZA would choose Lil’ Wayne, our food arrives. The omelette, packed full of onions, spinach and pumpkin, is in over baked pizza form, and is topped with toasted ciabatta and mounds of bacon.

Self Constructed eggs, haloumi and lambs fry

As for the creations, the eggs are well poached, the ciabatta well toasted, the haloumi exactly like every other piece of grilled haloumi – delicious – the roustie is adequate and the lambs fry and bacon does not have enough bacon (only diced speck) and is a touch dry. That pretty much sums it up: the food is good without being noteworthy in any way.

The real strength of Buzz is their collection of smoothies, which is obvious as there is a take away line that rolls out the door with people who can’t be bothered sitting in the crowded café.

But with counter service and only adequate food and coffee, Buzz is probably not a go to option if you find yourself in the Valley precinct, so I recommend that you get your ambiguously ethnic, BMW driving associate to take you somewhere else.

Coffee: 7.0          Menu: 7.0           Food: 7.0             Service: 6.5        Ambience: 6.5

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

Eagle Street, CBD

The sudden increase of under 25’s in the CBD during the day light hours can only mean that exam bloc is over and Gen Y’s are back to over dressing for the part time professions. This is not so much a snarky comment as a simple explanation of what I do when I’m not reviewing breakfast. So catching the early bus to town on a Friday morning, the GZA and AMac are ready for a long overdue power breakfast at Aquila, a favourite of the Finance and Legal Eagle (Street) fraternity.

Fully espousing the popular-coffee-shop-progresses-into-successful-restaurant evolution, Aquila’s new fit out allows for double the patrons, and sets up an open, warm atmosphere. This does not, however, prevent us from awkwardly standing in the ‘we would like a table’ area as three different waiters assure us that they will be right with us. After getting a table, the two things that really stand out about the menu, are first, how cheap everything is, and second, the fact that those cheap prices do not limit the selection too much, with proper breakfast options available. The two party items are readily identifiable as the poached eggs with avocado and the Denver sandwich (the sunshine state…Dever, gorgeous, gorgeous!). But there is an issue: who is getting what? Ever fearful of heavy stomached bloating at work, both the GZA and AMac are eying off the usually delicate avo and eggs; GZA even tries to pull some “but that’s my go to situation” white man bull shit.

Poached eggs with avocado and lemon

Coffees arrive in the same mind boggling efficiency as the take aways are pumped out (you only understand this speed once you have lined up, ordered, paid, then immediately collected). As always, they are very pleasing.

The food then comes very quickly, the importance of which can’t be overstated when indulging in pre work breakfast. It is revealed that the alpha of the big dogs got his way, and the poached eggs with avocado is placed deliberately in front of AMac.

Conducting the clinical operation of thickly smearing the half avocado onto the toast, zinging the spread with a slice of lemon,  the eggs are finally pierced to reveal a perfect, gluey yolk consistency – do I need to continue about perfectly poached eggs?

The Denver

While GZA had to settle for the Denver, it in no way detracted from its glory. Packed full of thick cut bacon, a double folded omelette and tickled with pesto, it is a great breakfast dish. Although a cautionary word: the GZA, famed for finishing both the World’s Hottest Burger and the Ribs and Rumps challenge (he has the steak knife to prove it) did not feel comfortable finishing the whole sandwich before work…which should paint a pretty clear picture.

Cheap, efficient, good coffee and a respectable menu selection, Aquila is a perfect CBD pre work breakfast option. The only down side is that if you work in a law or accounting firm somewhere on Eagle Street, you won’t “probably’ run into a work colleague, you will definitely run into a work colleague, and if you eat in anyway like me of the GZA, that cannot be a good thing.

Coffee: 8.5          Menu: 7.5           Food: 8.0             Service: 8.5         Ambience: 7.5

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley

People often ask me “hey AMac (they don’t actually use the name AMac, but in a pathetic attempt at keeping up the wafer thin veil of anonymity TCB pretends to have, let’s say they do), after 18 months and over 60 reviews, how do you keep the reviews fresh and entertaining?” (also note that this exchange may never have happened).

My answer usually varies from the marginally supercilious “I guess I’m just pretty witty” to the pathologically arrogant and narcissistic “My team and I might just be the greatest Brisbane based breakfast cafe reviewers the world has ever known.” The correct answer is actually that the reviews are not fresh (and are only seldom entertaining for that matter) and more often than not are recycled and repackaged jokes from past reviews.

So with that in mind, it’s time for another Exam Bloc TCB outing, or as it mostly comes across, a contrived, backhanded boast about me almost being a lawyer.

Black Sheep double flat

So armed with a ginger study ‘stache, a bag full of law notes and a plan for a study session (see what I did already?), TCB changes out of a week-unwashed hoody/track pants/ugg boot/thinking cap (tearsman flat brim never worn out of the house) ensemble for real clothes and heads to Lady Lamington – a former church that has since been de-sanctified and turned into a bar and cafe. It is another in what is becoming quite a niche market of venues, which afford you the luxury of being able to get spastically drunk on their cocktails until the wee small hours of the morning, then head back to the scene of the crime to alleviate the lingering symptoms at breakfast.

On a sunny day Lady Lamington would be perfect, a large sunny dining room down stairs, with assorted, mismatched furniture and Veuve Clicquot advertising decor plastered everywhere, and an ex-church adjacent roof top deck. Unfortunately, today is a bleak, overcast, drizzly winter’s day, so we scurry straight inside and don’t get the full effect.

Their new menu has some fantastic items, whether they are out of the ordinary or groovy interpretations of breakfast staples, but as an avid supporter of crunchy, underside flesh of all varieties, I can’t go past the pork belly with slow poached eggs. My study buddy goes for the sautéed field mushrooms.

Field 'shrooms

Coffees arrive without too much of a wait, and according to the menu, the double flat white and late we are about to consume consist of Black Sheep beans, a local boutique roaster. While not quite Campos, they are quite pleasing.

After delving through the perils of medical negligence, the meals arrive. I am told that the field mushrooms, plentifully arranged over a cream cheese spread on toasted sourdough, are very flavourful and definitely filling.

Pork belly w slow poached eggs, potato cake and blood pudding

The pork belly, as expected, is a pretty decedant breakfast option, and while not the mountain of hog stomach that is served at the German Club, is a good size for the morning. The delicious, crunchy top layer is surprisingly well complimented by the slippery slow poached eggs. And just in case it’s not quite carnivorous enough, two delicate spots of black pudding round out the dish.

Lady Lamington is a great venue, but definitely feels more like a cocktail bar than a breakfast spot (which is an accurate statement for most of the week). Whether you’re looking to fill up on brain food in the morning, or celebrate/commiserate finishing an exam with cocktails and drunken shenanigans, Lady Lamington is definitely worth a try.

Coffee: 8.0          Menu: 8.5           Food: 8.0             Service: 8.0         Ambience: 8.5

Reviewed by AMac

Logan Road, Woolloongabba

Like a bear rising from hibernation early, you know all is not well when you get a call from the GZA at 7.05am on a Saturday morning. Turns out the poor little fellow has had a nightmare about the Celtics losing (turned out to be a premonition) and he can’t get back to sleep. His instructions: meet him at the “Logan Road wig zone”.

The “wig zone” is actually the Logan Road coulter sack, home to several antique stores and the breakfast heavyweight, Pearl. But TCB head directly across the road and enter the two story, red brick Crosstown Eating House.

double flat

long mac

The menu is very interesting, with more interesting options than not, including morning peas with pancetta and poached eggs, smoked ocean trout, and the two most out of place breakfast items, which are obviously what TCB choose for this morning: the pad kra poa (the waitress doesn’t really get the joke when I laugh in her face as she asked me whether I want it with pork mince or tofu) and the fish taco.

Pad kra poa

The coffees arrive after an unnoticeable wait, and are passable editions of the predictably boring Merlo blend.

A quick debrief of the NBA playoffs to date, and the food arrives. The fish taco, a seemingly out of place item on a breakfast menu, is a tortilla piled with pan fired whiting, blackbean and tomato salsa, avocado and sour cream. As the GZA slopped it all over the plate and his hands, he reported that the fish, beans and salsa take it in a lunch direction, but the inclusion of fresh avocado and zesty lime bring it screaming back to breakfast. He was very impressed.

Grilled Fish Taco

Contrastingly, the pad kra poa, proved itself to not only seem out of place on a breakfast menu, but to actually be out of place on a breakfast menu. The dish itself was very tasty, with steamed rice, hearty green beans, a tasty pork mince creation topped off with lime and chilli. The problem was that once the fried egg was gone – and trust me, I tried to stir the yolk through the whole dish – it simply became a standard Thai dinner serving. Not exactly my metaphorical cup of breakfast tea.

TCB definitely appreciate interesting and out of the ordinary breakfast options, but unfortunately, Crosstown Eating House may have flown too close to the sun and become casualties of their own ambition.

This doesn’t mean it is not worth a visit, as over all it provides a good breakfast experience, but if you wake up as early as we did, there is a good chance that the usually packed Pearl will have spots available across the road.

 Coffee: 7.0          Menu: 8.5           Food: 8.0             Service: 8.0         Ambience: 7.5

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

Mollison Street, West End

Wearing a tuxedo is like wearing a suit of armour: you’re better looking; your jokes are funnier; your lines are smoother; your dance moves are less offensive; you’re more or less indestructible.

The only problem with donning black tie is that it usually involves an event that you have paid an exorbitant amount of money to attend, thus feel like you need drink your money’s worth. So two and a half bottles of champagne later, with very little memory of the goings on of the Law Ball, breakfast is a necessity.

Double flat

Walking into The Burrow, their intended motif is abundantly clear: this is some Wind in the Willows, home of a woodland creature shit right here. Everything is designer rickety, unlevelled wood, which sets up a very different and pretty cool breakfast atmosphere, giving patrons a feeling that any moment, a hipster rabbit dressed in skinny, cuffed chinos and thick rimmed glasses will saunter down the stairs.

Poached eggs and breakfast mince

The good start is short however, as we are forced to order at the counter. The menu is rather brief but has some interesting touches that jazz up simple staples, so TCB go with the savoury breakfast mince with poached eggs, and the always classic eggs your way (poached of course) and honey bacon.

The coffee’s arrive in decent time and are satisfactory, without being fantastic. The food arrives a short time later, and again is much the same. Reports on the mince indicate that it has no real kick or bite to it, and that the eggs are slightly over poached. Conversely, the eggs with the bacon are slightly under-poached, leaving them overly runny and slightly chalky.   On the plus side, the bacon is very crunchy with a hint of sweetness from the honey glaze.

Poached eggs and honey glazed bacon

The Burrow has a cool and different feel, but to face reality, it is just a minor player only meters away from breakfast heavy weight, The Gun Shop. This could be a good tactic for business as they can poach those customers too impatient to wait for a table at the hugely popular breakfast behemoth, but then again, as TCB found out the hard way, their poaching ability leaves a little to be desired…zing…

Coffee: 7.5          Menu: 7.0           Food: 7.5             Service: 7.0         Ambience: 8.0

Reviewed by AMac

Latrobe Terrace, Paddington

Having spent a whirlwind 24 hour junket in Melbourne, hearing Charlie Murphy say “darkness is spreading!!! Fuck your couch” in person, and proving how cool and hip TCB is by tagging along with the Millions and Gung Ho tour (one of them ordered a mocha…rock music has changed *giggle*), TCB returned to home to a multi day bender. So Sunday morning, feeling a little world weary, something was needed to soak up four days of poison.

One of my companions on our trip to Paddington’s Java Lounge is ready to burry an esoteric hatchet with the establishment, after his last experience involved him trying to be way too Paul Rudd and arguing about the size differential between a regular and a large coffee.

So with that in mind, we take a seat inside the crowded dining room. Coffees are ordered, as well as a vanilla milkshake, because apparently the 24 year old man I thought I was dining with turned out to be an 11 year old girl.

Savory Mince

The menu is pretty uninspiring, with a list of fairly basic options at pretty average prices. Scrawled on wall mounted butcher’s paper on the wall is a breakfast special of savoury mince, so two of our party ignore the usual foreboding of ordering a kitchen special (read: last night’s left overs) to cure what ails us, one opts for your standard bacon and eggs, and one goes for the simple ‘eggs your way’.

At this point where the review gets very difficult, because there really is nothing noteworthy or in any way out of the ordinary. At least when an establishment does something to piss me off I can vent seething rage or crushing disappointment, but all four dishes were ‘alright’. Some of the eggs were all poached adequately, others had hardly a trace of viscosity, and the savoury mince wasn’t bland, but  was nothing special.

So other than hearing the story, “so I said to the guy, ‘what’s regular to a normal person? My regular could be different to someone else!” breakfast passes by nonchalantly, and as we leave, there is a general consensus that we probably can’t be bothered returning to the Java Lounge.

Coffee: 7.0          Menu: 6.0           Food: 6.0             Service: 6.5         Ambience: 7.0

Reviewed by AMac

Felix Street, CBD

Welcome to another edition of TCB goes to work, so sauntering into the city slightly earlier than required, AMac and the GZA attempt to keep yolk off clean pressed business shirts at Spring, a CBD restaurant that has recently begun dabbling in the fine art of breakfast.

We take a seat in one nook of the enormous dining area. The table next to us is occupied by two suspended ceramic heads and unattached forearms. Call us sadistic, but ingesting adjacent to severed heads and limbs is not that off putting for TCB, rather, we think it’s pretty cool.

Double Flat

A friendly (read: attractive) American waitress looks after us, and after a look at the relatively short menu, one of us opts for the corn cakes with poached eggs and the other (of course the GZA) goes for the biggest, most expensive item on the menu, the Spring Breakfast: two eggs, bacon, chorizo chipolatas, spinach and roesti.

Our coffees arrive and are decent enough, but we then wait quite a while for our meals. It is at this time that the horror sets in. There is a table, seated before us, with twenty people at it, and a momentary eye contact with the waitress confirms, we are finished. She dutifully apologises for the wait, blaming the aforementioned large table, and assures us it won’t be too much longer.

Corn Cakes

It is now 8.22am when the meals arrive, so any analysis is going to be at break neck speed. So here is a snap shot of what we experienced in the 4 minutes it took us to eat the meals: all four eggs of both meals were slightly under poached, which is better than the alternative, but still meant the yolk was a bit too runny, and came very close to having that chalky taste that only uncooked eggs can provide. The corn cakes were packed full of sustenance and ingredients, bursting with density, but unfortunately, were a little dry.

Spring Breakfast

On the plus side, GZA’s potato roesti was, to quote, ‘victorious’, and the bacon was possibly the crunchiest he’s ever had.

A little slack can be cut for the 25 minute wait for the food, because it is not every day that an enormous table takes up the prime time breakfast time slot, but still, Spring broke the cardinal rule of not poaching eggs correctly.

But with a great dining room with plenty of space and severed heads, decent coffee and several reasonably priced ($12) menu items, Spring is an acceptable CBD breakfast option. TCB have probably over indulged, and will need the ‘running late for work’ hustle to kick start the digestive process, lest we need a full stomach nap once we hit the office.

Coffee: 7.5          Menu: 7.0           Food: 6.5             Service: 7.0         Ambience: 8.0

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

James Street, New Farm

What is the deal with book shelves? Yes, I understand the concept of a multi levelled structure intended for the storage of hard copy literature, but it seems that the new vogue on the cafe scene is having a collection of second hand books on hand for the sole purpose of aesthetic impression. The Little Pantry is no different, with a small interior dining room with a full wall book shelf, but beyond this esoteric motif operates the latest hip, trendy New Farm eatery.

Early on a Thursday morning, the GZA and AMac bypass a table of young corporate types and two attractive young women in exercise attire and head straight to the counter to inspect the chalk board menu lining the entire back wall of the establishment. There are some very interesting options, but the two standouts have to be the salmon roulades with poached eggs; and the Pantry Eggs.

Long Mac

Taking a seat in an enormous couch, obviously intended for more than just two men in the pursuit of luxury, TCB take a second to scout our surroundings. Littered throughout the whole cafe, from on table tops to scattered amongst the book shelf, are oversized chess pieces. The internal space of the cafe is moderate, but there aren’t too many tables and chairs, which creates a very spacious atmosphere, but could be troublesome trying to get a space to call your own on a busy weekend.

Di Bella double flat

In quick time the TCB musing is brought to an end, as our coffees and meals arrive. Both the Di Bella double flat and long mac are pleasing, as Di Bella usually is.

The Pantry Eggs include a host of ingredients that feature heavily on the TCB approved breakfast favourite list, and with perfectly poached eggs, hordes of smoked salmon, zesty grilled haloumi and a spicy tomato relish with a bit of a kick, the correct execution of a great inventory of components makes it a great breakfast dish.

Pantry Eggs

The salmon roulades a series of cream cheese moulds, wrapped tightly in smoked salmon, with two perfectly poached eggs, topped with a mound of avocado and tomato salsa. As with the first dish, it had no problems living up to the expectation set by the $19.00 price tag.

Salmon Roulades

The food is excellent, the menu is interesting, the coffee is solid, the decor is cool, without looking ostentatious or pretentious.

The only things preventing The Little Pantry from entering the top tier of Brisbane breakfasts are the absence of table service, and the fact that the limited amount of table space would make a relaxing Sunday morning breakfast feel more like attempting to establish forward position on a battle field.

But in keeping with recent form, New Farm is proving that in a coalition of the willing with New Farm and Tenerife, it is still the territory to head to when you want a great breakfast.

 Coffee: 8.5          Menu: 9.0           Food: 9.0             Service: 8.0         Ambience: 8.5

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

University of Queensland

Campos double flat

The last time I went to Wordsmiths I was an arrogant, obnoxious, 17 year old law student. It took an hour and a half for my toasted chicken, cheese and avocado sandwich to arrive, so like any rational, sensible young man, I responded by pouring water over the contents of all the sugar packets that I had emptied all over the table, creating a slimy, gelatinous goo. Now, as an arrogant, obnoxious, 22 year old almost lawyer, when I heard that the UQ stalwart had reopend under the new ownership, management and direction of renowned West End foodie Con Castrisos, I figured it had to be worth a go.

Where a series of dirty, decrepit tables and chairs, run amok by flesh hungry Ibis, now sits a fresh, clean outdoor dining area. The surely, troll like wait staff have been replaced by friendly, young, and sometimes foreign waiters and waitresses.

Lining up to order at the counter, the menu board covers a good range of options, from a basic bacon and egg roll to some vegetarian brekkies, two varieties of omelette and a hearty big breakfast. I feel like testing the kitchen out, so in the absence of a wild and wacky option, I go for the eggs Benedict with smoked salmon. After all, what is a kitchen if they can’t poach an egg?

After taking a seat, not even 10 minutes elapses before both the coffee and the food arrives, giving me no time to even pretend like I was reading an impressively thick legal text book. I am incredibly excited to see the easily recognisable brown cup of a Campos cup, and while the strength of the bean is at its familiar best, it is not quite as well prepared as it is at the James Street mother ship.

Eggs Benedict

As soon as a drive a knife into one of the poached eggs, the yolk explodes, mixing with the hollandaise to drown the salmon, spinach and Turkish bread in a delicious, sloppy mess.

If you are not a student at UQ or an attentive sandstone enthusiast, Wordsmiths probably isn’t going to hold a huge draw card. But in terms of the hierarchy of on campus eateries, with good food and service, coffee that is not Merlo or whatever home brand shit that is produced by the Union coffee shop, and pleasant, Ibis free seating; the new Wordies has easily risen to the top.

Coffee: 8.0          Menu: 7.5           Food: 7.5             Service: 8.0         Ambience: 7.5

Reviewed by AMac

NOTE: urbanspoon has yet to update the reopening of Wordsmiths

Russel Street, West End

The Slayer

Breakfast: til 2pm

When you need an addictive Bolivian substance that picks you up, gives you energy, and makes you somewhat jittery, where do you go? West End is probably a good start, but while some of you may be thinking of finding a shady character in a dark back alley, I would suggest you head to specialty roaster Cup Coffee, to try one of their weekly blends.

While TCB did not enquire as to what other product they had received from South America, we did get involved in two Bolivian Bolinda double flats, and took a seat in the sunny front area of the warehouse/cafe. The soft aroma of roasting coffee drifts through the entire establishment as we enjoy the smooth, strong taste of an almost perfectly brewed coffee.

Bovida

The menu at Cup is somewhat limited, but includes some basics such as a mushroom burger, muesli, and avocado on toast. Today, TCB opt for the most substantial option, the breakfast burger, which includes two fried eggs, prosciutto, spinach, herb mayo and spicy relish.

In quick time the burgers arrive. As true men of rugged machismo,  TCB do not even give consideration to using cutlery, and dive straight in, the soft yolk spilling all over the place, dribbling down hands and smearing over faces. The prosciutto has a sharp bite, and the whole burger is set off by the spicy relish. It is a very good breakfast burger.

Breakfast Burgers x2

The limited menu of Cup does not really hold it back at all, as they are not billing themselves as a cafe super power. Rather, there is definitely a vibe of “come for our brilliant coffee, but I suppose we may have to feed you.” Visiting Cup on a Wednesday morning is relaxed, uncrowded, with the service offering a very personal feel. On the weekends, however, the reputation of Cup’s hearty brews draws crowds from far and wide, with counter queues filing out the door into the street.

So if you are in the market for excellent coffee, and reasonably priced auxiliaries, Cup is definitely the place for you. If you are in the market for the other Bolivian speciality alluded to early, then you’re probably fresh out of luck.

Coffee: 9.5          Menu: 7.0           Food: 8.0             Service: 8.0         Ambience: 8.5

Reviewed by AMac

Wharf Street, Brisbane CBD

Double flat

Just like the audience of Harry Potter, TCB likes to think that our audience is growing up alongside our protagonist (ourselves). So with that in mind, as all members of the TCB crew are now burgeoning young professionals, we figured it was time to give you a taste of what to taste for a pre work breakfast in the Brisbane CBD. It goes without saying, you can’t expect to snap necks, cash cheques, and make bank bro on an empty stomach.

Hopping off the peoples chariot at 7.25am, TCB head to the incredibly popular PourBoy Espresso. As a party of one, I take a seat at the long share table (not only to be courteous, but also because it faces the opposite direction of a table occupied by a personal nemesis and all around douche bag who will remain nameless), and am pleased to see an assortment of the mornings periodicals. At these sort of establishments you don’t expect the menu to be too complicated or extensive, as there needs to be an emphasis on speed and efficiency. But to my surprise, the breakfast options, while not overly broad, are very ‘restaurant’ like, with options such as a spanner crab omelette spicing up the selection. But with a need for brain food, TCB opts for the smoked salmon with herbed cream cheese and a poached egg.

Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese

As the line to the counter snakes its way out the door, my double flat arrives in little time. A quick peruse of a former Tasmanian MP turned convicted sex offender due to a hyper-sexual reaction to his Parkinsons medication later, and my meal arrives. The salmon is plentiful and very tasty, the toast is crunchy and well buttered, and the egg is ever so slightly under poached, which is much preferable to slightly over. But what sets the dish apart from others of its kind is the smooth, rich herbed cream cheese, as it is obviously house made, and not scooped out of a Philadelphia packet.

What is remarkable is that in a CBD market full of rapid fire cafes and bakeries, haphazardly slinging out toasties and yoghurt to the working masses, Pour Boy is operating like a ‘real’ restaurant. There is a surly head chef barking orders to his minions; the barrister scolding the wait staff for not running a coffee quick enough, resulting in him having to pour it out and start again, lest he serve a coffee anything other than piping hot.; and the table service if friendly, fast and efficient.

There is a lot to like about PourBoy, as a great meal can be consumed in under 25 minutes, and even better, the air conditioning is set to 18 degrees. The only downside is that if you were to get an $18 breakfast and coffee every morning, combined with a $10 lunch steak special, you would quickly find yourself eating your way through your profits. But if you are going to grab one CBD breakfast before work, make it a Pour Boy breakfast.

Coffee: 8.5          Menu: 7.5           Food: 8.5             Service: 8.5         Ambience: 8.0

Review by AMac

Latrobe Terrace, Paddington

Double flat

If you’ve been following TCB for any extended period of time, you will already know our feelings about Paddington. You know that we do not appreciate the impossibility of parking; you know we do not enjoy the gridlock weekday traffic along the main street; and you know we loathe the over-hyped trend factor associated with, what is in our opinion, under achieving breakfast cuisine.

But the equation has changed. Three close personal associates of TCB have moved in to a den of debauchery and inequity in Paddington, not unlike Springfield’s Maison Derriere (and by not unlike, I mean nothing alike, but a Simpsons reference is always poignant). So with my presence in the area on the increase, an imperative need arose to find a worthwhile establishment to indulge in my leading vice.

Double espresso shake

As you walk into Hamptons, an old Queenslander perched on the hill with fantastic views out to the city, you are instantly struck with a very homely vibe, mainly due to the sale of assorted home wares at the front, and the fact that it is a converted house.

The menu is not overly extensive, but includes some interesting items such as two varieties of baked eggs, so this morning, TCB go with the Portobello mushrooms with Persian fetta and poached eggs, and the smoked bacon and corn fritters with poached eggs.

Also, to both add an additional level of intrigue to the standard double flat coffee order, and to satisfy AMac’s insatiable need for oversized gelatinous milk based products, TCB can’t go passed the double espresso milkshake.

Smoked bacon and corn fritters

After quite a wait, with no sign of the coffees, the food suddenly appears. This raises the ever debatable controversy of whether coffees should be enjoyed with, or before a meal. Moments after this fret, a skinny late, a double flat and a bohemoth espresso milkshae arrive. The coffees are standard and not really noteworthy, but the shake is absolutely delicious.

The meals, on the other hand, are very pleasing, both in flavour and in presentation, served on striking baby blue plates (please note this was brought to attention by a female, not by the ever masculine TCB).

Portabello shrooms

The mushroom dish is zesty and fresh, with perfectly ripe tomatoes, big chunks of fetta, and deeply sautéed Portobello mushrooms over crunchy Turkish toast. The smoked bacon and corn fritters are noticeably heavier, with the bacon more like the delicious salty taste of prosciutto, and the fritters dense with a host of insertions such as peas and onions. Both dishes are topped with perfectly poached eggs.

With slow but friendly service, Hamptons is not a place for those in a rush, rather, a great spot to sit with friends, enjoy the fantastic view and rustic feel, and while away the morning. Hamptons can hold its head very high, as it is the first establishment in Paddington to satisfy the illustrious standards of TCB, and stake its claim as a place justifying the hype of the entire suburb.

Coffee: 7.5          Menu: 8.0           Food: 8.5             Service: 7.0         Ambience: 9.0

Review by AMac

Eva Street, Coorparoo

Banana & Cinamon Smoothie

Coffee: Di Bella

After a month of bitter, watery espresso and bland, flavourless, powdered milk coffees, with a well poached egg harder to find than a witty “harder to find than a……” analogy to finish this joke, TCB are quite excited to be home from Europe to see what the Brisbane breakfast landscape has to offer in 2012.

One thing that cements the fact that we’re back is that rather than spending $10 on a night of preservative free (read hangover free) beer in the Czech Republic, we have spent oblivion dollars to feel like death warmed up on Saturday morning. So after brushing the dust off and kick starting TCB for 2012, AMac and GZA escort a plus one to the new establishment run by former My Restaurant Rules contestants, Ave Cucina.

Di Bella double flat

The little suburban eatery is bustling inside and out with patrons, and sidestepping an enormous dog tied up outside, TCB is escorted to one of the few remaining tables inside. Presented with the menus, the first impression is excellent: with a large variety of interesting items, as well as a great selection of teas, smoothies and juices. TCB opt for the Middle Eastern Platter, Rosario’s Eggs and the avocado stack.

Middle Eastern platter

A pot of chai tea, a chai late and a double flat are delivered by our friendly waiter without too much delay. The coffee is your stock standard Di Bella brew, but is a welcome change from the absolute drudgery of Central European ‘shit water’.

There is a noticeable but not unreasonable wait for the meals to arrive, but as any loyal TCB fan will understand, we are willing to cut some slack to a busy kitchen if the meals are worth the wait. The Middle Eastern platter turns out to be a pot of mixed seasoned potatoes and eggs, with a huge piece of pita bread and a mildly spicy spread. You know a meal is going to be exciting when the waiter has to dutifully instruct you on the best way to go about eating it, and after the explanation, the dish provides an interesting and very different breakfast flavour, but happens to be a bit dry.

Avocado stack

The avocado stack is simple, but is very tasty, with huge, fresh avocados topping crunchy ciabatta toast, accompanied by two perfectly poached eggs.

Rosario’s Eggs, a titled signature dish, is a baked egg concoction with a spicy tomato salsa (of course ordered with additional chilli oil), topped with crunchy prosciutto. Baked eggs of this nature can often be hit and miss, with the eggs sometimes dry and flavourless, and the salsa too sweet or bland. Neither of these problems rear their ugly heads, with this mysterious Rosario obviously doing a brilliant job of keeping the eggs slightly runny, and the salsa full of savoury flavour.

Rosario's Eggs

Although at the expensive end of the breakfast market, Ave Cucina’s excellent menu, great food, and very friendly service make it one of the best breakfast options in the South, and definitely worth a trek by those North of the CBD. And with that, TCB has opened its account for 2012, an excellent start to a year that promises many a culinary adventure.

Coffee: 8.0          Menu: 9.5           Food: 8.5             Service: 8.5         Ambience: 8.0

Review by AMac & GZA

NB: The GZA returned to Ave Cucina with his DSLR, so keep an eye out for the upload of his high res documentation of some different menu items.

Commercial Road, Tenerife

Ice Latte

Breakfast is never simply breakfast. Different scenarios call for different characteristics. On a weekend, one can afford the time to fully immerse themselves in luxury, taking the time to enjoy the experience, chatting with friends and partners (whether long term or acquired within the last 16 hours), or leisurely perusing the weekend’s periodicals. The working week, however, is a very different beast. With business on the brain, dangerous efficiency is required. So before slaving away for the man, men about town AMac and GZA need to treat themselves to breakfast at Tenerife’s Caffeine Espresso.

double flat

We roll into the undersized cafe and stride to the counter to peruse the menu board and order. There are some instances where counter service is acceptable, and when timeliness is an important factor, not too many tears are shed. One drawback, however, is that the menu is rather limited, forcing one breakfaster to opt for the only option of real substance, the scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, while the other calls and early shotgun on the breakfast special, the haloumi stack with fried eggs, toast and bacon.

We take a seat outside in the warm morning atmos, and in very quick time, a double flat and a (prepare to stifle a giggle) ice latte arrive. The flat white is excellent, a great mix of texture and strength, and while the slurpee like concoction on the other side of the table may look a tad emasculating, order envy is definitely present as GZA is cooled and refreshed, all the while being treated to a morning caffeine injection.

Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon

With not too much more of a wait, the food arrives. The scramble is excellent, a creamy, rich flavour served alongside three rolled salmon tubes and simple buttered doorstop toast. But yet again, GZA hits the nail on the head, as the haloumi stack is not only visually appealing, a towering mess of Hellenic cheese, crispy bacon and perfectly fried eggs, but the whimpers of content and speed of consumption are a dead giveaway of its palatability (the word ‘glory’ may have been thrown around).

Haloumi stack

In and out in about half an hour, Caffeine Espresso perfectly serviced TCB’s requirements, providing delicious, hearty breakfast and great coffee at an efficient speed. So with the most important meal of the day bowled over, we can get down to business…filling in the next ten hours until we can go for after work drinks, and tell people what a tough day it’s been.

Coffee: 8.5          Menu: 6.5           Food: 8.5             Service: 8.0         Ambience: 7.5

Review by AMac & GZA

double flat

Racecourse Road, Ascot

Racecourse Road, once the Northside’s powerful culinary strip boasting numerous high end restaurants, has fallen far from grace, now a collection of Thai take aways and middling cafes. Once the habitat of the rich and wealthy, the clientele now are more would-be if they could-be, as former locals are now drawn to the Fortitude Valley and the City. So on that cheery, positive note, TCB decide to test out Zest, a new eatery transformed out of a formally struggling, Coles adjacent deli.

Skinny Late

Things are looking good as the TCB party of two enter the newly fitted out café, as the décor is not only nice, but quite striking, with crisp white shelving and assorted verdant shrubbery, both hanging and intertwined, line the far wall of the covered alfresco dining space.

Perusing the menu, TCB’s guest foregoes some of the more interesting options such as the coconut crumpets with lemon curd, buttermilk flapjacks and bacon wrapped sausage, and opts for the Bircher muesli, enhanced with an additional Irish potato cake (apparently the two are not mutually exclusive). Meanwhile, TCB’s love of intrigue leads to the ordering of the bubble and squeak, with poached eggs and corned beef.

In decent time, the coffees arrive, and are quite pleasing, without breaking any records. The food later arrives, also in decent time, and is reasonably presented.

You should by now be sensing a theme, and if you haven’t, all will be made clear shortly.

Bircher Muesli

The beauty of bubble and squeak, the name traditionally given to a meal made up of leftovers, is that it is always different. In this instance, it is a mound of mash potatoes, covering a collection of surprise ingredients possibly including, but not necessarily limited to, tomato, mushroom, and a grey, non descript, seemingly flavourless and unremarkably textured myserty globule. The corned beef, a rarity in this post World War society we live in, is in thin strips, and doesn’t quite have the salty bite one desires in the old-school staple. Luckily, the eggs are poached well, saving what is otherwise a fairly bland dish.

The report of the Bircher muesli, lumped vertically and topped with shredded pear, the milk added post plate-up, is similarly lacklustre, described as ‘okay’, but obviously nothing special.

Bubble & Squeak

And like a Christopher Nolan script, time for the Act 3 reveal for the quarter of the audience that have not yet picked it up (ala Prestige where some people *SPOILER ALERT* didn’t pick that Christian Bale was a twin): every aspect of the breakfast is decent, but no more, no less. Nothing about the experience even approaches interesting, or comes close to memorable. In this way, Zest is pretty much a manifestation of everything that is wrong with Racecourse Road.

Those after a treat, something special, an experience to tell people about when asked about their favorite breakfast, those who use to frequent the area, have gravitated away from Racecourse Road, and now the cafes, charging a premium for 4007 postcode, have made themselves comfortable pandering to those who will settle for decent, average, okay, standard, or whatever nondescript, uneventful adjective you prefer, choosing to tell people they had breakfast in Ascot, rather than breakfast at *insert name of miscellaneous TCB favourite*.

Call your humble narrator a sceptic, but as a former Ascotian who flew the coup to the Valley, there is really no longer any draw card to this once remarkable street. So to summarise this long winded tangent, Zest is pretty good, but go to there, don’t go to there, whatever you decide, the world will keep on turning.

Coffee: 7.0          Menu: 7.5           Food: 6.5             Service: 7.0         Ambience: 7.5

Review by AMac

NOTE: Not yet featured on Urban Spoon

Florence Street, Tenerife

Breakfast: til 2.00pm

It has finally happened. TCB has given up the flamboyant, playboy lifestyle of a whimsical vagrant and joined the corporate leviathan, slaving away for the man in his corporate Ivory Tower. Fortunately, TCB are incredibly conservative, and the accumulation of independent wealth through private enterprise and big business is well supported. Unfortunately, the 8 to 6 lifestyle makes weekday breakfast junkets a tough ask. So on a sunny Sunday morning following a Saturday dodging bogans, sinking $6.80 mid strengths and getting sun burnt (yes, the cricket), TCB don’t venture too far from home and visit the hugely popular Sourced Grocer in Tenerife. A hippy owned and operated fresh produce market and cafe, this converted warehouse offers affluent housewives and pretentious inner city wankers (include or exclude TCB as you wish) just what the area needs: good quality, fresh produce (because from Tenerife, the excellent wares of the Powerhouse markets at New Farm and the James Street Market in the Valley are just soooo far away.)

Patrons take a seat wherever they can find one: milk crates outside; windowsills; the front stairs to the premises; the high horses they rode in on. We breeze past the fruit and vegetable collection, which doesn’t actually appear to be that extensive, through to the tiny cafe section. The limited menu is scrawled on the tiles of the back wall, and once TCB do battle with the confusing ordering and payment system, we end up ordering the croquet monsieur with Bangalow ham, and the buffalo mozzarella with Roma tomatoes. All ready in a huff and a puff over being deprived the chance to order anything even remotely resembling an egg, TCB have to sit on the corner of the only table in the entire place, having to go through the “excuse me, but do you mind if we sit four and a half inches away from you?” with closely proximate diners, souring the mood further.

double flat

And now, as a treat for our loyal fans, I will spare you the recount of the next 56 minutes of the experience, as nothing of note happened, other than a proliferation of screaming children. Oh sorry, the coffees did arrive after 30 minutes, and were watery, bland, flavourless cups of disappointment.

It’s been said before that TCB will cut slack for slow service in a bustling, busy cafe, as long as it is friendly and attentive, but when the food finally did arrive, with no apology to the wait, there would have only been about fifteen others in the place. And what did we get for our wait? The ham in the croquet monsieur was very good, but in reality, it was a small, $12.00, 1 hour toasted sandwich. As for the buffalo mozzarella, the GZA tells me it was passable at best, while the tomatoes were simply that: tomatoes.

Buffalo mozzarella with Roma tomatoes

Seriously, you could have a thousand ravenous breakfast goers threatening to tear the building down to the foundations, it does not take an hour to toast a sandwich and put some tomatoes and cheese in a bowl. There isn’t even any cooking involved in the later process. It would almost have been quicker to drive to Bangalow ourselves, slaughter our own pig, and put it between some Turkish bread.

If you feel like the level of hostility is growing, you are tremendously astute. The appeal of trendy, hip, cool eateries is nowhere near lost on TCB, but if you can’t get the basics right, there is no point striving for a Melbourne image, which is obviously what The Sourced Grocer is trying to do. If doing a spot of produce shopping and getting a bite to eat sounds like your thing, go to the Powerhouse markets and get some of the best fruit and veg you’ll find, and chow down on a $6.50 bratwurst which will fill you to the seams. Failing that, go to the James Street Market then walk round the corner to Campos for a coffee and a fry up.

Croquet Monsieur with Bangalow ham

The pretentiousness of the Sourced Grocer is in all honesty the least of its problems, as criticising that aspect would make TCB a very black pot. While you may have become use to the flowing, creative prose of past reviews, some messages are most effectively delivered in their simplest form. So excuse the vulgarity, but the Sourced Grocer is shit.

Coffee: 3.0          Menu: 3.0           Food: 5.0             Service: 1.0         Ambience: 5.0

Review by AMac & GZA

Double Piccolo

Welsby Street, New Farm

Breakfast: til 12.00pm

Coffee: Merlo

The corner of Welsby Street and Lamington Street in New Farm has been a veritable graveyard for restaurateurs, as the red brick facade has housed countless ownership, name, and culinary changes. TCB take a trip into check out the most recent manifestation of the location, Bitter Suite, a cafe/restaurant/bar/beer boutique. TCB’s visit to the previous cafe at this location, Coco Bella, with its rainbow sticker on the door to denote it as ‘gay friendliness’, raised some interesting questions about the institution of two males sharing breakfast at a corner table, but this morning, Bitter Suite offers an alfresco table quell any such suspicions.

There seem to be a host of specials such as wine tastings and happy hours, but that does not do us much good in the am. The breakfast menu is short, but contains the staples you would expect of any reputable breakfast establishments: two varieties of Benedict, a big breakfast, pancakes/French toast, and a grilled mushroom concoction. TCB go with the Bitter Suite breakfast with poached eggs, and the salmon eggs Benedict.

Salmon Benedict

The coffees arrive in decent time, but unfortunately TCB’s nemesis rears its ugly head: Merlo coffee beans. This aside, the barista has done a decent enough job, as the double shot piccolo is well textured, and at the very least strong, albeit a touch bland.

After a bit of a wait the European waitress (that’s about as specific as I can get I’m afraid) delivers the meals. The salmon Benedict on toasted ciabatta has an abundance of its namesake breakfast fish, and the eggs are well poached and drowned in a rich hollandaise sauce.

The Bitter Suite breakfast is a good execution of a breakfast classic: two well poached eggs; handfuls of wilted, sautéed spinach; plenty of crispy bacon; well toasted bread; a mountain of grilled mushrooms; and a long, thin pork sausage (may it be known that TCB likes a thick, stoat lamb sausage but oh well). While there is nothing overtly special about this dish, all the components are done well.

Bitter Suite Breakfast

The draw card Bitter Suite appears to be the bar, which seems like a pretty cool little bar, including novelty items such as strawberry beer, not to mention happy hours applying to draught Stone & Wood; and while this may seem like a slight digression from the driven purpose of TCB, I have a sincere hope that it can go the distance, unlike the hordes of failures before it. But back to the important end of the day, the breakfast at Bitter Suite is solid, without attaining the quality of some of the top end New Farm destinations, but with revenue driven by the cash cow that is draught beer, hopefully all aspects of the restaurant will be pushed in the right direction.

Coffee: 7.5          Menu: 7.5           Food: 8.5             Service: 7.5         Ambience: 7.5

Review by AMac

Giancarlo double flat

Boundary Street, West End

Breakfast: til 2.00pm

Coffee: Giancarlo

You put your pen down. You walk out of your last exam. It’s 9.00am on a Thursday morning, all you want to do is start drinking but it is not yet socially acceptable to do so. You get in your car and just start driving with no location in mind, Drake blasting so loud from your stereo that the bass is rattling the review mirror. You need breakfast don’t you? Why not visit your close friends at Taking Care of Breakfast and see what they would recommend for this very occasion? But then you realise, you are Taking Care of Breakfast, and the buck stops with you. The correct answer to this conundrum is not, as most would think, to simply go for breakfast, but rather to indecisively start a multi day bender, wake up three days later with the taste of beer, wine, champagne and cocktails drenching your digestive track, with a collection of free loaders and vagabonds crashing on your couch, then go to breakfast.

Benny with ham

Benny with salmon

On the back of this, TCB start an epic journey across the south side searching for somewhere to eat, and after 4 failed locations, finally arrive at The Roundabout Cafe in West End. It has been a terrible start to the morning already, and having to line up inside to order at the counter continues this trend of bad luck. The menu has some decent enough options, a lot of them containing haloumi, so TCB go with the eggs Benedict, of both salmon and haarieties, and the omelette with tomato, spinach, bacon and haloumi.

Omelette with tomato, spinach, bacon and haloumi

The coffees arrive, and the initial relief of a Giancarlo double flat is lost when the first sip reveals it to be bitter and watery. After not too much of a wait, the food comes out, and a similar disappointment ensues.

The two Benedicts have decently poached eggs, but the ham is obviously straight out of the packet, the salmon is not the best quality, and the hollandaise is fairly bland and lacklustre.

The omelette is passable, but slightly over done, with not enough of the promised haloumi. The best part of all three meals is the heavily buttered doorstop toast.

The food at Roundabout is pretty much truck stop dinner quality, which has its inexpensive place in the world, but when the next door neighbour is The Gun Shop, and the assortment of West End favourites lie down the road, it’s probably best you give this underachiever a miss.

Coffee: 5.5          Menu: 6.5           Food: 5.5             Service: 6.0         Ambience: 5.0

Review by AMac & Myles

Vernon Tce, Tenerife

Breakfast: from 7.00am

There is something about having a charitable ginger moustache that makes a man want to lick food remanants from it, often hours after the initial meal was consumed. Hence, on this mid Movember morning, TCB look for a quick bite and coffee to quell the stomach rumblings hastily, to get back to the books (which, as all Uni students know, means sitting at the computer trawling Facebook and Taking Care of Breakfast).

Double Flat

Dot Espresso lies quietly at the tip of Vernon Tce, the gateway to the trendy Tenerife strip. While there are an abundance of breakfast options in this area, TCB are always open to a quick cheap option. The menu basically has two options, French banana bread or egg doit, and once I pop my head into the kitchen/order counter and hear the French accent of the girl running the show, one could deduce that Dot is fundamentally French (I assume it will surrender immediately should conflict erupt in Tenerife).

A double flat white arrives at the outdoor table quickly, where a Courier Mail is left for perusal. The coffee is alright, but is a touch bitter.

Egg Doit

Without much delay, the egg doit arrives, and is surprisingly aesthetic. Most places of this short, sharp nature plate up simply, but the soft and fluffy scrambled eggs come served in a mini frying pan, dusted with fresh chives and tomatoes. Accompanied with nicely toasted organic sourdough and a saucer full of warm butter, this delish breakfast belies the assumption one would make about the establishment.

At $11 for coffee and a tasty breakfast, if you’re in a hurry, Dot is a cheap and cheerful option for the morning, but won’t be breaking any records or winning any awards any time soon.

Coffee: 7.0     Menu: 4.0        Food: 8.0         Service: 8.0           Ambience: 7.0

Review by AMac

Not yet featured on Urban Spoon

Sylvan Road, Toowong

Breakfast: 7.00am – 11.00am

The vivid purple flowers that once tantalised passersby on the branches of mighty jacarandas now hazardously line footpaths across Brisbane, a mashed up mess that sickeningly squelches under foot. Cheap bars have become baron, patronless wastelands. The underground dexamphetamine market spikes. If you haven’t already guessed, these facts illustrate that it’s exam bloc, so rather than sink into Class 1 attention deficit medication or get unjustifiably angry at dropped foliage, join TCB in a brain stimulating study start in the form of a breakfast at one of the Western suburbs sporadic treats, the Corner Store Cafe.

TCB head into this very popular establishment on a Friday morning, famed for its attractive/vapid wait staff, and amongst its varied crowed of young mothers and hip twenty somthings, squeeze into a table in the well fanned outdoor area of the converted house. The sterile white tiles that completely line one wall are slightly off-putting, giving off somewhat of a don’t-drop-the-soap communal shower vibe. That said, on a warm sunny day, the shaded, breezy dining space is quite pleasant.

Fruit Salad (yes, that is a man's baby blue polo)

The menu is brief, but has some appealing options such as the field mushrooms with haloumi, and the Belgium waffles with berry compote. TCB go with the potato cake with poached eggs and grilled speck, and the fruit salad with passionfruit sorbet (despite what these orders may lead you to believe, the TCB party of two is made up of two men today).

A well prepared double flat arrives in very good time, and in even better time, the two breakfast dishes arrive, proving that the fleet of trendy young waitresses is backed up well by an efficient kitchen.

The fruit salad is presented beautifully, with an assortment of stone fruits, apple and pear, dollops of yogurt, and a large scoop of sorbet, with the entire dish drizzled with honey. If not for the complete femininity in ordering a fruit salad, it would strike order envy for most.

Potato Cake

The potato cake is a soft, stout rectangle of herbed starchy goodness, topped with two perfectly poached eggs, splotches of spicy tomato relish, and the delicious fried speck, which is basically very thick bacon, with the crispy, oily, fatty rind left on: terrible for the waist, a sensation for the taste (buds).

In quick time, TCB are delivered delicious breakfast and tasty coffee, but as 9.30am hits, the ratio of normal human beings to screaming children/incompetent mothers tips in the wrong direction, signalling the need for a hasty exit. Unfortunately, the exit is to 1000 pages of Nygh’s Conflict of laws in Australia, so the day only goes downhill from here.  

Coffee: 8.5          Menu: 8.0           Food: 9.0             Service: 9.5         Ambience: 8.0

Review by AMac

Creswell Street, Newstead

Breakfast: All Day

Coffee: Black Star

With the way the cafe and coffee culture in Brisbane is taking off, industrial chic and faux dive is very much vogue. Accordingly, when TCB take a stroll through the back blocks of Newstead, I find myself sticking my head under every half open roller door of every workshop and warehouse, expecting to see a lanky hipster, taking time away from occupying whatever semi metropolitan city they’ve chosen to disrupt this week in skinny jeans (oooo so edgy and political AMac!) manning a commercial coffee machine, with kitschy garden furniture and women with prams. So after several men in overalls and high-vis shirts told me to ‘get the fuck out of their workshop’, I finally stumbled in to Shucked Coffee House, a converted shed a midst the panel beaters and car yards (actual encounters with overalled men may or may not have happened.)

Black Star double flat

Cheap retro mustard wall paper lines from the arched roof, down the walls to the industrial concrete floor, and is complemented well by mismatched couches of a similar era, and a gargantuan wooden bench housing the morning’s periodicals. This 70’s stoner pad meets warehouse is a very trendy vibe, and seems to be what is working throughout the Fortitude Valley.

Unfortunately, patrons have to order at the counter, which is always a disappointment, but the charming Irish accent of the button behind the counter quells all discontent. The menu has a few decent options including buttermilk pancakes and a breakfast burrito, but on a Friday morning before University, the toasted muesli with poached apple and berry compote seems like a good light option for a mornings learning.

Muesli

Taking a seat at the aforementioned bench, a deliciously strong and well prepared double flat is produced without much delay. A quick skim of the sports section of the Australian and then the food arrives. What I assumed would be a light option turned out to be a mountain of crunchy muesli, topped plentifully with perfectly sweet (not too sickly) yoghurt, a jar of raspberry compote (needless to say this was post applied liberally) and a mini glass of milk (not quite as liberally applied). As far as muesli goes, this was very good, and the seemingly bottomless pit that is AMac was well and truly satisfied.

Anywhere that boasts itself as a ‘Coffee House’ sets a pretty high expectation, and Shucked meets this with relative ease, as their coffee is definitely their strongest suit. But with a cool fit out, good food, and an Irish waitress, next time you find yourself buying a Volkswagen, or if you are just keen to take a trip into Newstead, Shucked is definitely worth a try.

Coffee: 9             Menu: 7.5           Food: 8.0             Service: 7.5         Ambience: 8.5

Reviewed by AMac

Hamilton North Shore 

Breakfast: 7.00am –11.30am

Coffee:Giancarlo

TCB has not lost the plot. We have not decided to simply invent suburbs and places of interest rather than visit locations within reality on the space time continuum. We assure you, the Hamilton North Shore actually exists. It contains a small park, and short sand beach, is two minutes further than Portside, has a new city cat stop, a proposed riverside walking track, and most importantly, it offers breakfast

Giancarlo 'double' flat (communication breakdown)

The North Shore Riverside Cafe offers several tables outside to fully bask in the sun, but on a fairly windy Sunday morning, TCB opt to sit on at the window ledge of the open, sunny dining room. Two double shot flats are ordered, but much to our dismay, when they arrive they are in giant towering mugs. Our request for a double shot means we want the same amount of liquid, just a greater presence of coffee, not just a shit load of everything. As you can expect, the milky textured coffee is arthritically weak.

Big Breakfast

Looking at the menu, diners are a stock standard assortment of breakfast options, however, there is the slightly rarer options of a both Croque Madame and Croque Monsieur (how very progressive and sexually equal of them!). TCB go with the big breakfast, and the aforementioned Madam, as it is accompanied by a fried egg, to complete the woman’s hat.

There somewhat of a wait for the food to arrive, but it is passed with an immediate view of dragon boats, sail boats and city cats gliding atop the surprisingly blue stretch of the river, as well as perusing the headlines of the morning’s periodicals, which all seem to be on offer.

Croque Madame

The food is surprisingly good. The Madam is a rich combination of ham, cheese and crème, and is beautifully set off with the spilled yolk of a well fried egg. The big breakfast is exactly that, and a petit TCBer is left with an assortment of scraps on his plate. The mushrooms are perfectly sautéed, the bacon tasty, the eggs well poached,

With food of a perfectly cromulent standard, while not an absolute knock out, the main feature of the North Shore Cafe is the view, placing its diners literally spitting distance from the water. So if good food with a river view tickles your fancy, or more pertinently floats your boat, and you are just as pissed off at Watt as TCB, the Hamilton North Shore is definitely worth a visit.

Coffee: 6.5          Menu: 7.5           Food: 8.0             Service: 7.0         Ambience: 8.5

Reviewed by AMac & Myles

NOTE: not yet featured on Urban Spoon

Stanley Street East, East Brisbane

G double flat

Breakfast: 7.00am –11.30am

Coffee: Genovese

Walking into the deceptively elegant dining room of the Eastern suburbs favourite, TCB are told by the dutiful waitress that on this busy Friday morning, the courtyard is booked out, but there is plenty of room inside. First off, we didn’t know there was a courtyard. Second, we had no intention of sitting in said courtyard. Third, now that we know that we are not allowed to sit in the courtyard, there is nothing else on the planet to satisfy our bloodthirsty desire to sit in that God damn courtyard.

Childlike tantrums and petulant jealousy aside, TCB are seated in the tastefully chic dining room to peruse the very interesting Egg Bistro menu, which funnily enough, contains several items which do not involve eggs, and TCB’s guest opts for the balsamic mushrooms, soft polenta, spinach and grilled haloumi. But in TCB unwavering quest for intrigue, the other option has to be the house lamb sausage with planko poached eggs, whatever a planko may be.

Balsamic mushrooms, soft polenta and haloumi

The coffees arrive, and are what TCB have come to expect from Genovese, a very solid if not wholly unique blend, done justice by the barista.

There is more of a wait for the food to arrive, but when it does, the aesthetics of the dish are definitely a precursor to the flavour sensations to come. The broad, flat mushrooms are sautéed with a deep, rich flavour from the balsamic, with the creamy soft polenta sloshing around underneath, and the always delicious sheets of haloumi topping off a marvellous dish.

Lamb Sausage and Planko

As for the lamb sausage, the long, thin (hehe), hearty flavoured, intestine sheathed salted ground meat is coiled to make a base for the planko, which turns out to be TCB’s new favourite manner of egg: a perfectly gluey poached egg, coated in a light, flaky bread crumb batter. There is a crunch on the outside as the knife slides in, then the soft viscous yolk dribbles lazily out, providing accomplishments of both the taste and texture variety.

This excellent menu, clinically executed to provide delicious food, would be at home in the inner city of any major capital. This with the fact that it is hidden in plain sight on a busy main road, mean that Egg Bistro is a destination in itself, not just surviving on foot traffic and pumping out convenience, which also results in them sitting at the higher end of the breakfast price point. The service is friendly, but a touch slow, and TCB are still waiting for a fresh pineapple juice, that while not ending up on the final bill, was never delivered.

All in all, if you find yourself rolling tough through the mean streets of the East Brisbane suburbs, it is hard to go past Egg Bistro to devour your daily does of its namesake.

Coffee: 8.0          Menu: 9.0           Food: 9.0             Service: 7.5         Ambience: 8.0

Reviewed by AMac

Merthyr Road, New Farm

Breakfast: 7.00am –12.00pm

Coffee: Merlo

Walking into Cafe Bouquiniste on a Tuesday mid-morning is akin to one of those dreams you may have had where all the individual elements would seem fine in isolation, but when coupled together seem quite bizarre and strange. In a corner decorated as a library, with a tall book shelf containing dusty old soft cover books, a woman in ridiculously tight jeans is re-covering books in laminate, which she is cutting from a seemingly oversized sheet of translucent plastic; the table set out varies from daggy old couches to semi dilapidated garden furniture to an old double school desk with the fold up table top; there is a soft, almost haunting instrumental soundtrack playing; a couple who seem too old to be casually hip, but too young not to be at work, sit in the middle of the room in absolute silence; and finally, a hip young girl in a Cramps t-shirt acknowledges my presence and attends to the counter to take my order. I don’t know if I’m scared, frustrated or aroused, but somehow, this Inception like dreamscape is doing it for me, and sets a pretty cool atmosphere.

Merlo double flat

The menu is brief, but all options are under $10.00, so TCB go with the ‘Bouky Breakie’, having no idea what this constitutes. After ordering at the counter (*sigh*), TCB heads outside, and realises that the kitschy/indie/hip vibe continues, as mismatched tables are scattered all the way up to the weatherboard house wall, covered in music posters.

Bouky Breakie

After a very short wait, a Merlo double flat arrives, and as expected, is a touch watery and devoid of any fantastic flavour. Still, TCB have had worse. Sitting around as the sun streams in, it is a pleasant wait for the food to arrive. When the Bouky Breakie arrives, it shows itself to be two fried eggs on toasted crunchy sourdough; fresh spinach leaves; sliced avocado; sautéed mushrooms; roast pumpkin; and caramelized onions. The sunny side up eggs are ever so slightly over fried, but not to the point of ruin, but the dish is brought back by the beautiful soft avocado and pumpkin, and the highlight of the dish: the deliciously sweet caramelized onions.

In the New Farm area, there are better coffees, there are better menus, there is better food, and there is better service, but if you are willing to roll your pant cuffs up, button your top shirt button, put on your horn rim glasses and quip pithy ironic observations, Cafe Bouquiniste is a very trendy, very hip and very cheap option for breakfast.

Coffee: 6.5          Menu: 7.0           Food: 7.5             Service: 7.0         Ambience: 9.0

Reviewed by AMac

Boundary Street, West End

Breakfast: 7.00am –11.30am

Coffee: Di Bella

How do you enjoy spending your Saturday mornings? If you’re anything like me, you will be spending it sitting alone at a table in a very crowded cafe, your head throbbing from the previous evenings misadventures, waiting for your partner in crime to arrive, who subsequently is forty minutes late. Of course, slack must be cut, for today is the GZA’s birthday, so after an initial scolding, TCB is ready for a birthday breakfast at the stupidly popular West End power player Lock’n’Load.

Di Bella double flat

Seated in the outdoor ‘beer/breakfast’ garden on a beautiful morning, the appeal of Lock’n’Load is immediately apparent, as the warm rays of sunshine stream sporadically through the shade canopy, illuminating the dark wood tables and verdant shrubbery.

Citrus Cooler

The breakfast menu is succinct, and the options are fairly standard, however, Lock’n’Load must be complimented on their inclusion of Breakfast Cocktails, including the TCB cocktail of choice, the Espresso Martini. TCB resist the urge of the hair of the dog however, and decide to compliment a Di Bella double flat with a citrus cooler and a banana smoothie, which due to the absence of banana, was served as a mismatched strawberry number, which while strikingly effeminate, is delicious none the less.

As for the food, TCB go with the roast pumpkin and poached eggs, and keeping with the title theme, the ‘Fully Loaded’.

Banana Smoothie...sans banana

After quite a wait, and all the beverages consumed, the food arrives. Served in pleasing portions, as soon as the eggs are pierced, the quality is confirmed, as the perfect viscous yolk slowly dribbles out. In addition to the poached eggs, the ‘Fully Loaded’ has many aspects: crispy bacon, sufficiently salty potato hash, hearty lamb sausage, herbed grilled tomato, and well oiled sautéed mushrooms.

As the name would suggest, the roast pumpkin is predominated by rich, soft cuts of pumpkin, as well as crunchy spinach leaves, which once coated in spilled yolk, gives a very complimentary flavour.

Roast Pumpkin

The only issue with Lock’n’Load is the speed of the service. While there is a fleet of young, hip and friendly waiters, everything seems to happen a step too slow, which normally is acceptable in an overflowing dining room, but by the time TCB got their food, there were quite a few empty tables.

Fully Loaded

Speed aside, Lock’n’Load is an incredibly trendy cafe, and is archetypal West End in almost every way. For great food in a fantastic atmosphere, you can’t go past this West End heavyweight, not to mention the fact that there breakfast cocktail list it caters for the growing caste of society who enjoy getting a nice buzz on pre 10.00am.

Coffee: 8.0          Menu: 8.0           Food: 9.0             Service: 7.0         Ambience: 9.5

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

The Barracks, Paddington

Merlo double flat

Breakfast: 7.00am –12.00pm

Coffee: Merlo

The mere suggestion of police and jails would normally draw unsavoury thoughts of nasty business such as unwelcomed sodomy and the Fitzgerald inquiry. However, when referencing Paddington’s Barracks precinct, a heritage listed former police barracks and lock up, the violent rape scenes (and that was just the bringing down of Joh) are replaced with images of trendy cinema goers and cafe enthusiasts.

Early on this Friday morning, TCB is heading into The Chelsea, a funky foodery deposited in the old red brick of the Barracks. Walking in the door at 7.30am, the chic indoor dining room, with booth sitting, cork tables and books lining the walls, is already close to filled, with one available spot for the TCB party of two to do what they do best.

Kedgeree

The very cheery waiter seats us and immediately takes our coffee order, leaving us to focus on the business of the menu. There are some good menu options, such as the truffle creamed egg with French toasted brioche, but in the ever present hunt for intrigue, two definitely stick out: the carrot jam with poached eggs, smoked bacon and potato hash; and the Kedgeree, an Indian inspired breakfast with smoked ocean trout, poached eggs and batsami rice. Needless to say, TCB were of course corrected on their pronunciation, but were assured that no one gets it right.

Buoyed that our ignorance and cultural insensitivity is shared by other diners, TCB is surprised by the haste at which the coffees are delivered, in a very crowded dining room. Unfortunately, as the sugar packet gives away, the bean is Merlo, and unsurprisingly, is adequate to say the most.

The food arrives in great time, and just like a sweetly timed straight drive, right off the bat, things look good. The carrot jam is more of a thick, sweet relish encircling a squat potato hash, wrapped in smokey, salty bacon that could easily be mistaken for prosciutto, with two testicular poached eggs sitting on top (it is unfortunate that a perfect poach egg can best be described with such an unpleasant image).

Carrot Jam

The Kedgeree really is an exotic breakfast option. Two of the aforementioned testicles rest on top of a mound of beautifully yellow batsami, with flaked fish spread throughout. The unusual flavour of the rice-yolk-fish combination is then kicked up a notch by the omnipresence of fresh chopped coriander littering the dish. This could be the closest you will come to a good old fashioned breakfast curry.

As TCB leave after only half an hour, there is a line trailing out the door as the wait staff hurriedly scuttle around to accommodate the influx of customers. This popularity is definitely deserved, with a great menu filled with exotic flavours, a trendy inside and sun soaked (after 9.30am) alfresco dining area, quick and friendly service and fantastic food, The Chelsea is an brilliant breakfast location. That said, do not think this breaks the chain of Paddington disappointments, because The Barracks, resting on the very edge of the city, is an entity unto itself.

Coffee: 7.5          Menu: 9.0           Food: 9.0             Service: 9.0         Ambience: 9.0

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

Hardgrave Road, West End

THE Red Hen

Breakfast: 7.00am –12.00pm

Coffee: Blue Sky Coffee

The sun is just peaking over the top of the Moreton Bay horizon on a crisp spring morning as tens of thousands of lycra clad runners bustle to the southern entrance to the Gateway Bridge, eagerly awaiting the starting gun of the contradiction in terms that is the Bridge to Brisbane fun run. Luckily for this TCBer, the portrait painted above is from 2010, and owing to a recent knee reconstruction, AMac started the 2011 Bridge to Brisbane by lazily rolling out of bed at 10.00am to watch the colourful heard of joggers mosey along Kingsford Smith Drive from the comfort of a sunny balcony

Clear Blue Sky

With valuable thoroughfare infrastructure shut down throughout the central north, TCB thought it prudent for West End to be the target for breakfast, and on a strong recommendation, headed to the Red Hen for a spot of Italian inspired morning treats

Given the clear blue sky and lack of the previous day’s heinous wind, TCB takes a seat outside, but a view inside the relatively empty dining room reveals a pleasing decor, with Italian posters evenly lining the walls. Running down the lengthy menu, TCB realise that unlike a lot of other menus, The Red Hen’s is not long because it provides different variations of the same meal, rather, it contains a host of interesting options, such as pan fried gnocchi with Italian sausage, zucchini and cherry tomatoes; soft polenta with goats cheese, tomato, chives and leg ham; and the homely classic soft boiled eggs with toast soldiers. Out of a strong list, TCB go with the brioche with scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and Swiss brown mushrooms; and the bacon and poached eggs with oven baked balsamic tomato and an additional side of hollandaise.

Oozing: bacon and eggs with balsamic tomato and hollondaise

A very pleasing Blue Sky flat arrives after a bit of a wait, and is exactly the strength a double shot should be. Considering the small crowd, the food takes a little while to present itself, but on a lazy, sunny Sunday morning this isn’t too much of an issue.

The brioche is piled high with a particularly creamy scramble, and is sprinkled with the perfectly sautéed, petite Swiss mushrooms, not to mention the crisp, fresh salmon. The dish is delicious and filling, with the only perceivable criticism could be that the brioche wasn’t quite as buttery as TCB is accustomed.

Brioche with scrambled eggs

The bacon and eggs are pretty much standard, with well poached eggs and crispy bacon, but the addition of the rich hollandaise lights up the dish. However, the peak is the roasted balsamic tomato, with a beautifully caramelised top.

The Red Hen is a very good breakfast spot, but if you’re in a rush, its slight but inexplicably slow service could be a frustration. The other obstacle it faces is that it is about 400 metres out of the prime West End cafe hub, so you would have to know it was there to give it a visit. That said, if you can draw yourself away from the bustling Boundary Street, the Red Hen is a perfectly suitable option.

Coffee: 8.0          Menu: 9.0           Food: 8.5             Service: 7.0         Ambience: 7.0

Reviewed by AMac

Breakfast: 7.00am –12.00pm

di Manfredi Cap

Coffee: Espresso di Manfredi

An open letter to the suburb of Paddington

Ahhh Paddington, you are a necessary evil: if one is in the mood for breakfast before stepping foot in the sandstone cauldron of St Lucia, it seems that you are the closest hub of suitable wares, so brave young folk must brave your hectic morning traffic and your lack of suitable parking in the name of brain stimulating sustenance.  But so far, TCB is not convinced you are worth the hype. You have yet to grab us by the testicles and scream in our face, “You want us!” Can Eurovida change our minds?

Regards

TCB

Fresh OJ

Taking a seat in the sunny alfresco dinning space of Eurovia, TCB is excited to sample the well respected menu. Right off the bat, things are looking good, with a modern fit out and well designed indoor/outdoor dining areas, not to mention a very cute waitress escorting us to our seats. The form continues as the sharp eyes of TCB run down the very good menu, which contains some especially interesting options, including truffled scrambled eggs and creamed corn with poached eggs.

Grilled haloumi

But the go to option for one TCBer is the grilled haloumi with poached eggs, sun dried tomatoes and homemade pesto. On the other hand, GZA tenderly strokes his belly and tones, “Fill Me Up”. While this may sound like a peculiar mating ritual, it is Eurovida’s big breakfast equivalent: poached eggs, hand cut bacon, grilled Italian sausage, roasted field mushrooms, potato and pecorino cake, tomato relish, toasted pane di casa.

But alas, when the coffees arrive and are first sipped, disappointment swells immediately, as the ostensibly creamy top gives way to a brown, bitter, burnt mess. The beverage scenario vastly improves however, when the zesty freshly squeeze orange juices arrive.

After a bit of a wait, the food arrives, and hopes are high for the bitter coffee disaster to become a distant memory. The grilled haloumi is in the middle of a stack, with toasted pane underneath, and two well poached eggs on the top, while the sun dried tomatoes are plentiful and the homemade pesto, which is fantastic, swamps the dish entirely.

Fill Me Up

The Fill Me Up arrives and, like a good big breakfast, is somewhat intimidating; with the bulbous sausage lying lazily over the top of a mass of thick cut bacon and the rest of the staples. Unfortunately, the mushrooms are slightly bland with no real flavour.

Great menu, decent food and very friendly and aesthetically pleasing service compliment the funky fit out, but unfortunately, the kitchen service is noticeably slow, as a somewhat empty dining room still levelled to a twenty-five minute wait for food. But of course, the most disappointing aspect was the coffee, and by messing up arguably the quintessential aspect of breakfast, Eurovida is just a boy playing a man’s game. While a ‘pretty good’ breakfast experience, to be perfectly honest, Eurovia is the third below expectation breakfast given to TCB by Paddington. We still don’t get the hype.

Coffee: 4.5          Menu: 8.5           Food: 8.0             Service: 7.5         Ambience: 7.5

Reviewed by AMac and GZA

Brunswick Street, New Farm

Genovese Piccolo

Breakfast: 7.00am –2.00pm

Coffee: Genovese  

With business of a certain presidential nature to discuss, two members of the TCB Crew decided on an early morning breakfast as the most appropriate meal to descend into the world of political intrigue. Or at least, what would have been an early morning breakfast had one TCBer not been stymied by the infuriating dirge of peak-hour traffic.

Fresh OJ

The first Genovese piccolo is delivered in good time, while a lonely AMac ponders both the breakfast selection and the social etiquette of waiting for a breakfast companion. Luckily, the pangs of guilt that usually accompany the hogging of a table are not present, as the inside dinning room is empty; with the other patrons electing to bask in the sun at the outdoor tables. This gives TCB a chance to admire the decor: a silhouette mural on one wall, a black and white sketch of a sword wielding cat on the other, and a colourful portrait of Anthony Kiedis over the top of the juicing station.

Genovese Flat

The menu offers some tantalising options, including brioche French toast with elderflower soaked berries, vanilla ricotta and honeycomb. As intriguing as this sounds, once Myles arrives, our over-compensating masculinity takes over, forcing us to steer clear of the sweet option. Instead we order the two most interesting savoury options: the bubble and squeak with handmade pork and fennel chipolatas, fried eggs and tomato compote; and the smashed peas and zucchini with ricotta toast and oven baked prosciutto.

As we wait for the meals to arrive, I decide to indulge in a freshly-squeezed orange juice (the preparation of which occurs within the ever-vigilant gaze of the Chili Peppers’ front man). Once you’ve had fresh OJ, you don’t need it described to you, but adjectives such as zing, pep, zest, creamy etc are usually thrown around; all of which apply in this instance.

Bubble & Squeak

The smell of the prosciutto wafts from the kitchen, and trumpets the arrival of the meals. Both a presented beautifully and served in abundance. The bubble and squeak is a roulade of assorted mashed and sautéed vegetables, such as potato, sweet potato, and zucchini, the combination of which is a treat for the taste buds.  Coupled with the flavoursome chipolatas, two well fried eggs and delicious tomato compote to compliment, the dish is wholly satisfying.

The smashed pea and zucchini is presented as a verdant mountain, and has a very interesting flavour when shovelled into the mouth simultaneously with the ricotta covered toast and the salty prosciutto. However, the peas are so plentiful that once the cured meat has disappeared, the dish gets a bit “samey”.

Smashed Peas

The cherry on top of this pleasing breakfast experience is the chatty, friendly service. As good as food and coffee can be, service without a smile can sour an otherwise fantastic breakfast. Pablo is right on the edge of the New Farm cafe hub, and is in close proximity to the incredibly popular Vue, but by scoring consecutive fat ladies in all categories, TCB can recommend a trip to the other end of Brunswick Street.

Coffee: 8.0          Menu: 8.0           Food: 8.0             Service: 8.0         Ambience: 8.0

Reviewed by AMac

South Brisbane 
182 Grey St Shop 5
South Brisbane, 4101
www.piafbistro.com.au

They say there’s no such thing as a free feed. However, don’t let anyone tell you that on your birthday. Being a special day, TCB was looking for a breakfast experience that would deliver on high expectations. Being ranked in the top 10 on urbanspoon and after hearing only glowing reviews, the French twisted ‘Piaf’ was an easy choice.

Piaf is situated on Grey Street, just one block away from the hive of weekend activity that is the Southbank markets. It felt as this crowd had transcended upon this cosy cafe, as no table was left unoccupied and no waiter un utilised.  A (necessary) booking was made for 11am, giving us just enough time to cash in on the final breakfast orders for the day.

There were four of us eating, which to me felt like the perfect number, as once you skip past the lightweight options (croissant, porridge, fruit toast/turkish bread compote) and onto the contenders, there really wasn’t that much to choose from. Ok let’s be honest, if you are coming in for a decent meal, there are only four items to choose from: a Croque Monsieur i.e. toasted ham & cheese sandwich; Sweet potato & feta hash cakes with silverbeet & pine nuts; Proscuitto, semi-dried tomato & provolone omelette & Eggs Benedict w’ Leg Ham, Smoked Salmon or Bacon. So TCB, with the help of friends, chose them all.

While waiting for the meals a selection of drinks were ordered, with the Mango smoothie and hot chocolate being the pick of the bunch.

The food came out in good time and the eggs benedict failed to disappoint. A thick and creamy hollandaise drowning two poached eggs that were ready to explode yolk all over the restaurant with one touch of the knife. The meal being seasoned and complimented with crispy wilted spinach was definately a bonus. Mixed reviews came from around the table – whereas the sweet potato and feta were compared to something that only an angel could have hand crafted and looked after before mashed into hash cakes, the omelette was dry and accompanied with overcooked turkish bread, and the croque was very underwhelming, served with one piece of bread as an open cut sandwich.So, after this review, the fallout from a breakfast with a limited menu was  mixed to say the least. However, this TCB’er went home brimming with satisfaction and eager to get back for the dinner menu.Food: 8          Menu: 6.5        Service: 8.5        Ambience: 8.5        Coffee: 8

Review by GZA

Latrobe Terrace, Paddington

Breakfast: 7.00am –2.00pm

Coffee: Grinders Organic or Giancarlo

Off to a peculiar start, TCB has spent the morning at Eagle Farm, wading through horse excrement at the break of dawn, with its SLR trained on the muscular haunches of Busta-for-jones, rather than a gooey poached egg. So rather than head to the bastion of learning and education on an empty stomach, TCB decides to peruse HLA Heart’s Concept of Law at Paddington’s Sassafras, a popular purple cafe.

Giancarlo Pic

Like most of Paddington’s hot spots, Sassafras is a converted Queenslander, offering indoor dining amongst kitschy decor, or a garden party style experience surrounded by verdant hedges. On a windless, sunny August morning, TCB head outside.

But not, unfortunately, before ordering at the counter, which TCB regulars will know is possibly the most frustrating part of a breakfast experience. The menu is ostensibly broad, but if you take out the adjective ‘organic’, it would read as a fairly bland assortment of predictable egg variations. As men not easily swayed by vogue trends (this is quite obviously a lie), and firm believers in the need for pesticide, TCB is not hoodwinked into taking ‘organic’ as a synonym for ‘interesting’.

TCB goes with the eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, and a Giancarlo piccolo. When given the choice of bean between organic conflict free and Giancarlo, as much sympathy as TCB has for child soldiers in Angola and the blood diamond trade in Sierra Leone, I have to go with the traditional Italian favourite.

Taking a seat in the garden, the appeal of Sassafras finally makes itself known, as the sunny garden ambience sets a nice atmosphere for laid back breakfast consumption.

Eggs Benny with Smoked Salmon

With hardly a wait, the coffee and food arrive simultaneously, and while an impressive feat for the food to come that quickly, it is much better to get coffee first, meal second. Much to my horror, when the plate is slightly adjusted, I realise that the privilege of breaking the yolk has been stripped away from the diner, as a slow trickle of runny gold on the underside of one poached egg gives away the chef’s mistake. While the salmon is very good quality, full of flavour and with a crisp bite, the Turkish well toasted and the hollandaise plentiful, the eggs have not only been delivered pre bled, but are also slightly under poached. On the whole, the dish feels a touch rushed.

TCB leaves in under half an hour, good time if you are trying to sneak in a quick breakfast, but is left wholly confused. Sassafras could be a very cool, relaxing, outdoor dining experience, but the evident  factors, such as the counter service; not quite executed dishes; and prices nearing the more expensive end of the market ($18 for standard Benedict); belie that potential.

Coffee: 8.0          Menu: 6.5           Food: 7.0             Service: 7.0         Ambience: 8.5

Reviewed by AMac

Commercial Road, Newstead

Subtle street access

Breakfast: All day

Coffee: Veneziano

A select minority may be quick to criticise TCB for a myriad of things: the occasional typo and spelling mistake; an apparent lack of ‘food expertise’; and a definite superiority complex of at least one crew member. So rather than simply tell these joyless cretins to go and read Sausser’s guide to Structuralism if they would rather experience grammatical perfection than derive the fun out of TCB, we thought it more prudent to show a real commitment and dedication to our quest.

Veneziano Flat

Hence, after Salt declared itself the new champion, it seemed only fair to re visit the former title holder, Symposium, to give their new menu its deserved rematch. To get a full grasp of the TCB favourite, we conducted our reviews over several mornings, sampling as many of the different menu items as possible, as well as testing the three most important breakfast scenarios: casual; hung over (yes this can sometimes be planned) and pre work.

Omelette: comes filled with either shaved roast beef of sand crab meat

You may remember TCB’s first foray to Symposium to test their amazing degustation breakfast menu, and the confusion that such a stupendously creative, unique and quality breakfast spot could be hidden at the base of an office building. Swanning our way back into the cosy dining room with full kitchen view several times in succession, TCB realises that one of the intangible elements adding to the fantastic atmosphere of Symposium is that the chef, barista and head waiter are always there. By the fifth visit in two weeks, our new bearded best friend sat us immediately, and delivered the double skinny flats without even taking the order.

When asked for something with pineapple in it, this is what came out: a glorious concoction of assorted berries, veggies and TCB's favourite tropical fruit

As most of you will be aware, you can usually skip the first couple of basic, stock standard items on a breakfast menu and skip down to the last two or three, which are usually the more interesting options. Not however, at Symposium, because there is not a single item on the menu that doesn’t sound like a unique concoction of whimsy and wonder.

The most ‘simple’ would be the eggs Benedict, but did we mention that the flawlessly poached eggs and torn salmon includes decedent shaved truffle? There is a quesadilla bowl with hearty, spicy savoury mince that oozes with melted cheese and supports two perfectly sunny fried eggs. The sand crab omelette is a fluffy envelope containing hordes of biting crab meat.

Poached Pear

The bowl of porridge is presented with a whole poached pear, stem still in. There is a pan roasted sirloin breakfast steak that comes served with fried eggs & a tomato chutney on thick Vienna toast. Several breakfast burgers are on offer including haloumi, peppers and avocado; and Kobe beef with egg, bacon and chutney as the main fillings respectively, which are accompanied by crunchy onion rings.

This is all without mentioning the collection of house sauces, including a breakfast hot sauce which is provided under the instruction, “be careful and don’t go overboard, it’s hot.” As a collection of belligerent males, this is set down as a challenge not a warning, but even the hearty spice constitutions of the TCB crew were left thinking, “the shit just got real.”

Breakfast Burger

But this is all foreplay baby, and the pièce de résistance is definitely the pan roasted New Zealand Salmon with seasoned avocado, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. TCB are not prone to hyperbole, but this could just be the best single dish on the Brisbane breakfast scene. An immensely portioned fillet of crispy skin salmon, deep in flavour, is decorated with two gluey poached eggs, delicately diced avocado and a bay of rich hollandaise. It is a treat to view, a treat to taste and a treat to just sit and bask in the fantastic mix of flavours that hang on the palate well after the plate has been scraped clean.

Truffled eggs Benedict with Salmon

Salmon fillet with poached eggs

There is a drawback to Symposium however. Its amazing menu, fantastic coffee, brilliant food, great fit out and speedy, friendly and loyal service, not to mention it being located two blocks from TCB HQ, mean that for the first time since its birth, TCB’s thirst for exploration has been quelled, and the thought of passing up the best for the rest is a hard pill to swallow. Having achieved the status of regulars, TCB will take this opportunity to disclose its new bias for Symposium.

Paraphrasing an east coast rap heavy weight, Salt’s rule was shorter than leprechauns because Symposium came back hard. The King is dead. Long live the King.

Coffee: 9.0          Menu: 10            

Food: 9.5             Service: 10         

Ambience: 9.0

Review by TCB Crew

Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley

Breakfast: All Day

Coffee: Giancarlo

"I already graduated but you can make it through anything if Magic made it..."

I can still hear the cries, as one TCBer hounds another “where is my Ponycat review?!” It has now been five months since TCB first visited Ponycat, but as you will very well know, there has been no review. Sick of waiting for what has obviously been lost to vagaries of time, the rest TCB thought it best to just cut its losses and start again. It is on this superfluous note that TCB and guest find themselves at this wacky Brunswick Street establishment on a miserably wet and windy Sunday morning.

Seated at a table next to the window, the experience is off to an interesting start when the decorative collage sprawling all over the table includes both a black and white cut out of Adolph Hitler’s face, and the letterman wearing teddy bear logo from Kanye West’s third album Graduation (not that these two entities are related…although Kanye may hate white people to a similar extent to which Hitler hated everybody.)

Giancarlo double flat, Hitler adjacent

A Giancarlo double flat and a cinnamon topped cappuccino are presented in decent time, and TCB realises that the reason they have not been given menus yet is because it is scrawled in chalk on the back wall. After realising after quite some time that we have forgotten to order, our mistake is corrected, and out of a list that includes an interesting berry and yogurt combo as well as fresh Roma tomatoes, and we opt for the smashed avocado and the field mushrooms with scrambled eggs.

The wait is notable but not at any stage frustrating as the wait staff attentively fill the water bottle and ask TCB if they need anything.

The field mushrooms are a good colour and have not shrivelled, indicating that they have been sautéed well, but the best part is the plentiful, creamy scrambled eggs, with their velvety texture and hearty flavour.

The smashed avocado is thickly smeared over well toasted sourdough, and the salt and pepper seasoning is kicked up by

Smashed Avo

the addition of plenty of lemon: a good, light, simple option for the breakfaster not looking for a feast.

Unfortunately, as TCB learned on our first foray, the kitchen flat out does not poach eggs, which is a massive disappointment. But they definitely do their brief menu well, and the food presented was of a good quality.

Field shrooms and scrambled eggs

Lack of poaching aside, Ponycat is trading on its cool factor, as its peculiar table coverings and concert advertisements, not to mention the mural which apparently is not a violent cartoon rape scene, but a cat riding a pony,create a hip vibe, and a cool breakfast experience.

Coffee: 8             Menu: 7               Food: 8                 Service: 8            Ambience: 8.5

 Reviewed by AMac

Table number?

Logan Road, Stones Corner

Breakfast: All Day

Coffee: One Brazilian Source

In the fine tradition of mid week pre university/work breakfast, TCB takes a trip abroad to the south side to try a well rated corner shop cafe that is Lady Marmalade: described as an urban, Melbournesque hippie touch to the suburbs. After having our expectations of the Moulin Rouge soundtrack playing on endless repeat dashed, we were directed to the counter to peruse the laminated menu and place our order. As irritating as counter service can be, the fact that our table number was presented as a kitschy rooster figurine adds another quirky layer to this abstract suburban eatery, which includes vintage crochet blankets covering some of the seats .

Do not be fooled: this is not a Campos cup, and is definately not a Campos flat

The coffees arrive quickly, and after the first sip, TCB exchange the glance that can only mean that there is clearly something very wrong. Adjectives like gritty, dirty and burnt can be thrown around, but not to get specific, the coffee was dreadful. After doing some post breakfast research, the bean is apparently grown in Brazil and roasted in Melbourne, which all seems like a lot of effort to go to when they could simply have dumped a heaped teaspoon of Nescafe into a Campos look alike mug, and the effect would have been the same.

Grilled haloumi on sourdough

Initial disappointment aside, the food comes out in quick time. Out of a somewhat short list, there are a couple of interesting options, and the table is presented with grilled haloumi resting on roast pumpkin, pesto and sourdough; and sautéed field mushrooms on sourdough, with crumbled feta. Both dishes are solid, especially for the sub $12 price tag, and the feta on the mushrooms really is quite sharp and tasty.

Sauteed Shrooms

Lady Marmalade has some strong points, including its eccentric décor, but for some of us, the hot caffeine injection is far too important to make peace with burnt, terrible coffee. Decent service and a couple of interesting numbers make it an adequate breakfast option if you’re in the area, but hardly make it a destination in itself.

Coffee: 3             Menu: 7               Food: 7                 Service: 7            Ambience: 7

Reviewed by AMac

Cup and Bowl

South Bank

Breakfast: All day

Coffee: Genovese

Just like a map glitch in a Grand Theft Auto game, one poor TCBer finds himself on foot, circumnavigating QPAC at the whimsy of Google Maps, which apparently places the much hyped coffee hub Espresso Garage, squarely in the middle of Cremorne Playhouse. Technology be damned, TCB finally unite three blocks east to discover this tiny, whole in the wall gem rumoured to have fantastic coffee and a great alley way atmosphere.

Creamy Genovese Double Flat

As several fingers of sunshine burst through the tree branches of the Southbank Parklands, the thoroughfare joining said park to the main street acts as Espresso Garage’s own courtyard/alleyway, with a collection of mismatched stools and squat tables littered in the rays. Unfortunately, one cannot just plonk ones (presumably weary from aforementioned circumnavigation) buttocks on the stool, but rather must go to the tiny counter, peruse the chalk board with three breakfast options and pay, using cash only as EFTPOS is not accepted. Out of the three breakfast options, the raisin toast is excluded, and TCB go with the scrambled eggs and the breakfast toastie.

Toastie

The two unbranded flats are delivered in astonishingly quick time, given the crowd, but the accompanying sugar packets give them away to be Genovese. While TCB appreciate the blend as it is served in places such as Flute, just like Yeezy, Espresso Garage takes it to a whole other level, with beautiful creamy texture and perfect head (minds out of the gutter people). Given that they have ‘Espresso’ in their name, and the large coffee is served in a bowl, this quality shouldn’t be a surprise.

The food comes quickly, and is of a surprisingly good quality. The miniscule ‘kitchen’ has obviously chosen to provide a short list of well executed options, rather than a vast array of mediocrity. The simple ham, cheese, tomato toastie, on crisp and crunchy Turkish, is given a kick by a hearty homemade pesto, while the velvety scramble is accompanied by hordes of toast, and the same brilliant pesto.

Scrambled Eggs

With quick service, albeit counter, solid food but a limited menu, Espresso Garage is not really a breakfast hot spot, rather a perfect option to grab a high quality morning caffeine injection, grab a bite for under $10, sit in the sun for a couple of minutes, and gently ease into the day.

Coffee: 9.5          Menu: 4.0           Food: 8.0             Service: 7.5         Ambience: 8.0

Review by AMac

Nash Street, Rosalie

Creamy Double Flat

Breakfast: 7.00am – 12.00pm

Coffee: Piazo

For Gen Y, especially those in the bastion of socialism that is University, Friday morning is the new Saturday, so TCB brave the peak hour traffic for a pre lecture breakfast at Rosalie’s Salt. After all, nothing lubricates the cerebellum like caffeine and egg yolk.

Arriving at 8.30am on a Friday morning, Salt’s modern and trendy dining room is bustling, with a good spread of customers both inside and out, and a seeming army of black clad wait staff attentively caring for their customer’s needs.  This time slot is also beneficial because it allows us to cash in on the ‘Weekday Menu’, which seems to be the same as the weekend menu but noticeably cheaper.

Savoury Mince with Poached Eggs

Seated in a couch backed table in a chic, dark toned, bar sided bachelor pad of a dining room, TCB are presented with menus, and are delivered a Piazo flat in shockingly quick time, and while not quite strong enough for the bastion of masculinity that is TCB, the creamy texture from top to bottom more than compensate.

TCB’s guest opts for the savoury mince with poached eggs, but there is then a major dilemma, as the remainder of the menu has numerous tantalising options, seemingly impossible to choose between. While the roast beef omelette and the haloumi stack put up a valiant fight, the intoxicating scent of bacon that hit the nostrils all the way from the car park seal the deal, and TCB goes with the potato galette with poached eggs and honey bacon.

With groin grabbing speed, the meals are delivered, with the aesthetic ‘plating up’ definitely qualifying Salt in the Super Heavy Weight class of Brisbane breakfast. The report for the savoury mince is mixed, with glowing reviews of the crunchy toast fingers and the perfectly poached eggs, but concern expressed about the mince, with adjectives being thrown around such as ‘tinned’ and ‘not quite right’.

The Triumphant Tower: Potato Galette

On the other hand, Salt’s potato galette is a serious contender for that famously served at fellow breakfast behemoth Flute. Served has a heaped tower, the galette’s crunchy outer layer protects the fleshy, herbed inside. The eggs slowly ooze their golden goods, the way perfect poaching should allow. The honey bacon is slightly sweeter than normal, not dissimilar to maple or molasses bacon, and does not call for the Sophie’s choice between crunchy tail or rich rash, as both ends are present. Cameos by the crunchy toast fingers and the diced avocado are also greatly appreciated. This is wholly a tremendous dish, with a cacophony of fantastic textures and flavours, served in a hearty portion.

The food and menu of Salt is definitely on par with the exotic breakfast yard stick that is Flute. In a battle of the all stars, Salt’s exceptional service, due both to efficient speed and friendly attentiveness, trendy location and the inspired decision to offer a cheaper weekday menu, may just give it the right to declare “the champ is here”. With Flute possibly knocked off its perch, next stop is Symposium, but until the degustation is revisited, TCB are not willing to go to wild with unqualified assertions.

Coffee: 8.5          Menu: 9.5           Food: 9.5             Service: 9.5         Ambience: 9

Reviewed by AMac

Crib Street, Milton

The Golden Spoon

Breakfast: 7.00am – 11.30am

Coffee: Vittoria

The men of TCB are very much at peace with dining together for breakfast two at a time, no matter how odd or ‘date like’ this may look to the laymen. That said, Milton’s Comfort At My Table challenged the comfort of TCB’s collective sexuality, as their famous candy shop sweet, delicate and entirely effeminate fit out and decor exude the perfect atmosphere for prospective suitors and groups of female friends, but not so much for a pair of young professional gentlemen. So with chests puffed out in compensation, TCB take our seats in the adorably kitschy dining room early on a Wednesday morning.

Not to be confused with a Campos number, Vittoria flat also comes in a plain brown cup

The menu has some interesting and broad options, split into savoury and sweet sections, with homemade pesto accompanying several of the former dishes, and waffles and lemon curd included on the latter. TCB are feeling zesty and opt for the Eggs Benedict, due to the intriguing lemon hollandaise sauce, and the savoury mince with poached eggs and grilled lemon.

While there are plenty of tables available, there is a steady stream of take away

Savoury Mince with Lemon

patrons filtering through the barrister’s station, so TCB were pleased when the Vittoria flats were delivered in good time. This level of speedy, friendly service continues as the meals are brought out not too long after.

To address the positives first, both meals deliver the zesty punch they promised, with the lemon hollandaise changing up the standard breakfast staple for the better and complimenting the thick shaves of ham, and the grilled lemon slice oozing throughout the savoury mince, providing a nice acidic cut through the hearty, corn and pea riddled mince. Both dishes are also accompanied with barely wilted spinach, which is a crunchy alternative to its often soggy, sautéed counterpart.

Eggs Benedict

Unfortunately, no matter how much we found ourselves pulling for Comfort, TCB could not overlook the glaring issue that more often than not, sorts the men from the boys in the breakfast arena, and that is the poached eggs. Somehow, both the Benedict and the mince were accompanied by one under poached egg, the watery yolk spilling without prejudice, and one over poached egg, the muddy yellow sediment in the middle doing no one any favours.

Comfort At My Table, with efficient, friendly service, great prices (around $12.00) and an interesting fit out is fast becoming a popular option in the area, and we can recommend it to those who find themselves in the West. But until they sort out the fickle art of poaching, they will remain in the minor league of Brisbane breakfasts.

Coffee: 7.5          Menu: 7.5           Food: 7                 Service: 8            Ambience: 8

Reviewed by AMac and GZA

Powerhouse, New Farm

Breakfast: 7.00am – 10.30am

Coffee: Vittoria

Vittoria Flat

The Brisbane property market realised at an embarrassingly late stage in its development the aesthetic and ambient value of a river running though its centre, as brown as it has been known to be. Now, nothing quite says urban cool like a view of the water, and a meal overlooking it. Nestled on a particularly picturesque stretch of the Brisbane River, the former power station turned inner-city cultural hub, the Powerhouse Theatre, includes two absolute necessities of the Western World: open-mic stand up comedy and reasonably priced cocktails. As an avid fan of the brilliant Espresso Martini of Bar Alto, TCB decided to head downstairs to Watt to try out their riverside breakfast offering.

As the City Cats gently glide through the shimmering blue (say what you will about the floods, the river has never looked cleaner) of the New Farm elbow of the Brisbane River, TCB is terrified to see hordes of uncontrolled children terrorising the boardwalk outside Watt. Child friendliness aside, we are also appalled at the ultimatum given to us by the waiter, who seats us and tells us we have to be finished by 10.30am because no reservation was made. Does he know who we are? Does he not realise that 180 people dine exclusively according to our direction?

The menus are opened, and one unfortunate TCBer realises that his copy of the menu includes two identical pages, and is missing the second page. Turns out this makes no difference as there are only five breakfast options, with three of them seeming remarkably similar. With no interesting or inventive options to choose from, TCB go with the Watt Breakfast, the standard big breakfast expected throughout the city; and the poached eggs with bacon, tomato and sour dough.

One Vittoria flat arrives on time, and is pleasing enough without blowing any minds, and the other is forgotten and arrives after the meals. This might not seem like such a big problem, except that the morning dissipates while we wait the thirty five minutes for them to arrive.  When they do, we come to the stark realisation that the two meals are almost identical, with the price seemingly the only difference.

Watt Breakfast

The experience picks up a bit here, as the food is good quality: fresh ingredients prepared by a kitchen that knows what they are doing. But really, when you’re talking poached eggs, bacon, sausages, toasted sour dough and grilled tomato, there is not a whole lot to blow your socks off, and will only draw comment when it is bad, rather than good. For all its faults, at least the eggs were well poached and the tomato not over or under done.

Leaving after over an hour, three wait staff sit around chatting while we wait to pay the bill, and TCB can only conclude that Watt is trading on its fantastic location and vista, and should stick to slinging sunset cocktails, rather than dabbling in the noble service of morning meals. But to take the moral victory, there terrible service resulted in us overstaying our 10.30am curfew. Game: TCB.

Coffee: 7.5          Menu: 4               Food: 7.5             Service: 3.5            Ambience: 9

Reviewed by AMac

Toowong

Bitterness personified

Breakfast: All day

Coffee: Merlo

Eighteen year old “Socialists” are donning their designer Che Guevara t-shirts and hemp satchels; every car park in the greater St Lucia area is full; The RE has a clientele other than elderly booze addled cretins who have long since lost the will to live; it can only mean that the University Semester is underway. So as the purse strings tighten across the student body, why not give the often cash strapped student a cheap and cheerful breakfast, University adjacent.

Breakfast Bruscetta

Fearful of the UQ parking inspectors, TCB finds itself at the Newsroom Cafe in Toowong following an early morning lecture, a decision made very easy by Toowong’s dearth of dining options. Seated at a table outside, we are not off to a good start when we are given the menus and told to order at the counter when we’re ready. They also must have a consistent problem with sub human derelicts pulling runners because they expect payment first, service later, removing the option to order additional coffees and beverages throughout the meal. This also means that you can’t peruse the menu while waiting for a coffee, because all must be ordered in one fell swoop, detracting wholly from the breakfast experience.

The menu is quite long, but on closer inspection, one realises that it is mainly due to the basic egg and toast variations. TCB go with the two most interesting options, the eggs rustica and the breakfast bruscetta and poached eggs.

The Merlo coffees arrive, and while most know that TCB aren’t the biggest Merlo fans, these are particularly bitter and watery, and rather than blessing us with our desired hot caffeine injection, seem like a chore to finish.

Eggs Rustica

After a while a cantankerous, hefty woman comes and plonks two plates on the table. The eggs rustica is a very dry scrambled eggs spattered sparingly with tomato and even more sparingly with the prosciutto promised by the menu. The breakfast bruscetta is an over toasted piece of bread, overly lathered in straight-out-of-the-jar pesto, a chopped tomato and onion mixture, and two under poached eggs, the chalky, runny flavour of which you know is not leaving your palette for quite some time.  Worst of all, there table was sans salt and pepper, so the ordinary flavour could not be masked.

At around $13.00, this does not even constitute a cheap, let alone cheerful breakfast option, and proves that Toowong is in dire need of a cafe face lift.

Coffee: 3.5          Menu: 4.0           Food: 3.5             Service: 3.5         Ambience: 4.0

Review by AMac

Peppermint Tea

New Farm

Breakfast: 7.00am – 2.30pm

Coffee: Di Bella

Word on the street is that both promiscuous homosexuals and perpetually aroused divorcees walk through the New Farm Coles with their banana bunches pointed upwards in the top basket of their trolleys, to indicate that they are keen for a good time. The licentiousness of Coles aside, there is another good reason to take a weekend trip to New Farm Village on Merthyr Road, and that is to visit the bustling breakfast beat of Vue.

Di Bella Flat

Warned that a wait might be on the cards, nepotism does not go astray on this busy Sunday morning, as an old school friend of TCB skips us ahead of the line, and seats our party of two in what is deemed the prime real estate, inside the modern carpet walled and chocolate toned dining room, which itself is referred to as the Vue Lounge.

The menu is surprisingly extensive, and TCB are delivered a Di Bella double flat and a pot of peppermint tea in reasonable time, while the more interesting menu items are pondered. Scanning the list, with the exception of the always intriguing breakfast burrito, it appears that the heart and soul of the menu is poached eggs, with the variant of each item being an interesting accompaniment, such as roast pumpkin, beetroot relish or breakfast bruscetta. Out of many strong contenders, TCB goes with the pan fired chorizo with poached eggs, roasted capsicum, caramelised onion, olives, poached eggs, pomegranate molasses and organic sourdough; and the field mushrooms with parmesan, rocket, olive tapenade, truffle oil, lemon & sourdough. The biggest treat of the day, however, is being asked by the waiter whether the eggs are to be soft poached or hard poached. Such control of the poaching process without having to undergo the painful rigmarole yourself is a fantastic treat.

Field Mushrooms

In most busy dining rooms, narrow tables are lined in close proximity, which can make the breakfast experience seem crowded, but at Vue, the two person tables are plenty wide enough, with room even for food review wankers to put their SLR bags, and the hustle and bustle makes the moderate wait fly by.

The food arrives, and like any breakfast spot wanting to rumble with the big boys, presentation is pleasing and portion size is solid. The mushrooms are filling, but with zesty lime, crunchy bread that remains un-sodden and nice, light parmesan rather than a heavy melted cheese, leave one content rather than stuffed. As always, anything sautéed in truffle oil will be amazing.

Pan Fried Chorizo and Poached Eggs

The chorizo is presented as a layered medley, with the coins of smokey and somewhat spicy chorizo scattered amongst the cacophony of capsicum, onions and olives, sourdough on the bottom and two beautifully round poached eggs, not unlike what TCB imagine God’s testicles to look like, on the top (please keep all arguments about the assertion of God as a white male to a minimum). The soft yolk bursts through the dish and is perfect with the sweetness of the caramelised onions and the molasses.

With many interesting menu options, well executed dishes and cheerful service, the crowds for Vue are not mistaken, just as breakfast goers should not mistake Vue for a miscellaneous supermarket adjacent cafe, but rather, a typical trendy New Farm eatery that would not go astray in any other central chic location.

Coffee: 7.5          Menu: 8.0           Food: 8.0             Service: 8.0         Ambience: 8.5

Review by AMac

Woolloongabba

Breakfast: 7.00am – 11.30am

Coffee: Genovese

As submerging oneself in the Pacific Ocean, trawling its depths for oysters in the hopes of prying open the shelled mollusc to yank the semi precious stone from its

grasp is a somewhat under represented hobby outside of commercial pearl farming operations, TCB thought it prudent to trawl the depths of Woolloongabba to pry open the highly touted Pearl breakfast menu.

On a Friday morning, TCB is relegated to one of the four outdoor tables, underneath a warming heater, as the cosy inside dining room is already full of trendy couples and mothers groups with the obligatory pram loads of children. Overheard is a woman telling her male accompaniment that this is a quiet time, as a weekend breakfast at this illustrious establishment often involves a forty minute wait, as reservations are not taken.

A Genovese flat white and a pot of earl grey arrive in quick time, granting perfect time to peruse the menu, and TCB can only grin from ear to ear as the rumours prove to be true: the breakfast menu is phenomenal. Brioche French toast with mandarin curd and the Spanish omelette with potato and caramelised onion are hard to pass up, but for eccentric breakfasters like TCB (read wankers), the option of black pudding reaches of the menu page, grabs us by the testicles and screams “PICK ME”, as does the porridge, for the sole reason that it includes something described as “drunken prunes”, and as we all know, the adjective ‘drunken’ can only lead to good things.

But not is all beer and skittles. Drawn in by a wonderful menu and funky rustic decor, TCB are then subjected to a forty minute wait for food. Two flats and an entire pot of tea are consumed, and on general principle there is a refusal to order more, so we are deprived of the joy of enjoying both meal and beverage together.

Porridge: a hearty and cleansing start to the day

Finally the food arrives, with presentation so good it vanquishes the bitter taste of patience right from the gullet. The plentiful porridge is sprinkled with “drunken prunes”, which rather than putting arms around each other saying “this guy…this is the guy…” are fresh, colon cleansing shrivelled prunes.

The black pudding, a traditional English classic that can come in many forms ranging from the delicate to the disgusting, was served in three small circles, adorning three cylindrical crunchy potato cakes, with a perfectly poached egg resting on top. TCB opted to pay an additional $6.00 for two bulbous, handmade venison sausages to add to the already carnivorous flavour of the dried blood. The egg perfect; the pudding soft and gamey; the potato cakes crunchy, not unlike the skin of fried chicken; and the sausages rich and hearty; the meal wholly outstanding.

A Picturesque English Classic

We can hear your cries: “but TCB, this lump of praise and delight could only mean a score in the high 9’s?” Yes friends, this would ordinarily be true, but the painfully slow kitchen service really did detract from the overall dining experience. While TCB is perfectly willing to cut slack for lengthy waiting times where hot topic restaurants are filled to the brim on weekends, on a Friday morning without any sense of bedlam, or apology for the time, forty minutes is a very long time to wait.

Speed aside, Pearl is another to be added to the list of eateries performing the noble, positively righteous and TCB appreciated deed of bringing fine dining to the morning, with an outstanding menu, and what could possibly be the best breakfast food in town.

Field Mushrooms

Benedict

Coffee: 8.5          Menu: 9.5           Food: 10.0           Service: 7.0         Ambience: 9.0

Review by AMac

Fortitude Valley

Speaks for itself

Breakfast: 7.00am – 11.30am

Coffee: Giancarlo

I know what you’re thinking: “James Street Bistro? If you are eating there it means you have just come out of the Palace Centro theatre after seeing a pretentious French art film, Harvey’s is full, Luxe is full of wankers and you can’t be bothered walking further abroad for your post cinema analysis, so you take the closest seat available. But wait a minute TCB, isn’t it breakfast, meaning that if you’ve just left the cinema it means you’ve gone to the 9.30am screening with the senior citizens?”

First of all, shame on you, loyal reader, for jumping to such immediate conclusions. Second, yes, we are eating at James Street Bistro because Luxe is closed, and no we haven’t seen a movie. But third, and most importantly, take one look at JSB’s breakfast menu and any prejudices based on their dinner and lunch reputation are banished to the crowded aftermath of the post film festival crush, where they belong.

Pineapple, Orange & Mango

On a cold weekday morning, TCB take a seat in the middle of the covered alfresco dining area, the dull, warming glow of the ceiling mounted bar heaters to one side, the gentle radiance of the sun to the other, and look to warm the insides up with a hearty start.

Without too much delay, TCB are granted the increasingly familiar black coffee cup emblazoned with the gospel “Coffee is my life”, signalling that a Giancarlo flat white is upon us, a bean that is sneaking up the list of TCB coffee preferences.

On to the business, the menu has several options which not only catch the eye, but make you wonder whether such ambitious feats can be pulled off outside of the kitchens of the big names of the breakfast world. Hot smoked ocean trout and potato and camembert croquette; Spanish omelette with chorizo and manchego cheese; croquet madame; gingerbread French toast with pineapple compote? Such items you expect on the menus of the aforementioned heavyweights, but here, they belie JSB’s reputation for uninteresting bistro chow, which for this hungry breakfast goer, is definitely a good thing.

TCB opt for the slow braised beef breakfast burrito and the corn fritters. Two foamy, freshly squeezed juices arrive to keep us occupied before the meals arrive. First impressions: the guttural growls emenating from under the shirt will be silenced, because portion size is not found wanting.

Breakfast Burrito

The corn fritters are somewhat soft, and ‘good’, without rivalling the-best-in-town fritters of Harvey’s next door, but the accompanying smashed avocado and salty grilled haloumi round out the dish satisfactorily, and make a solid breakfast.

The breakfast burrito on the other hand, is something special. An eight inch tortilla, adorned with salsa, sour cream, guacamole and a runny poached egg, contains a bounty of slow braised beef that falls apart on the fork, and melts in the mouth. Lest your head explode from palate confusion, mix all the components together for a unique treat, as the runny yolk cuts all the way through the tang, substance and spice. That’s right, you did not miss read, spice! An aspect that is completely forgotten north of midday, both the salsa and the beef have a bit of kick that appeases those who long for spice in every meal, but would not scare off those of weaker constitution.

Corn Fritters

In and out quite quickly on a weekday morning, expect slightly slower service on the weekends. Nonetheless, James Street Bistro not only satisfied TCB’s breakfast appetite, but proved that in the geographical breakfast kingdom of New Farm and the Fortitude Valley, it should not be so quickly dismissed, for its exotic menu and great food are definitely a breakfast treat.

Coffee: 8.0          Menu: 8.5           Food: 8.5             Service: 7.5         Ambience: 7.5

Review by AMac

Nundah

Campos Flat with a freckle treat

Breakfast : til 12.00pm

Coffee: Campos

Do not be alarmed, TCB has not taken another slide down the moral slippery dip towards adolescent vulgarity. Rather, with a hankering for exotic, ring shaped yeasted wheat dough, TCB ventured to Nundah to inspect the wares of Brisbane bagel specialists, The C Word.

If you are not a fan of bagels, or of Jewish sensibility in general, you should stop reading now and forget the C Word ever existed, because it not only specialises in bagels…it specialises in bagels to the exclusion of all else.

Crispy Bagel with protective sheath

Standing awkwardly in front of the counter, perusing the extensive bagel menu. There speciality breakfast bagels, lunch bagels, plain bagels, bagels with avocado, bagels with cream cheese, take away bagels providing the option of DIY shmearing, we could go on. The point is that there is a bagel for every taste bud. But most importantly, like a flashing neon light that says “Live Nudes”, the sign outside C Word boasts Campos coffee, meaning that inside there will be a little brown mug containing the morning ray of sunshine favoured by TCB.

Amongst the vast array of choices (within a very narrow construct of category), TCB opts for the crispy breakfast bagel, filled with bacon, signature eggollette, and barbeque sauce, and the self explanatory avo bagel.

The little bown mug arrives, and TCB are please to notice that the barrister has done the hearty bean proud, with a perfect, leafed micro foam resting atop a strong flat white.   There is, however, an unusual treat, as the coffees are all accompanied with a chocolate freckle.

Avo Bagel

In a short while, the bagels arrive. Halved and plated, the avo bagel is exactly what you would expect: thin slices of avocado, lightly peppered, on a well buttered sourdough bagel, an always light and tasty breakfast combo. On the other hand, the crispy bagel remains whole, contained in paper to avoid violent explosions of barbeque sauce that threaten the cleanliness of the breakfast goer’s upper half. The bacon, as the name suggests, is well done and crispy, while the smokey barbeque sauce, as almost any 15 year old boy will tell you, improves anything you put it on. The best part of the bagel is the ‘eggollette’, a C Word signature that is in essence, an egg patty with a consistency fluffier that an omelette.

Quick and easy, cheap and cheerful (bagels between $3 and $9), and stocking the all too rare breakfast treat of bagels, the C Word is a solid breakfast option for those who are perhaps longing for a Manhattan start to the day, which is half a world away.

Coffee: 8.5        Menu: 7              Food: 7.5           Service: 7.5     Ambience: 7.5

Breakfast : All day

Coffee: Genovese

Brunswick Street

Cirque has long been a staple for fussy New Farm breakfast hunters and a thorough investigation has been long overdue by the TCB crew.  It was with much anticipation that our group of four ventured into the heart of New Farm and took up our position on the footpath.  We already had a man on the ground that had secured a spot on the waiting list.  Waiting has always been an integral part of the Cirque experience and the group of 15 hungry patrons patiently waiting outside in chilly 10°C conditions doesn’t come as a surprise.  It’s a scene reminiscent of a trendy nightclub – except the ‘bouncer’ here has a lot more to offer the ravenous hoards. That said, with a wait for a table extending to 20mins on this reasonably busy Saturday morning, a nice touch would have been a round of coffees to fend off the cold but on this day the offer went begging.

Genovese Flat

A two-level establishment with seating for around 40 patrons, TCB was whisked past the kitchen and upstairs to our waiting table.  A flurry of menu perusal and water distribution was a perfect distraction to the short wait for some truly satisfying Genovese coffees.  Cappuccinos, Flats and Latte’s were all well above par and left a good taste as the difficult menu decisions were vigourously debated.  There were two specials on the regularly altered board the morning we dined that stood out.  Poached eggs on soft mozzarella polenta with crispy prosciutto, truffle oil and sourdough toast ($15) proved too tempting a combination and made the shortlist along with the Omelette special.  Having spotted one of these aesthetically pleasing yet frisbee-sized concoctions being delivered on the way in, TCB was impressed to discover it’s contents included braised cannellini beans with chorizo and mozzarella.

"It was all a dream..." Juicy fresh squeased Juice

The remainder of the menu contains both sweet and savoury breakfast favourites and we opt for the obligatory salmon eggs benny with a side of avocado, the toasted pide with avocado, basil, sea salt and fresh tomato with a side of poached eggs, and the abstract play on your typical breakfast fish, salmon, that is rainbow trout and poached eggs.  After another wait in exceeding 30mins the food is presented along with some tasty juices (watermelon, apple and pear/watermelon, apple and mint $6each) from their extensive range of made to order juices and smoothies.

Viscocity at its finest

The food is of a high standard and fortunately well worth the wait.  The pricing (mains around $15) represents excellent value and probably contributes to the brisk trade and loyal following.  The first impression overall is the perfectly poached eggs across each dish on the table.  Like miniature sculptures, each one is perfectly formed with a similar level of yolk viscosity that makes you wonder if it was possible replicate this feat at home.  The presentation is of an equally high standard, important too when everyone is an armchair expert on ‘plating up’ these days.

Omelette

The omelette is so fluffy we are surprised it wasn’t levitating.  The beans and chorizo were scattered throughout and the mozzarella provided a nice finish to the texture.

The salmon eggs benedict was devoured with enthusiasm and uniquely constructed with one sizeable piece of ciabatta providing a base for the salmon slices, 2 eggs and baby rocket with a generous drizzle of tasty homemade hollandaise doing its thing with

aplomb.

Rainbow Trout

The rainbow trout, accompanied with two of the aforementioned perfect poached eggs, was not only light and lemon zesty, but pleasantly palate confusing at this hour of the morning. However, served as a delicate portion, it may not gratify the hunger of those more ravenous breakfast goers.

Special Specials

Both the eggs special with polenta and the pide are spot on with the slices of crispy prosciutto topping the list of tasty garnishes on the day.

Overall the experience was a resounding success, and the service polite and attentive.   The food is extremely well executed and prepared with obvious care and attention to detail. Cirque is to breakfast what Ortiga is to dinner: a fine dining option that requires a commitment to the meal, and may not be for everyone, all the time (may we suggest those with a pounding headache and aching stomach seek a quicker, greasier option). It has stamped its mark as a stalwart on the breakfast scene and proves it self to be not just a hot spot, but a venue deserving of the praise in a competitive market.  Just make sure you keep a couple of hours free to savour the experience.

Coffee: 8.5        Menu: 9.5              Food: 9.5           Service: 7          Ambience: 8

Reviewed by the TCB Crew

Salmon Benny

Notourious B.I.G

Racecourse Road, Ascot

Juice from the Bottle

Breakfast: Saturday & Sunday

Coffee: Mocopan

Lido, known as the overly conspicuous purple building, equipped with a wood fire oven that produces items such as a nacho pizza, has been a Racecourse Road regular for many years, and today, TCB decide to take care of its much toted breakfast menu.

Mocopan Flat White

Filled with wicker chairs and a fairly garish orange and purple colour scheme, TCB are seated at our table in a covered outdoor dining area, which is under crowded for mid morning on a Sunday. The menus are presented, and after several pained minutes, all TCB members and affiliates realise that of the fairly short and limited menu, there is only one option that appears slightly out of the ordinary and a bit interesting, and that is the wood fire omelette. Of the five taking care of breakfast this morning, the orders are split between the aforementioned omelette and the eggs Florentine with salmon, not to be confused with Benedict, as it replaces the ham with spinach (as most places just serve Benedict with spinach, this should be a moot point).

Eggs Florentine with Salmon (avocado extra)

After a noticeable while, the coffees arrive. TCB do not recognise the brand of the bean, and as fans of strong, powerful coffee blends, will not be rushing back to try the fairly weak Mocopan flat whites. Juices are served in tall glasses, and are the stock standard poured out of a bottle numbers.

With coffees and juices depleted, TCB continues to wait for the meals, which are eventually presented just before an enquiry is made. To start with the highlight, the avocado (ordered as a $3 extra) was fresh and tasted like an avocado. Now to the reality check. The eggs Florentine at the very least, was presented nicely, but the eggs were under poached, meaning the watery, runny yolk spilled everywhere, which usually isn’t a problem, but when not given the time to poach properly, the flavour is off and not the strong sensation to which any egg lover is accustomed. The buns are under toasted, meaning they are caught in the limbo between soft, fresh bread and crunchy golden toast, and are just firm, tasteless, texturless lumps of slightly solidified dough. The salmon if acceptable, but is just the standard packet fish available at the super market.

Wood fire Omelette

The omelette, which TCB competed over not thirty minutes ago, no longer seems like a conflict worthy prize. From the get go, it looks overcooked, and what do you know, cutting into it you are not mistaken. The egg is crumbly and dry, with the ingredients sapped of their life. It cannot be finished.

Anyone who reads this and thinks that it is just a negative review for the sake of upping credibility is truly mistaken. As a loyal Ascotian, it pains me to condemn a Racecourse Road stalwart, but with a lacklustre menu, weak coffee, poorly executed food, and slow service, TCB is left wondering what criteria other reviewers use to place Lido in their top breakfast lists.

Coffee: 5             Menu: 4.5           Food: 4.5             Service: 4            Ambience: 6

Review by AMac

Moray Street, New Farm

Breakfast: All Day

Coffee: Di Bella

Freshly squeezed Apple & Watermelon juice

In an attempt to hush the haters who say TCB lacks cred, we took it to the familiar streets of New Farm to take care of an establishment regarded as a must-include for any review crew looking to differentiate themselves from your standard pretentious wanker: The Little Larder.

The corner shop cafe sits slightly out of the main stream cafe junket of New Farm and the Valley, but its reputation draws droves of patrons into its cozy dining room and alfresco set. TCB’s previous attempt to dine was foiled by the huge crowds and early closing time brought on by a public holiday. So naturally, wanting what we couldn’t have, expectations were high heading into out early Sunday Morning breakfast a week later.

Skinny Flat White: Di Bella is a TCB Bean Favourite

Accommodated with a table immediately, the cute-as-a-button waitress is quick to dote on our table, providing us menus and taking our coffee order immediately. Inside and out, Larder is a hive of activity, emphasised by the palpable buzz of the kitchen, which is in full view of diners.

The all day breakfast menu has some very enticing options, such as the Streak and Eggs and the pesto scrambled eggs, but TCB go with the eggs Benedict with grilled ham and spinach, the Crispy Polenta with poached eggs, avocado, spinach and dill mayo, and the Fry up, which includes sautéed bacon, sausages, mushroom, onion, tomato and spinach on Turkish toast. Along with the food, there is also a great juice list, which forces our hand to try a watermelon, mint and passion fruit juice.

Crispy Polenta: peasant food no more

The coffees come in good time, and as soon as Di Bella is spied printed on the cup, TCB know they are in for a strong and hearty bean, which, once tasted, has been done justice by the barista.

As the crowd builds and a spare table cannot be found, our meals arrive and do not disappoint. The crispy polenta, once considered peasant food, is a textural treat as its sturdy crunch gives a good contrast to the soft, perfectly poached eggs. The dish as a whole is set off by the dill mayo, which is a very pleasant, herbed change of pace from the usual hollandaise accompaniment.

The Fry Up

The fry-up, for what it loses in presentation, it gains in taste, as each bite combines crispy sautéed bacon, onion and mushrooms with the fresh combination of tomato, spinach and shallots. The gluten free sausage completes the plate, which is served atop two pieces of toasted Turkish bread.

The freshly squeezed juice is fantastic, with the crisp mint leaves giving a bite to the acid of the pineapple and the slush of the watermelon.

The Little Larder is consistent across the board, ticking all the TCB boxes. The crowds of eaters packing the cafe in no way detriment the speed of the service, and if you are lucky enough to get a table, you are treated to friendly and frequent attendance from your waitress/waiter.

Nursing a business card with the number to make a reservation, TCB left the Little Larder ready to join the hordes of its regular in spreading its excellent reputation.

Eggs Benedict

Coffee: 8             Menu: 8               Food: 8.5             Service: 8.5         Ambience: 8

Review by AMac

Racecourse Road, Ascot

The van of Intrigue

Breakfast: All Day

Coffee: Plazza D’Oro

On some weekends, you find yourself with list of miscellaneous errands to run which do not include lengthy brainstorming sessions of where to conduct your morning meal, and on such occasions, decisions can be rushed and under planned. This is one of those mornings for TCB, and with a day of miscellany ahead, the breakfast acquisition must be quick, close and easy. “What about the new one on Racecourse Road?” chimes one of the TCB accessories, and with a “why not?” shrug, TCB is on the way to Lick My Spoon.

One of the many juice options

Erected on the grave site of one of my favourite Austrian restaurants, and using the tables and chairs left behind after their departure, senses of longing nostalgia flood through TCB for the Emperor’s Soufflé and Pork Schnitzel that was once served on this hallowed turf. However, the new red fit out inside and the graffitied van in the car park indicate very early that something has changed.

Long Mac

Amongst a very good breakfast menu, including the usual assortments of eggs, salmon, bacon and sweet treats, lie several enticing options the likes of an oven baked mushroom omelette and avocado, lemon, lime and olive oil on Turkish. But alas, TCB is smitten immediately by the breakfast special, Huevous Rancheros: the Spanish Ranchers’ eggs. The drinks menu must also be complimented as it includes a multitude of fresh juice combos, squeezed and mixed onsite.

The coffee comes out in good time, and is a strong and tasty blend. The juices are not far behind, and are excellent, with a foamy layer at the top of the tall glass, the flavours change all the way to the bottom as one sucks through the different fruits in the combination.

Avocado on Turkish

The omelette is laid down, and has puffed, crunchy edges and a melted, cheesy middle, as a result of the oven baking, with the mushrooms and chunks of fetta shoot out the top. The avocado is basic and exactly what you would expect, but the familiar taste sensation is a great light breakfast option.

Mushroom Omelet: Avocado is an extra

Huevous Rancheros: translates both into "Ranchers' Eggs" and a full belly

But then all pre negotiated share arrangements are declared null and void as the Rancheros is presented. A crunch tortilla fills an entire plate, and is laden with two fried eggs, sunny side up, diced avocado and tomato, a lime wedge, and the towering centrepiece of a fat, grilled, smokey chorizo sausage. The flavours mash together in a Mediterranean mess, with the salsa like consistency of the avocado and tomato fusing well with the smoke of the chorizo, with the crunchy texture of the tortilla giving another dimension to the dish.

Decent service and a great food and juice menu lead Lick My Spoon to be a solid suburban breakfast option for those frequenting the north side north of midday.

In and out of breakfast, the TCB to-do-list can begin, now that the most important item has been checked off.

Coffee: 7.5          Menu: 8               Food: 8                 Service: 7.5         Ambience: 7

Reviewed by AMac

Winn Street, Fortitude Valley

Long Mac

 

Breakfast: All Day

Coffee: Genovese

It’s a Saturday morning and a lone TCB member stalks the Fortitude Valley in a one man wolf pack in search of a boutique eatery at which to feast.

Through the arbitrary wonderings, the lone TCB wolf stumbles upon the very hip and trendy Flamingo Cafe, a Melbourne-style laneway cafe tucked behind the Zoo.

Approaching Flamingo, eaters get a view of the tiny kitchen skirting behind the register, which itself is elevated above the astro-turfed alfresco dining area, lined with brightly coloured plastic furniture. There is a small, dark room next door, which has small black tables littered with kitschy items instead of table numbers. I am seated at “Sydney”, as I am made aware because of the salt and pepper shakers of the same name. The table next to me is “Donut”, and the one across from me is “King”. Once seated, I notice under foot a cattle hide rug.

Savoury Mince

Both the clientele and the wait staff are of a similar caste, as there are clear-lensed wayfarers and rolled up pant cuffs spattered throughout the cafe.  Even armed with skinny jeans, tortoise shell Tom Ford’s and a Canon SLR, I still feel like I am nowhere near hipster enough to be dining here. I am put at ease when the table of young women next to me begin talking about Splendour in the Grass, and the possibility of a Sarah Blasco sideshow…maybe the clientele aren’t that hip after all. The waiter, who is very friendly in addition to being very ‘hip’, delivers the menu, takes a seat next to me, and informs me of the specials of the day.

While the breakfast menu is limited, the specials are striking, and include savoury mince, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a meatball sub (which is a standard lunch option served through the week, but I cannot address the quality as that would take care of lunch, a strict no no), not to mention the very creative and varied fresh juice menu.

I opt for the savoury mince, and before I have time to fully unfold a copy of the Australian, the steaming bowl, accompanied with thick toast and a love heart butter shape, is served. I realise that it is probably just scooped straight out of a big pot, but to get food served within 5 minutes is a very special treat. The mince is very good and is filled with tomato, peas and onions.

Mrs Palmer and her five daughters

Next to arrive is a stock standard long mac. The last item to arrive is a “Mrs Palmer and her five daughters”, which isn’t a creative pseudonym for masturbation, rather a freshly made juice/smoothie consisting of bananas, coconut milk and honey.

Just like the analogous wolf pack, TCB crew members are gorge eaters, and a well timed breakfast can supplement all other meals of the day. In fifteen minutes, the lone TCB wolf is suitably fed, juiced and coffeed for $20 and has been treated to friendly service in an agreeable surrounding.

Next time however, I will have to remember to button my shirt all the way to the neck.

Coffee: 7.5          Menu: 6               Food: 7.5             Service: 8            Ambience: 9

Reviewed by AMac

Cavendish Road, Coorparoo

Cream Menu

Breakfast Served: 7.00am – 12.00pm

Coffee: Giancarlo

The TCB crew find themselves in Coorparoo on a mid-week morning and, fighting the tractor beam of the breakfast All-Star Flute, decide to try something new and head directly next door to Cream, a well renowned patisserie in its own right.

TCB are seated in the alfresco dinning area with only one other table of breakfasters, but the sunny disposition and chatty nature of the waiter sets the occasion off to a very pleasant start. The coffees are brought out in haste, and are a good strong blend, a perfect kick-in-the-face wake up on a Thursday morning.

Long Mac: Coffee may also be our life

Perusing the menu, there is not an abundance of items, but each have just enough element of intrigue that a breakfast consumer would not be concerned of a lack of choice. Ignoring the possibility of going for the sweet option of ricotta buttermilk hot cakes, TCB settle on the leg ham and mushroom omelette and the scrambled eggs on brioche with salmon and capers.  Many of the items on the menu are available ‘gluten free’, which is outstanding news for one TCB member (who shall remain nameless) who has lost his mind and decided to kick the wheat habit.

Before we know it, the meals are presented and are very pleasing to the eye. The omelette is perfectly rolled and covered in an abundant mushroom sauce, and GZA reports that it is well executed and well and truly made by the encompassing mushroom ‘gravy’. The only complaint is that the ham is chopped in fine cubes and sprinkled throughout, rather than the preferred shaves of leg ham.

Scrambled Eggs on Brioche with Salmon and Capers

The scramble is of the herbed and creamy variety, possibly created with the decedent replacement of milk for thickened cream, and hugs the side of the plate which is taken up predominantly by broad slivers of salmon, dusted liberally with deliciously salty capers. The brioche is a soft cushion for the scramble, but does not go soggy. It is a pleasant change of pace from the usual crusty Turkish or soggy door stop toast found at most places.

Sharing immediate proximity to a powerhouse such as Flute would be a hard task for anyone wishing to compete in the breakfast scene, but with hasty and very friendly service, great food, and a plethora of house made treats available for take away, C.R.E.A.M. is a solid breakfast option for anyone trawling through suburbia when the breakfast hour strikes.

Coffee: 7.5         Menu: 7            Food: 8             Service: 8          Ambience: 7

Reviewed by AMac & GZA

Leg Ham and Mushroom Omelette

Long Mac - Campos Kenyan Bean of the Month

11 Wandoo Street, Fortitude Valley

Coffee: Campos
Breakfast: All Day

“Maybe if I lie perfectly still and don’t move a single inch, I won’t be immersed in all engulfing pain…”

We have all, on a Saturday or Sunday morning, adopted this reasoning, and just as sure, we’ve all slowly cracked one eye lid to realise that nothing can be done to prevent the inevitable…we’re in hangover country.

Just as Hunter S Thompson was fearful of stopping in bat country, TCB realises that only one thing can be done, outside of the abuse of prescription medicine, to alleviate the throbbing head, queasy stomach and aching joints, and that is to do what we do best: take care of breakfast, regardless of whether it stretches into the afternoon.

Campos is regarded as one of Australia’s finest bean roasteries, and their Brisbane flagship is Campos Cafe, nestled adjacent to the James Street Markets in the Fortitude Valley. Walking down a narrow alley lined with astro turf, the scent of roasted beans invading the nostrils, TCB must join the end of quite a lengthy queue to await a table, as it is mid morning on a Saturday, and the place is bursting at the seams. After a few couples, lacking the requisite commitment to breakfast held by TCB, give up the line, TCB’s party of five is seated within about ten minutes, but are warned that kitchen service is inundated and will take about forty minutes…at least they’re up front.

Campos Fry Up

The next problem is a very high quality problem to have: customers are given too many highlights to pick from the menu. TCB would have loved to give its readers a detailed review of the grilled salmon fillet, or the rarely found outside the East Coast of the USA “Philly Cheese Steak”, but unfortunately, given the severity of the hangover, there is but one option to surely cure the incurable, the Campos Fry Up. Some may baulk at the $21.00 price tag, but this morning, it does not even come into question.

The drinks are brought out in good time. Any coffee lover can tell you of the quality of Campos beans, but just like drinking trickling glacial waters from a mountain spring beats guzzling Mount Franklin from the bottle, it seems like a special treat to taste a long and strong macchiato barristered immediately adjacent to the warehouse from which the bean was produced (ignoring the exponential increase in decadence had it been tasted adjacent to the Kenyan field from which it was plucked). As well as coffees, several smoothies are brought out, including banana and mango. Both are of a good size, and are not too sickly sweet with honey.

After about half an hour, the meals arrive, and any concerns that we may have been better suited at a quicker establishment were banished. The fry up is gargantuan, but not in a disgusting novelty way, but more like “you wanted it, you got it”. Two perfectly poached eggs (you know the score, not solid, but not too runny) rest on toasted sourdough, while a tub of butter melts next to a roasted tomato stuffed with mushrooms which have obviously been sautéed in a rich olive oil; crispy bacon; a crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside potato cake, lightly dusted both inside and out with thyme and basil; a bulbous pork sausage; and finished with a slice of haloumi for good measure. While the ingredients are the usual ‘big breakfast’ staples, with the exception of the diverse treat of the haloumi, they are prepared beautifully, sans the grease and fat found at cheaper eateries.

Mushroom Stuffed Tomato: The Fry Up was big enough to justify multiple camera angles

I have had more elaborate meals, I have had more exotic meals, and I have had bigger flavour sensations, but NEVER has a breakfast hit the spot harder than the Campos Fry Up. TCB was in need, and Campos was in no way found wanting.

Eggs Benedict

Someone else ordered Eggs Benedict, but is that not comparable to Alvin and the Chipmunks following The Beatles?

Coffee: 9 Menu: 8.5 Food: 8.5 Service: 7 Ambience: 8

Reviewed by AMac

212 Given Terrace, Paddington

Coffee: Merlo

Open daily from 7 am

Paddington’s Anouk caused a bit of a divide among TCB when we decided to brave peak hour traffic on a busy Friday morning and take care of the breakfast situation. The TCB team agree that the coffee was nothing special (although, to be fair to our barista, he probably did the best he could with a mediocre Merlo blend), and the service too slow

When the food finally did arrive, however, the opinions varied greatly. I chose the flat field mushrooms sautéed with garlic, pine nuts and butter-parsley pesto on toasted ciabatta, served with a side of maple-cured bacon. Admittedly, this was not the most adventurous option, but it was well-done. Predictably, garlic punctuated every mouthful, but it was never so overwhelming that I missed the well-put-together medley of flavours provided by the pesto and toasted pine nuts. The maple cured bacon (which does not come as standard with this dish) added a well-needed counterbalance to the earthy flavours of the mushrooms, while the ciabatta was disappointingly under-toasted. In the end I was left satiated, but not truly satisfied – not at the price I paid, anyway. GZA, on the other hand, was decidedly unimpressed:

“In my opinion, in order for a breakfast experience to stand out, not only do you need good food, but also liquids, which are just as important. In that regard, Anouk stands out for providing a breakfast beverage selection which rivals some wine lists for depth and breadth of choice. Creativity is encouraged. When it came to ordering my meal, I think I was still in awe from the drink menu, as I opted for the intriguing selection of breakfast nasi goreng. I took a punt on a meal that doesn’t belong on the breakfast table (not in Paddington anyway). Presentation was excellent, but the taste left much to be desired. A very heavy, almost risotto-like consistency with vegetables, nuts and a satay finish would have been better placed if we were taking care of lunch or dinner.”

Mitch went for the Israeli eggs with a side of garlic sausages:

“This was a simple meal served in a metal dish. The meal consisted of baby spinach, a tomato and red pepper sauce with two eggs – on the side were two sausages that I ordered separately. The metal dish seemed to act as a secondary cooking implement for the entire meal. On the base was a layer of spinach which prevented the next layer (the tomato and red pepper sauce) from sticking to the metal. Covering the top were the eggs that formed a seal around the top of the metal dish. While the baby spinach did nothing for the meal, the sauce was simple, thick and mouth-watering thanks to the correct dose of red peppers. In order to access the sauce I had to cut through the eggs; both had hard cooked yolks. This firmness allowed the sauce to be applied with ease: a convenient thought. The garlic sausages were skinless, and possibly home made. In any case, they were delicious.”

Israeli eggs with a side of garlic sausages.

I’m not prepared to criticise Anouk’s culinary offerings to the extent some TCBers might like – in my view, the menu is worth a try if you don’t mind waiting a while, and avoid the nasi goreng – but there’s not much to rave about either. Nevertheless, Anouk has earned itself a reputation as one of Brisbane’s breakfast hotspots. To be sure, it has a lively, casual atmosphere and a visually pleasing fit out, but the unremarkable food and disappointing service leaves me wondering why this place has such a following among restaurant-goers. Judging by the crowd of mostly good-looking young women who seemed to talk and drink coffee a lot without eating much of their food, I’d hazard a guess that many keep turning up to Anouk simply to be seen or to enjoy the chatter of the beautiful people in comfortable yet somewhat trendy surrounds. As a true breakfast-lover, I probably won’t be going back unless they offer more reasonable prices or substantially better food and service, or I get a Paddington-chic girlfriend.

Neither of those seems likely to happen any time soon.

Reviewed by Myles.

1/45 Gerler Road, Hendra

Coffee: Dandelion; Driftwood; Specialty Blends

Open weekdays from 6:30 am; weekends from 7 am

Skinny Flat White: Dominican Blend

Dandelion & Driftwood is the protagonist in an epic battle entwined in controversy, an ideological war dating back beyond not only the history of TCB, but recorded history itself: is coffee more important than food?

TCB decided to leap off the fence of this heated debate by taking a trip to Dandelion & Driftwood, a brew house and cafe in Hendra.

The cafe is quite small, with hanging mobiles of driftwood pieces lining one wall, and the counter consisting of a register and a series of complicated espresso machines, including four bean grinder/dispensers and two elaborate cold drip filters.

Long Mac: El Salvador blend

The waitress dutifully attends our table with a broad smile and asks the typical question, “Can I get you any coffees?”, but her response to our acquiescence is far from ordinary, “Ok, skinny flat white, and what bean would you like?” In our haste for a hot caffeine injection, TCB failed to note that there are actually four different bean options: the two house blends Dandelion and Driftwood; and two specialities which change month to month, in this instance Dominican Montana Verde and El Salvador San Emilio.

The coffees are brought out hastily, and are accompanied with a small laminated card which sets out a description of the origin of the bean, right down to the elevation above sea level that it is grown at. While it would take an extremely educated palate to determine the exact variation in the nodes of each brew, or simply a heightened sense of wankery to pretend, a layman can still pick the slight differences in flavour.

Avocado Scramble

They all have one thing in common though: magnificence. Not feeling the need to hide behind elaborate frothed milk swirls and novelty cups, D&D allow the flavoursome strength of their coffee to walk the walk promised by the little card’s talk.

However, there is a reason the lion’s share of this review is devoted to coffee, and that is where the enigma of the coffee vs food debate comes into play: the breakfast. The menu is limited and simple, and the food is nothing special. The dishes ordered were an avocado scramble on sour dough, and a bacon and egg toasted sandwich. While no means truck stop food, one gets the distinct impression the food serves as a buffer between coffee orders.

There is, however, a table of delicately decorated cup cakes which lead TCB to believe that this would be ideal as a morning/afternoon tea hotspot, rather than breakfast hub.

Bacon & Egg Sandwich

Whether you view this wine-tasting-like approach to coffee, including the sale of a “coffee journal”, as an extension of the decadence of the mid morning culinary industry or the furtherance of Brunswick Hipster pretension, there is no doubt that D&D is a tight suburban operation, providing coffee lovers with caffeinated orgasms by the cup full (infer a metaphor if you wish).

Coffee: 10           Menu: 6               Food: 6                 Service: 8             Ambience: 7.5

Reviewed by AMac

4/380 Cavendish Road, Coorparoo

The coffee at Flute is usually excellent

Coffee: Segafredo

Open daily from 7 am

I really like Flute. On a Saturday morning, people from all over Brisbane flock to this bustling hive of activity – an aberration that stands in stark contrast to the sleepy suburb of Coorparoo that surrounds it, where one might otherwise be forced to wait until lunchtime to get a decent meal.

It’s situated on a busy stretch of Cavendish Road, among chain Indian restaurants, local fish and chip shops and bakeries, but Flute isn’t trading on its location. Unlike the somewhat complacent restaurateurs of Racecourse Road in Ascot and Oxford Street in Bulimba – where the steady stream of locals from nearby suburbs, and overreliance on their prestigious setting, has led to boring, predictable menus, uninspired presentation and lacklustre service – Flute dishes up what breakfast-lovers seek: a bold, fresh menu that says “Fuck you” to the conventions of a traditional fry up. It was here that the nascent-TCB’s passion for breakfast was first set ablaze with dishes like scrambled duck eggs and molasses bacon served with homemade spicy tomato relish and a hearty breakfast steak. We were determined to return after a hiatus in our semi-regular visits, and once again feast our favourites.

We arrived unannounced. As usual, Flute was already in full swing with nearly every table taken. After being informed that we would have to wait 5-10 minutes for a table, we were comforted by the offer of coffee and a refuge from the already scorching heat. But, as luck would have it, we were availed of a table even before the coffee could be prepared, and got down to the business of ordering.

At first, I was taken aback by what I saw. Gone were the duck eggs. Gone was the steak. It seemed Flute had not been content to rest on its laurels in our absence. A fully reinvigorated menu lay before us. Fortunately, it did not disappoint.

I opted for the lamb and haloumi stack, drizzled with tzatziki and served with haloumi, avocado, lime, poached eggs and toasted Turkish bread. My offsiders went for the breakfast pizza and the Flute signature dish – the potato galette.

Our dishes arrived not quite at the same time, but near enough, and we didn’t have to wait too long. The lamb and haloumi combined complimentary yet varied and distinguishable flavours to create a hearty morning meal. The lamb was very rare (the only way it should be served, in my book), taking on a very Greek feel in combination with the haloumi and tzatziki, set off ever so subtly by the fresh lime. Some might not appreciate being served rare meat without being asked, but for those who enjoy real food, I cannot recommend this dish enough.

Lamb and haloumi stack

GZA had this to say about the galette:

“The galette comes served under a stack of molasses bacon and feta, drowned in a pool of hollandaise sauce. The meal would not be complete without two poached eggs, thick slices of toasted Turkish bread, avocado and the famous tomato relish. On a somewhat busy plate, the meal left a distinct and satisfying taste that had me wanting more, if not for the serious damage it did to my hunger.”

The potato galette

As for the pizza, Mitch reports:

“The meal was fulfilling, yet the proportions were slightly wrong. It had a tomato and onion base. Large avocado slices, large chorizo pieces forming a pile on the base. A single fried egg sat on top and tzatziki was poured over the entire pizza. I have a number of things to say about my meal. First, the base was appropriately covered with tomato paste and was neither too thin nor too thick, making it easy to cut. Second, the chorizos were tasty, explosive and were well complimented by the avocado. However, the size of each piece made them difficult to cut and eat. Third, the tatziki was smooth and garlicy, but sadly, it was overgenerously applied over the entire pizza which trounced the other flavours. Finally, the fried egg was cooked well. It had a runny, delicious yolk which, if ruptured, drizzled down the pizza; an excellent addition. Overall, the meal was good, but it could have been better given smaller chorizo pieces and a lot less tzatziki.”

The breakfast pizza

Flute remains a firm TCB favourite.

Reviewed by Myles.

2/26 Commercial Road, Newstead

Coffee: Veneziano

Open weekdays from 6 am; weekends from 7 am

After wild accusations of ‘wasting the morning away’ were thrown around, TCB decided to follow the trail of an elaborate myth one could only assume to be lost to the vagaries of time: the breakfast degustation.

The entrance to Symposium is quite unassuming. As it is nestled snugly at the entrance to a mixed use, multi level office/apartment building, you would be forgiven for branding it as an express takeaway café. However, once TCB were tucked into a wall side booth next to a group of morning joggers, with a view of the open plan kitchen and behemoth espresso machine, any misgivings were hushed, and were completely vanquished when the menu was presented.

Honey nut granola with strawberry and mango purée and organic yoghurt.

While the menu contained steadfast favourites such as the avocado BLT, eyes were drawn immediately to striking numbers such as the Belgian Waffles with fresh berries, truffled eggs benedict, and haloumi scrambled eggs on wood fire turkish.

However, TCB were there for only one thing: the degustation (which is actually four things).

Our four courses began with a honey nut granola served with strawberry and mango purée and organic yoghurt: fresh and light, it was perfect as a starter, but could not be expected to carry a meal on its own.

Next was warm smoked salmon and cottage cheese, served atop truffled scrambled eggs, poised on a potato hash: the salmon/cheese ratio was perfect as the salmon wash not drowned out; the eggs were roughly scrambled and lightly truffled, adding to the texture and flavour of the dish, rather than dominating it; and the hash was firm and not too salty.

Warm smoked salmon with cottage cheese, truffled scrambled eggs and potato hash.

Petite fry up.

The ‘main course’ was a petite fry up. Playing up to the eccentricities of TCB, it included two quail eggs, chipolata pork sausage, mini rash bacon and truffle sautéed mushrooms. Overall, a delicious and delicate play on the ingredients of your standard ‘big breakfast’.

To finish, dessert was served in the form of poached strawberries on brioche in a bourbon reduction: a slight disappointment given the quality of the meals preceding it, one can’t help but think the dish would have been improved with a simple, light maple syrup rather than the pretentious yet bland bourbon reduction.

Poached strawberries on brioche.

At $45.00 a head (including “bottomless” espresso), it takes a certain mood to dedicate one and half hours to breakfast dining, but the experience did not leave us disappointed. Fresh ingredients, attention to presentation, and a great mix of flavours replace the potential ostentation with tasty decadence.

We came for the degustation… we stayed for the bottomless espresso.

Reviewed by GZA, AMac & Myles

38 Vernon Terrace, Tenerrife

Coffee: Di Bella

Open daily from 9 am

In an attempt to escape the mould of the “hung-over breakfast goer”, TCB decided to prepare for an early morning jog on the way to breakfast, to fit into the “post exercise breakfaster”. The only problem was that TCB was collectively hung-over, and after donning running apparel, the decision was made to forego the run and go straight to breakfast. In a way, we had a foot in both camps.

The location of The London Club is perfect, set in the street level of the heritage refurbished London Woolstore Apartments, in the middle of the trendy Tenerrife café hub. This would explain the abundance of loose singlets, faux dog tags and hipster frullets. What was once a loading platform for bails of wool to be loaded onto transport trains, now acts as an alfresco dining area elevated from the street – the sweaty, overalled labourers now replaced with mothers’ groups and flamboyant homosexuals (at least on this particular morning). The interior décor of the Club is somewhat eclectic, with a feature wall at the back covered in an Agincourt arrow head pattern, leading to a corner fitted out with an antiquated wooden bookshelf containing titles such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and James Joyce’s Ulysses. A fully fitted bar lines the opposite wall, with the other corner taken up with a large stainless steal serving bench, offering diners a view into the kitchen.

The pomp and frills end here, however, as we sip tepid tap water waiting for our coffee orders to be taken. The menu has some interesting options including The London Pot, a baked pot of tomato salsa, chorizo sausage and fried eggs; and the Wagyu beef savoury mince.

The London Pot.

Whilst they are definitely awarded style points for imagination and variety, the execution leaves a little to be desired. The Pot was good, without being anything to write home about, as the tomato salsa, somewhat bland in itself, took over the rest of the dish, with the occasional interruption from the smoke of the chorizo here, and the strength of the egg there. Perhaps a touch of chilli may have set off the chorizo more and given the dish a bit more life.

As for the mince, I’m told it was a fairly bland affair; though filling, each mouthful seemed more pedestrian than the last while the sloppy texture of mince and fairly watery tomato sauce, which was tolerable at the start, became a chore to get through as the pangs of hunger evaporated (although, being mince, what else could one expect?).

Wagyu beef savoury mince with poached eggs.

With slow, not particularly friendly service, and “okay” food, The London Club is obviously trading on their location and trend factor, and charging accordingly; standard breakfast staples and some of their own roughly accomplished creations will set you back  $16- $19.

Reviewed by AMac.

Coffee by Vivo.

1/720 Brunswick Street, New Farm

Coffee: Vivo

Open daily from 7 am

In light of it being Valentines Day weekend, the TCB WAGS accompanied the breakfast outing into the familiar Fortitude Valley area.

The Alibi Room is a jack of all trades establishment straddling the boarder between the Fortitude Valley and New Farm, acting as a pub, bar and tacoria through the week, and a purveyor of all day breakfast on the weekends, obviously catering to the patrons it has intoxicated the night before.

After walking through a door reading “Do You Need One?”, the interior is a particularly nauseating shade of mustard, but is splattered with kitsch and quirk, including 1980’s arcade game tables, decorated skateboard decks, racks of free postcards, and a mural of a rotund, naked humanoid riding a giant half chicken half Mexican Day of the Dead scull. The open, breezy front room with bar stool seating and views of the busy main road give way to a slightly darker back room with tables and a booth.

The first thing that strikes about the menu is the prices: the most expensive option is $14.00, with most fitting between the $9.00 and $12.00 range. For those blessed with four stomachs for the proper break down of flora, there are vegetarian and vegan breakfast items, and for normal, carnivorous human beings, there is the usual assortment of classics.

Disaster then strikes: the breakfast chef has not yet prepared a batch of the Breakfast Bubble & Squeak, which according to the menu was savoury beef mince with poached eggs. After going into a slight panic, the Eggs and Breakfast Ratatouille is landed on as the back up option, while TCB WAG opts for the always safe Eggs Benedict.

Eggs and breakfast ratatouille.

After waiting quite a while for coffee to arrive, the food is delivered relatively quickly. The Ratatouille is served with thick, buttereddoorstop toast, perfect to mop up the sloppy, creamy, salsa like consistency of the dish, which includes tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkin and onions, with two perfectly poached eggs: not an explosion of runny, watery yolk, and not a crumbly, fossilised chunk.

But this does not even come close to quelling the order envy at the sight of the Eggs Benedict resting on the other side of the table: poached eggs sitting on fat, hearty, grown man shaves of leg ham with crisp spinach leaves served on Turkish bread, the hollandaise sauce provided in a separate saucer, to be dressed to the individual taste of the devourer.

Eggs benedict.

The meals are well portioned and tasty, without being gastronomic explosions of pleasure, but with friendly and fast service with a smile, good coffee, and most notably, cheap prices, the Alibi Room is solid weekend breakfast option, especially for those who may still be residing in a world of pain, resulting from the previous night.

Try the Bubble & Squeak and let TCB know, as we are sure to die wondering.

Reviewed by AMac

Racecourse Road, Ascot
Wednesday 16 February 2011
7.05am

Breakfast Served: All Day
Coffee: Di Bella

As far as TCB is concerned, there are three things to kick Hump Day off to a racy start: nipples; cyclist road accidents; and Eggs Benedict.

Vagelis has been a HAC (Hamilton, Ascot, and Clayfield) stalwart for decades, and as a born and bred Ascotian, I’ve sampled all of the many changes of menu, and the changes in quality that come with them. Breakfast is now their vogue option, serving it all today to a consistently packed house on the weekend, and to groups of corporate types through the week.

A perfectly micro-foamed, well baristared skinny flat white is whisked out rather quickly, as TCB watches the Fashion Channel on the big screen atop the far wall (the source of the aforementioned nipple). The entertainment then takes a dramatic shift, as the open layout of the café, providing a view out to Racecourse Road, offers the pantomime of a tour bus running into a cyclist, followed by theatrical gesticulating, yelling, and bike tossing (TCB can only assume that it was the cyclists fault).

In the interests of full disclosure, I have sampled several of the menu items on previous occasions: the turbo breakfast pita is a Greek breakfast sensation; the lox bagel brings a bit of New York Jewish sensibility to Brisbane; while the breakfast omelette, advertised as the biggest in Brisbane, truly is a sight to behold, as the boogie board sized, cheesy egg mess hangs over the edge of the plate.

But this morning before work, it is a benny-off, with the two Eggs Benedict options ordered: the salmon and the ham.

So now we wait….and wait….and wait….it’s not particularly busy but we wait some more….a pineapple juice is ordered and brought out within a minute, yet we still wait for the food, all the while sipping tepid tap water.

Finally, like an apparition of a desert oasis, the meals arrive after about thirty-five minutes. Unfortunately, this is not irregular, as Vagelis has developed the infamous reputation of having painfully slow kitchen service.

That aside however, the food is excellent. Any restaurant that can successfully poach an egg shoots up several notches in the TCB handbook, and Vagelis definitely got the consistency right. The salmon is plentiful, while the ham is layered well over the toasted Turkish. The hollandaise is not lacquered on, but drizzled over enough to give a healthy covering, with just enough to mop up with any left over bread. While the grilled tomato is fairly normal, TCB did not particularly appreciate the seemingly random garden salad served on the side.

The food is  good; the coffee is excellent; the atmosphere is bustling; but the main, and quite important, detractor is the kitchen service. Perhaps they should replace the mouse-in-a spin-wheel power source with a slightly larger, more powerful rodent, and pump out breakfast a little faster.

But with the mass crowd they cater for on the weekends, which necessitated them engulfing the quaint little shoe store next store to put more tables, the people have spoken: they come for the food, not the service.

But seriously, how hard is it to chill water?

Reviewed by AMac and Myles

Emporium, 1000 Ann Street, Fortitude Valley

Coffee: Vittoria

Breakfast: til 11.00am

It’s obvious that it’s early on a Sunday morning as there are parks available as far as the eye can see within Emporium, the always bustling, modern precinct on the northern edge of Fortitude Valley. With the many cafes and restaurants that offer breakfast in the complex, TCB has a particular target in mind, the new Italian cuisine powerhouse, Tartufo.

When one walks in, they are reminded of the pretentious, French wankery that was Bella Epoch, the previous restaurant tenant, as the table and bar lay out are the same, with the bar lining one wall, and an expansive, open dining room with tables and booths. But that is where the similarities stop, as the fiddly, overpriced French staples have been replaced with their hearty Italian counterparts, but we digress away from what’s pertinent in this instance: breakfast.

In the gaping, open dining room, TCB are the only ones seated, as most presumably saunter lazily in a bit later in the morning. This gives us time to peruse the menu, which ostensibly is quite limited and short.

Half a Macchiato

However, further inspection reveals some quite unusual numbers, such as a breakfast bruschetta with scrambled eggs, and salmon with asparagus on sourdough.

The coffee is served rather quickly, in a nondescript, plain cup, but when you sip past the creamy micro foam, it is revealed to be a well brewed Vittoria number.

Scrambled Eggs

The meals aren’t far behind. The breakfast bruschetta is not at all what springs to mind when bruschetta is mentioned: rather than a mess of diced onions and tomatoes on bread, it is two pieced of sourdough adorned with prosciutto, two fat dollops of melted mozzarella, and creamy scrambled eggs. The flavours blend beautifully as the cured meat provides a saltiness to balance out the cheese and the eggs.

The other dishes aesthetically tickle the pallet, with the salmon plentiful, and the mixed breakfast including a whole, grilled vine ripened tomato as its centrepiece.

Tartufo is at the upper middle end of the breakfast pricing schedule, at around $15.00 to $19.00, but the value for money comes with the quality of the ingredients you would expect from a high end restaurant, and the careful attention to presentation. The service is efficient and friendly, without being a notable feature of the breakfast experience.

A long way from the stale croissants and bitter coffee of its French predecessor, Tartufo provides an excellent breakfast opportunity for patrons, as a warm up for their chefs’ lunch and dinner preparations.

Reviewed by AMac.

The Gunshop

53 Mollison Street, West End

While some would consider 8 an unusual hour to grace heroin-junkie-chic West End, a pre work breakfast to kick start hump day seems like as good a reason as any for TCB to conduct their début visit to the famed Gunshop Cafe, at a time where their infamous crowds are not packing the cafe to bursting point. Not to be confused with the purveyor of munitions and firearms in East Brisbane, the Gunshop Cafe’s reputation precedes it as one of the finest breakfast jaunts in Brisbane.

The coffee is okay, but nothing more.

 

On first impression, the staff win over TCB, as we, the sole patrons at this time of the morning, are compromised with a table, long macchiato and a skinny flat white before the restaurant even opens. The only issue so far is that the coffee menu proudly boasts Merlo beans, and while the coffees are well brewed, my own preconceived prejudices against the brand are upheld; the coffee is okay, but nothing more.

The decor is a rustic throw back to the age and arty nature of the West End precinct, with red brick walls lined with cheap impressionist art pieces for sale to customers. However, while TCB appreciate the large, industrial fan in the corner, providing more than adequate cooling, we were slightly off put by the cafe “mascots”: three large busts of a red haired, long necked, crooked nosed, bug eyed, Gillard-esque character.

The menu is set out in three sections: Light Meals such as fig toast and fruit salad; Gunshop Classics including double smoked bacon and eggs, Canadian brioche French toast and Toulouse sausages; and Gunshop New, a list of creations the likes of croquet monsieur, omelette Arnold bennet and chicken liver pate.

Both members of TCB sampled from the new menu. The smoked Tasmanian salmon and creamed eggs on cheddar and chive cornbread is much more than just your simple salmon scramble. While the eggs are creamy and textured, they are no different to the high quality scrambles you would expect at other Brisbane breakfast eateries. However, the treat is in the salmon and the corn bread: the salmon fresh, strong and forthright, obviously not ripped out of a packet, but possibly (but probably not) wrangled from a pristine Tasmanian stream the day before; while the corn bread is far from a dry, crumbly mess, but is rich with the flavours of garlic chives and a hearty cheddar.

Smoked Salmon

Being an advocate for dried blood, TCB is immediately drawn to the last item on the menu: spiced black pudding served alongside a poached duck egg poised on top of an English muffin and apple prune compote to complete the English Classic. The poached duck egg is cooked to perfection and is delicious and fluffy, delicately highlighting a course that can be recommended to anyone who wants to try something just a little bit different.

In under half an hour, TCB are seated, stuffed full of well prepared, high quality ingredients and fixed up with a mid range bill, pricing towards the upper middle end of breakfast eateries.

Black Pudding

 

Culinarilly satisfied, TCB are ready for work.

Reviewed by GZA and AMac

2/967 Logan Road, Holland Park West

Flat White

Coffee: Di Bella

Open from 7 am daily

With our last post, the TCB crew found an under appreciated breakfast spot on the south side. After murmurings from other breakfast enthusiasts (preaching glory) we set out to indulge in a hump day review, full of anticipation that this humble cafe in Holland Park West would become another breakfast option for us south-siders.

First impressions of the staff were pleasing as we were greeted with pleasantries and offered real-estate wherever we pleased. Opting for an al-fresco breakfast position adjacent Logan Road, we quickly noticed that the peak hour traffic in combination with the alarming number of reserved signs on the larger table might have detracted from the atmosphere of the meal, and wisely chose a more practical location on the wall of the shop (but still outside).

The menus and coffee orders seemed to be taken care of in an efficient manner, and then it was down to business.

I find the decision regarding what to consume is always a challenging one – and is made more intriguing at RP with the addition of breakfast specials – a concept which is rarely seen implemented in breakfast spots in Brisbane. Note that specials served on our visit were chilli scrambled eggs and a Spanish Omelette.

The chilli scrambled eggs took my eye, but after deciding I was in a poached eggs mood, in combination with my excitement for a potato feta cake, I bit the bullet and went for the big breakfast. To my extreme disappointment, however, no feta cakes were on offer. I was able to substitute this for haloumi, and I also switched the tomato for avocado, which was not a qualm with the staff and boded well in my books.

RP Big Breakfast - GZA Style

Field Mushrooms

Interestingly enough, we found RP to be unexpectedly busy for a Wednesday morning. We found this to be a good thing on this occasion, as any noise from the traffic on Logan Road was washed out with the conversational styling’s of our fellow breakfast goers.

Once again I have nothing but good things to say about the staff. Even on a busy morning we found the time waiting for the meals was pleasing for two hungry individuals.

The big breakfast (complete with avocado and haloumi) was a treat. The eggs were oozing into the concave centre of my avocado – the bacon was thick, crisp and hot – the field mushrooms were fresh and well portioned – and the sourdough toast acted as a great base for the meal. It was finished with slithers of spring onion and cracked pepper to taste. No complaints from me.

My friend went for the field mushrooms on spelt & walnut sour dough. Note that the eggs were added, but necessary to complete the dish.

In all, a great first experience at the Rare Pear.

The Rare Pear is open 7 days a week.

Reviewed by GZA.

186 Cavendish Rd, Coorparoo

Coffee: Caffeine Espresso

Open daily from 7 am

It is a very special morning for TCB, as we find ourselves in the heart of the Brisbane suburban Southside following the celebration of the return of a long standing, interstate friend of TCB. While the default Southside breakfast option is Flute, we decided to shake things up a bit by travelling several hundred metres further down Cav road.

Chocolate Syrup Cappuccino

Cafeine is a small, two room hole in the wall nestled adjacent to the junction of two of Brisbane’s busiest roads, but on a Sunday morning, the traffic noise is not too bad. The experience gets off to a bad start, as the long, bench style seating, which works in theory, is shot to pieces by an elderly couple sitting directly in the middle of one bench, while a young family wrestling their misbehaving, screaming child engulf the end of another. TCB must take an uncleaned table outside, which remains uncleaned throughout the breakfast.

Berry Smoothie

The next issue is that there is no table service, and customers are expected to mill around the counter, reading the menu plaque overhead and order at the register. Luckily, TCB beat the rush; just five minutes after ordering the queue flies out the door. Ordering a secondary coffee, however, becomes quite a battle.

The coffee is brought out relatively quickly, and is a treat to behold on arrival. After seeing one served at another table, one normally anti-Cappuccino TCBer is forced to go against convention and order the chocolaty sensation, as Cafeine use syrup instead of the choking hazard powder. As well as coffee, there are some interesting smoothie options, including a refreshing strawberry number and a sickeningly sweet chocolate mocha.

The menu items are fairly limited, and the complete lack of descriptions of the items leaves a lot to the imagination, especially where the big breakfast is concerned. Notwithstanding the lack  information, one ravenous TCBer opts for the big breakfast. Other meals at the table include the mushroom and scrambled egg sandwich, and the bacon, egg and tomato.

The kitchen service is solid, and the meals are brought out quickly.

Big Breakfast

The Big Breakfast involves a baked omelette style of egg served in a ceramic bowl, which, when accompanied with some cracked pepper and sea salt really warmed up the taste buds. Alongside the egg creation is some curly, crispy bacon and a stack of lettuce feta drizzled with maple syrup.

The mushroom sandwich, served on crunchy toasted Turkish, has a very strong flavour due to the garlic pesto, which sets off the mixed mushrooms brilliantly, letting the scrambled eggs just fill out the serving rather than take pride of place.

Mushroom Sandwich

The bacon, egg and tomato turns out to be an interesting dish: the egg and feta are baked into the tomato, served alongside the curly bacon.

Egg, Tomato & Bacon

All the dishes are aesthetically pleasing, as care and attention has obviously gone into presentation, not to mention the alluring symmetry of the rectangular plates.

On the whole, Cafeine is a very good kitchen, pumping out tasty breakfast meals at a good pace, and inventive, delicious coffee to match. What lets it down, however, is  with the lack of table service, a slopping cleaning effort and an uninformative menu which makes it hard to just sit back, relax and enjoy a Sunday morning gorge.

Reviewed by AMac & GZA.

4/31 James Street, Fortitude Valley

Chai Tea Pot

Coffee: Merlo

Breakfast: til 11.30am

After starting the morning later than usual, driving around what seemed like the entire Valley looking for a park, then battling the overwhelming sense of paranoia of having my car towed from the Snap Printing allocated staff car park, I had built up quite a hunger. Accordingly, the James Street stalwart Harvey’s, recently transformed from a middling white table cloth dining room into a chic cafe bistro, is set to take care of TCB.

Ignoring the difficulties of parking and the hoard of screaming children running around outside, Harvey’s has succeeded in creating an effective, minimalist décor, with an indoor/outdoor dining room with a plain concrete floor, glass walls offering a view of the bustle of James Street, and a floor to ceiling black chalk board listing the daily food and wine specials.

The menu not only offers interesting items, but rather, offers exclusively inventive variations on breakfast staples, with an isolated section on the menu headed “Eggs”, for those who don’t wish to live on the wild side of breakfast.

Skinny Flat White

It’s a decidedly tough choice to make the call between the likes of Ricotta buttermilk pikelets with caramelized banana and honeycomb; wild mushrooms and lentils with grilled haloumi; and spiced mince tortilla with poached eggs and avocado. In a list of strong contenders however, TCB opted with the potato and fetta rosti with creamed sweat corn and poached egg, and the confit potato, ricotta and spinach omelette with tomato chutney and chilli flakes: both served with the optional Serrano ham.

Early worries abound as ten minutes roll by without the delivery of the coffees, but at the eleventh minute, a stock standard Merlo flat white and a pot of fairly weak, milky chai are delivered. Any problems with the service are then completely put to rest, as the twelfth minute signals the delivery of the food: a time frame that any kitchen could be proud of.

The omelette comes out in a pizza like form, crowned with a piece of crusty sourdough and butter, and whole spinach leaves sprinkled over the top layer of delicately thin Serrano ham. The tomato chutney is sweet, but not improperly sickly, cutting beautifully across the fat chunks of ricotta and the lightly salted potato. As an avid lover of spice, the chilli was not overly present, but for normal human beings not attune to the pantomime of spicy vindaloo, it would be perfect.

Omelette

The potato rosti is golden crunchy on the outside, and soft on the inside. The creamed corn is a tasty, irregular breakfast treat with a buttery consistency, and with a perfectly poached egg on top, the whole dish works wonderfully.

With a bustling atmosphere, stylish and chic fit out, speedy kitchen service and an interesting, alternative breakfast menu that is clinically executed, the only thing keeping Harvey’s from the top of the breakfast food chain is the coffee.

Potato Rosti

After thirty gastronomically pleasurable minutes, TCB is back in the car…which fortunately remained untowed.

Reviewed by AMac.

185 George Street, Brisbane City

Open daily from 7 am

The presentation wasn't particularly appetising...

I was already late for work when I made the snap decision to duck into The Villager for what I hoped would be a quick bite. I opted for a simple dish in an effort to hasten the process: poached eggs and bacon on toast. Surely that couldn’t take more than 10 minutes to dish up?

When the meal was presented 25 minutes later, I realised my error. The eggs oozing over the plate were poached at a meandering 62 degrees, leaving me precious little time to devour my daily dose of saturated fat and cholesterol. Over the course of the hurried meal, I couldn’t help but notice how much more difficult it was to fork such softly poached eggs. The texture wasn’t to my taste either. I think I could have done a lot better for $15.

On the plus side, the coffee was excellent.

Reviewed by Myles