Last Sunday we made the epic trek from Dulwich Hill to the almost neighbouring suburb of Balmain. After some careful menu browsing of a number of the cafe’s located around the main drag of Darling St, we decided to check out All about… Romana’s.
It was a hot day and Romana’s has the choice of outdoor seating in the street or air conditioned indoor dining. We went with the indoor option. The menu had all of the traditional brunch items such as the customary $8.50 museli, a full cooked breakfast or various pancake combinations however there were a few stand out items.
Eggs Benedict
Gabrielle went for the Eggs Benedict which was very good, with great hollandaise and top notch poached eggs, the only quirk being that instead of being served on English Muffins, this Eggs Benedict came served on smallish hash browns making it a serious rich dish with not much available to soak up all the hollandaise sauce.
Green Eggs and Ham
I however ordered the Dr. Seuss special and went with the Green Eggs and Ham. The green eggs were created by mixing Basil Pesto into the scrambled eggs mix. This was then served on top of some double smoked ham on Ciabatta toast topped off with a garnish of rocket leaves. I have to say this was pretty tasty and I’d definitely order it again, I may even try to make my own at some stage too.
Overall
The atmosphere of the cafe was very comfortable with seating around the edges and bench seating down the middle of the cafe and there was a TV styled fish tank that acted as a stand for the water cooler. The Campos coffee was made to a high standard and there was a broad variety of different freshly squeezed and blended juices on offer.
The only draw back was the waitress who served us who is best described as an ‘ice queen’ and just looked like she did not want to be there. To sum up though, I’d highly recommend hitting Romana’s for brunch as the food and drink were all of a high calibre and the pricing was reasonable as well with most brunch dishes topping out below the $16 mark.
Brunch at 35,000 Feet
Last Saturday morning I flew from Sydney back to catch up with my friend George who was over from London for a short visit to our old home town of Christchurch, New Zealand. I was flying on Emirates as the last leg of the Dubai > Bangkok > Sydney > Christchurch route.
It was a nice change for me to fly a full service airline as lately I’ve been flying budget airlines all over the country so along with the solid amounts of leg room, when I checked out the menu I was happy to see that they were serving brunch on the flight as I was worried there might not be a chance to have brunch during the weekend.
The Menu
Brunch was a multiple dish affair consisting of fresh fruit selection, a choice between a Creamy Chicken Korma or a Swiss Cheese Omelette and an Old English Tea Cake. We also got the standard bread roll and butter as well as the classic cheese and crackers combo with a small Emirates brand chocolate. Emirates provided us with a metal fork and spoon, but the knife was made of plastic which is interesting as I think you could do more damage with the fork to be honest.
The fruit selection was close to being past it’s used by date. It consisted of watermelon, rock melon and pineapple. The pineapple was turning brown and the rock melon was a bit hard a tasteless. The watermelon on the other hand was quite tasty so I downed that and left the rest alone.
The choice in mains was interesting, I’m not against eating a curry for breakfast but in this instance I had to give the Chicken korma a miss and go with the Swiss Cheese Omelette which was topped with a tangy capsicum sauce and accompanied by sauteed button mushrooms and roasted potatoes. The mushrooms and potatoes didn’t survive the reheating process very well and there was the traditional pool of water at the bottom of the dish, but the omelette itself was pretty good and the tangy capsicum sauce was extremely tasty.
The dessert of an Old English tea cake was interesting, the cake itself wasn’t anything special and was a bit dry, but they dryness of the cake was combated with a creamy vanilla sauce. Couple this with the cheese & crackers, mini chocolate and a couple of cups of passable filter coffee this made for a good end to proceedings.
Tip: If you’re really hungry, according to my little brother if you ask the cabin crew for a second breakfast they will bring you another one.
The Movie
You know that the human race has made some progress when you can have brunch in -50 degrees celcius at 900 km/h 35,000 feet up. Just when you thought that was awesome, every Economy Seat on Emirates has a 10.6 inch LCD monitor hooked up to their ICE (Information, Communication & Entertainment) system which gives you around 900 options of movies, television shows and radio stations to watch or listen to. I chose to watch Terminator Salvation, the latest movie in the Terminator Quadrilogy, it wasn’t flash but hey it was early in the morning.
So there we go, if you have had a good airline brunch let us know what airlines you rate for a high altitude brunch experience or on the flipside of that, any that you would recommend people avoid.
Sumac, Darling Harbour
Last Sunday we enjoyed a four course tasting brunch at Sumac, Darling Harbour, as part of the Sydney International Food Festival. This was definitely something different for even the most travelled brunching enthusiast.
Coffee
Sumac serves Di Lorenzo coffee and we ordered a flat white and a latte which were both fairly good quality, but coffee was not the draw card of the cafe, the food is what this place is all about during SIFF.
Starter
Brunch starter consisted of Cous Cous with nuts (macadamia, almonds) and dried apricots (pictured centre), Porridge with dates (pictured front), rice pudding with poached saffron pear (pictured rear) accompanied by a selection of heated milk, cardamom milk, stewed rhubarb and brown sugar.
The highlight for me would have been the rice pudding with the poached pear as well as the rhubarb stew with the porridge.
Daniel favoured the Cous Cous with nuts and cardamom milk combination.
Mains
The main course consisted of eggs with sides, meaning we got eggs cooked every way, including scrambled, poached and fried on Turkish toast. I took care of the scrambled eggs and Daniel took the poached and I must say the scrambled eggs were of very high quality compared to what you usually receive and they knew what they were doing on the poached egg front as well.
Accompanying the eggs were an amazing assortment of sides which included all of the traditional big breakfast usual suspects such as bacon, mushrooms, homemade baked beans, fried tomatoes, home made hash browns, blanched spinach, merguez sausages as well as some more exotic choices in the form of grilled haloumi cheese. The home made baked beans and hash browns were a nice touch and were both high quality which was great to see.
Another great feature of the main course of the brunch was the addition of a Tajine, we made the choice of the Lamb Tajine (pumpkin and feta was the vegetarian offering). This was accompanied by Turkish and Lebanese bread and included diced onions, capsicum and minced lamb with 2 eggs that were cracked onto the top which ended up being poached from the steam trapped in the tajine while it was being baked.
Desserts/sweets
As if the previous courses weren’t enough, the meal was finished with a raspberry and chocolate (pieces) pancake topped off with butter scotch syrup and chocolate fudge ice cream. We only managed to get through about half of this which wasn’t a bad effort as it was about a centimetre thick.
The last word…
On approaching Samuc from inside the Harbourside mall, I was a bit dubious about how good it was going to be, however once we were inside the Morrocan decor themed interior was a nice place to be with a view out over Darling Harbour. The crockery had an alternating Moroccan pattern to it and the wait staff were friendly and enthusiastic about the special SIFF menu which was great to see.
This special set menu brunch as part of SIFF is only available on Saturday’s and Sundays during October 2009 but it is definitely worth getting out of bed and heading into the city for on either day of the weekend as you won’t be finding an offering like this at many place around Sydney. At $25 a head it is expensive for a brunch and there is a 10% service surcharge on a Sunday but this offering is well worth the money. Make sure you are seriously hungry when you show up as there is a large amount of food put on the table, sometimes there is barely enough table real estate available for all of the dishes the staff bring out for you.
Happy brunching
Gabrielle
Welcome to Let’s Brunch
Welcome foodies and brunch lovers. This new blog Let’s Brunch is created by two “experienced” brunch eaters, and coffee lovers who will show you the delights (and maybe not-so-delights) of Sydney brunch dining, as well as cooking some brunch recipes at home from all our favourite chefs (especially Gordon!).
Join Dan and Gabrielle as we sample brunch menus across Sydney and abroad. This blog will also feature “guest reviews” from equally experienced friends and family. If you have a favourite cafe, restaurant, recipe or similar you would like us to review, or wish to feature as a guest reviewer, get in touch via info@letsbrunch.com.au.
Make sure you follow us on twitter (@letsbrunch) as well as Dan (@danpurchas) and Gabrielle (@gab_hegarty) for latest updates on where we are heading each week.
Live in Sydney? Want to join us for brunch? We would love to have your company – email info@letsbrunch.com.au
Look forward to hearing your comments. Talk soon.
D & G
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