Ikea; an unlikely source of brunch

Isn’t it every guys dream to spend at least one day of your weekend at Ikea? Well, not really in most cases but Ikea does brunch so it was enough to convince me to endure a trip to the shops to look at Kitchens and other interior decorating focussed doodads.

I have to say it is a bit disconcerting to buy food from a furniture manufacturer but I think Ikea actually sells the cheapest cooked breakfast you can buy in Sydney. There is a small set of options to choose from but everything on the breakfast menu is less than a fiver.

Options on the menu

You can either go down the sweets path with the dual pancakes for $3.95 or the savoury path which is a cut down version of the more traditional cooked English. I went down the savoury path which led me to even more options, the vegetarian breakfast and the hot breakfast. I managed to obtain both of these breakfasts for the princely sum of $5.50.

The vegetarian came in at $2.50 and consisted of scrambled eggs, bakes beans, hash browns and half a tomato.

The Hot Breakfast was the meat eaters option and consisted of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns and a half tomato and cost $2.95.

The ingredients on the breakfasts were highly varied in quality. The hash browns and sausages were pretty tasty I have to say even though they were highly generic. One of the tomatoes presented to our party was not ripe and green and the eggs were being brought out to be served in massive trays that looked like platters full of tofu.

I also bought bottomless coffee which was good value quantity wise but some of the most terrible tasting coffee in existence.

So Ikea, good for those on a brunch budget. One breakfast isn’t enough if you have a hearty appetite but it is easy to scale up for a low price. If you are not very tolerant of shopping and other shoppers, avoid this place on the weekends as it gets pretty intense inside the store.

The cafe/restaurant actually opens half an hour before the store does so you can fuel up before you hit the showroom floor without losing any valuable browsing time. If you finish up your shopping and you’re hungry again, then there are $1 hot dogs for sale as you get through the check outs.

All in all, you cannot complain about Ikea’s interpretation of brunch, it is amazingly cheap and where else could you find a cooked breakfast like this for such a low price, check it out.
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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

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