On the first Sunday in January I made a trip to Annandale to check out Revolver, only to discover that they were still closed for Christmas. Mooching round Annandale in search of breakfast we stumbled across the lively looking Clover and decided to check it out.
The first thing you notice is that this place definitely has atmosphere. Perhaps it's all of the people gossiping away? The funky furniture? The friendly staff? The sunshine making everyone cheerful? I'm not sure what it was, but all cafés should try to be like this.
The sexy fruit platter at a nearby table can't help but catch my eye. A large plate of passion fruit, mango and assorted seasonal fruits presented; well, sexily. Deciding that I want something more substantial I'm drawn to the breakfast hotpots, baked eggs and poached eggs on the menu. There's a sprinkling of labna and sumac in the description of lots of dishes. Combined with the iced mint tea, you realise you are somewhere with a subtle Arabic influence.
I decided to order the chorizo and goats cheese baked eggs and unfortunately wonder what all the hype is about. There's nothing wrong with it per-se it's just missing all of the components being brought together. The tomato sauce could be doing this, but sadly isn't.
However, when I taste the baked bean, mushroom and roasted pepper hotpot, I curse myself for making the wrong choice. It's so good! The mushrooms, pepper, beans, potato and egg are brought together perfectly by the broth of the hotpot.
Baked eggs and breakfast tagines are getting increasingly common on Sydney breakfast menus. Breakfast hotpots are the next big thing.
You eat out more in a week than I do in a year. Maybe I am on the wrong continent!
ReplyDeleteNow baked eggs with goats cheese and chorizo sounds amazing to me, although anything with goats cheese has me interested. Sounds like they're all taking a page out of the "shakshuka" handbook, something the Israeli's do beautifully.
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