I had a training course being held at the UTS Law building, and was looking for somewhere to have breakfast before the training started. Chambers Fine coffee looked neat and had upstairs seating, so I thought I'd walk in and see their menu. I'm a big breakfast kind of guy in cold weather, so I went and ordered their mighty breakfast option, with an Earl Grey tea.
The downstairs was pretty narrow, not a lot of seating, with outdoor seating, however the upstairs mezzanine level had a good number of tables, clean, well lighted, and the music was also at a comfortable volume. The tea came out pretty quick as you would expect, however it was a little disappointing. The brand used was Tea Pigs (never heard of them), which wasn't really the issue, it was that they served the tea in a pot, but provided an Espresso cup! Milk came in a cardboard espresso cup, which, come on, its not that hard to have larger cups in your tableware collection please!
Food came up not that much longer, so in terms of turnaround it was pretty quick, but then again, there wasn't a lot of customers at the time I was in.
So, two bits of sourdough with a Western Star pat of butter (plastic tub). The butter had practically liquified inside the tub, pretty much poured it onto the toast, which was okay, but one piece got a lot, the other barely any. Chizoro, well, one very small chizoro (about the length of my thumb) cut into four pieces lengthways. It looked like two rashers of bacon, so at least that was okay. Two poached eggs neatly presented, looked like some alfalfa sprinkled on top with some cracked pepper. Half a tomato. Come on. Half? Where was the other half! One hash brown, looked nice and evenly cooked. A generous pile of thinly sliced pan-cooked mushrooms, still firm.
How did it taste? Hash browns were very oily. I don't think the fryer temp was fully up to temp. Bacon and chizoro were swimming in oil. The mushrooms were well cooked. The poached eggs were inconsistent. One broke as I tried to move it onto my toast, while the other survived its journey just fine. You could definitely taste the salt and vinegar solution on them that they were poached in.
That said, I've had a lot worse in terms of hot breakfasts. Price was kind of on-par, could have at least given me the rest of the tomato really.
Now, why did I give it a 3.5 though? The food was passable, the service quick, the atmosphere was pleasant. The real kicker for the extra 0.5 from average however was how they were very friendly in regards to handling a large family that came in during my breakfast. They had no hesitation in pushing tables and arranging things around to accommodate them, and despite me sitting on a table that was way bigger than I needed, for a long period (I was there for an hour taking my time since my training wasn't due for ages), they didn't rush me, or ask me to swap tables. Nor did they look at me dirty, or ask if I needed anything else (which some plates use as a way of saying are you getting more food or should you be going now). For that friendliness and behaviour, thats where that extra 0.5 comes from
Would I go back? Perhaps to try some coffee, or something else, but probably not specifically for t heir mighty brekkie.
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