Moving and feeding don't mix. For starters, you get very hungry carrying stuff around, and all your food is either in transit or in the bin. Therefore, unless you want to live on vegemite sandwiches that are produced by smearing margarine and vegemite on bread with your finger, the only answer is to eat out.
As our move extended over 5 days, we ate out a lot. One establishment that we visited was "the barn" - note the spelling in lower case. the barn is off our usual beat, being in Rozelle rather than Balmain. It's advertised as a "cafe & grocery", with the grocery being the kind where a litre of organic sheep milk and a loaf of linseed and elderberry bread cost $118.54. It's a great shop to walk around, but without a shopping basket. I solve that by lugging the little monkey around. That removes my ability to grab things with my hands, like my wallet.
However, that did not remove the need to feed. We've eaten there before on a weekend, and the thing I remembered was the extraordinarily slow service and the dopey waitresses. There is not a waiter to be seen, and all the waitresses seem to be from the same place as Ikea. They speak English with an accent, which means they can read the menu, but can't understand an Australian accent, particularly when the speaker is tired and has a sinus cavity filled with dust and snot. Still, I'll try anything twice, so we gave it another go.
First thing to note - it seems to be the meeting place of numerous mother's groups. Pram parking is good. You can actually drive a pram from the door to the rearmost table without snagging on chairs or other patrons. Woopee doo. We didn't take the pram, as it was in transit somewhere. However, it meant that prams were continually being pushed past me, and for once I was not wearing a set of handle bars between the shoulder blades everytime a Mum went past, concentrating more on their little darling instead of looking where they are going.
So we find a table, have a seat and wait for a waitress. One turns up quickly, and hands out very groovy menus. They are attached to nice wooden clipboards, and the clip is a welded on fork, knife or spoon. It is a great effect. Good design. It's hard not to like the place. It has lots of lights hanging from the ceiling, and every lampshade is different. It's the kind of chaotic design I can appreciate. Like the place has been built partly from scrap. There is a particular orange UFO type lampshade that I want for the office at home. Wierd, stupid and likeable.
Sorry, there are no photos as the camera disappeared into a box and it only emerged last night.
The waitress gives us a minute, then returns to take orders, which is good as I am Starvin' Marvin by this point. I go for the seafood hollaindaise, which is advertised as a muffin, soft poached egges, wilted spinach, asparagus, mushrooms, oven roasted tomatoes and smoked salmon topped with hollaindaise sauce. After the Canberra disaster with the hollaindaise, I should have been off the hollaindaise, but I had a hankering for it rather than bacon and eggs. The others ordered, and we also ordered drinks.
Monkey started to munkilate (ie, scruffle), so I had to pass the time by carrying him up and down the aisles pointing out the organic muesli, the sheeps milk fetta, the strange Italian biscuits and the organic sugar. We did numerous laps of the cheese counter, which featured cheese I have never heard of at $9.90 per 100gms. I have never paid more than about $75 a kilo for cheese, and that was for the hideously expensive and stinky varieties like pont le veque (I think that is how it is spelt) and something similar. Forking out $99 a kilo for cheese takes it to a new level.
By the time I had done my 4th lap, I was expecting to return to our table to see it laden with coffee and hot chocolate. However, the table was bare. Same with the 5th lap, then the 9th lap. Finally, on about the 14th lap, I returned to find the table groaning with food - but no coffee.
Fuck it. I want my coffee to arrive before my food. I like the ritual of being able to drink somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of it before I eat. No more, no less. If I am down to half a coffee, it means there is not enough to go with breakfast, and the last dregs of coffee will be cold. If it arrives at the same time, I have to mix in my 1/3 of a sachet of sugar, which I hate doing once food is on the table. I want separation. I want some space between the liquids and the solids. I want to contemplate the coffee aroma, to feel the warmth of the milk and coffee between my fingers.
I certainly don't want the fucking thing to arrive halfway through my meal.
As it turns out, I almost forgot about the coffee as the food was very good. Sure, there were only two asparagus spears, but they were beautifully cooked - al dente. They did not sag when picked up, and they had a delicious crunch to them. The eggs had runny yolks, but the white was nicely set. The hollaindaise was wonderful, and plentiful. There was a sea of it left on my plate when I finished up. Everything was plated beautifully. It looked set to be a great feed.
Except that the mushrooms and tomato were crap. They would have been great with bacon and eggs, but they are a crap combination with smoked salmon. It's like mixing cheese and icecream - not a good thought. And then the coffee turned up just as I was puncturing my eggs - aaaaggggghhhhh! Puncturing the egg is a sacred ritual, and once the egg is punctured and the warm yellow inards have been released, then one has no choice but to eat quickly and mop it all up with the muffin before it starts to curdle on the bottom of the plate.
Imagine Greece or Babylon in about 400 BC and the King has gone to consult the Oracle or the witchdoctor or whatever and the gizzards have just been drawn from the chook and tossed onto the temple floor and the Oracle is intently studying the shape of the liver when some fool bursts in with a goatskin full of wine and shouts, "Sorry I'm late - anyone for a drink?" Their gizzards would have been the next thing on the floor.
So I am stuck with a full coffee that needs to have just a dab of sugar inserted and swirled, and an egg that is bleeding bright yellow goo and I am just ready to stab the nearest waitress with a not very soft asparagus spear. Right through the heart. As in "die like a baby fur seal", except that you can't club people to death with asparagus, especially when it is cooked.
After that, it was all down hill. I went to pay the bill and found out that the chick-from-Ikea-land had misheard an order for a "mini breakfast" and lumped us with the full blown number, which cost about $17.50. Stupid cow. My eyes must have gone the colour of oven roasted tomato when I got the bill as they took the drinks off (since they took so long), but it still came to just a bit under $50.
To cap it off, we get out to the car park and find that a garbage truck has parked us in. It took a 19 point turn to extricate the car.
Bastards.
the barn. Good food that costs the earth.
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