Sunday 31 December 2006

My Bondi mornings are rooted

I went back to the beach this morning for another nose clearing episode, followed by breakfast, and had my morning ruined by the Bondi Kiosk. The people running it now have definitely fiddled with things. I eschewed the Spanish omelette this morning and went for something really simple - poached eggs with mushrooms.

Problem number 1 - they were out of turkish toast, so I opted for some multigrain stuff. Personally, I think multigrain is only fit for feeding to birds. But it was that or nothing, so I went with it. The bread came out as a big, inch thick slab of dried ick. On the side was a little circlette of butter - enough to cover about half a slice of toast at Ethiopian diet thickness. The staff were too useless to ask for more, so I just put up with it.

Problem number 2 - the eggs were poached to within an inch of their life. I like my eggs gooey in the middle. When lightly poked, yellow stuff should explode out everywhere. The only way these things would have exploded is if they fell on a land mine. They were as hard as a hard boiled egg with the shell still on.

Then came the mushrooms. The Kiosk used to be the only place I ordered mushrooms due to the special way they cooked them. They used only small button mushrooms, and oven baked them with sweet Indonesian soy sauce and oregano. The result was delicious. The new mob have ditched that method, or the cook took his secret with him, and they are now just sliced and poached in butter. Sorry, but that is not for me.

The coffee was also not that great. The thing I like about lattes is that they are smoothe. They go down very easily. Not so the coffee this morning - it was a bit of a struggle to get it down. I didn't finish it, which is heresy.

So that is my last visit to the Kiosk. Unless it changes hands again, and I will give the new owners a go.

I now have to decide whether I can be bothered getting off my arse and writing them a letter telling them all the ways they have ruined my favourite breakfast haunt.

And to cap it off, there was no surf this morning. But at least my nose was 80% clear by the time I got out of the water. At least they can't bugger up the water.

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