Vale Giardini's
One of the very few regular outings I get to enjoy is a semi-regular Sunday breakfast with Husband. Mostly we go to Leederville, and when there we habitually go to Giardini's Cafe.
Giardini's holds a special place in my heart because it was there I first tasted white chocolate cheesecake. I also remember going there on the night of our wedding rehearsal, where I failed to eat much of anything. We've ended up there many times over the years for various gatherings, and by virtue of having the most comfortable and generally available al fresco seating it became our favoured spot for breakfast. If we couldn't get a spot outside we could usually get the front corner position right by the window and watch the passing parade from there.
The place was usually packed by mid-morning and service could get a bit slow, so we generally arrived around nine-ish. This morning we happened to be up and about and in need of medicinal bacon a bit earlier than usual, so we arrived at 8:15am. I figured any self-respecting cafe that served Sunday breakfast would be open by 8am, but when we arrived the al fresco area was bare. According to the posted opening hours it should have been open, but there was movement inside and someone came out and said yes, they were open, could we come back in 15 minutes.
Inertia is a wonderful thing. Having had a disappointing breakfast experience last week I was really looking forward to the reliable service and food at our usual haunt. Where my response to this request may otherwise have been something along the lines of "Screw that", no other establishment grabbed our attention. I lacked the gambling will to go to somewhere unknown, and the other places on the strip we'd tried before had failed to become the regular spot for good reasons (mostly furniture-related I'll grant, but there you go. Life is hard--I would not recommend a career in the hospitality industry.)
So, we wandered up Oxford Street to peer in shop windows and came back again in probably much less than 15 minutes, but still we marched in. From there until we left we were the only two customers in the place, versus an estimated end-count of five staff. It was very weird. Very Very Weird. The place looked to be in the process of redecoration from Italian to Chinese (province unknown, pardon my Western cultural imperial vagueness) and most tellingly the Licensee/Manager sign had been papered over with a new name. Our spot had clearly undergone the dreaded Change of Management. Did this explain its abandonment by the usual clientele?
The menu and prices were the same, but there was pepper on the table. Old Giardini's had never before trusted its patrons to wield their own pepper. Personally I was glad to see it, but slightly uneasy at what this development might signify. (The less-than-ideal place we went to last week had also offered its customers the freedom of the pepper - was this a bad sign?) I ordered fried eggs on toast with bacon (I usually go with scrambled but somehow craved hot runny yolk - is that some kind of chicken vampire thing?) and Husband had eggs benedict as he often did. When the order came we were confusingly offered cracked pepper from the giant No Customer Can Touch This pepper grinder, so there was another pepper-pot mystery.
The food (and coffee) was not up to the usual standard, which was sad but not terribly surprising. Had the other regulars discovered this fact in the weeks before? It would explain their conspicuous absence. We pondered missed Today Tonight horror stories of health department violations and food poisoning episodes that might have kept more savvy diners away. It's hard to pin down exactly how the food was Not Quite Right, but it lacked some subtle artistry. There was no sense of composition on the plate, no zing at all to the flavour, and felt very much like what you'd expect from the restaurant at a 3 star hotel. It was ok, but I want more from these precious outings than ok. We-like everyone else apparently-are now in the market for a new favourite breakfast spot that's as handy to home.