Mission 5 Gordon St Garage

This is the funkiest place this mission has taken me to so far. Being on an unsuspecting side street of West Perth, I thought there would be plenty of parking. Not so. But I was lucky enough to find a free space after going around the block for the third time.

There were plenty of seats. I gathered it used to be a warehouse or garage. All around the cafe are photos of cars and people from the 50's. But because the ceiling was so high, the music a bit on the loud side, it was sometimes a bit hard to hear the conversation...of course, I'm a bit deaf at the best of times anyhow...

There were three dishes suited to this mission - poached eggs with trout and asparagus, poached or scrambled eggs on loaf and bacon, or leek and corned beef rosti with sunny side up eggs. Friends had the last one. I chose the trout cos it sounded like an unusual combination, only to be told that they have no trout! But the chef did make some adjustment and gave me salmon, asparagus and poached eggs instead.

The waitresses were attentive and constantly topped up our water. When my dish arrived initially with just the greens and salmon, there was mild panic. But soon the waitress arrived with the goods.

The greens were ok. The asparagus was grilled nicely - crispy and crunchy still. It was a little on the tasteless side if not for the salmon. As for the eggs, they were cooked to perfection! Never had I had poached eggs that I can remove the white COMPLETELY. The yolk did not break. But when bitten into, the yolk was still thick, runny and eggy :) And since there was no bread to spread the yolk on, I got to enjoy two bursts of yolk instead.

Friends shared their pancakes and rosti dishes. I stole a bit of the pancak. It was fluffy and lived up to its banana flavour name. The corn beef and leek rosti equally received good review from a person who disliked corned beef, too.

When we were asked if we wanted more drinks, we asked for the menu. But the waitress gave us the bill instead. Must have misheard us. So may be it's not just me that's deaf :P

At 22 dollars, it was a little on the pricier side considering there wasn't much salmon to the salad. Friends' dishes were only 16 dollars ...

So overall, the eggs were 5 out of 5 on the Olivia egg scale. The dish itself however ... may be 3 1/2, 4? No bread, a bit tasteless with the salad and false advertising with no trout! But I love the setting and would go back any time still :)

Mission 4 - Nunam

Never really thought breakfast could be fusion style but then I don't have that wild an imagination :) However, I can break my own stereotypes, so decided to try a fusion of Thai and breakfast.

It's a lovely autumn late morning. Met up with my usual brunchies plus a new friend at Nunam. Parking was relatively easy. In fact, I parked right outside the other neat brekkie place that is Sayer's sisters. We booked ahead but there were plenty of tables. The menu was really interesting and for my poached egg fetish, there were at least 3 options: the traditional poached eggs on toast with chives, son in law eggs with grilled water melon and scallops, and rice congee with 63 degrees egg, crispy bacon and hollandaise sauce. We were wondering how they mix the sauce in...so I decided to venture SLIGHTLY outside of my poached egg mission and tried the 63 degrees eggs - eggs slowly cooked for some 10 minutes at 63 degrees water, so my friends helpfully informed me :)

The place was spacious and quiet. We were able to sit around and talked for a loooonnngggg time afterwards. That was really nice. We did, however, notice that judging by the decor alone, it would be hard to see that this is a Thai fusion restaurant. The only association we found was some faded Thai writing on the tables.

It took about 30minutes between our order and the food to arrive. But then, when another friend made another order, it came within 10 or 15 minutes. There was only us and 1 other table of 2 or 3 people at any one time so not sure what the difference was...

I also had the beetroot, apple and orange juice which was refreshing. I think I had my antioxidant quota for the day :)

The food arrived and my bowl of congee was rather monumental in size! 2 slow cooked eggs in the middle. Hollandaise and bacon bits left on the side as I requested. It looked very watery at first but in fact the rice was very well cooked and sank to the bottom. It had good flavours in it, not sure what it is though, a bit sweet.

Crunch time came for me to try the egg. I had to be super delicate as I could see the egg was uber runny. I managed to scoop it up with the spoon and swallowed one in its entirety. For a moment, I felt like I was Rocky in the movie when he drank raw eggs...it was essentially an entirely uncooked yolk. The egg white was a bit cooked as you can see it's turned white. It was the runniest yolk I've ever tasted and I don't think I liked it :P

As for the other egg, I decided to break it into the congee. But the soup was too cool for it to cook the egg any more. Plus my puny stomach couldn't fit any more soup in, so the other egg was pretty much abandoned...


Friend had the grilled water melon plus scallop and son in law eggs. She said it was good. Similarly, friend who had the scrambled eggs finished hers in spite of her usual small stomach (although she is pregant too :D )

I don't know if it's fair to compare it to my other poached eggs experiences cos these aren't really...but I think...I'm never going to make it as a raw food eater. And on the Olivia egg scale, I would score it as 2.5 out of 5. However, I would absolutely go back to try their actual poached eggs :)