My Kingdom For a Horse — Restaurant in Adelaide

I have been visiting a friend in town and since she was busy studying at home I thought I would go out and about and explore another Aussie brunch place on my own before heading to the zoo for the rest of the day. It was the Adelaide cup day and I struggled to find any cafés that were open, apart from this one so I decided to give it a go after briefly checking out their Instagram.

I got here around 12noon and it was absolutely packed with people even though the café itself is already quite spacious. Luckily because I was alone I didn't have to wait more than 10 minutes and got seated right at the open window which was perfect as I absolutely enjoy people-watching. The waiter was super nice and friendly, apologising for the wait but really I was just grateful that I managed to get a seat.

I went with a flat white as soon as I sat down and then took my time to read through the menu and see what tickled my fancy. I decided to try the buttermilk waffles with chocolate mousse, Chantilly cream and poached pear, with some crumbles/ granola on the side. The food came pretty quickly after the coffee arrived. I loved the waffles - massive portion, and the taste portfolio was on point! I personally don't actually like chocolate much but this chocolate mousse was something else. It was rich in cocoa but not too sweet, so I actually ate almost the entire thing. The poached pear and granola helped balance the sweetness out so that I was able to eat more of the waffles. I am quite a small eater so it took basically my entire stomach capacity to chow down one slice of the massive waffle - but they came in 2! I did feel bad for not being able to have the second slice, but I do have to point out the waffles were rather thick and perhaps because of the buttermilk it was a bit too chewy for me and it shouldn't be the case as waffles are supposed to be fluffy. So this is where the score went down to 4/5.

Service was great, was served by 3 different staff members from being seated to coffee to food and payment. They were all very friendly. Overall, it's a cafe I am happy to go back to. Just note that on public holidays there is a surcharge of 15% in addition...

We arrived at about 11:30 on a Sunday morning. The atmosphere appeared nice for a relatively large cafe compared to others in the area. The staff who greeted us was friendly and directed us to an area to sit, not sure why we had to wait for her to direct us as per the sign’s request but that’s fine. The menu had a lot of options, but I was surprised how much add ons were and how many dishes had add ons. We elected to share a big breakfast but had to add on an extra rash of bacon for $6. My partner used the QR code and for some reason had to give not only her email address (for invoicing) but also her phone number and address as required fields. Our drinks came out in good time, but after chatting for a while, we wondered where our food might be. We looked around and noticed that people near us who had arrived 15 minutes after we had ordered were already eating cooked meals. When we checked our invoice, we noticed that we had been waiting over 30 minutes for one plate of breakfast. At this point we decided to ask at the counter and if it hadn’t been prepared maybe get our money back and leave. The lady said she would go and check, she went to the kitchen, and came back immediately with our food. It couldn’t have been made then and there, and when we ate it, it was lukewarm, so we could only conclude that it had been sitting there for some time. The food was OK but nothing that couldn’t be bought anywhere. We would have liked the bacon to be cooked more as the fat wasn’t even rendered down and was quite thick. I’m sure we could have asked for it to be cooked a bit more, but considering how long we had already waited, we weren’t prepared to risk it. The website says that they can seat up to 120 people. On this day, I would say they were at 60-70. If this is the level of service for half capacity, I wouldn’t want to eat here if it was busy. The pricing was all very transparent, and I am glad that ingredients are locally sourced and the staff are all paid correct penalty rates, but our overall feeling was that staff weren’t really earning those penalty rates...

There are much better options available. Staff were friendly and the venue is clean/appealling, but that's where the positives end. I had a Bacon and Egg roll for breakfast: the one piece of bacon I had was nice, but the very small brioche roll was stale (and barely bigger than a slider!) $22. Plus there's a DIY ordering system that wants my phone number, residential address and other personal information, completely irrelevant to me eating an over-priced, stale and tiny bacon and egg roll. I gave up on that and went to the order to (surprise surprise!) have staff take my order! I left feeling like I have to do your job and I'm paying for the privilege! Over-priced. Now I know what the business response will be: "standard for cafes that pay people correct penalty rates and superannuation." - maybe, but you forgot + generous profit gouging. Disappointing. You might think it's "mean spirited" or perhaps I'm just telling truths that you don't want to hear. $18 isn't standard for a bacon n egg roll - the first two random responses when I googled "bacon and egg roll near me" came back $12.90 and $12.50. And your's was only $18 + 10% for Sunday + $2 for one slice of cheese = $22 for a roll that was tiny and STALE! If you are really just trying to do the best you can, then either a) reconsider what "best" looks like or b)...