Mossy On Gardens — Restaurant in New South Wales

When you don’t eat breakfast out very often, venues need to have something special to lure you in. Mossy on Gardens derives that it-factor from its location inside the Eurobodalla Botanic Garden. From the outside, the vernacular Australian architecture is geared toward coping with the climate, with solar panels, high ceilings and sloped rooflines. Inside it’s an enter-through-the-gift-shop affair, with the expansive, verandah-ringed cafe sitting at one end of the structure.

The cafe is an offshoot of Mossy on Pacific, named for its location in nearby Mossy Point. All three of this group’s venues use coffee by Guerrilla Roasters, which drinks well across a cappuccino ($4.50) and a strong flat white ($5.10). The succinct menu encourages you to build your own breakfast from a base of Bega Valley eggs on Honorbread toast ($13.50). Jason’s free-range bacon ($6.50), wilted spinach ($4) and a sauce bowl of blistered cherry tomatoes ($4) bursting with flavour were all worthy building blocks. Though certainly plentiful, the scrambled eggs were a bit light on flavour (a shadow on our normal Mulloon Creek Farm eggs) but it was nothing chilli sauce and chilli flakes couldn’t fix. Watching the birdlife—like purple swamphens pulling up reeds and feeding on their soft stems and a very friendly Australian magpie—was the best part of this peaceful breakfast. My only gripe was the plastic plants on the tables: when you’re in a botanic garden that grows and sells native plants, I would have preferred to see one of those sitting...

The cafe is overlooking the botanical gardens on one side and a pretty little nursery to the other, which makes it a spectacular location. They’ve plenty of tables, and without a doubt the outdoor seating is preferred to indoor. We popped by for lunch during the long weekend and ended up having a good time. While the menu doesn’t boast a heap of vegetarian options, they have toasties and garden bowl, both of which we opted for. The fresh veggies, along with edamame and dressing made for a good combination but lacked punch. The chilli helped take things up a notch. The toastie was delightfully good with a good ratio of cheese and veggies on it. The prices are a bit steep, with something like garden bowl not as quite filling due to lacking a hero ingredient and I’d much rather have had their Mexican bowl but they were not able to vegetarian-ise it. Still, the quality and taste made up for it, and we ended on a high with an...

The service was exceptional, and always delivered with beautiful smiles.

The price of the food at the cafe is quite expensive for the quantity provided.

We had a chocolate mud cake, lamb burger and chicken burger, with a side of chips and salad.

The best food was the side salad due to the crunchy kimchi like sour pink/purple cabbage with fresh crunchy spinach and a generous delicious sauce.

The chips was also sensational. Very well coated, cooked and seasoned.

The next best thing was the lamb burger. And the least favourite was the chicken burger. The chicken was overcooked. I prefer more meat than batter. Both burgers were overpriced for the portion size provided.

The chocolate cake was perfectly moist and overly indulgent and rich. Priced well. There are also other desserts and sweets...