Race, Brunch, Repeat

Indigo enjoys a strategic monopoly in one of Sydney's most affluent yet culturally devoid locations, Double Bay. If you are hungry and 45% of your salary does not go to the ATO each year, please avoid. Reflected in scarce parking and long queues, the locals love it.

We are quickly profiled by the staff: Soccer mums? No. Latest model BMs? No. Clumsy parking job? No. That's 0/3 in terms of preferred customer status.

Standard latte - $4.00.



Cup one is cold, cup two is scalding. Quality control matches school kids manning an instant coffee stand at a fundraiser.

I read 'fresh from the farm' on the menu then see near 30 choices. Instant disqualification because no farm has that many crops. Eyeballing the adjacent tables, we blindly follow.

Breakfast bruschetta with bacon, eggs, avo and tomato salsa - $23.90

Awkward chopping job and a messy, monotony of familiar flavours. A finish of olive oil is as clever as the price ($24). This is bacon and eggs on toast with a tomato overload.

Yolk porn comfort is sought. 5/10.


Open snapper omelette with snapper pomme purree, spinach and light cream - $21.90

Long-list of unheard of ingredients, similar to packet Campbell Soup. However, snapper arouses my interest.


No sign of my meal after 60 min and once delivered, something is fishy...

Chef must be a terrible fisherman. The slippery beast was never caught! No visual nor flavour cues to suggest this anything more than an egg-only dish.


$22 for a well-sized, fluffy omelette with a soft cheese overlay that lacks salt. Satiety and pretty scatter of leaves enables some ratings recovery. 7/10.

A departing comment on service. Bruschetta takes 15 min to arrive, no sign of omelette after 50 min. Waiter forcibly explains I did not order 'clearly enough'. Must be my working class accent.

Avoid, avoid, avoid:

- Food - 6/10 - menu-oversell disguising fairly standard offers. Decent execution.
- Value - 6/10 - suburb name has 'double'. Apply this to 'normal' pricing.
- Other - 3/10 - deep queues post 9:30am, cramped space, rude staff.
- Overall - 5/10 - inexplicable popularity with the locals.

In Chinatown, rude service is a leading indicator of authentic food. In Double Bay, it's a lagging indicator of a low-quality cafe.

Will I be returning?
No

Bread & Circus' appeals to the segment of the Gen Y populous that worships clean-eating. A deep familiarity with quinoa, chia, acai and wheatgrass will ease the transition from normal to the organic world of B&C.

Vege Patch - quinoa, chickpea and sweet potato slab with vegetables,  egg and truffle salsa verde - $18

The Majestic - 3 poached eggs, ham, black pudding, baked beans, kale and toast - $19

Eggs al forno with chorizo, mixed beans, potatoes, sugo & sourdough - $12.50

Eggs benedict on sourdough with serrano ham - $14

My lasting memory of a talking potato is a support role in Toy Story - the first and worst Pixar-Disney movie.

Mad Spuds Cafe does no favours to my irrational fear of animated spuds. The claim is a 'quality, nutritious and healthy' brunch and the solid reviews suggest a no-frills, hip-friendly feed.



Waitress points me to Vegan Stack ... not as 'healthy' as one would think.

Vegan Stack - Potato & lentil patty, avocado, tofu, Boston beans, corn bread, grilled tomato,roasted quinoa - $16

Various elements do not complement. A stingy avo serving frustrates me, as does the lack of quinoa. My response is to dethrone the green villain with a stolen poached egg (from dish #2).



Beans worth the cost? No - these legumes lacked the kiss of spice.

Certain similarities to Heinz beans albeit some bean size variations. I rejoice seeing a large one then realise they taste the same. Portion is 50% of a 400g can, so where did the rest go?

Next up is a signature, evidenced by the name.

Mad Pan Brekkie - boston beans, pork sausage, hash brown and a poached egg - $16

Consider this a cross between chorizo baked eggs and an IKEA big breakfast. Notably two ugly looking sausage logs sitting on yes, the remaining 50% of the beans.

Hash brown, sausage and beans is best left to the Swedish furniture experts.

A standard conclusion to a good baked eggs is a bread wipe-down of the sauce ...With stale bread, the only wiping is the tears from my cheeks.

At least the flat white tasted OK. I may have detected a hint of potato in the coffee blend.



Both harsh and generous in my scores:

- Food - 5/10 - lacked of freshness and technique. Not particularly tasty nor healthy.
- Value - 8/10 - I like the pricing. Good calorie to dollar ratio.
- Other - 5/10 - lightning service, alarmingly like fast-food.
- Overall - 5.5/10 - expectations not met.

Departing sentiment is one of dismay. The culprit is blind hope rather than a misrepresented menu. The 7 day wait till my next brunch will be a painful one indeed.

Wife came away a lot happier than I, shown below. I credit this to the pork sausage.

Preference to show wife's face noting the cafe score.

Will I be returning?
No.

Something for Jess. An alluring chalkboard menu with seasonal produce and highly regarded by bloggers. Christine, Nick and baby Linc are back from a cameo brunch down in Bondi. The risk is if this under delivers, a chubby baby is my second course.

Massive menu descriptions highlighting local sourcing; owner gives no sympathy to the poor slave that updates the board by hand when pumpkin price rises above $1/kg (today).


2015 trend of Sydney Inner West ... pay $15 for a garden-bed-on-toast best suited to veterans of sustained cabbage-soup dieting.

'Forboding' is defined as walking in to see three petite waitresses and equally skinny diners eating muesli. We have a carbon copy of Cornersmith. The non-toast, non-muesli option is mine to try.

Roasted pumpkin, quinoa salad with pesto dressing and a poached egg - $15 + $3

3 nuts, 3 pieces of pumpkin and 8 forkfuls before the plate is snatched away. An assault on a customer's physiological need to consume enough calories to walk back to the car.



I had the foresight to add a poached egg. The sole enjoyment of my meal.

'Chorizo' ... the lonesome word in my expectant lady's vocabulary.

Housemade chorizo baked eggs on baguette - $16.50

'Disappointment' is defined as a baked eggs in a mug resulting in the need to fill up on bread.



'Catastrophe' is defined as a mild-flavoured watery base with no chunkiness. Too thin for the bread to absorb, no spoon offered to scoop the broth up. This was an egg and sausage broth. Similar to a Korean hotpot without the spice and 1/10th the value. I miss proper baked eggs in a tomato base.

Dish #3 and #4 were the jumble-on-toast style offers.

Smoked silverside wagyu bruschetta - $17

The most impressive looking dish goes to Nick. Menu name is as incredible as the asking price. Dish translation? Processed meat and garden salad on a slither of toast. Feedback was OK, but the guy had to indulge in a muffin on the sidewalk just 5 minutes later...

Raspberry muffin - $4

Now comes the rainbow trout to the benefit of Christine.



Pretty similar to the beef in composition and construction. The protein was under-represented and the smokiness too understated. My mind was depicting more epic visuals of a 'rainbow' fish.

OK to show my face as I won't return. Can't speak for the others.

Score summary:

- Food - 6/10 - hit and miss with over reliance on veggie munching to deliver flavour.
- Value - 5/10 - tiny servings, mid teens pricing and particularly stingy on any proteins.
- Other - 6/10 - quaint set-up, good service, order to first bite 20 minutes.
- Overall - 5.5/10 - I can't excuse post-meal hunger and a watery baked eggs.

At a minimum the 'sourcing' concept differentiates from Subway and the offer is OK for a healthy snack. If you want a hearty winter brunch, avoid. My fingers have gnaw marks from the trip home.

Will I be returning?
No

Produce of the week - aka whose garden can the chef's  raid

Soy flat white - $4.20

Unnecessary words in every menu item, brutal pricing and the institutionalised setup is foreboding.

Broccolini, sugar snap peas with avocado, poached egg and raclette on toast with cured trout - $18.50 + $7

My god, look at the avocado serving...

Fresh, QLD, soft-shelled mud crab brioche roll - $21

Grilled octopus and salad tortillas - $23

Chilli and lime along with squid ink mayo

Poached eggs on toast with an unknown sauce - $10.50

Top Paddock, Richmond