We've been to Sayers a few times, but it looked shut (though I didn't look that hard to be honest!), and Duende looked packed. S wasn't super keen on Duende, as he's a slightly fussy eater (I've come a VERY long way with him, he used to be REALLY fussy) and the breakfast menu there is small and doesn't offer the usual fare. Its a really interesting menu, but for someone who doesn't really get excited about breakfast, its not really the place for him. Thankfully though, Cranked was open, and BUSY! If we could get a table, we'd go there.
We weren't sure if we were meant to wait to be seated, or just grab a table, so we went to the counter and got ignored for 5mins, including getting bumped aside by a waitress, and having to listen to the stressed ramblings of 2 waitstaff passing food and cutlery between them and trying to figure out which table it belonged to. One waitress pushed past a customer who was waiting to pay without the bare minimum of manners, such as polite smile and an "excuse me, sorry". Just "scuse" reached over him, grabbed what she needed and carried on. She looked stressed, hot, and irritable. We decided to find ourselves a table... There was one table for 2, but we had to clear it ourselves and put the coffee cups from the previous diners on the table next to us, which became a dumping ground for the other dishes on tables that diners eventually had to clear themselves. It was clear that today, they were understaffed and stressed out. In saying this, a waitress did come and attend to use quickly, she did look a bit under the pump but she took our coffee order, and offered to come back when I had decided what I wanted. She bought us water, in glasses hot from the dishwasher, and with my glass only half full of water. Water that hadn't gone near the chill of a fridge. Not really that impressed. Its a hot day, some cool water, at least a cool glass, would have been appreciated.
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| Is that all the water I get? |
The breakfast menu at Cranked is good, there's a good variety of dishes, some really traditional and some with a few quirky twists. The mushroom bruschetta had sauteed shrooms, and strawberries, as well as being finished off with raspberry vinaigrette and fresh enokis. Interesting. I ended up choosing the 4 egg spinach and fetta omelette, with cranberry sauce on my choice of New Norcia toast (I chose the 7 grain sourdough), and S chose the bacon and egg toasty with horseradish aioli and bbq sauce. Please note that the link I provided for the breakfast menu is out of date, and about half the items have been changed.
Our food came out quickly, with our coffees coming out about 5mins later. I like my coffee to come out first but hey... they were stupidly under the pump, I saw the lineup the barista had on coffees, she was pumping them out as fast as she could so, no biggie.
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| I said I was going low carb... but its multigrain bread, and its just ONE slice, cmon... |
My omelette looked good. It also tasted good, well cooked, there was definitely butter used in that pan! It was creamy and tasty. It was a little under seasoned though, and I could have done with some S&P, but our table had none. We looked around, one table had a S&P shaker, another table just had salt. I just let it go, I assumed that Id find the fetta soon enough and that would be enough salt. I found some fetta, which was delicious, but I only got 3 bits. Is that stingy? I dunno, it felt to me like there should be more in there... When I did get a little block of fetta, it was delicious. I would have liked more. The cranberry sauce on top was interesting, it went well with the fetta and spinach, and it actually tasted a little tomatoey, which is a traditional accompaniment to breakfast dishes. I'm not sure that I would put cranberry sauce on my eggs in the future, but it was a nice addition, I quite enjoyed it. I had to carefully remove the omelette to get to the toast to butter it which was a tricky operation, given I don't have the use of my left thumbtip (sliced off with a scanpan serrated tomato knife... ouch) which made for entertaining viewing by S. The toast was thickly sliced and tasty, if a little difficult to cut through. This was partially because of my thumb disability, partially because it was a bit tough. I enjoyed my omelette, it was filling, not over sickly (sometimes they do that to me, I don't know why), rich, creamy and tasty. Id order it again, hoping to get more fetta!
The toasty came unadorned with anything green, which I noticed but I doubt S did! He tucked straight in, and ate the lot. It was generously filled with egg, tomato and what S decided was the best bacon he'd tasted. He gave me a bit and it was indeed tasty! I dunno about the best ever, but it was definitely good! I asked him how it was, he said it was fine, But the bread was a bit too soft, it had been toasted on one side but it would have been better for the whole lot to be toasted. He enjoyed it but said it seemed to be slapped together. You can see the poor quality of the tomatoes, they're not ripe and the redness should stand out against the pink bacon but it doesn't. Using anemic tomatoes isn't going to win flavour points.
The coffee was fine. I mentioned to S that it wasn't the kinda coffee that I notice when I'm drinking, I don't mention its a good coffee, I don't mention that its a bad one. I just drink it. It was a little milky, but otherwise drinkable. The thing I did notice though was that they use those annoying cups you cant get your finger through the handle. Get a bigger cup.
Anyway, today was a very busy day at Cranked, with not much else open in Leederville, as such I'm not sure they were well equipped enough to deal with a packed house. The service was lacking for sure but there was only 2 waitstaff for the whole place, and we weren't left waiting. The kitchen stood up, albeit on slightly shaky legs. For breakfast choices in Leederville this will please the whole crowd you're with, as well as not being super expensive. Our bill was about $36, and we left well fed. I've had a better all round experience at Sayers and Duende, but if Cranked is an option, and its NOT packed out like it was today, Id give it another go. If Sayers and Duende were too busy...
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