Review: Danks St Depot

For an IT person, I’m very slow in adopting new techie stuff. It took me a while to get into Facebook and Twitter, I don’t own an iPhone (yet… but I did get an iPod earlier this year) and I’m fairly new to e-deals. Yeah, I agree some vouchers are a rip-off but if you choose carefully you can end up saving some money in useful stuff. Like the 8 kilos of grass-fed beef delivered to our house a few weeks ago. Or the $29 breakfast for 2 at Danks St Depot.

I bought this voucher because Danks St Depot has been in my wishlist for ages and Alvaro’s birthday was coming. Most of the times we have breakfast at home but this particular weekend it was more convenient for us to celebrate early in the day than at lunch or dinner.

We picked Gladys up and headed to Waterloo. It took us 15 minutes to find parking (busy area!) but we were finally there. Jared Ingersol’s philosophy follows the principles of the Slow Food movement, meaning that he embraces sustainable, ethical, local and seasonal food. All of which I totally support but unfortunately in this case the slow factor applies to service, too. As we learned, it’s not good to arrive on an empty stomach (especially after a gym workout!) because the wait for both food and drinks is very, very long.

Because it took heaps of time for our dishes to arrive (which turned breakfast into brunch), our waiter double and triple checked our orders. I’m glad he did because he didn’t have a very good memory. Besides the deal combo (a platter of roasted pears plus two egg dishes), we ordered an extra egg dish and hot drinks: a cappuccino for Gladys, a mocha for me, and a chai latte for Alvaro. The waiter came back a while later saying they had no chai. Weird. Alvaro ordered a hot chocolate instead.

The first thing to arrive was the platter of roasted corella pears, labneh, roasted walnuts and local honey. It wasn’t huge but enough for the three of us to start the meal. The dish was wonderful, the soft and sweet pears were perfectly complemented by the sharpness of the labneh and the crunchiness of the walnuts. But for me, the best ingredient in the dish was the honey. I’ve been eating plain boring supermarket honey lately; this one made my tastebuds smile.

Roasted corella pears, labneh, roasted walnuts and local honey

Then a waitress brought two mochas to our table, and a few minutes later the hot chocolate. Wait a sec, where’s the cap? After apologising she took one mocha back and after a long while (and a reminder to our waiter) the correct coffee was sent. My mocha was lovely but I found the hot chocolate extremely sweet.

Mocha and hot chocolate ($4.50 and $5.00)

Cappuccino ($4.50)

We were lucky to have poached pears and coffee in our tummies; the eggs just took ages to arrive. The poor guys at the kitchen could barely keep up with the demands of such a busy cafe. The creamed eggs (2 eggs cooked with cream and butter) served with chives, truffle oil, roasted portobello, herbed tomato and sourdough were good but didn’t live up to their awesome-sounding description. They had no salt and weren’t as creamy as we expected. To be honest, I couldn’t taste the truffle oil.

Creamed Eggs with Truffle Oil ($19.00)

The basil and goat’s cheese omelette was much better. The cheese was great, the basil fresh and the omelette perfectly cooked.

Basil and Goat’s Cheese Omelette ($18.50)

We never have dessert with breakfast but it was already lunch time and we still had stomach room. A quick look at the options made us drool with “the business”, more about it later. For the sake of variety, Alvaro ordered the vanilla seed panna cotta with red wine poached pear (remember how he usually orders risotto for main? Panna cotta is his top choice for dessert… very predictable). The wait for the sweet stuff was almost as long as the others. The poached pear was good, although a bit hard to cut with a spoon (a knife a fork would have been handy). The panna cotta was excellent, with a great taste and not overset.

Panna cotta with red wine poached pear ($15.00)

“The business” was outstanding. If memory serves, the menu describes it as bread and butter pudding broken down and served with rhubarb compote and warm milk. There was no rhubarb in the bowl but a scoop of ice cream and crème anglaise on top of the chunks of bread and butter pudding soaked in warm milk. The epitome of comfort food in a bowl. I wanted more but was finally stuffed.

The business ($8.50)

The bill came surprisingly quickly and with a 10% Sunday surcharge (announced in the menu). We had to wait once again for our change. I found the food good but not worth the training in patience and hunger control.

Note: the photos in this post were taken with my sister’s Olympus point-and-shoot camera due to an issue with my camera’s memory card.

Danks St Depot
1/2 Danks Street, Waterloo NSW 2017
(02)9698 2201
www.danksstreetdepot.com.au

View Larger Map