Rising early is not a natural thing for me. I often wish I was one of those people that only need six hour’s sleep. For me I’m barely functional unless I get eight or nine hours. So when the alarm goes off at 6am I am not a happy person. But when you bribe me out of food with food…well that doth soothe the savage, growling beast within.

I’m tracking backwards a little so please bear with me but before we leave Port Macquarie, we must sustain ourselves with breakfast-not that we need it after the gluttonous feasts as we’ve been well and truly spoilt. Breakfast this morning is downstairs at Milk Bar which is the cafe at the front of the Observatory Hotel. My travelling companion Julie from Gourmet Getaways and I take a seat and be warned it gets furiously busy come 8am on a weekday so we quickly snare a bench at the front. Customers order and pay at the counter and we ask for a recommendation from the staff.  ”Anything with the sourdough bread is good” they say and so we order items that include the sourdough from Hearthfire Rustic Bakery in Bellingen.

Milk bar brekkie with bacon $15

The milk bar brekkie has bacon and two baked eggs with gooey runny centers, basil tomatoes, halved button mushrooms and wilted spinach. As recommended, the toast which is excellent and the whole plate is a nice upmarket take on a big breakfast.

Organic fruit and macadamia sourdough toasted with apricot and vanilla jam $6.50

The toast comes as three pieces of lightly toasted fruit and nut bread with plenty of chunks of macadamia and a thick apricot jam which is light on vanilla and slightly tangy.

French toast with sweet ricotta, marinated figs and maple syrup $12

The French toast has two slices of the bread very lightly dipped in egg. It is then fried and topped with cinnamon scented sweet ricotta, sweet marinated figs, fresh strawberries and maple syrup and the cinnamon ricotta in particular is very moreish. And it is pretty indeed!

Caramel tart $3

Oh my, these little tarts were heaven! I know tarts aren’t you usual breakfast food but when they’re this rich and with a buttery coconut base and thick, silky caramel you just have to make an exception…

Before we go, we take a little peek at the store next door called For Good which is full of Scandinavian goodies and covetable props and then we’re off on our next stop!

Gaian Poultry & Game

Gaian’s client poultry list is impressive, notwithstanding that Gaian Poultry is a family business headed up by two school teachers that still teach. Their free range muscovy and pekin ducks and pigs end up on some rather stellar dining tables including Rockpool Bar & Grill and Berta among others. Started just two years ago by Beth and Lleyton McMillan, the business started because Lleyton loved to eat duck!

They contacted Hudson Meats through the Essential Ingredient and every week Rockpool’s Neil Perry buys half a dozen Muscovy ducks and Berta buy ducks and about two pigs a week (they have Tamworth, Wessex saddleback and black Berkshire pigs) and Bells at Killcare also order from them. The pekin ducks are much quicker to be ready at 8 weeks while the muscovies take 5 months until they are ready.

They follow the Joel Salatin model at detailed in his book “Pastured Poultry Profit$” and followed the principles laid out within. The farm is also sustainable and only uses solar power. The rabbits, and Beth tells us that these are the only animals on the farm that aren’t free range because they don’t actually like to be free ranged, are tended to by their 16 year old son Zane who is paid to tend to them for 1-2 hours a day. He knows all about rabbits and he tells us of their breeding cycle and to never put a male in a female’s cage because “they get really protective of their space and will kill it.” Eeek!

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“Mother, I’m dropping off something in a few minutes” I said on the phone one night.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A pig’s head” I said bracing myself for the inevitable.

“A whaaaat?” she asked, aghast.

Allow me to explain how a delivery of a roasted (not raw) pig’s head came to come about. You see I was dining with Mr NQN, Dave and Sarah at The Montpellier Public House. It is the new restaurant from the team at Restaurant Balzac still in the sandstone building in Randwick. The changes are seen in a completely different idea and menu but because it was a while between visits, I don’t know if the interior had changed much or not. Instead of the fine dining room of Balzac, downstairs has turned into a busy, buzzy bar and upstairs is the dining room. The menu has also changed with a mainly modern British menu as befits the origins of the chef Matthew Kemp. And we note that prices are very reasonable indeed with most mains under the $30 mark.

The friendly waitress lets us know that tonight, there is only one pig’s head and it will be about an hour until it is ready. Sold! One pot roasted pig’s head to the crazy table of four in the corner! We take her recommendations for the entrees and mains too.

Montpellier Brawn with Crisp Pigs Ears and Tails $18

The brawn with chunks of meat in a jellied broth, set in a tin and sliced is delicious. The meat and jelly are soft and they come with two slices of charred bread and some finely crumbed gelatinous pig’s ears and tail portions.

Potted River Trout, Soda Bread, Pickled Cucumbers $16

The flavour of the trout was good with the added dill and creamy texture and fresh, soft trout although I have to be honest, I have a slight affliction when dining out and that is if I think I could make something similar at home, I tend to dismiss it slightly. Is that an illness? Perhaps… Nevertheless the soda bread and trout go well together alongside the pickles.

Fried Duck Egg, Black Pudding and Baked Beans $18

The baked beans with an enormous soft yolked fried duck egg is how to lure anyone out of bed on an early morning. The beans are sweet and smokey and full of flavour with little cubes of pork belly and the salty, rich black pudding and duck egg provide the perfect foil for this. And I may have just started drooling again after reliving this dish.

Salad of Spanner Crab, Mussel, Cos, Fennel and Dill $20

This dish was the polar opposite of the above dish in terms of richness. It was light, crunchy and delicate this was about subtle flavours with delicate mounds of crab meat and mussels on cos lettuce leaves with thinly sliced fennel and dill.

Mid meal, a table of eight settles down next to us and we find the noise level very high in this sandstone and wooden dining room. In fact, it gets quite uncomfortably noisy in our section we can’t imagine if the other two tables were full.

“Pie, Mash and Liquor” $30

Now as we were sharing, the table that we had for four wasn’t quite big enough for the mains so luckily the table next to us was empty and we could spread out. The pie changes and today’s pie is a beef one with jellied eel juice on top. And before you think that is sounds awful, it was actually very nice. The eel flavour was subtle and we were all confused as we thought that there was eel meat but we could only find chunks of tender beef. The eel juice which is jellified yet still warm sits on top of the beef layer and on top of this sits a layer of lightly crunchy mash on top. There were some very crispy, large croutons strips of crispy pancetta and deep fried parsley.

Shoulder of Lamb Braised on the Bone, Crisp Sweetbreads, Barley and Spring Vegetables $27

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One morning I was talking to Jill Jones-Evans, owner of the Victoria Room about scones-as you do when you’re a little bit obsessed with food. Mid conversation she casually mentioned how they had a 10 scone long scone menu at their new tea salon in the Westfields. Conversation screeched to a halt, I think I even heard the tyres screeching in the background and people may have looked around in alarm. I spluttered ”A menu with ten scones to choose from??? And you have a new tea room? Why have I not heard of this?” thinking that perhaps my sources at the afternoon tea association would have told me (ok there is no association but I thought I might have heard about it somewhere!) .

The tea salon sits nestled like a porcelain cup amongst tissue paper on the fourth floor “designer’s gallery” in the new Westfields complex. Unlike the dark, exotic and sensuous vibe of the Victoria Room in Darlinghurst, this one is bright and pink like the much younger sister. There are curved white picket fences around the outside, pink velvet covered seats, grass green velvet banquettes and exquisitely pretty china. It’s a candy pop girly dream which is a good thing because my friend Christie has brought along her appropriately attired baby girl Poppy and she loves pink.

Service is very helpful and friendly and when Christie needs a high chair for Poppy the resourceful waitress gets one from another store. The menu features a range of afternoon tea goodies with the three tier stands in standard, sparkling or couture, the latter features a glass of Moet. The noise level is higher than that of a closed off establishment but it isn’t as loud as the food court above it (which truthfully drives me a bit crazy with the noise level).

Poppy thinks everything is an iPad

There are snacks as well as  more substantial meals like terrine, ribbon sandwiches, salads, larger cakes by the slice, ice cream sundaes and the all important list of ten scones baked fresh daily. The scone list is as follows: classic (also comes gluten free); date & orange; spiced cinnamon & raisin; lemon; pistachio & currant; white chocolate & cranberry; dark chocolate chip; lavender; rose; cheddar & thyme and pumpkin & ginger. Scones can also be bought individually and served with butter and conserves or chive butter for the savoury ones. You can also choose the scone that you want to go with your high tea.

Our champagne (part of the couture high tea) comes out first and it’s a generously poured glass of Moet and Chandon. Just the thing to take the edge off a frantic day’s shopping. Or in my case, rushing to and from work meetings! And because I was doing so much running around using taxis and public transport, I brought my new camera-the Pentax Q to test out. It’s a tiny camera that I carry in my bag at all times in case of dining emergency or when I can’t be bothered taking my massive DSLR with me like today and it was a Christmas gift from my amazing Sigma distributor sponsor-thank you! It is the smallest, lightest camera with interchangeable lenses, image sensor, high ISO (6400max), flash, video and is small weighing in at a tiny 334grams with the case. And I absolutely love it! I cannot wait to take it travelling with me.

Couture high tea for one $58

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