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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