Maisy’s, March-May 2009

At one stage Monsieur Poisson and I could be found almost every Sunday in the early afternoon at Maisy’s enjoying a rather delayed brunch. We are lazy creatures on weekends and enjoy a sleep-in, yet still crave the delights of a cooked breakfast – most preferably prepared by someone else. The beauty of Maisy’s is that not only does it serve breakfast all day, it also happens to be open every hour of every day of almost every day of the year. Oh, not to mention that the coffee is pretty good too.

Parking is not usually an issue around Maisy’s but the place itself does get quite busy Friday and Saturday nights, and into the wee hours as groups of people come and go in droves for before/after clubbing/drinking sustenance. This is despite the fact that there is seating upstairs, downstairs and just outside the front of the café. The service is usually quite efficient and there are a few staff members who always manage to remember drinks and food orders for tables of four or more without the need to note any of it down. This is an admirable feat by my standards and puts my amateur waitress days to absolute shame!

The standard of coffee here is fairly consistent and I am happy that it is never too weak or milky. Raw sugar is available on every table from a glass dispenser. Apart from the coffee, a particular favourite of mine is the mixed berry smoothie. It’s thick, creamy, restorative (extra virtuous if you have it made with yoghurt as opposed to my usual choice of ice-cream), full of berry goodness and is served in all its pastel lavender glory sitting tall and pretty in a retro-style milkshake glass (sorry, no photo!).

The ‘Mega Breakfast’ is your usual fry-up with a sausage, bacon, baked beans, mushrooms, potato hash, grilled tomato, toasted pide and eggs cooked to your liking. It’s nothing special, especially when compared to the ‘Eggs Benedict’ (sorry, again, no photo) which has a couple of poached eggs resting on ham atop toasted pide (yes, there seems to be an unusual fixation with pide here) all beneath a blanket of thick, creamy, lemon-yellow hollandaise. There is always way too much sauce to be comfortably consumed so I sometimes greedily order a side of fries for dipping.

Maisy’s don’t have any pizzas on their menu so when I feel in need of something greasy and cheesy I go for the chicken quesadillas. They are lightly crisp on the outside and packed with chicken, cheese and sweet onion jam on the inside. There is a small salad as well as generous dollops of sour cream, tomato salsa and guacamole on the side.

The Caesar Salad with grilled chicken unfortunately is not to my liking. Its dressing is creamy but lacks that garlic and anchovy kick, and the croutons don’t taste of much. Overall the components of the salad seem separate to each other and fail to meld together to become one cohesive dish.

The hot chocolate cake with hot chocolate sauce is pretty much a permanent fixture on Maisy’s dessert menu and is about as close to a pudding as I get. The two massive chunks of moist chocolate cake are a proud sight surrounded by a moat of chocolate sauce. The ice-cream on the side, although not of the best quality, offers a contrast in temperature and textures along with the strawberry.

Maisy’s charges a 10% surcharge after midnight until a certain time in the morning and, I believe, also all day on Sundays. I suppose it’s a small price to pay for non-fast food in the middle of the night.

Maisy’s

Shop 1, 164 Military Rd, Neutral Bay NSW

Tel: (02) 9908 4030

Opening Hours:  24 hours/day

happy eating!