Café Sofia, 27 Nov 2009

Back during the early ramblings of this blog I discussed at length my love of breakfast/brunch food, and an anonymous reader very kindly responded to my call for suggestions of favourite places with the details for Café Sofia. I added this to my list of eateries to visit but didn’t get around to eating there until late November following a job interview and haven’t managed to blog about it until now.

We find parking down a side street around the corner from Café Sofia after spotting it sitting between a liquor store and a fish and chip shop in close proximity to Erskineville train station. It is housed in a converted semi-detached building with a small shopfront resembling a milk bar with a few tables out the front and some small tables for two against the wall opposite the food display counter inside. A little further inside though, past the many canisters of ground spices, bags of coffee and seemingly endless palettes of eggs, can be found a sunroom-type area with upholstered seating which leads to a back courtyard with seating under a large shadecloth.

Food is ordered from the counter at the front portion of Café Sofia and you are given a number to take back to your table. We start with a large orange juice and some water for the table. The water on this occasion is at room temperature which is unfortunately not thirst-quenching on our particularly hot day.

Monsieur Poisson has entrusted me with ordering for him so I choose the ‘Big Breakfast’ with scrambled eggs so that we get to sample a bit of everything. It comes with thick-cut toast, bacon, half a grilled Roma tomato, a not-too-salty sausage exploding from its casing, grilled mushrooms, a mildly spiced rice and potato hash and plenty of tomato ketchup. I’m surprised at the inclusion of a rice and potato pattie but it’s very moreish and I would happily eat a whole platter of these as canapés!

I order the ‘Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon’ partly because I love smoked salmon and partly because it’s great value in my mind, as all variants of Eggs Benedict are the same price regardless of whether the eggs are served with bacon, spinach or salmon. The eggs are served on English muffins with a side of salad but I find that the Hollandaise is a little too tart for my liking.

As we pass by the counter to leave, I spy a miniature gingerbread house on its lonesome near the cash register. The staff member is not certain who has supplied the house for sale and I’m curious as there don’t seem to be any others around apart from a rather large one in sitting in the display window. I’m not much of a gingerbread fan myself, but the house is too cute for me to pass up so I get it for Mistress instead. She was holidaying in Japan at the time so the house lived in my fridge for a couple of weeks and apparently it was still lovely and moist upon consumption on her return.

Café Sofia

7 Swanson St, Erskineville  NSW

Tel: (02) 9519 1565

Opening Hours:  Mon-Fri  6:30am-5pm

Sat  7am-5pm

Sun  8am-4pm

happy eating!