A Tale of Two Brunches at Efendy

There hasn’t been an Eating Out post here at Ooh, Look... for quite a while, has there? That’s because I’ve been cooking and eating at home like a thrifty, parsimonious, cost-effective, houseproud homebody! So there.

I did venture out a month or so ago, for brunch at Efendy restaurant, and again to Efendy last weekend. I think the lovely Spring weather is starting knock its warming, sunshiney fingers on this homebody’s door, so expect some more dining out experiences soon. I hope...

The previous time at Efendy was for the brilliant Journey to Istanbul dinner. This time, I met up with Rose, Trissa and Denea for a Balmain girls brunch. All being ‘locals’, Efendy is perfectly situated on the cusp of Rozelle, Birchgrove and Balmain to suit all of us.

Drinks all round – I went with the sour cherry and mastic smoothie. This was really good: sour cherry juice mixed with ice cream and milk. Just like a chocolate milkshake, only BETTER.

We shared some meze to start, and this included borek cigars, tomato, cucumber, fetta, sucuk (spicy sausage) and pastirma (thin slices of dried meat). And lashings of Turkish bread all round. I was holding myself back for my main dish, but still managed to make a sizeable dent in the mezze.

Then our mains (breakfast) arrived:

I had the Kallavi (big breakfast) – 2 fried eggs, mushrooms, more sucuk and pastirma. Denea had the Incirli Kaygana (pancake with figs and walnuts). Rose had Menemen (vegetarian scambled eggs) with a side of haloumi.  And I forgot to take a photo of Trissa’s dish (sorry!)

It was nice for us to chat and enjoy the food. If I remember correctly, some of the conversation decried the many ‘For Lease’ signs along Balmain’s Darling Street, and the movement of popular food haunts, such as Victoire bakery and the Adriano Zumbo cafe, to neighbouring Rozelle. And the service was brilliant, by the way, thanks in no small part to the presence of lovely Denea, who is a popular gal and knows everyone.

And last weekend, the sunny skies and great food brought me again to Efendy. We sat outside in the courtyard and enjoyed this:

Big breakfast – the meat and sausage was a bit drier this time, and the presentation not as pretty as my original version. But it still tasted good. I had Hellim, which is grilled haloumi cheese with poached eggs and asparagus. It was perfect. To drink, we had sour cherry juice and watermelon juice with mint, very refreshing after the salty haloumi and sucuk.

So that’s three fantastic visits out of three for Efendy. If you’re in the Balmain area on the weekend, you have to stop in for the brunch. It’s served from 9am to 2pm. Otherwise, the dinner menu is even more exotic. And there’s bound to be something to tempt you out of the house.

And my birthday week is coming up, so hopefully *fingers crossed* there will be a couple more eating out events really soon.

Efendy Modern Turkish Restaurant is at 79 Elliot St, Balmain, NSW. Ph: 02 9810 5466. http://www.efendy.com.au/
Open for Breakfast Saturday and Sunday. Lunch and Dinner Wednesday to Sunday.