ash's table

manly beach, sydney

ash’s table has as its view the point where the sea meets the sky. on this rainy day on manly beach the lines of blue had blurred into oneness and a silver sheen sat on the ocean. a reflection of grey angry skies. we were lucky to have found ourselves a place to breakfast just before the rain came down. and the plastic shield on the front of the cafe/restaurant was a welcome buffer. 

having settled down to long black and flat white respectively, l and i turned to the menu. it was a bit of a struggle deciding on what to order as the pancakes looked tempting, as did the smoked salmon and scrambled eggs served on wood-fired bread. but in the end it was the eggs tuscany that both l and i settled on.

i am not entirely sure why our breakfast was called ‘eggs tuscany’ as its composition was more on the lines of an eggs benedict meets egg florentine and eggs royale/montreal (these are the aussie/kiwi version where salmon is substituted for bacon). perhaps ash’s table was intent to capture the global nature of what was on the plate by reference to one of the food capitals in the world. and since i forgot to picture it here is what the plate was composed of - there was tasmanian smoked salmon, baby spinach and two poached eggs on an english muffin with a side of hollandaise sauce.

for me, this was an ideal brunch. it had a distinctly home-made feel with the poached eggs having been dropped into a swirl of water, their whites wrinkle wrapped over the yolks. i have over-time come to strongly dislike eggs poached to perfect roundness. it isn’t pleasing to eat something that resembles the female anatomy, albeit a surgically enhanced one. tasmanian salmon is quite different from the smoked salmon i’ve eaten in england. it’s got a buttery flavour but doesn’t feel as fatty on the palate. the spinach aside from adding freshness was good to cut through the hollandaise and salmon. l and i wiped our plates clean.