Mad Spuds Cafe @ Surry Hills

Our favourite meal of the day, brunch, and where better to go? Surry Hills! It was a lovely Wednesday morning full of sunshine and there were many areas in Surry Hills where I still haven't been. We've been meaning to go to the Mad Spuds Cafe but it was closed for renovations earlier in the year so after a quick phone call, we quickly made our way to this unique cafe.

Located just next to the intersection of Crown St and Devonshire St, it may be easy to miss as it is situated between many cafes and shops. This Irish cafe mainly serves potato based meals and also has Irish potato pancakes and crispy potato skin bakes as a side to many of their dishes. They also have a specials board, one of which was a sweet potato salad. If I had come for lunch I definitely would have tried that one because I personally prefer sweet potatoes over potatoes. Nonetheless, I was pretty excited about trying some of their dishes and I was quite hungry so I chose the Spud Plate and the Man chose the Mad Pan Brekkie.

Chai Latte. It was sweetened with honey instead of the pre-mixed chai powder.

Breakfast is served! A very interesting set of dishes.

Firstly, the Mad Pan Brekkie. Boston beans, pork sausage, crispy spud skins, poached egg. All served in a pan. The plump poached eggs look really nice against the redness of the beans. The beans are cooked in tomato paste/sauce and really are lovely. Each bean was huge and fresh and the pork sausage was salty and succulent. It's a very hearty breakfast and not very difficult to make if you want to try this at home!

The Spud Plate. Pork sausage, black & white pudding, crispy bacon, Boston beans, cheesy spud skins, fried eggs, soda bread. I've never tried black & white pudding before and the waitress was kind enough to explain to us what they were. According to her, black pudding is a bloody sort of pudding while the white one is made from wheat and rye. I cut a small piece, cautious of this mysterious food, and tried it. The black pudding tastes strongly of pepper and the white pudding tastes very wheaty and dry. They were both very dry and I didn't like them very much but it was a good opportunity to try something new.

The soda bread is made from flour and soda (according to the waitress) but didn't have the strong soda flavour I expected. It tasted more like a wholemeal bread but much denser. I loved the potato pancake though. Savoury and crispy, it was fun just chewing on it. The crispy spud skins were also delicious. With a melted cheesy layer on top, the skin had been grilled to a crisp so it was like eating a slightly thick potato chip. I'm always careful to ration out my food so I don't regret it after eating it all up before the other things.

There goes one more cafe off the list! and we were very satisfied. We were the only customers, maybe because it was around 10 30 on a Wednesday, but we don't mind that kind of thing as long as the food's good and the staff don't hover around you. One thing - the hot beverages could have been hotter but other than that, the food came out quickly, the service was friendly and the food was tasty. Thumbs up!