Those of you partial to breakfast posts should like this one!
On the last Sunday in March, we had the buffet breakfast at Sizzler with Jac’s family, to celebrate my and Jac’s nephew Max’s birthdays.
I was pleased to discover that you get Sizzler’s cheese toast at breakfast too! I know it’s nothing special, but it’s just so tasty!
I took photos of people’s plates as they returned from the buffet. There are five plates shown below. I think after you look at them all, it will be obvious which one was mine. Plate 1:
Plate 2:
Plate 3:
Plate 4:
Plate 5:
Heheheh, as I said – pretty obvious! :)
The people who ate the baked eggs wrapped with bacon were very disappointed in them, as the bacon had a plasticky texture and the egg was extremely overcooked and dry. Having eaten a horribly dry baked egg at a different buffet once upon a time, I knew to stay away from the baked eggs at this buffet. The scrambled eggs were creamy and moist and very good indeed. Jac’s favourite breakfast item was the savoury mince – beef mince cooked with carrots and peas.
And to my US readers who’ve voiced concerns at previous posts, don’t worry, the bacon is definitely cooked! This is how we eat bacon over here in Australia! :-D If you haven’t read it recently, check out my Breakfast at Etro post for discussion about the cooked-ness of bacon.
And below, my dessert course, with more potato gems (some of you will know them as tater tots – due to all the American TV I’ve watched I think of them as tater tots too, but most Aussies call them potato gems)! We don’t buy potato gems so don’t eat them at home, and you don’t usually get them with restaurant / cafe breakfast fry-ups, so I took my opportunity to eat many potato gems – and rather than get a separate plate for the gems and for sweets, I just plonked it all on one plate. :) Also on the plate was a pancake topped with syrup and cream, wobbly cold red jelly cubes, and apple crumble with more cream. The flavour of the apple crumble was nice, but 1) there needed to be more apple – it was mostly crumble – and 2) the crumble could’ve been baked a little longer for added crunch and goldenness. I’m not sure if it’s usually this way, or if the chef just made a bad first batch that morning? Maybe regular Sizzler-eating readers can tell me how the apple crumble should be?
I left Sizzler feeling content*. For around $20 a head for adults, I was happy enough. Jac said she’d much prefer go to a hotel, pay more and get a wider variety of other items like smoked salmon, cold meats and cheeses, fresh fruit and stewed fruit (the fruit at Sizzler included tinned mango and floury-looking watermelon that was definitely not seedless!) – she preferred the buffet breakfast at the Parmelia Hilton, for example. Me, I reckon we should go out for buffet breakfast more often! Not every week, but maybe once every couple of months! That would be fantastic!
We arrived at 7:30am to ensure we’d get a table right away, and while there was a queue when we got there, we didn’t have to wait too long to be seated. Once that initial queue had been seated, the restaurant really wasn’t all that full, which was good. I love a good buffet, but it’s annoying when 1) there are hardly any people, so the food sits there and gets old or isn’t replenished / refreshed as regularly as it would be if it was being consumed at a faster rate, or 2) there are too many people, so you really feel like you’re queueing / waiting to get food, and people just get in the way as you’re trying to move along the buffet. This time, it was pretty good in terms of people – a steady flow but no long queues. Good for those of us keen to, ahem, pile the food on! Hey, it was a celebration after all, and I was the birthday girl! :-P
As usual, life is keeping me busy and I’ve fallen very behind, in terms of the delay between the eating and the blogging. I do apologise – I know some of you are waiting to see photos from particular events. I’m continuing to work through it all – it never stops, and neither do I – thanks for your patience and support. :)
*Yes, I did – thanks, James.
I'm TFP, a food blogger from Perth, Western Australia.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
that’s a very yummy way to celebrate your birthday! :) i remember wanted a breakfast/brunch party for my 21st birthday, but realised that quite sadly, none of my friends would be awake in the earlier parts of the day and settled for an afternoon tea with scones and mini pies instead. a breakfast feast party is on my mind after reading this post!
u really r an early riser, no? 730am..still deep in sleep. :P
i love your blog! everything always looks so delicious.. but i’m just curious to know.. how much do you have to exercise a week to keep off any weight gain? heehee.. :)
I love a good breakfast but have issues eating that early in the morning! I need to be awake for a few hours before I can stomach anything more than tea (I know, probably a bit strange…) I’ve never been to Sizzler before – perhaps I should start visiting!!! :) The toast looked really yum and I’m a sucker for bacon in any way, shape or form! :)
Wow this post has made me dribble. (i have just come back from the gym and it is 12:40 and i wont be eating until 2!! it’s dim sum day though so… I’m looking forward to it.
What did your US readers think about the bacon you eat? did they think it was undercooked as it’s pink? I found that when I visited New York, the bacon was ALWAYS streaky and ALWAYS hard. not necessarily burnt though, so I don’t know how they did it. It allowed me to eat the fat parts because i can’t stand soggy fat bits.
LOL, Lucia, we just cook our bacon till it’s crispy. I’m sure ours has more fat to help that along.
It’s 1 pm here and I haven’t eaten today. Your blog is killing me tfp!
Burger King over here (I think it’s called Hungry Jacks for you guys) has added cheesey tots — tater tots filled with cheese. They’re actually better then they sound!
“Heheheh, as I said – pretty obvious!”
HAHA! :P
I love your breakfast posts. What a great birthday morning outing. And interesting about the bacon – I had never worried about it not being done, but I can see why that would be said and I hadn’t read your response to that before.
“As usual, life is keeping me busy and I’ve fallen very behind, in terms of the delay between the eating and the blogging.”
Well there is always flickr for those of us who cant wait ^_^.
I guess I’ll have to fry some bacon for comparison as I dont cook it to shatter-stage but more of a jerky stage, once the swine flu junk passes…>_
dea,
The birthday breaky buffet was suggested by K’s Jac’s sister-in-law and Max’s mum, and I didn’t hesitate to say yes! A lot of places these days serve breaky until close to lunch time anyway, so you could certainly do a birthday breaky/brunch!
hy,
We do rise pretty early anyway, but as mentioned in the post, we got together for 7:30 to avoid the usual Sizzler queues – at the height of breakfast time, it can get very busy and you have to wait for a table.
mojojojo,
I’ve been slack lately and off my normal routine, but usually I exercise before I go to work every morning. I don’t actually eat everything or as much as I’d like to – as difficult as that may be to believe. In between these food porny meals I also eat healthier less food porny food – which I don’t always take photos of.
Holly,
I usually wake up feeling hungry, so I have no problem going directly from bed to fridge! I wish more places served meals early in the morning so there were more places to eat a yummy breaky before work! Sizzler is nothing amazing, but worth a visit, I reckon (as long as you are not a food snob, which we definitely aren’t! :))
Lucia,
The link I mentioned in this post – see second paragraph after the photo of plate No. 5 – contains the link to my post about Breakfast at Etro, which contains comments/discussion that followed re bacon.
Yum, dim sum. I want dim sum!
Nicole,
I hope you had something to eat shortly after you wrote that! :-P
Steph,
Mmmm, they sound good to me! (Yes, our HJs is the equivalent to Burger King – a licensing thing resulted in the HJs name here rather than the BK name. Wikipedia has all the details).
Melissa,
Comparing the plates makes me look like such a glutton, eh? Heheh. And I guess that’s why I’m the one out of the family with the food blog.
jetgirl,
As long as you don’t get bored looking at the pics again when the posts are published. :) The swine flu thing is scary. And there are still so many people on public transport who haven’t learnt to keep their sneezes to themselves.
I am an American living in the UK – and I think the reason Americans think your bacon is under cooked is that you have a different type of bacon than the Americans do. British bacon looks much like what you have and its completely different (just as the sausages are). I would rather American bacon, and only one store here in Sheffield sells it *sigh*. I can’t get over the soft texture of British bacon.
Tiphphinne,
I love our bacon over here, but would love to try the bacon from other countries. Maybe someday!
why don’t you buy potato gems! a great snack is potato gems with satay sauce over the top, really tasty.
s,
We try not to buy potato gems and oven chips and wedges and stuff like that – because honestly, I would be eating them far too often! I figure a potato gem binge once a year or so at Sizzler is okay.
Try the $3.50 breakfast at Ikea!!! It’s super good considering it costs so little.
i am convinced your legs are hollow TFP :-)
for some of the best brekky buffets, you have to travel. i once was lucky enough to eat at the Sheraton in Warsaw…..fabulous! smoked fish (3 or more varieties), cereal, fruit, lots of hot food, pastries, eggs all ways etc, etc, etc.
Bali is high on the list too (Mercure Resort Sanur esp) as they seem to cover the world with breakfast. spring rolls, fried rice, noodle dishes, croissants, pastries, eggs many ways, bacon, sausages, etc, etc, etc. the bigger hotels there seem to have American style bacon maybe someone from the US can confirm? streaky bacon, is that right? very yum and i must have been american in a past life as i love bacon all ways but the fav is shatter stage.