FOOD: Breakfast and Donuts

There was quite a lot of hype about Finlay & Sons when it first came on the scene last year. I too have planned to go many times but only recently have gotten around to it.

On advice from a friend that Finlay & Sons was rather busy over the weekend, I took the rare opportunity to visit midweek with Mr. T. It was still quite busy but we easily got a table inside. I found it very cramped and extremely noisy in general. We found that it was very hard to have a conversation across our table, nevertheless, we stayed anyway and had to look at the menu.

As I stared at the menu there were a few options that jumped out at me straight away. mr. T has done his usual research on social media and had an idea of what he wanted to order before arriving. I decided to go for something to fill me up, Crumbed chicken, bacon, soft egg, parmesan, spinach, basil ($26) and Mr. T ordered the Pork belly & apple open toastie ($26). We added our usual coffees, a Long black ($3.30) and a Flat White ($3.80). The coffees were rather reasonably priced, impressed!

Our drinks arrived first. The coffee was a delicious rich blend and perfectly hot. I really needed this coffee. I loved the spoons with our coffees also.

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We didn’t have to wait very long for our food to arrive and when my dish was set on the table or I could see was spinach. There were so many of the elements of the dish  that got lost in the spinach and it looked quite thrown together but maybe Finlay & Sons are going for a home cooking vibe.

I was very disappointed to not find any of the egg until I was halfway through the spinach. It was stated on the menu as a soft egg, but unfortunately, it was chopped up into little pieces and got really lost in the spinach. There was little to no dressing but it was fresh rather than limp. The spinach took over the dish and spoiled the egg and bacon bits lost in it. The crumbed chicken was quite tasty but a little dry, however, the portion size was good. There were quite a few pieces of crumbly feta and parmesan scattered over the top of the dish.   The wedges were rather tasty and nicely seasoned. The portion size was also pretty good as I had a piece with every bite. In my opinion, this dish just does not hit the mark for me but it is close to being a great dish.

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Mr. T’s dish looked a lot more appetizing than mine and was beautifully presented with each element of the dish visible as soon as it hit the table.

He didn’t take very long to make his way through all of the elements and said that everything was fresh and tasty and work really well together. Luckily, I managed to steal a piece of the pork belly which was delicious! There was a generous amount of apple sauce on the dish but it did not overtake the pork and complimented it instead. The bread was fresh and coated with a bubbly melted cheese. This was quite the ‘carb’ dish but if it’s flavour you are after, this is definitely a dish to consider.

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On paying, Mr. T picked up a few of the mini donuts from the counter.They were pretty tasty, I had one with a cuppa that afternoon.

If I were to return to Finlay & Sons, I would sit outside so I could chat to my company rather than loudly talking and being distracted by other conversations.

Also in the areas is The Inglewood Hotel for a tasty lunch.

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My Rating: 3.5