Unpopular opinion: most breakfast restaurants suck.

[LONG RANT]

I got really fed up with crappy food served at "BREKKY" places for crazy prices. Let's go through some of these questionable institutions:

  • Popular BREKKY-coffee place, Sydney North West: it was recently purchased by a new owner so I wanted to check it out to see what's new. Ordered salmon benedict for $28, and what do you think? Two eggs lazy thrown on a soggy toast, with a bit of sauce and spinach on top that tasted like crap. HOW IS THAT FARKING $28??? And this place is quite popular amongst locals and has high ratings on google reviews. It's not some dodgy-looking greasy spoon on the back street of St Marys with $10 meals, so you'd expect some quality for the money.
  • Popular high-rated BREKKY place in Central Coast: $17 for salmon bagel. Soggy piece of 2-day old bread with a bit of white cream (cheese?) and salmon on top. A bit of dill and cappers, and it all tasted like it sat in the fridge for 3 days. Well at least it's $17, not $27.
  • Popular BREKKY / bar in Nelson Bay: burger with dry bacon and tasteless egg inside. And a bit of aussie-favourite cheapass MasterChef BBQ sauce from Coles of course. How much? The whole $22! You could buy a better burger at train station for half a price, but it's a BREKKY FARKING PLACE SO YOU HAVE TO PAY DOUBLE!!!!

I could continue, but let's take a break from dry pieces of bacon mixed with uncooked mushrooms that are sold to us for $24, and look on the opposite side of spectrum:

  • Korean restaurant in a shopping mall, Chatswood. For under $13 I got a big bowl of tasty kimchi rice with tasty (!) stir-fried beef on top, with some green veggies. Took 30 seconds to prepare, I didn't even have time to walk to the table and it was ready. HALF A PRICE OF THE FARKING SALMON BENEDICT THAT I DESCRIBED EARLIER!!!! Two times more food, ten times better tasting, TWICE CHEAPER!
  • Central Coast: Korean restaurant at the shopping mall. Same as above. $13 big meal that tasted amazing. Kimchi fried rice that comes with ALL TIME AUSSIE FAVORITE FRIED EGG. Makes much better breakfast (and cheaper) than everything I listed above.
  • Sydney North West, indian food take away. $17 for two curries on rice plus cheese naan. It's not super high quality, but tastes good and a decent size meal.

I'm not proposing to have korean food instead of breakfast (although to me it's not a bad idea), that's just an example of quality and price difference. Again I can provide more examples, but you might get tired from my whining. Let's conclude.

To conclude. Am I the only one in the current economy who doesn't want to pay $25 for a poorly prepared meal? And that's the majority of highly rated __BREKKY__ places that I visited. What's so special about BREKKY that you have to pay so much for a piece of avocado on toast with scrambled egg on top that in most cases doesn't even taste good? THESE ARE SIMPLE DISHES THAT ARE SUPER EASY TO MAKE AND SHOULD TASTE GOOD, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU PAY $25+. Why buy overpriced food BREKKY place when you can buy a breakfast-like meal at Asian take away for half a price? What am I missing about BREKKY places? Is that some social thing that people are willing to spend so much? Or is it for reach people only who don't care about price? Or is having a BREKKY such a deep part of Australian culture that folks are willing to overpay just to have a BREKKY meal?

FAQ:

  • "Some places do make really tasty breakfast meals". I couldn't agree more. For instance, there's a well known cafe in Nelson Bay that is a part of a furniture store (don't ask me why it's like this), which make such a tasty salmon bagel that it completely blew my mind and made me forget I paid $26. It looked and tasted like a meal from expensive European restaurant. Problem is that in my expereince only about 1 in 5 BREKKY places make these kind of meals worth their money. But all of them charging 5-star restaurant prices.
  • "Cook it yourself, stupid". I agree and that's what I'm doing 29 days a month (funny enough my food tastes better than the places I described above). But my point stands: what if I want to go out for BREKKY once a month just to switch things up?

TLDR: most "BREKKY" cafes suck for what they offer at their price range and are easily beatable by most asian food takeaway. Prove me wrong.