Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Harveys Bar and Bistro for Breakfast

Harveys Bar and Bistro
http://www.harveys.net.au/


I headed to Harveys under unusual circumstances. Originally, it was a catch-up breakfast meet with Kat, who I hadn't seen since we got back from Thailand. Granted that was only 2 weeks ago but a lot can happen in 2 weeks. We still ended up getting to Harveys for breakfast but thanks to a phenomenal night out before, I actually rocked up with zero hours of sleep. That's right, zero. I had slept Thursday night, woken up Friday morning, gone to work, finished at 5, got ready and headed to Brisbane and didn't clock back into the land of unconsciousness until midnight on Saturday.


Breakfast at Harveys occured somewhere in the middle of this prolonged span of awakeness. Kat picked me up from West End and drove us to James Street. We got lost a couple of times (damn one-way streets) but managed to find a park.

Harveys looks extremely inviting - the restaurant has an open, expansive, contemporary decor with indoor and covered outdoor seating. The place was fairly packed too. We took a little table outside.


The menu is quite classic without any really oddball creations. Some might welcome that but I have a thing for oddball creations.

Latte and hot chocolate

The first thing I ordered and in my mind, the most important, was a cup of coffee. The latte was a tad cool when it got to me so that affected the taste. It wasn't the best coffee I've had by any means. Kat had ordered a hot chocolate.

Free range scrambled eggs with herbs - served with organic sourdough, plus a side of smoked bacon

For breakfast, Kat went with the scrambled eggs plus an extra side of bacon. The eggs were cooked nicely and there was a good quantity too. We were appalled by the quality of the bacon though. One piece was totally squishy and steamed-looking while another was burnt to a crisp. At $5 extra for the bacon alone, this to me was unacceptable.

Fig, raisin and apricot toast - with homemade preserve and butter

I had ordered the fruit toast. It was a nice, thickly sliced toast loaded with fig, apricot and other dried fruit. It was served with some preserve and butter. I quite liked the toast but I swear, I've had the exact same one at Brew for a fraction of the price.


Kat and I weren't impressed by Harveys at all. The food was on the pricier side and I don't mind dishing out the $ if the taste backs it up but in this case, not only did the breakfast items fail to stand out, the bacon was sub par and shouldn't have been served to us. The service was scattered at times (we were offered the wrong dishes at one point) and slow. We definitely won't be going back.
Harvey's Bar & Bistro on Urbanspoon

7 comments:

  1. OMG, I saw you!! we were sitting inside. How funny is that.

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  2. Hi DolceBunnie...

    Wow! Small world huh? Gotta say hi next time ;)

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  3. Totally agree with this review. My initial experience at Harvey's was positive, but two subsequent meals were progressively worse

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  4. Hi Abe...

    That's a shame. I've only been the one time so I can't compare but it's got fairly good reviews online so I suppose there must be up/down moments?

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  5. Hey Cora,

    To be honest the food was average (not bad, but certainly not awe-inspiring).

    I just felt that with places like Campos less than 2 minutes away offering some of the best service I've had in Australia with pretty good food and coffee, there was no reason to keep going back to a place that took 40 minutes to get our coffees out and our order completely wrong.

    PS: Great blog...it's been useful in planning many a brunch

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  6. Hi again Abe...

    Thanks! Brunch is my favorite meal to eat out so I'm always trying new places. I haven't been to Campos though... sounds like I need to remedy that.

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