Braking for Breakfast: plenty

Plenty - the perfect post-market breakfast

Plenty, a relative newcomer to West End on Montague Rd, focuses on simple meals using the best local seasonal produce available. Basically, my kind of food. As a bonus, it is located directly across the road from Davies Park, making it an ideal post-market breakfast destination. Yesterday N and I followed up a successful marketing trip with breakfast at Plenty, making it my fourth time there.

Plenty is housed in a large open warehouse-like space and is barely decorated in a rustic fashion with touches of teal, including Eames-like and old-schoolhouse chairs. Plenty change their menu weekly and then write it up on a giant chalkboard. During the week I believe they offer a lunch menu including a daily-changing selection of salads which they post on their Facebook page but on the weekends it's all-day breakfast with a few lunchier-sounding options. They also have some delicious looked baked goods in the display cabinet at the counter. In the past I have ham and eggs with homemade tomato relish, the baked eggs with tomato, chilli and spinach and the ham and eggs with avocado and dukkah. Variations of bacon and eggs, ham and eggs and baked eggs generally appear on the menu along with sweeter options such as muesli, fruit toast and hotcakes. They also sometimes have a daily special and generally offer drinks specials such as watermelon, coconut, mint frappes. Plenty have a small kitchen in the middle of the space, open for everyone to see, and thus have limited kitchen equipment currently. I have a feeling there are plans for expansion, given recent updates on their Facebook page.

On this occasion I decided to try the Bircher muesli with apple and Barambah yoghurt ($9.50) and N ordered the same. Meals at Plenty are around the $10-15 mark, give or take a dollar, and they are not large meals which are often exactly what I want. I'd already had my coffee fix at the Gypsy Coffee Cart at the markets (spiced honey long black with a dash of dairy....) so decided to forego another caffeine hit although I have had a long black at Plenty before and don't recall it being awful.

About fifteen minutes later, two bowls of creamy looking Bircher were placed in front of us. Interestingly, at Plenty you order and pay at the counter after finding yourself a spare seat and then somehow they manage to find you without having table numbers. Not that it's a large number of tables but it's not the same person taking your order and bringing out the food so I'm interested to know how they organise that. Anyway, back to the Bircher. As expected, they were small serves but all we needed. The muesli was creamy and made on oats with a smattering of pepitas and (I think) sultanas with grated green apple throughout. It was topped with a large dollop of yoghurt, a swirl of honey and a few fresh raspberries, blueberries and a sliced strawberry. I asked for extra milk as I usually like my bircher a little runnier but it was actually the perfect consistency and I didn't end up needing it. While I wasn't full after eating it, I was satisfied and N commented that she was full after eating it.

Bircher muesli, grated apple, Barambah yoghurt

Apart from serving food, Plenty also sell a small range of goods including Barambah Organics milk and yoghurt, Levain Bakery bread and house made pickles and jams. I always like to do a lap around to see what they have on display for sale on the old casks placed around the perimeter and then tell myself that I don't need it and can't possibly fit it along with everything I've already bought at the markets.

After a satisfying breakfast, N and I parted ways and I left to pick up my meat en route to my bike for the ride home. I expect I will be returning to Plenty time and time again!

BIKEABILITY

Ease of access: 9/10 (If I weren't already going to markets, I would still take the Go Between Bridge but then just go along Montague Road instead of riding along the river)
Parking: 10/10 (I just walked from the markets but there is plenty (yes I went there!) of space out front)

Some previous meals had at Plenty...