Sunday, March 05, 2006

A Breakfast of Champions

I've spent the past week working in an unusually cold, wet and windy Coffs Harbour. The Northern Rivers area of NSW is one of my fave parts of the world. I've many a happy memory of summer holidays, of camping near the beach, sleeping in a tent and cooking on a camp stove. Awww....

Coffs is all grown up now. New housing estates have popped up along the coast, the mall has been expanded, and the dive that was Park Beach Plaza is now the biggest regional shopping centre between Tweed Heads and Newcastle. The upside is that Coffs now has a great selection of cafes and restuarants. And I'm pleased to report that thanks to the Vouyer magazine I swiped from our Virgin flight from Sydney, I found one of the best:

Cafe Aqua, 57 Ocean Parade (opposite the Park Beach Bowling Club)
Tel 02 6652 5566.
I had grand plans to work my way through the breakfast specials board during my stay cos it looked so good. Unfortunately I got a little distracted by the sensational Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon on Day 1 and ordered it every day.

Breakfast math for the week: 4 x (EB + ss) + 8 x cappuccino = 1 Happy Em. :-)

Another gem we found (but didn't photograph!) was
Granma's Restaurant, 92 Park Beach Road
Tel 02 6651 4777.
This is a small German restaurant just near the Plaza. Great decor, homey feel and lots of yummy food. The pork knuckle, which I'd been craving since dining in Munich in January, was a whole new world of pork and cabbage joy.