Andersen's of Denmark Ice Cream Co - 46 Jetty Rd, Glenelg

The cone was soft and stale, the ice cream tasteless, the service luke-warm. I only have one word for Anderson's Ice Cream: Disappointment.

Zest Cafe Gallery - 2a Sussex St, Glenelg

Yet another disappointment in Adelaide. So much potential. So little substance.

I was extremely delighted when I stumbled upon this hidden cafe on a quiet side street as I was walking down the main strip in Glenelg. Tucked behind a quirky layout in an ambiguous location, it seemed full of promise. Places like this back home would have been the very representation of excellent coffee, crave-worthy signature treats, a tattooed waiter/waitress with at least 3 piercings (perceivable), and at least a 95% local population.


So it was with much anticipation that I returned to Zest Cafe Gallery the next morning, hoping for a much better breakfast experience than the likes of Biga.

I was not prepared for what happened next.

We ordered 'Hell's Eggs' ($12) - two eggs in a pot with a tomato, capsicum and rosemary salsa, topped with grilled cheese, Tobasco and Zest's BBQ sauce served with toasted baguette, and 'The Hottie' ($12) - a spinach, basil and pecorino risotto cake with chorizo sausages and a tomato, rosemary and red capsicum salsa, served with toast.

All sounds fantastic. Right? Wrong.

The baguette was toasted to an inch of it's crispy and rock-hard life, the grilled cheese was probably the only edible thing in the dish, the eggs were way overcooked, and only the tomato (and 5kgs of salt) were detectable in the salsa...the 'Hottie' was equally worse, if possible - the spinach looked like it had endured the boil for a few mins too long and was void of colour, or taste for that matter. The spinach, basil and pecorino risotto cake resembled nothing of its proclaimed yumminess. It was like eating stale rice with drabs of over-grown weed from the side strips. And the salsa. Ah, the salsa. What was that about differentiating between salsa and tomato soup again?


The coffee was typically Adelaide. Unimpressive, albeit in this instance, at least drinkable.

Food: We ended up feeding our deprived stomachs on toast and butter - 1/10

Coffee: 4/10

Service: The service was appreciative - albeit the waitre showed genuine signs of disbelief when we provided some feedback regarding the quality of their food - no one ever told them!? - 6/10

Value: Reasonably priced food, but I'm down-marking it due to quality 4/10
Ambiance: Neat little cafe - 8/10

Overall: 23/50
Encore: Would not want to with a 10 foot barge-pole...

Biga - 200 Hutt St, Adelaide

This is one of those places that has so much potential it makes you cringe when they under-deliver and you're pained with the realisation that it's all just seductive packaging with no substance whatsoever.

Actually. That describes most Adelaide Cafes and Restaurants.

Having just landed in Adelaide less than hour ago after a very early morning flight, we were on a mission to locate a venue for a good, hearty breakfast. Out of the four cafes on the corner of Hutt and Halifax St, Biga seemed to be the most unpretentious candidate. With laid-back seating outside under massive white umbrellas, the light-filled cafe was clean, warm, and homely. The waitress was friendly enough, even though she was cool and rather occupied to grant us much of her attention.


With a neat one sided seating space and a clean, transparent counter display cabinet displaying all the pastry, muffins, slices and many others on offer, I was quite delighted with, and had high expectations of, what we decided on from the menu - Brioche dolce: brioche roll served with condiments and fresh cream, and the Big Breakfast: 2 poached eggs, layered stack of grilled chipolata sausage, field mushrooms, rosti potato and roast tomato on Biga toast.


Our coffee and food arrived relatively promptly. I immediately regretted trusting the breakfast chefs in a foreign state, particularly this one, with the holy task of poaching eggs. As I witnessed my egg yolks rolling back and forth under my very eyes, my stomach lurching with every shake and wobble, half expecting the undercooked egg whites to give way to the liquid yokes that's yearning to burst free from it's delicate confinements.

The sausages were far from being qualified as chipolata, and overcooked to a disturbing state. The mushrooms were totally tasteless, not to mention the potato rosti looked like it was freshly unpacked from a frozen homebrand packet and absolutely wrong. The much fussed about Biga toast (apparently sour-dough and freshly baked) turned out to be two slices of cold, over-toasted slices of bread, with no recollection of its former aristocratic status after its abuse in the oven. To give credit where credit is due - the bacon rashes were quite edible. To my utter shock and surprise.

I was less than impressed with the rock-hard, stone-like brioche (served with cream!), and the coffee - although palatable - failed to make an impression as actual coffee. Having offloaded most of my breakfast, I thought I'd suppress my hunger by ordering a hot-crossed bun.

Besides the few charcoals of burnt sultanas I picked off the bun, it wasn't too bad. Although for $3 I'd rather have a choc-chip hot-crossed bun from Baker's Delight.

Food: 4/10

Coffee: 5/10

Service: 7/10

Value: For the quality of the food - 5/10
Ambiance: Chilled, relaxed, laid-back - 8.5/10

Overall: 29.5/50

Encore: not for all the runny egg yolks in the world