Food adventures at the Grounds of Alexandria

Last month I finally got the chance to go to the Grounds of Alexandria which is a pretty well-known cafe/bakery in Sydney. I had heard many great things about this place but never really had the chance to go there since it is kind of in the middle of no where. Nonetheless, I finally settled a day with a few of my friends and off we went. So today I'll be sharing my experience at the Grounds of Alexandria =)

Upon arrival, we were greeted by this sign and behind it was an old truck/car filled with stacks of hay (as shown below). I'm guessing this is some sort of decoration which is cool-ish? lol haha

Anyways, after we walked in, we could see that there were already a lot of people there. It was around 11:00am on a Monday morning. It wasn't the school holidays or anything, just a normal Monday morning. We were told that there was a 20 minute wait for our table which was actually surprising as I had read other blog reviews saying that the wait was around 50 minutes and "no matter what time of the day you go, there will always be a wait".

The man took down our name + phone number and gave us this buzzer thingo and told us that it would buzz when our table was ready.

During our wait we decided to explore the place which we all enjoyed. There was a pig, chickens, a flower shop and plenty of outside seating. Here are some pictures:

 

The timing was actually pretty accurate and we were seated around 20 minutes later. At the front of the restaurant was the bakery with so many tempting sweets! We didn't end up trying any though as we were all too full after our meal.

After we were seated it was almost 11:30am which was when their breakfast menu ended. The waiter told us that we only had a few minutes to order or else we would have to wait under 12pm which was when their lunch menu would be open.

Here is what the menu looked like:

I was pretty hungry at the time but I wasn't drawn to any of the breakfast dishes so I decided to wait for the lunch menu. However, I ordered an orange juice to sip on while I waited. Two of my friends ordered breakfast dishes while another friend and I ordered from the lunch menu.

(Some pictures were stolen from my friends)

So here are what the drinks looked like:

Mocha - $3.50

Apple, pear and mint juice - $7

Orange juice - $7

The orange juice tasted really fresh and was definitely delicious. However, I don't think it was really worth $7 ><  

(This may have been the most money I have ever spent on a drink oops)

Breakfast dishes:

Poached eggs on toast - $10.00

Side of bacon - $4.50

Turkish Style Eggs - $16.00

Lunch:

Hand made pappardelle, lamb and parmesan - $17.00

Chicken pot pie served with a side of beer battered chips - $17.50

The chicken pot pie was the dish that I ordered. The presentation was pretty cute but if you think about it, $17.50 for a pie and some chips is pretty pricey. However, it's much more worth it than the Breakfast platter I had at Orto here. I guess we have to keep in mind that cafes are usually on the pricey side anyway.

The pie had chicken, peas, carrot. It tasted OK, nothing special though (probably because I don't like peas). The descriptions of the dishes weren't too detailed (as with most cafes) and there wasn't too many dishes to choose from.

In summary:
Pros:
- nice and unique environment + ambience
- catered for all ages (they had a playground for the kids)
- food is nicely presented and fresh (apparently they make everything themselves? i.e. there was a pig so I wonder where the bacon came from...)

Cons:
- crowded so you don't know when you'll get a table, therefore won't know if you can get the lunch menu or breakfast menu
- pricey
- limited range of food
- location isn't convenient to get to 

So overall I would give it a 3.5/5. I'm not sure if I would go back again just because I don't usually spend that much money on food and I would also have to travel a long way to get there. However, I think the Grounds of Alexandria is a nice cafe with a unique setting - it's not exactly your "typical cafe" and it's a nice place to dine.

Anyways, I hope you are all having a great day. =)