A breakfast with Gusto

Weekends at the moment have been a bit different for me. Since my boy Jeremy is now moving in to a career as a paramedic, he now spends his weekends working for St John Ambulance. It's a great change that we're so excited about, but I definitely miss my eating partner for the weekend!

But that's where my best friends are appreciated! They're always happy to step in and spend time with me. And since I love going out for breakfast, this feels almost like a perfect synergy or fate.

My best friend Carly and I had brekky at our old favourite Duende last week, and as we were eating I stumbled across an instagram photo of food at South Perth cafe, Gusto Food. It's a place that's sat on my wishlist for awhile now, but somehow I just haven't managed to make it down there. After showing Carly the picture in question we both decided that this weekend would be the time to try it.

We arrive on Angelo St around 9.30am, only to find roadblocks in place. It's the Angelo Street Fiesta, which is happening for the next couple of weeks and a complete surprise to us. Never mind, we park and walk down, enjoying the sights and diverse stands offering fashion, entertainment and food.

Soon enough we find ourselves at Gusto Food, which is small, bright and packed full of customers. We can't quite figure out if there's a line so we flag down a waitress to ask her for a table for two. She seems confused and tells us to join the line... which we tell her there is no line. Thankfully for us after we're shipped outside a new waitress comes along and tells us we'll have a table in a couple of minutes since there's a couple leaving. Thank god we got the girl who actually knew what was going on!

Once we're seated, we scan the menu quickly, deciding on a couple of dishes to share. I jump up and place our orders at the counter and around 15 minutes later we're chowing down!

We've ordered the Pulled Pork Benedict ($17.50), the Crumpets ($15.50), a large Long Black topped up ($5 I think?) and an Ice Chocolate ($6.00).

My ice chocolate definitely looks a treat. It's not quite sweet enough with the more bitter chocolate flavour dominating what I had hoped would be a creamy delight. It's okay, but for $6 I was expecting a great deal more.

The pulled pork benedict comes out piled on a thick cut piece of toast with spinach, two poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. There's also a side of sweet onions in an espresso glass.

This is definitely the dish of the morning. The bread is soft but stays together, supporting the generous serve of pork. I absolutely love how sweet and juicy the pork is, it's so flavoursome and melt in your mouth. The poached eggs on top are runny on the inside and the yolk spills out perfectly, coating the other ingredients. So yummy! The only downfall with this dish is that the hollandaise isn't quite punchy enough - the pork dominates the flavour leaving the sauce that is usually a big weakness for me (I love it) left in the dust. But overall, I really enjoyed this delectable and moorish dish.

The house crumpets come to the table stacked on top of a spread of sweet natural yoghurt and peanut gravel. There's a little jar of poached tree fruits and berries, which offers a vibrant jewel tone splash of colour on the plate.

I love the flavours on this dish. The peanut gravel is sweet and crunchy, a range of different textures complementing the slight sourness of the yoghurt. The fruit compote is delicious - sweet, diverse and  addictive. It's so good!

The crumpets themselves are a little dense for me which I can't help but find a little disappointing. While they definitely taste nice enough, they've got some great weight and don't have that lovely light fluffiness that a homemade crumpet should have. I was hoping to see more of the holes that form when you make these, but that's a different kind of crumpet I guess. Gusto's version is more like a hearty pancake.

I'm really glad Carly and I decided to go halves on our dishes, because I don't think I could have made my way through this crumpet dish without her. I love, love, loved the flavours on the plate with the different textures and contrasting savoury vs sweet.

The food at Gusto Food really delighted both of us in a big way. It's always great finding a new brekky spot and while it's not as close as our standard Sayers or Duende, it's a picturesque little slice of suburbia that made us both very happy. And full!