Breakfast Overload @ Oasis Bakery

Too much breakfast.

Oasis Bakery is a business that has just grown and grown in recent years. Starting as a tiny hole-in-the-wall supplier for middle eastern breads and specialty foods (many made in house) it has become a veritable empire with a vast store selling specialty foods from around the world, as well as a full bakery, desert bar and eatery.

Over at their flagship North Road store to stock up on my favourite cheese pastries, I decided to tuck into their 'full Turkish' breakfast. For just $19 this was a veritable feast, although in some aspects it followed the 'don't mind the quality, look at the volume' approach of some discount buffets.

For my money I got merguez sausage with spiced, semi-scrambled eggs, fresh labneh with pita bread, ful medames (a spicy Egyptian  bean dish), salad, olives and fried haloumi cheese.

In order of best to worst: the ful medames was delicious, serve it in a big bowl with some crusty bread and some of the equally excellent labneh and I would have been happy for the day; the labneh by itself was great, really fresh and tart, but the pita bread that came along side it was a bit stale and lacklustre - today's bread please Oasis!; the olives were really nice, as was the salad; the haloumi was well cooked but unusually salty and just a bridge too far calorie wise; and finally the eggs and merguez - ummm, really not great, and not a lot more to say. The eggs were entirely one note, chili-spice but with none of the nuance or flavour. In addition the sausage was very musky and so rubbery that I found it basically inedible.

All in all, I would probably say order the individual items you want, or a range of other dishes, rather than going for the full breakfast. It is a serious quantity of food and not all of it is great. Oasis overall is, however, well worth a visit.