Mr Hendricks Cafe, Balwyn

Holiday times are the best when one loses track of all time. I am happiest when the hours and the days blend into one time zone called 'holiday'. You can dress in pyjamas in the afternoon, eat breakfast food at any time of the day, and be blissfully unaware of which day it is of the week. Unless of course, it is the day before you are meant to go back to work...

The happy memories of holidays is perhaps why I quite like the idea of brunch. When I can wake up late, potter around the house, have brunch and do nothing taxing on the mind or body for the rest of the day until dinner.

On one of these rare relaxing weekend, we went to Mr Hendricks in Balwyn for brunch. As it is every weekend, it was very busy at the cafe. Some of the customers had come from the gym, still in their exercise lycra. Some were having a catch up with their girl friends. Some were single diners, just enjoying their meal while keeping up to date with news. How about us? We were catching too, catching Pokemon. It was the height of the Pokemon craze and we were finding new places to go to so that we can kill two birds with one stone - enjoying a new restaurant and advancing on the Pokemon ladder.

We ordered the salmon, dark rye bread, poached eggs and bearnaise sauce; and pulled pork burger with honey glazed sweet potato.

Overall we enjoyed both dishes but with minor mismatches of taste - the sweet potato was coated with sugar which was unnecessary that made it too sweet for our liking, and the bernaise sauce in the salmon dish inexplicably tasted a little like plastic.

Pulled pork burger

Salmon breakfast