The Cheapest Thing on the Menu- Zenius  

Cost: $16.90

Location: 96 Abercrombie Street, Chippendale

Feeling a bit adventurous, we just decided to go and walk and find what we find, see what we see and we ended up in Chippendale, at one of those Fusion cafes. On this day, it was Zenius, methinks a Malaysian – Western fusion joint. For me, I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu which was a Brekkie Rock n Roll – ciabatta, bacon, egg, spinach, avocado, hashbrown, cheese, and house-made sauce.

Portioning: For once, as long as I’ve been doing this challenge, I got a serving which was larger than I had anticipated. The top piece of the brekkie roll had to be served up lifted off, leaning against the rest of the roll (it was more like a bun/burger). As the filling was stacked so high, that it couldn’t realistically be eaten as a roll/burger. I’d imagine people would consume this with a knife & fork, de-constructing it down to forkfuls with a bit of this and a bit of that. But for me, I just tucked in with fingers, loading up the top piece of bread with the top portion of the ingredients (sunny side up egg, cheese, some avo  and bacon), and the bottom bun held the hashbrown, the 2 remaining rashers of bacon, and the rest of the greens and sauce.

Tastiness: It was alright, in the end a brekkie roll isn’t going to win any culinary awards, but their house made sauce was good (could of done with a bit more of it), but it was a solid hearty feed!

Quality: Everything was super fresh, they gave me 3 large rashers of crispy bacon! And the sunny side egg was cooked perfectly, a bit firm, so the yoke didn’t go everywhere, but it still had a bit of runniness to it. How I like an egg in a roll!

Value for money: For the amount of food which they managed to stack on top of each other, it was value for money considering it was the cheapest thing on the menu. And I do like it when the most economical choice comes well under 20 bucks. But we did get stung with a 10% weekend surcharge, which we weren’t aware of until we went to pay.

In the end, I love going for walks and not knowing where we’ll end up and what we’ll eat! My wife, not being constrained by this crazy challenge of mine, ordered what took her fancy- which was Pulled Pork and Poached eggs. And she said it was the tastiest thing she had eaten in a long while, as it had a unique tangy and spicy sauce slathered all over the meat. So, although we left with a bit of a bad taste in our mouths due to the 10% surcharge, but my wife still wants to go back again in the future. And who can say no to their wives? Right?