Waking up early on a Saturday morning, my partner and I decided to head into Griffith for brunch at Gryphons caffe and bar. I do like the Griffith shops. It has restaurants Aubergine and Rubicon located there, as well as an organic fruit and vegetable shop, Greek wholefoods store, a butcher and a massage centre.
I knew what I wanted on the menu as soon as I saw it. The pumpkin and walnut doughnuts ($17) – glazed pumpkin, walnut and buttermilk doughnuts with maple candied bacon, cinnamon mascarpone and raspberries. When the dish came out, I was a little disappointed with the small portion. Three mini doughnuts, two strips of Canadian bacon, some cinnamon mascarpone and three raspberries.
The doughnuts tasted slightly different to a normal cinnamon doughnut. I’m guessing they used walnut meal to make the doughnuts as there were no chunks of walnut mixed through. I could see random flecks of pumpkin in it but there wasn’t a strong taste of pumpkin at all. To be honest, the large amount of cinnamon sugar covering the doughnuts masked any other flavour. They did go quite well with the cinnamon mascarpone. The bacon had a lovely glaze to it and tasted pretty damn good too. I don’t think the raspberries added any value to the dish other than to provide something healthy.
I knew this wasn’t going to fill me up. Luckily I’d ordered a banana milkshake which for $5 was huge.
My partner ordered the Gryphons Breakfast ($22) – basically a big breakfast with 2 eggs, potato rosti, mushrooms, bacon, chorizo and tomato with a choice of bread. The potato rosti, a nice fat round pattie, was done very well. One of the best rosti I’ve had. I ended up eating most of this (since I was still hungry). I found the chorizo very light and not as flavourful (or salty) as other chorizo can be. Both my partner and I love mushrooms, but the mushrooms in this meal were just off somehow. We couldn’t quite work it out. My partner tells me its almost like burnt plastic had been mixed into it, perhaps from plastic utensils being left on the stove too long? I’m not sure but it did taste weird. Most of it was left on the plate. But he was happy with the rest of the meal.
I thought Gryphons was a nice casual brunch spot, obviously popular with the locals as I noticed several people strolling in to grab a takeaway breaky wrap or sitting down with earphones or a laptop to chill. There is plenty of seating available in their bistro style cafe.
Even though my meal wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be, I’m giving kudos for the innovation. Where else can you get pumpkin and walnut doughnuts? And besides the mushrooms, my partner did enjoy his meal. I think I’ll go back for their salmon rosti next time.
Foodgasm 6.5/10
