date of visit: Wednesday 20 July 2016

School holidays … a time to catch up with all those friends you don’t see during term time (er, and the ones you do see during term time too). Winter holidays are tricky – no one wants their house trashed by two five year olds who you can’t stick outside.

Our house was full of wine (long story), the friend’s house is having a ceiling repaired … so there was nothing for it but to choose a park and hope it didn’t rain on us.

Somewhat miraculously, even though it rained on us on the WAY to Apex Park, Hawthornedene, it was actually pretty dry at the park itself. After an hour or so running around and squeezing in some geocaching (an excellent way to keep small children occupied) it was time for a sit down and something to quieten down the inevitable wails of ‘I’m hungry’.

Part of our choice of Apex Park had been driven by the fact that Joan’s Pantry is right there. I’ve driven past it for years and years and years (and I’ve subsequently found out that a friend’s parents used to own it – got to love Adelaide!) but never been in. It’s had a recent refurb so while the outside looks relatively small, there is quite a lot of space inside.

We got in (luckily) just before the lunch rush and set about choosing food and drinks. A tactical mistake saw Master 5 opt for chocolate milk while his friend ordered an orange and mango juice. Oh no!

After some agonising, I decided on the ‘Big Breakfast’. Even though it was lunch time and I didn’t really need a big meal, it worked out at about the same price as ordering eggs and a few other bits and pieces … PLUS it had HASH BROWNS! Master 5 chose the hot dog with onion from the child’s menu (he was originally tempted by the big breakfast too … but was swayed by his mate’s choice!).

As we sat waiting for our food and drinking our coffees, we realised that some of the tables around us were enjoying glasses of wine! Tactical beverage mistake number 2.

The food arrived swiftly and, overall, was very good. The boys’ hot dogs were ENORMOUS – for $7.50 two big ‘halves’ of a hot dog, complete with onion (if requested!) and sauce. It looked like good quality bread too. And guess what? Master 5 was unable to eat all of his. There’s a first time for everything!

The big breakfast was indeed big. Mine was with scrambled eggs which were delicious. I hoovered them up sharpish before starting on the remainder. The mushrooms were delicious (not those horrible insipid watery mushies you so often get) as was the grilled tomato. Naturally the hash browns went down a treat and the bacon and sausage were lovely too. After all of that I could hardly make a dent in the big slab of toast. And the bowl of chips we’d also ordered? Yeah … we didn’t need that at all!

The one downer was that my friend had ordered poached eggs with her big breakfast and they were both firm in the middle. Always disappointing – and perhaps I didn’t help by smugly remarking how good my scrambled eggs were!

Joan’s Pantry gets a big tick from me (hmmm, is it just the hash browns?) and, judging by how busy it got, it would appear that the locals and visitors feel the same. If you are planning a visit – particularly on a weekend or during school holidays – I recommend you give them a call.

And hopefully, my next visit will be sooner rather than later.

Joan’s Pantry
7 Watahuna Avenue
Hawthorndene 5051
phone: (08) 8278 2091