It’s the first day of the blog and also Christmas day 2018. I didn’t have any plans but thankfully I live in Hurstville where there are some shops and restaurants open AND I have lovely neighbours who happen to be Caucasian but also do not celebrate Christmas! So we decided to have brunch together. Thanks neighbours!
Cafe – Lazy Panda
We went to Lazy Panda which is a cafe on Forest Road which is probably the only real cafe on the street level (on the main drag!) in Hurstville. I had been there a few times including when I first moved to Hurstville, but this was the first time as a foodtard on keto! (My previous foodtard-ness was only my lactose intolerance).
Lazy Panda serves Campos coffee, which if you are a Sydney-sider and a partial coffee snob will know is pretty good coffee.
Menu Choice
With my new keto lens on I examined the menu and decided on a long black with a side of cream and eggs benedict with bacon and no English breakfast muffin (they did serve the muffin but I just avoided eating it. There was some melted cheese on it too which I also avoided most of just because it was stuck on the bread and I didn’t really need to eat the cheese).
To make the choice on the eggs benny I had to Google to work out if Hollandaise sauce was keto. Unfortunately searching for “Hollandaise sauce Keto” just gave me a bunch of recipes! So I just searched for “Hollandaise recipe” to work out generally what is in the sauce.
Hollandaise sauce is egg yolks + butter and lemon juice! Woohoo! There are carbs in lemon juice but it’s seen to be an “OK” thing to have with water so in a sauce it should be fine (and the recipe I looked up had a 1 tablespoon worth of lemon juice per 3 egg yolks so it should be fine!)
Eggs Benedict or “Eggs Benny” (for those of you who don’t know) is poached egg and usually ham (but can also be served with smoked salmon) and in my case (and one of the Lazy Panda’s options!) it was with bacon. Yum. This version also had some pea sprouts, rocket and pine nuts!
The meal may not be very Asian. OK not Asian at all but I had it in Asia-land being Hurstville… Other options at Lazy Panda which I considered included the big breakfast (too big!) and the shakshuka (but I was concerned that it had too many carbs as I wasn’t sure exactly what the tomato base was going to be). I was very pleased they had the option of cream for my coffee as it’s not often that cafes have cream these days. They had Almond Breeze almond milk I noticed when I left so that could have been an option too (3g carbs if using the barista blend per serve).
Conclusion
Having a brunch out is fairly easy as there seems to be many options for keto-ness at cafes. I don’t think I’d fair nearly as well in an Asian cafe. I suspect the options would be thin on the ground. Probably not even the drinks. Something to ponder next time I am invited to breakfast with other Asians.
