Citrus Moon in Kingston

Rita is going to have to be a bit of a food snob in her explanation of her brunch today at Citrus Moon in Kingston. While the food was fine, I have to say that if you went there wanting technically correct food, you wouldn’t get it.

Eating with two cooking teachers also didn’t help the cause for CM.

The girls ordered Eggs Benedict, while Rita, who had already breakfasted, ordered quiche and salad, having first sought the mega-friendly waitperson’s advice on something light and lunchy. She said the quiche was sweet potato, fetta and spinach, which sounded good to me.

I also ordered a vanilla milkshake, with the memory of my milkshake at Sip a few weeks back still fresh in my mind. I should have heeded my own internal warning. This was, once again, one of those ordinary milkshakes which made the Sip one stand head and shoulders above all others.

The eggs had packet hollandaise on them. Now if you’re an Eggs Benedict afficionado, serving packet hollandaise on it is the food equivalent of turning up at a Pink concert and finding a contestant from Australian Idol performing instead! If it were me, I would make the decision not to include Eggs Benedict on my menu rather than compromise with a bought sauce. Don’t you only order them for the sauce? Otherwise you’d just order a poached eggs and bacon, or ham.

On questioning, the owner explained that due to the recent scare with eggs and home made mayonnaise, they had made the choice to use the bought hollandaise, with no fresh eggs used, hence no risk to customers. However, as my companions explained to me, the various councils have bought in quite effective ways of guaranteeing that the kind of food poisoning we had a few months back at Venus will now not occur if people follow the basic guidelines, as proscribed by the various councils.

So, I’m sorry, but being a true Eggs Benedict lover, I am simply not prepared to compromise, and need to know if I am ordering EB, that the café or restaurant has made their own hollandaise. A moot point anyway, given that I didn’t order it today. Smith St Store’s brunch of EB, blogged about a few weeks ago, definitely was their own hollandaise, and beautiful it was too.

My quiche could actually have been more accurately described as a frittata. It had no pastry, and the consistency was odd, as well as it being overcooked and dry. The owner, seeing it left on the table with not much eaten, came over to enquire about it and was extremely apologetic on finding out the reason why it was being left. She explained that they put polenta in their quiches, as they have many customers who are gluten intolerant. That’s totally fine and understandable, but maybe that fact could be noted, either on the menu, or verbally at the time of ordering.

As it was, she was extremely understanding about it, and only charged me half price for it, which I thought was good of her, and for that fact alone I would go back.

The prices at CM were very reasonable, the service excellent and friendly. Bad luck about our food choices today but if you just wanted a snacky type meal and were in Kingston, it’s a great venue.