I happened to be at Ikea's massive Perth store this morning, and somehow found myself in the restaurant...I wonder how that happened! If you're not familiar with the Swedish powerhouse that is Ikea, get reading over here. The mix of food and furniture might seem a bit odd, but it's hard to argue with the number of people that were in the Perth store restaurant at 10:00am on a Friday morning. The store also has a "Swedish Food Market" which sells all of your favourite Swedish goodies, including the meatballs served in the restaurant. Thankfully, I didn't see any lutefisk. So why is breakfast in a furniture store worth a review? Because it only costs $3.50. Between 8:00am and 9:00am on Saturdays it's only $1.95, and that's just silly. No doubt similar pricing is available overseas, too. The egg, bacon and sausage are plated for you, and you serve your own baked beans, hash brown and tomato (which I passed on). Extra bacon, sausage and hash browns are available if you want them. It was all perfectly edible, and I was surprised at how nice the bacon tasted; I've certainly had worse from a breakfast buffet. The only thing I felt I was missing was some toast. Queuing for the hot food requires you to push your tray past lots of tempting looking cakes, and while I wasn't looking a piece of Daim cake sneaked onto my tray and hid behind a sausage. This cake is made from almond biscuit batter and then covered with Daim candy and chocolate. It was light and crispy with a nice toffee flavour from the candy. The full breakfast, cake and a bottled apple juice cost a very reasonable $10.70. As well as an impressive array of sweet snacks, the restaurant had a selection of pre-made rolls and sandwiches which looked fresh and appetising. If you want a hot meal there are options such as Ikea's famous meatballs, pasta, chicken schnitzel, fish & chips and quiche & salad, all for around the $7 mark. A kids menu is also available.  In American stores you can get pizza - check out this review on Slice. You have to pay for extras (like tomato sauce at 30c) and it is requested that you dispense of your own tray when leaving, but if you want to complain at these prices then you really need to take a hard look at yourself. Breakfast is served until 10:30am every day, and if you're heading to Ikea I'd certainly recommend timing your trip to include a visit to the restaurant. Oh, and if you're still hungry when you've finished shopping, you can grab a $1 hot dog at the "bistro" near the exit. Ikea, Perth 6 Sunray Drive (off Ellen Stirling Blvd) Innaloo  WA  6018 Phone: (08) 9201 4532 Store Opening Hours Mon - Fri: 9am - 7pm Thur: 9am - 9pm Sat: 8am - 5pm Public Holidays - closed

Having survived a very hot and humid night, I decided to sneak out of the house early and treat myself to a quiet breakfast. Given the temperature, I figured that heading south would be the way to go so I decided to visit Cafe Moka, located in the Dolphin Quay Marina in Mandurah, some 45 minutes south of Perth. I'd had a few good breakfasts there when I stayed in the lovely Seashells Resort a few years ago. Cafe Moka's location is quite stunning - those of you struggling through the northern hemisphere winter can be jealous of the view from my table, right next to the white umbrella in the photo above. I'd already checked out the breakfast menu online, and had my sights set on The Big Breakfast. I was particularly excited at the prospect of the Cumberland sausages, as in my opinion pork is the only meat that belongs in a sausage and I don't like surprises (or gristle) at breakfast time. The first thing I noticed was that the menu was different to the one of the website. The Big Breakfast was $1 more (now $22.50), and a couple of the more "cheffy" items were gone, notably the curious "Paw Paw and lime boat served with a fresh mint & red dragon fruit coulis" and the "homemade baked beans". I was secretly pleased at the removal of the beans - having been born in England, I have a genetic disposition towards baked beans as nature intended them - from a Heinz can. I understand that chefs want to reinvent and improve things, but to me it's like ordering a Big Mac - I'm under no illusions about what it is, but I know what I'm going to get within certain limits. Avoiding the temptation to order an ice coffee, I went with my standard breakfast cappuccino. It arrived quickly and looked pretty but was too watery. Thankfully it didn't taste burnt like so much coffee in Perth seems to. Like I've said before, if you want good coffee go to Epic Espresso in West Perth. My breakfast also arrived quickly, as advertised - mushrooms, tomato, cumberland sausages, bacon, "homemade" bubble & squeak, eggs (poached) with toasted turkish bread and baked beans added as a optional ($4) extra. As I moved around the plate I was surprisingly disappointed - my beans were cold in places, the sausages weren't very tasty, the bacon should have been cooked more, one of my egg yolks had been broken before my plate arrived and I didn't care for the bubble & squeak, what little of it there was. The foccacia toast was an interesting change, although it soaked up a lot of moisture from the eggs and quickly became a soggy mess.  Oh, and the butter was rock hard. Why is it so hard for restaurants to serve butter at a spreadable temperature? Side note: it's a personal thing, but I don't like my baked beans and eggs too close together on the plate. I used to think it was just me, and I remember being relieved when I saw Alan Partridge talking about "egg-bean separation", and his recommendation that a sausage be used as a breakwater between the egg and beans. I'll talk about this more in a future post. The second I put my knife and fork down (and I hadn't even eaten everything), a waitress appeared and whisked my plate away, as if  to dispose of the evidence. Anybody reading my restaurant reviews must think that I' m fussy and very hard to please, but that's really not the case (quite the opposite, actually). When it comes to breakfast I will always compare quality & quantity to what I can get elsewhere, and while my experience at Cafe Moka wasn't exactly bad, I paid over $30 for breakfast and a coffee that I didn't really enjoy so I won't be rushing back.