Catalano's is one of those places that is completely chock full at night time, and with good reason. Their dinners are great. Cheap and cheerful and hearty. Good solid Italian stuff. Breakfast is fairly well attended too, and on Sundays a HUGE group of BMW motorbike riders arrive, park their machines and take up all the outside tables eating breakfast. So it's got a busy, noisy feel to it, which is fine.
I had bacon and eggs with a hashbrown (standard menu has fried tomatoes, I asked for them to substitute, more on that later) with a camomile tea. He had Eggs Milano (poached egg on ciabatta with avocado, capsicum, grated cheese, something else and hollandaise sauce). The three year old had bacon and eggs. The baby had her usual (feed and sleep).
The service was interesting. The wait person came to our table, opened her order pad and stood there. Nothing like "are you ready to order?". Kind of awkward, that. When I ordered mine "Can I please have the bacon and eggs, but instead of fried tomatoes, can I have a hashbrown?". She looked like she was going to have an aneurysm. Not a good sign. When she delivered the meals she didn't say anything or even smile. I hope she started to feel happier as the day progressed.
My bacon and eggs were good. Eggs perhaps slightly overcooked, but still pretty good. The tea was just a teabag in a cup of hot water. Bad bad bad. His eggs milano was OK, but there was something decidedly odd about the hollandaise. It almost tasted like it had cinnamon in it, and it really didn't work. I also wondered if they are really like something you'd find in Milan. The toast. Oh dear the toast. It was just sliced sandwich loaf. Like tip top or something. It was toasted well, but cold on service, so, as is always the case with cold toasted sliced white bread, it was kind of tough and chewy and not in a good way. Big let down.
Despite being a noisy place, you can't hear conversations at other tables, but you can hear each other, and kids are welcome, so it's a pleasant experience. Perhaps if they decided to go for a better bread choice for their toast and stick to normal hollandaise, things would improve significantly. Oh, and invest in some tea pots.
Score - 3 eggs (out of a possible 5)
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