Market mega-breakfast and a little pub grub

Last Friday was a day of dizzying highs and horrendous lows. Well, the lows were actually dizzying as well, but I'll get to those later. First, we eat!

After a second night of terrible sleep, despite the numerous pillows ordered from the hotel's pillow menu, I dragged myself to check out the hotel's gym facilities and was pleasantly surprised to discover it was actually reasonably equipped. An hour of weight training and a quick shower later, and I was more than ready to get stuck into breakfast. I was also quite excited as today was the day we had decided to hit Adelaide Central Market and I was looking forward to repeating the gorge-fest that was the breakfast my sister and I enjoyed at the Prahran Market in Melbourne earlier this year.

When we arrived at the market, we would have loved to have done a complete bog lap of the stalls to really choose our breakfast items wisely, but by this stage our energy levels were flagging quite a lot and we just started buying up whatever took our fancy.

First stop, one of the fish sellers for some smoked fish. We got a nice big slab of smoked tuna ($24.90/kilo) and some smoked Atlantic salmon pieces ($24.90/kilo).

Assorted smoked fish just asking to be eaten

Cheese was an absolute must, so we stopped by one of the many cheese sellers and asked for some nice local brie and chevre. We ended up with some Limestone Coast Lady Musgrave Brie and a Woodside Chevre log. Some quince paste also grabbed our eye while we were paying, so we got some of that too.

The sad tale of a compulsory cheese-sniffer and her long-suffering children

Onto the meat section, where some salami and ham joined our band of merry foods, soon followed by a container of marinated artichokes and some figs. Finally, some bakery goodies joined the party in the form of two fruit and walnut sourdough rolls and a couple of wholemeal dinner rolls. Unable to carry anything else we thought we'd better stop spending money and find somewhere to sit ourselves down and start eating, preferably with a nice hot coffee to sip.

We soon found a table and I got busy unpacking while my friend made himself useful procuring coffees, plates and knives. I started to realise just how much food we'd bought when I started noticing people staring at our table as they walked pass. Jealousy is a terrible trait.

Getting all our goodies set out for our breakfast, whilst waiting for our coffees

Of course we ate and ate until we could eat no more, but here are a couple of shots of our starting plates.

Starter Plate 1 - Smoked tuna, artichokes, ham, spiced figs, chevre and smoked salmon

Starter Plate 2 - Quince paste, brie, smoked salmon, chunk of wholemeal bread roll and smoked tuna

Everything tasted as good as it looked. It was also a good reminder of how much I like quince paste, and made me wonder, not for the first time, if it is worth making up a batch myself. I'm sure I'll forget all about this endeavour until the next time I eat quince paste somewhere.

Now to the dizzying lows. Towards the end of my breakfast I developed a sudden, terrible headache and starting feeling a bit 'off' in a number of other ways but I'll spare you the details apart from saying my eyes went really red. So not only was a feeling very poorly but I was looking super dodgy as well. Brilliant. After finding some ibuprofen for the headache, drinking some water and washing my face I felt a little better (though looking at myself in the bathroom mirror did nothing for my recovery) but ended up having to get back to the hotel and have a rest before I started feeling a bit more normal. Methinks this was the beginnings of what turned into the dreaded influenza, though I didn't realise this until the next day when many more symptoms made themselves painfully known.

Thinking I just had a strange reaction to something I ate, and possibly was suffering also from the effects of having slept badly for the past two nights, once I was feeling a bit better in the afternoon we went for a stroll up Rundle Mall. It was depressingly similar to the Hay St or Murray St Mall in Perth, though admittedly we didn't do a lot of snooping down alleys and up side streets. Perhaps we should have done some alley snooping, we might have been able to get a good deal on some knockoff verjuice, hehe. We did however come across a vintage clothing store that was having a significant closing down sale, and I scored a really nice summer dress and a long woollen jacket for around 80% off. Woo! Bring on summer!

By this stage in the afternoon we were getting a bit thirsty and peckish, having finally digested our impressive breakfasts, so we ducked into The Austral Hotel for some refreshments. I figured that people who mysteriously develop red eyes should not get stuck into the booze for a while, so I had a lime and soda while my friend got stuck into the SA spirit and had a Coopers green. We also ordered some fried whitebait and fried prawns (funnily, I ordered the prawns, after having trouble deciding between the prawns and the whitebait, while my friend ordered the whitebait, after having trouble deciding between the whitebait and the prawns. Perfect, we could happily share!).

Fried Whitebait, Grilled Lemon & Mayonnaise ($11)

Pint of Fried Prawns, Curry Dipping Sauce ($12)

I really liked the idea of having the fried lemon to squeeze over the seafood. I might have to steal this idea. The whitebait were a little sandy but delicious, and the prawns were lovely and crunchy and tasty. The curry dipping sauce was actually really nice as well, and I was surprised by how well it went with both the prawns and the whitebait. It wasn't too overpowering at all.

I must have been feeling better that night judging by the size of my dinner. Post to follow...