Given the renovations going on next door & from what whispers I’ve heard will continue until close to the end of November to some degree, with the noise impact & lack of view, we’ve experienced quite a downturn in business. This has meant that we’ve had to throw out valuable stock & produce as we had assumed that even through the renovation period if the weather was good that the impact to us would be little. Given this predicament we are going to change the menu to simplify it & mean that we can focus even more on produce that is seasonal & fresh. It will mean that the menu may change weekly & there maybe items that may even change every few days.

We’ve taken delivery of the first of our taralga spring beef & in the coming weeks, we’ll run “cut of the day” & will try & work in a dry aged steak, we've even had a bacteria light installed in our coolroom! We will receive deliveries of beef every few weeks & use this amazing grass fed beef for most things from the meatballs in our new spanish baked breakfast to organising our own sausages.

With the silly season fast approaching, Barossa fine foods have sent us their Christmas list. They will take orders up to the first week of December so if you would like an amazing ham, they are free range & naturally smoked, we can order one for you. They will be round the 9kg mark, bone in for $14/kg. Likewise pudding, if you would like a Christmas pudding, I make steamed puddings every year, come & have a chat with me about how many people it needs to feed & we can sort something out.

Our last dinner for the year will be on Friday 18th November. Friday’s will probably become a feature of dinner in the future & for consistency’s sake, in the new year, we will try & hold our produce dinners on the last friday of every month. The one that is coming up on the 18th will probably be slightly larger & if the weather is good we will try & set-up outside! The dinner at Pierre’s (pepe saya,the butter & yoghurt man) warehouse that we have talked about has been postponed till early in the new year when everyone has more time on their hands. If you are interested in our last dinner leave your details with one of the staff & we will contact you when we know all the details.

Staff wise, Tanvir has left to go home & Cam will be off in the next couple of weeks to get married. He will be away until Christmas & we wish him all the best! To help fill the Barista void, Karl will be back here & there & between Lucas, Karl & myself we will hopefully manage the run into Christmas. After Christmas Cam will be back & any other shortfalls in the barista department will be filled by the boys from whitehorse in Sutherland. Most of the boys from up there have volunteered their services as whitehorse will be closed as usual from Christmas for almost a month I understand.

This will be a great help as this is normally our busiest period & would assume that I will be flat out baking throughout that time. I have close to perfected my version of a wholemeal & will now move onto a straight rye or spelt when I have some time. We have also had in some sour cherries that we got on spec & I have made a sour cherry loaf a few times which is pretty insane. I would hazard a guess & say that if you would like sourdough for Christmas that you probably should order it as we normally consume a huge amount of bread throughout that time.

look forward to seeing you all soon,

Nick

Tanvir is continuing our wild coffee ride. He ordered a cold drip filter to add to the array of scientific looking equipment growing behind the coffee machine. It will be a great addition over summer, once we get the ratios & timings right it will be a refreshing change to your caffeine hit. Dark horse blend from mecca has still been awesome, it still amazes me that we can get our hands on such great consistent coffee!

Josh has joined us from The Boathouse on Blackwattle Bay & will mean that coming into summer we have a strong crew in the kitchen & hopefully he will help take us to a new level. There will be some other staff changes over the coming months. Unfortunately, Tanvir’s heading back to Bangladesh for a few months, Cam will be off doing the marriage & honeymoon thing & Nanci is heading back to the states for good. We are on the hunt for passionate & experienced staff. We will need baristas to get us through the summer rush, & a manager. Along with the staff changes there will be an overhaul of the entire menu! Now that we are ordering in whole sides of Taralga Springs beef, we will feature “cuts of the day” with certain cuts of the beef, dry aging some too, & we are also using this beef to make our own sausages that will feature on the new menu!

Already as far as the menu goes we’ve changed a number of our wines & most of our beer as well. Some of the wines that featured at some of our produce dinners have been moved onto the list. The David Hook “de novo” white that featured at the last produce dinner replaces the evans & tate classic white & is a very easy drinking crisp white wine expertly blended from five different grape varieties. After trying it at the produce dinner decided it would be a great match for some of our food & our great location. Likewise the “mosto”, similar to a moscato it is a slightly sparkling wine that will be great drinking over spring & summer. Most of the beers have changed as well. We will feature the little creatures beers which are beautiful, they also make pipsqueak cider & white rabbit which will be added to the list for all our drinking pleasure. There may even be a beer & cider matched produce dinner on the horizon.....

Speaking of dinners, the next one is slated for the 6th October, we are currently working on what it will feature, but will probably be a spring based dinner. We have also floated the idea of a dinner at Pierre’s (pepe saya,the butter & yoghurt man) warehouse. It will be open to maybe 50 people & it looks as though there will be a line up of chefs from around Sydney, some even from hatted restaurants that will cook a course or two each to fill the night. It is quite an exciting prospect & Pierre is extremely excited by it as well, stay tuned for dates, but we are aiming for sometime in November & we will let you know how to book for it. We are talking about opening Thursday & Friday evenings for the next few months to cover ourselves due to the disruption of renovations. I will keep you all posted if we do, as it will be quieter in the evening as no work will be going on.

As mentioned above, Sealevel are renovating their outdoor area until mid November if all goes well. I have been told that it shouldn’t disrupt us too much, & I am hoping we have seen the worst of it already. My apologies in advance for any disruptions that do occur, unfortunately it is out of my control as well.

I’m still trying to get into better shape & spending some time down at Vision personal training. Their weight loss challenge is running again & I’m trying to drop some more kilo’s!

look forward to seeing you all soon, Nick

We’ve changed some of our dairy products over to Pepe Saya! Pierre makes the most amazing butter, using country valley cream. It is a cultured European style butter with a pro-biotic just like in yoghurt! I would have to say that it’s probably the best butter I’ve ever had, & we are also buying his yoghurt & buttermilk too! Along with this great produce, we’ve changed our bacon from the middle bacon we were getting from Barossa Fine Foods to their Shultz Bacon. It is aguably the best bacon in Australia which they have won a plethora of awards for! Hopefully you will find it up to standard. Along with using shultz bacon for all of our bacon repetoire now, & pepe saya cultured butter for all our toast & butter needs, you can also purchase both to take home with you! Why not grab a loaf of our sourdough & a Pepe Saya butter to go with it!?

Tanvir has been pushing us all along on a great coffee ride, we now have some coffee syphons in house & are encouraging people that feel like a little change to their caffine regime to give it a go! We are trying to keep some lighter roast coffee’s in house to take advantage of this & Mecca is always forthcoming. Our house blend as always is consistently amazing, but we’ve been getting some beautiful single estate coffee’s, some of which are very rare & expensive, but are absolutely amazing, be sure to ask.

Our second produce dinner was a great success, we ended up running it over two nights, & was almost an overload of meat! Darren ripped out some great dishes again, & there’ll be some stunning photo’s from the night coming to our website soon thanks to Bryce! We also ran Bastille night dinner on the 14th July, with of course a strict french theme, six courses included a georgous game terrine, a cassoulet, & a couple of other french inspired dishes followed by some awesome desserts. We are working on the next produce dinner & have slated Thursday 25th August. Same rules apply, we will seat a maximum of 18 for 7-8 courses including matched wine! We are in the
process of sourcing some organic geese, organic lamb & taralga springs beef which will feature on the night! We will try & stick to a theme of everything sourced within 100 mile radius.

Hope to see you all soon, & stay tuned for updates (twitter @alleybreak or facebook)

Regards, Nick

Fresh produce is all over the place at the moment. Bananas as most of probably have heard are ridiculously priced. We have been very lucky up until the last few weeks, in that we have been able to source reasonably priced banana’s for our smoothies & banana bread. Given that they have hit prices round the $130-$180/box mark, unfortunately we are going to have to increase the price of banana bread. Berries & tomatoes are very expensive too & are quite poor quality, hence we are steering clear of berries at the moment too. Hopefully things will balance out over the next month so that we don’t have to make too many changes. But.... there will be some changes coming, & we are really excited about them, already we have changed the spinach hash & gone back to a home made hash brown which is amazing!

The coffee we have been getting has currently been better than ever! The darkhorse blend from Mecca we serve everyday has been awesome, & personally I am preferring it over even the single estate coffee’s Mecca has been sending us. I think I speak for all of us in saying that we feel very lucky to be able to bring you such a high grade coffee! Talk to the boys about what’s better on the day. If you enjoy good wine & feel like a bit of a change in your caffeine regime, try what we call a “Tanvir” it is basically a piccolo long black, as it cools, it opens up like a great red wine & you can taste the flavours that the coffee inherits from it’s surrounds just like a fine wine! Sometimes citrus, berry or earthy notes, I can’t get enough of it!

The sourdough baking continues... We are now using our own sourdough fruit loaf & soy & linseed. Testing continues with different varietals, & we are still working on baking all our bread!

For those that saw the last news, I am trying to get myself back into shape. I donated a prize for vision’s weight loss challenge that finished running at the end of April, & this kick started what feels like a selfish indulgence to try & drop some weight & maybe even compete in a triathlon or half ironman again. I spent two sessions a week at Vision & through the eating plan & exercise I dropped a kilo a week for the nine weeks of the Vision challenge & hopefully can stay on track to drop a few more!

Hope to see you all soon, & stay tuned for updates (twitter @alleybreak or facebook)!

Regards, Nick

We have some awesome food coming over the “back to the future” weekend. (26th & 27th March) Some old favourites, like the six foot, chicken slab & a new take on the lamb wrap, some of our current trends, & some very exciting dishes on the horizon of our future! I wouldn’t even know where to start with the new items, our inspired cheese burger with sourdough brioche bun, the macaroni & cheese is just divine, pork & chorizo? what else can I say... a marriage made in pig heaven or maybe just mine. We even have a contender to replace the chicken salad, a beautiful combination of flavours brought together by the orange cinnamon emulsion, it has that same wow factor that had us all going crazy over the lemon lime dressing! Feedback from the weekend will help guide our menu over the coming months & we are all really excited by the new dishes, I don’t know whether I could even pick a favourite! The produce we are getting our hands on not only for the weekend but currently is awesome & we are all very excited by it!

Speaking of produce, we have been getting in some organic suckling pigs & beautiful organic squash & pumpkins from one of our suppliers. Maybe even coming into the winter months there’s a good chance of getting our hands on some truffles! All of this great produce combined with the inspiration for the back to the future weekend & we are considering running produce/ underground dinners once a month depending on interest. Possibly even starting in a few weeks. We’re throwing around the idea of a 6-8 course dinner featuring suckling pig as part of the meal & finishing with an awesome cheese board. If you are interested we will take your name & number & let you know once we’ve decided on a date!

I have to apologise for being out & about a little more recently, & also thank the staff for holding the fort whilst I have been indisposed. Truth is I am trying to get myself back into shape! Or a better shape.... I was asked to donate a prize for vision’s weight loss challenge they are running, & this has kick started what feels like my selfish indulgence to try & drop some weight & maybe even compete in a triathlon again. I’ve been riding with Gav, Denis & co. regularly, & race acrossthe park when I get time to fit in a boxing class with Les. Considering I’ve never been much of a fan of gyms, I am spending a few hours a week down at vision & is pretty amazing. If you need a kick start like I did I’d definitely head down & see them! Apart from being a little tired, I am feeling great & thinking clearer, which will hopefully mean that I can be even more productive & inspirational! (I know this is wishful thinking)

Hope you all enjoy!

Regards, Nick

P.S. Ellen has raised in excess of $5000 to shave her hair for shave for a cure. Well done! & Pete would like a mention it’s his 21st b’day soon happy b’day! & also to Emily who has turned 18!!

Thankfully we haven’t had too many changes to produce prices to warrant menu changes at the moment, the exception is to the quality of produce we have been getting has been varied. Rocket & baby spinach esp. has been inconsistent. But we are doing our best to bring you great food as always. We’ve changed our meat supplier to a wholesaler in Kirrawee. They approached us about a month ago & we started using them towards the end of February. They open from 4am which means that Darren or myself can drop in on the way to work & pick out the carcasses that we want, & get them delivered later that morning. We are buying our lamb from them, & started buying saddles of pork from them, which we can take the bellies off for our pork belly dish, & then using the rest of the saddle for specials! Darren has ripped some awesome boneless roast loin with crackling, one served with roast puree corn, vanilla peaches & asparagus & then with a grape, esshallot & tarragon salad with fennel seed dressing!

The sourdough testing is continuing, & using organic flour, we’re producing our own sourdough fruit loaf, & on various days, olive, white sourdough, soy & linseed & I’ve even been experimenting with a fig walnut & rasin. I’ve also started on the hot cross bun war path! Making both fruit buns & a choc chip, currant version they have been a hit thus far, only making an appearance on the weekends though! We’ve been using the starter to make sourdough pancakes some weekends & sourdough english muffins on other weekends! Both are awesome, & we now have some organic maple syrup on the way too! We’ve also been producing a yeast assisted sourdough which we are using to make all of our rolls. We’ve been using this yeast assited sourdough to make fresh bread for catering & sandwiches, including my kids, it keeps the costs down for us, hence we can pass on the savings! If you have a party, work lunchon or other why not come have a chat with us? I’m sure we can arrange some beautiful food for your next event! If you would like to try some of my sourdough please ask, as I have been baking most days, in saying this I have been selling most of the bread I bake also, so get in quick! You can always order a loaf!?

Don’t forget that our liquor license permits a drink without a meal, so if you feel like a glass of wine or a beer in the arvo, you can come & sit & relax without having to order a meal, & you can always grab a cheese platter or a little snack if you feel like it! We always have some little tidbits we order that normally don’t see the light of day, & we can organise something unique for you to indulge.

Regards, Nick

P.S. Cam is back from his trek with AYAC, & Ellen is going to paarticipate in shave for a cure & i’m
sure she’d appreciate any support given!

Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you would have heard, there’s been some epic floods around different areas of Australia. This may mean that our menu changes over the coming weeks as certain produce will become extremely expensive. We will make these changes to keep our prices reasonable, & my advance apologies if we have to change dishes you enjoy because of this. On the topic of dishes & menu changes, there has been some discussion both internally & with customers about some of the changes we’ve made to the menu over the last couple of years. There are many meals & dishes that you have enjoyed & ask to come back etc. that we are planning on having one weekend that we will have a back to the future weekend. We will run a specific menu for one weekend only & will feature some of your much loved past
dishes, present menu items & things that we would like to bring to you all in the future. See it as an evolution of Alley Break over the past few years & next few to come. It will probably happen towards the end of February or early March. Stay tuned for exact dates.

I have been testing my sourdough now for a few months. I cracked it early in December, so we’re now producing our own sourdough fruit loaf, made with organic flour, & also our own yeast assisted sourdough which we are using to make all of our rolls. We have also been using this yeast assited sourdough to make fresh bread for catering & sandwiches. It keeps the costs down for us & hence we can pass on the savings! If you have a party, work lunchon or other why not come have a chat with us? I’m sure we can arrange some beautiful food for your next event! If you would like to try some please ask as I have been baking most days, in saying this I have been selling most of the bread I bake also, so get in quick!

As most of you know we became a licenced venue about 18 months ago. What some of you don’t know is that the type of liquor licence we have allows us to serve alcohol without a meal. This means that if you feel like a lazy glass of wine or a beer in the arvo, you can come & sit & relax without having to order a meal, & if you can always grab a cheese platter or a little snack if you feel like it, we always have some little tidbits we order that quite often don’t see the light of day, & we can organise something unique for you to indulge. We have some beautiful wines, most by the glass, so why not come & indulge yourself, try a different one each day!

As I keep saying we are getting there, although I’m not too sure where there is yet, it feels like we are heading in a good direction with some exciting prospects on the horizon for 2011!

Look foward to seeing you all & hope you all have a great 2011 as well!

Regards, Nick

P.S. look out for our new t-shirts & logo along with a new website coming soon, & you can catch up with news on facebook or on twitter @alleybreak!!

We are taking orders for hams if people are interested. They will be approx $12/kg for 8-10kg ham & we can take orders up to 20 December. They should have them delivered from Barossa fine foods by the 23rd December! They are the winners of some of the best smallgoods in Australia, & are all naturally smoked & gluten free! They even do an organic & nitrate free ham which is amazing, but a little pricier! Be sure to get in early if you want one! We will also take orders for my steamed christmas pudding, again if you are interested please come & have a chat with me about how many people it will need to serve etc. I will also try & organise a sample one for you all to try but I have been perfecting this for a few years so I think it’s pretty good! It is also wheat free, but unfortunately not gluten free!

As some of you know I have been testing my own sourdough, & are getting very close to nailing it! We will look into baking all our own bread if we can consistently produce good results over the next few weeks! I am a little obsessed with it at the moment, if you see me racing around showing off loaves of bread, it is probably just one of my triumphs! There has been enough failures over the last few months that it is great that I think we finally have cracked it! One of the failures even became a pair of sourdough birkenstock’s it was so aptly shaped! Look out for some & if you interested in trying some, have a chat to myself or some of the staff as I am baking most days & normally have some to share.

Our wine list has changed again slightly as we move towards the warmer months, the chardonnay, a new pinot grigio & a gorgeous red wine called “miss harry” which is a french styled wine that tastes like strawberry’s & cream! We are waiting on our first delivery but should be with us in the first week of December.

Cam has left us in support of his mate Chris, who is paddling the length of the Murray River to raise funds for Lifehouse @ RPA: The Chris O’brien Cancer Centre. You can keep track of their progress or make a donation @ www.ayac.com.au & support what I think is a great cause!

We have been blessed to have some new faces esp. barista’s as good ones are hard to find & I hope you will find them as personable as all of our other great staff! As I keep saying we are getting there, although I’m not too sure where there is yet, it feels like we are heading in a good direction. I would love to thanks everyone for their patronage this year, & if you’re going away have safe travels, a great Christmas & new year!

We’ve been contemplating starting a meat co-op. As most of you know we already buy in whole lamb, but we have been talking about buying in whole beef & whole pork. We use a certain amount of meat but am wondering are people interested in buying some of the other cuts? We had an example of that on the Friday before the long weekend, our lamb supplier called on the way back from the abitoir in Newcastle, he’d had someone cancel an order on him & wondered if we wanted it. As we were completely stocked for the weekend, I called a few of our regular’s & some staff & their families, to see if anyone wanted some lamb cheap, we received three lamb’s at 2:30pm & by the time we closed at 4pm we have broken them all down & sold all of it (cutlets, legs, backstrap etc.) for $10/kg! If we can get this up & running we cannot only save money for ourselves but on your meat bill too! Drop your name at the counter if you’re interested!

The coffee has been amazing as it is most days, & our bean of the day (single estate coffee’s) have been going off. Most often best as black coffee or espresso, talk with the boys about whether it’s best short, in milk or black, but we will always have them, so if you feel like a change to your daily grind, ask!

Lastly, Cam (most of you know is one of our barista’s) has a mate who is going to paddle the length of the Murray River to raise funds for Lifehouse @ RPA: The Chris O’brien Cancer Centre. They had a fundraising event @ Bunnings recently in which Sonoma graciously provided rolls for the day, all 700 of them!! Alley Break provided the sausages, sauce & onions, which meant all the proceeds could go to what I think is a great cause! They are planning a fundraising launch @ the Brass monkey on 23rd November. For more info or to make a donation www.ayac.com.au.

Regards, Nick

P.S. We are still looking for staff. Chefs, apprentices, kitchen hands, wait staff, barista’s & a floor manager/maitrad’e. Come & see me or drop in a resume if you are interested or know somebody who is interested.

As most of you know, Karl has left us & is off overseas rock climbing & enjoying himself, last time I heard he was enjoying himself climbing in the French alps! Liam has joined us as part of the barista team & seems to be settling into the place well! This means we will head into spring & summer with a great strong crew behind the coffee machine! We now have an espresso origin everyday, which have been awesome! the Ethiopian has been my favourite for sure, but there some other rippers that Mecca have been roasting for us too!

Unfortunately, the kitchen has beenthrough some upheaval over the last few weeks. It felt like we were about to settle into a groove, but with one chef breaking his shoulder down at the snow & needing surgery, he will be off for two months & our apprentice deciding that he’d just up & leave, we are on the hunt for staff again! We need another apprentice, & we may have already found ourselves a chef to join us in the roll into the silly season! We will also be looking for someone to take on a maitrad’e roll or floor manager as I feel that even though we have a great friendly crew, a little more structure to our service would be fantasic! If you know anyone or are interested please drop in a resume or pop by & have a chat with me.

We are in the process of trying to organise a cheese afternoon/evening for anyone interested,  & instead of running dinner over summer we are planning on running some produce dinners, but will ultimately depend on numbers. If you are interested talk to a staff member & we can
jot your details down & let you know once we have organised everything.

Don’t forget we sell everything that we make here from our jams to fetta, bread to coffee, if it is an ingredient we use we can sell it to you or order it for you! Even if we don’t use it everyday, if you are looking for speciality ingredients we can source some for you! (we even got dropped in a fresh black truffle from the southern highlands a few weeks back! Thanks Denis!!!)

P.S. Meat classes are still running Wednesdays if you are interested.