Takeaway breakfast gnocchi? Yes please

Delicious breakfast is ready in 15 minutes - including all of your favourites dishes - at this Kedron cafe-turned-takeaway.

“That was good food. You’d better give it a good review,” says my friend with hubris about our takeaway brunch from Farm House Kedron, in Brisbane’s north.

The hugely popular cafe has always been known for its great fare, serving a hearty and wholesome breakfast and lunch offering with the likes of hotcakes, beef cheek ragout and vegetarian bowls.

Combined with benevolent service and its distinctive fit-out, which replicates an authentic timber and iron-clad farm house kookily positioned in a quite suburban street, the eatery would draw customers from all across Brisbane, with a wait for a table at weekends almost
a certainty.

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But now the queues aren’t for a seat on the wooden front porch, draped with philodendrons and fringed with potted herbs, or inside the charming, mural-dressed tin shed. They’re for takeaway, with the cafe now serving breakfast, lunch and dinner daily available for pick-up.

The Breakfast Gnocchi. Picture: Peter Wallis

From 6.30am diners can choose from, perhaps, buttermilk flapjacks with gelato, a tomato bruschetta or a classic fry-up; while from midday options expand into, say, vegan nachos, fish tacos, toasties, burgers and more. There’s also a cabinet loaded up with colourful salads anyone would want to make friends with, enticing sandwiches and an impressive array of cakes and bakes that would rise to the top of any CWA competition.

After ordering over the phone (you can also order online or in person), our meal is ready in just 15 minutes, with the always charming team ensuring my well-made coffee is brewed fresh for the second I walk in the door. There are also smoothies, milkshakes, iced drinks, and beer and wine at close-to-bottle-shop prices available.

But as my friend says, it’s all about the food.

Inside our brown paper bag are Farm House’s two signature dishes: the breakfast gnocchi ($17.50) and the crispy cheesy potato cake ($18.50).

Unfortunately, in the heat of the containers, the poached eggs in both dishes have continued to cook, setting the yolks. But for my friend who’s not the biggest fan of liquid yolks, it’s a happy accident.

My greater concern though is for the potato cake, which I expect to be soggy and stodgy, but not so. Rather, the crumbed and fried puck boasts the same crispness as if it was just pulled from the oil, with its two-toned centre of sweet and white potato as fluffy as a down Doona. Served with tanned strips of middle rasher bacon, a tangle of wilted baby spinach and a top-notch hollandaise, it’s a star.

Farm House in Kedron. Picture: Peter Wallis

As is the gnocchi, the potato nuggets suspended in a peppy arrabiata tomato sauce dotted with cubes of crispy bacon and lashings of oozy, melty cheese. It’s comfort food in a time when we all need it most.

While I may not be able to enjoy the warm hospitality and cosy country set-up of a sit-down meal at Farm House, knowing that I can at least take home its quality culinary offerings is plenty of reason for celebration.