Guildford bakery Yum Yum wins 2019 Eggsellence Awards
They have an army of loyal customers but a victory on World Egg Day has elevated a western Sydney bakery’s popularity even more.
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A Guildford bakery that was one of the first to serve Lebanese pizza in Sydney now has another title after cracking a competition for using the humble egg.
Yum Yum Bakery’s Najib Haddad and his nephew Jeremy Agha claimed the 2019 Eggsellence Awards for their knockout awarma and egg pizza, a dish they say marries Lebanese and Aussie cultures.
The pair pipped 200 entries across Australia for the golden title of making Australia’s best egg dish.
A photo of the pizza piqued celebrity chef Manu Feildel’s attention and the entrant was picked as one of four finalists before the egglimination eventually clinched them a win.
Fittingly on World Egg Day (October 11), the challenge saw teams whip up dishes over five sittings for three diners to taste.
They outmuscled rivals Grain of the Silos (Tasmania), Mount Street Breakfast Bar (Western Australia) and Rustic Pearl (Surry Hills) during a pop-up restaurant challenge.
Their stellar snack comprises handmade dough topped with lamb confit, sprinkled with zaatar (herbs including thyme and oregano) and then splashed with two sunny-side up eggs before it crisps up in the woodfire oven for five minutes.
The manousheh (pizza) has been a staple of the Guildford Rd bakery since 1990 when family Najib’s trailblazing father, Toufic, established Yum Yum in 1990 (while running a fruit shop across the street).
But it wasn’t until last year that eggs were added to the menu.
“I guess the sunny-side up eggs is a bit of an Australian classic,’’ Aga said.
“We try the combination of two cultures.”
His uncle agrees.
“Since I’ve added eggs to the menu, the biggest thing to change is our breakfast platters,’’ he said.
“We’ve had eggs on the menu previously but very minimal and we had a customers add them, so we always carried eggs but over the last year we’ve added more and more.
“Adding eggs has definitely made it more of a brunch place and family hang out. Who doesn’t like eggs?’’
In the Merrylands’ family’s ancestral home of Lebanon, the lamb is preserved to stave off the chilly winter months.
“The preserving of the lamb was in the villages because they had no electricity and no preservation, they would save it to get through the winter months,’’ Aga’s mother Rita, who is one 10 Yum Yum family employees, explained.
Her son and brother now make the country’s best egg dish.
This year in Australia, more than 6.3 billion eggs will be produced and consumed locally — 17.2 million will be consumed each day.