Middle Park Hotel Breakfast Launch With Paul Wilson

102 Canterbury Road
Middle Park VIC 3206
Ph: (03) 9690 1958
Email: info@middleparkhotel.com.au

Chef extraordinaire Paul Wilson, of Radii and Botanical fame, has recently turned his attention to The Middle Park Hotel. The pub had a launch event for its breakfast menu, and I was lucky enough to be invited. The aim of the new breakfast menu is to bring back the classic indulgent breakfast, and the canapes of the breakfast items definitely proved this to be true.

Chef Paul Wilson is a tower of a man, but it was amazing to see the skill and dexterity he had in plating up some stunning breakfast items. The kitchen staff were working harmoniously together to pump out canape after canape of exact size, texture and taste. Consistency is not something the hotel struggles with from what I was able to sample. And you can trust me on this, as I made sure I sampled at least two (and maybe sometimes three) of every item for quality assurance purposes.


The pub is quite large, fitted out beautifully with lush carpet, a rich wooden bar and lots of beautiful stainless steel. The bottles of alcohol were backlit by the sunlight streaming in through the windows and made for a sparkling display.


When you mention breakfast, instantly you would think of eggs right, because what would breakfast be without eggs? The hotel does eggs in abundance. Below you can see the Scramble Eggs with Herbs, served stylishly in the shells and on those cute little plates. The eggs were perfectly scrambled so they still maintained a slight runny-ness and were not all curdled, the worse thing that can happen to scrambled eggs.


Another way to have you egg is in a Smoked Salmon, Salmon Caviar and Hollandaise Egg. Basically, a runny egg coated the smoke salmon and was finished off with salmon caviar and hollandaise. The Rare Breed Pork Sausage were so full of flavour, and served with the old HP Tomato sauce.


Yet more eggs featured in an Omelette with Smoked Haddock, Leeks and Gruyere Sauce. I ate three of these and they were so good that I forgot to photograph a single one of them. Another case of the mouth being faster than the camera finger. I have to brush up on my karate kid skills and train my shutter finger to take the photos faster. However, I did remember to photograph my favourite dish of the morning. It was simply called Egg and Ham on Toast, but what a delight it was. The tiny egg had a dollop of tomato sauce in middle, sitting on two pieces of crisp buttered toast sandwiching some prosciutto with what tasted like a pate. The whole flavour and texture combination was sensational.


If a hot breakfast is not your thing, you can try the Porridge with Fruit (photo above right). The porridge contained pears, and I also tasted nuts at the bottom of the porridge. There is also the Fruit Salad with Yoghurt and Passionfruit (bottom left) and Lemon Cake (below right) if you want some really sweet foods. The fruit was refreshing whilst the cake is purely indulgent as the lemon sugar syrup was rich and sweet.


The breakfast menu definitely looks to be a winner, with the dishes all being rich and indulgent, matching the Middle Park Hotel motto of "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper." I would definitely recommend going there for a sit down indulgent breakfast, savouring your coffee and reading your newspaper.

Thanks to Jenny Brookes from Harvey Publicity and Paul Wilson from Middle Park Hotel for inviting me to the launch party.