Bright and early one Saturday, Demis and I woke up to go to breakfast. Unfortunately, it was all earliness and no brightness.

Demis had been to Swell Restaurant at Bronte once and wanted to take me there to show me how delicious and amazing it was. We planned to go one Sunday morning at 8am to ensure we would get a table. Looking back, I suppose the problem with this plan lay in the fact that I rarely want to acknowledge my own existence at that hour of the morning, let alone a plate of good breakfast.

We made the short drive over to Bronte arguing the whole way. It was a cold and overcast day and I had not had my coffee yet. I felt ugly and worthless and of course it was all Demis' fault because, I mean, it was very unfair of him to plan a morning eating out and sure it was by the beach and yes OK it was meant to be a very good restaurant and I understand that he just wanted to make my morning special...but well he should really have considered my feelings before he planned it is all I'm saying.

So we arrived at Swell Restaurant and thankfully there were plenty of tables and seats still available. Not that that made any difference - I didn't want to eat outside because it was cold (and there's nothing worse than having your breakfast go cold), and when we opted for a cosy corner table inside the waitress kindly informed us that seeing as we were "two" we had to sit at a table for two and the only one that was free was the one right next to the counter. Which I suppose was nice because unlike the rest of the diners, we were lucky enough to have the sweet sound of cups banging on saucers and kitchen orders as calming background music while perusing our menus.

And it was a good thing that we didn't occupy the eight or so tables for four because although no one at all came in during the time we were there...it left plenty of room for all the flies that flew in from outside...which meant that only a few of them bothered us at our table...with the lovely background music.

Thankfully my very-much-needed-at-this-stage coffee arrived. As I sipped away I began to forgive poor Demis (who was beginning to look very guilty...or perhaps worried) and acknowledged it wasn't his fault at all - that really he'd been perfectly lovely in organising this. So I did my best to ensure that I was looking as though I was enjoying myself. Not that I wasn't enjoying myself...it was just that the look on my face could have been mistaken for 'irritated by noise and flies' rather than 'really happy'.

Our food soon arrived and as the waitress carried it I could see that it really did look extremely tasty (the menu admittedly was also very impressive with a combination of daring and traditional meals). But my moment of obeisance vanished when the waitress spilt most of Demis' avocado, potato and bacon onto the table (which was strange considering we were a whole 10cm away from the counter).

Now I would like to say that I am not an overly queasy or fussy (well fussy in this regard) person. I generally would have no objection to eating something that had fallen onto the table (even if it had been covered in flies) because I know that it's probably suffered a similar fate in the kitchen anyway. BUT - I would expect that the person who dropped my food, would - at the very least - show some sign of remorse, apology or thought as to whether or not I was bothered. You would expect them to at least offer to take it back to the kitchen.

This waitress however just smiled and waited for Demis to pick up half his meal (scraping at the poor avocado) from the table and place it back on his plate...not even a word of apology was muttered. I tried to remember I was on good behaviour but couldn't help retaliate by asking Demis, loudly "are you going to eat that?"

To which the ever-helpful waitress replied "oh it's fine". I wonder how she would feel if I emptied the remainder of the plate on her head...would that be fine too?

So I ate my breakfast while glaring at the indifferent waitress, and while I can admit that the food was delicious, I didn't enjoy it a single bit, and needless to say did not leave a tip.

I'm not saying I wouldn't recommend the food to people - so long as you sit in a group of four and carry your own plates and bring Mortein - it's a fantastic place to go. But having an award winning menu and spectacular location is just not good enough. If you can't deliver your product properly you should either consider seeking an alternative distribution method or rethink offering it altogether. It's true I was never in a gracious mood from the start...but who is at 8am?

During the ride home I continued to complain about the waitress and outline to Demis every aspect of what she did wrong and of course what she should have done. I had only been talking about her for 10 minutes when Demis began to laugh...and he continued to laugh as he suggested that I did in fact enjoy my breakfast, even more than he had hoped.

I for once, had nothing more to say.