While I've been reviewing brunch places acound North Melbourne, one of the most talk about cafes would be Auction Rooms. The menu for Auction Rooms is very spoilt for choice, I can never decide what to get! My first trip to Auction Rooms was with Adrienne and the second trip I decided to bring some of my high school friends there for some catch up brunch.
I would say the coffees at AR are amazing, the strong aroma of coffee is absolutely delightful. Their mochas are my favourite because of the rich italian chocolate used. Now on to their food! Firstly I would talk about their twice-cooked pork belly, served with smoky backed beans and house-made corn bread which is one of their well known dishes on the menu. Their corn bread was spectacular, the sweetness of the corn was completely dominant which is what a good corn bread is suppose to have and the texture was flawless. Their pork belly was cooked to perfection and their beans just compliments the entire dish beautifully.
Next up! Their lamb and white wine pie, served on a smoked eggplant puree with a greek 'peasent' salad. The only problem I have for this dish was......erm...none. LOL I just wanted more! The eggplant puree just bind the entire dish beautifully and the pie was amazing from texture to flavour.
Now on to some breakfast! Auction rooms have their breakfast specialty call their 'opening bid' and its where you start of with 2 poached eggs on toast and you can slowly add on whatever you want for a certain amount of price. Having had a little catch up session with my high school girlies, Yuong decided to try their opening bid! Ended up bidding on avocados, mushrooms and baked beans. Chin decided on their 'shady deal' which consisted of moroccan chicken & chorizo stew, with eggplant, olives, poached eggs, dukkah & feta served with grilled flat bread. Isis went vegetarian and gotten their coriander falafel & poached eggs on grilled flat bread, with cumin & mint yoghurt, tabouli, dukkah & tahini sauce. The rest of the girls and I all got their salmon pastrami, with a watercress & rocket salad, sauce gribiche & a poched egg, served on a crumbed potato & fish cake. Only fault was that our eggs were not poached to perfection, being slightly overcooked but other than that, oh man the crumbed potato & fish cake with chunks of salmon was heavenly.
Moving on to something sweeter on the menu, I present you 'la fin de Elvis Presley', which is french toast filled with caramelised banana & rum puree & creamed peanut butter, served with crispy pancetta and vanilla cream. Man I'm telling you, this dish just brings french toast up a whole new level! The caramelised banana was gorgeous plus this little hint of rum puree. Beautiful indeed, and who would have thought that the crispy pancetta neutralised this dish perfectly with a bit of savoury? This dish has been very well thought and very well preapred. I would recommand sharing this dish as it gets abit too much in the end.
Huge thumbs up from me for Auction Rooms, their menu is exciting and very much spoilt with choices plus the environment is soothing indeed. I would recommand coming on a weekdays as the weekends can get really really pack. Hope you guys would enjoy it as much as I did!
