Thursday 28 June 2007

Garage Cafe & Bar

There is a charming little cafe called Garage near to the (new) law school of the Univerity of Melbourne, in which I think not many people know about it. I first learnt of the place back in 2005 when a few of my law-friends brought me there, and it certainly is one of my favourite places to eat when I am in the area.

Garage Cafe is stationed in where the name suggests: a garage. It's a pretty darn cool place, with car spaces (although I am not sure whether you could actually park your car there), pool tables and racing car arcade games. The cafe itself was simply but nicely decorated with wooden picnic-style chairs. On the whole I find to be quite a unique place.

It's a REAL garage, like I said.

My sister and I was in the area on Monday and decided to pop by for lunch. Garage primarily serves Indonesian cuisine, with a few variations of chicken schnitzel and the likes.

Sis had the Opor Ayam (Chicken Opor) ($9.90) which was basically Indonesian 'white' curry ('white curry' is my own term, don't quote me on that).

Ayam = Chicken.

Check out that fried egg and tell me you don't want to eat it. :D

Sis really liked it and I had a bite, and I thought it was really nice. Granted I haven't tasted any other Opor Ayam but this one's pretty good, with enough flavourings and meat. Sis' only complaint was that there could be more sauce. The fried egg looked good and I wanted to steal half but by the time sis gave me the egg, I was too full from my own lunch.

I had the Mie Komplit ($13.50), which was noodles with minced meat, mushroom, wontons and shallots.

Komplit = Complete.

Check out the mushrooms! Oooooo!

Sooo yummy! I love the mixture of mushrooms and mince meat, they went so well together! There was a lot of noodles and meat, quite a decent value for money. The noodles were flavoured well and the dish was really enjoyable! I especially loved the mushrooms. My one small nit-pick would be, I would like it more if the noodles were less oily. It was just a teensy bit too oily.

Garage is really a hidden little treasure and I think everyone should give it a go to discover it. :D One of my other favourite dishes is Mie Pangsit (can't remember the exact price) which is really yummy as well.

- Mouse

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Garage Cafe & Bar
221 Berkeley Street
Carlton 3053
Phone:(03) 93495000

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

ooo..garage..havent been there for quite sometimes d. miss their chilli sauce..

san

claire said...

Oooh, you and Flagrant Food Fawning both wrote reviews of Garage within ten days of each other!

I repeat my comment that - Garage, Norsiah's Kitchen and Animal Orchestra were my Holy Trinity of favourite lunch spots when I was up at law school, and next time you're at Garage, you must try the Soto Ayam (which has a permanent spot on the specials board) - it's the most wonderful nourishing spicy chicken soup (with a serve of rice and their homemade sambal) EVER! The bamboo shoots and chicken green curry is very good too, and the young chap who runs it is lovely.

Nice review, and pretty pictures! :)

IronEaters said...

hi mutemonkey.I havent tried Norsiah n Animal Orchestra b4.Must giv them ago when im at the area there.Thanks for ur recommendations!

San

Hungry Hamster said...

I love their fried rice! Very flavorful and it has the wok-hei taste! However, it's also very oily! I remember buying a takeaway fried rice once and I could see a layer of oil at the bottom of the container!