In the final week in Melbourne, there was a spate of North Melbourne cafe-eating. Within 7 days, Twenty & Six, Auction Rooms and Fandango were all visited and Auction Rooms easily won the food award in my mind.
The menu is a little different now to the online one from 12/2016 - for example the pressed pork shoulder with morcilla isn't there anymore. But that disappointment faded as it gave me other (vegetarian) options to try.
- Grilled eggplant (with stuffed paratha bread, freekeh + brown rice salad, smoked hummus, preserved lemon, poached egg) $17.5 - a beautiful display of food combining many flavours and textures into an exceptional dish;
- Arepa e’huevo (Colombian corn pancakes, fried egg, poblano peppers, straw mushrooms, baby squash, goat’s curd, piquillo + walnut salsa) $18.5 - the corn pancakes exceeded those set by standard pancakes and had a nice corn/salt flavour to it. The other bits were fillers but the pancakes were the standout.
The servings were very generous and in the end finishing left us very very full. At least it was good and worth it.