European Bier Cafe

Post

Subscribe

Occupying three floors near the corner of Little Collins and Exhibition streets, the European Bier Café is central to whatever business you have in mind in the city on a Saturday and, opening at noon, is an ideal spot for an early pub lunch. Dark tones of wood and leather inhabit the first two floors that are decorated to create the feel of a long-established pub without looking aged. The third floor, the roof, however, is granted an open, barbeque ambience, with outdoor furniture and wooden benches for group diners, fenced in with glass to prevent the wind from being too disrupting. Being a mild, clear autumn day; my wife and I took the opportunity to enjoy this outdoor setting with a beer and a meal.

On tap at the bar you can find Belgians Hoegaarden and Leffe with their distinctive wheaty flavours; the ubiquitous German, Heineken; and haughty Italian, Peroni. At first glance, the lunch menu appears somewhat boring. It is the same old stuff you find in any pub – steaks and steak sandwiches, burger and chips, fish and chips, chicken parma, etc. A lot will come done to how well they execute. Fortunately for us, this is where the Bier Café excelled. Despite arriving soon after opening the kitchen was apparently ready to deliver as we received our meals very promptly.

Order the Beef Burger and you will be presented with a burger housing a thick, juicy, meaty, patty dressed with red pepper mayo, caramelised onion and jalapeno jam.



This is an excellent burger. The savoury, red pepper flavour with the spiciness of the jam gives it slightly Asian sensibility. The burger's only flaw is that it is a bit slippery to wield – a result of combining mayo, jam and caramelised onions with fresh tomato. Before long it will struggle to maintain its composure in your hands, but what element could you exclude? They all combine so well.

The Beer Battered Jon Dory is equally well prepared.

The fish is left with its skin on before it is battered and deep fried and it comes out incredibly tender, not too fishy, but buttery and delicious. It was truly something to savour. Especially since this is not the biggest plate of fish and chips you will see, but it suited me perfectly on this day. The tartar it comes with look and tastes as it should if made in-house. It is thin with discernible gherkin and a nice accompaniment. Both dishes come with crisp chips as well prepared as the rest of our plates. You cannot understate the importance of getting the chips right to making a satisfying pub meal and these chips were superb.

That evening, we returned to the European Bier Café to enjoy a dessert and a couple of drinks between shows. From their dessert menu, we picked one of our favourites, the Tiramisu.



Tiramisu is now a very common dessert on restaurant menus. A light but indulgent dish of cake and cream, coffee and chocolate, often garnished with cocoa or powdered sugar. Unlike some other desserts, Tiramisu can suffer a bit when it has the appearance of being too well prepared – that is, too well constructed, too clean cut, too much like something just pulled out of a fridge without much thought. It can leave you feeling unloved as a patron. A second common issue is failing to get the proportions of cake to cream right. The Tiramisu at European Bier Café also suffers these common issues. Though not the worst Tiramisu you will find, it is also not the best – it looks a little too much like something prepared well in advance and just pulled out of a fridge and has too much cream and too little cake.

The menu at most pubs has become as standardised as it is boring, with the same old options. The dilemma for pubs is that to exclude these favourites is to risk losing custom. Patrons therefore have to form most of their judgement on execution. On this score, the European Bier Café does very well and it may become the safe lunch choice, when we want one, for my wife and I on a Saturday in the city. But we like to think of ourselves as more willing than most to venture into the unfamiliar. The European Bier Café will have to show more innovation and deliver a real point of difference if it is to stand out from the crowd.

#burgers
#cafes
#cbd
#fish_and_chips
#lunch
#city
#restaurants
%wnmelbourne