Cirque dú soft-eggs

his

Usually when one imagines the circus, they imagine trapeze artists, elephants and crazy clowns. Now imagine all those things in a 3×3 metre square… Seem cramped? Good, because this is probably a to-scale analogy of Au Cirque, if the 3×3 square was the cafe and the elephants and trapeze artist were the people. Au Cirque on Brunswick Street on the Valley/New Farm border is a cramped, over populated little breakfast/lunch cafe with a bit to offer the not-so-average breakfast enthusiast. On my second outing to Cirque I was rather impressed with the food offered, but not so impressed with the food given. Whilst I was full to the brim from a Chowdown ($16), which included a healthy offering of eggs, bacon, mushrooms, toasted sourdough, tomato, potato rosti (hash brown type thing) and sausages, I was not too impressed with the quality of the food offered. The poached eggs weren’t runny, the bacon was greasy, and the sourdough was probably stale… These may only be the little things, but when you pay premium for these sorts of things it isn’t an unreasonable expectation. By far the best part of the meal was the orange and blood orange fresh juice ($6) I had, which was to die for… but let’s face it, squeezing juice into a glass really isn’t rocket surgery. The coffee ($4) also tasted like a boiled foot, which was an unwelcome conclusion to my meal, and I was even further angered that I had to sit at a small bench barely bigger than my plate to eat all this. The atmosphere of the place is pretty good, and the knick-knacky things on the wall are pretty cool. Wait staff (as per most of the places we frequent) are pretty helpful and attentive, which surprised me given we were tucked away somewhere in the deepest, darkest corner of the cafe. However the combination of the matchbox-esqe seating arrangements and bland food are enough to allow me to label this place “not that special”.

Food: 2/5
Coffee: 1/5
Service: 3/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Price: 3/5

hers

The first time I went to Au Cirque was with a rock star. Now I’m not usually one to brag, but it was quite a memorable moment for this aspiring journo and I didn’t even taste the food. My photographer buddy and I picked up a tour-tiresome Alex Burnett of Sparkadia and decided breakfast was in order to please the palate and soften the blow of an otherwise formal interview. I only had coffee that time and though it was small, was quite the treat. My photo-genius pal and I returned for an afternoon breakfast one day after the first fairytale meeting. Though with depression from a too recent breakup lingering and the thought of or need for food a since crumpled page in an ancient history textbook, my 5-day empty stomach had brought on a killer migraine with the only cure (minus a large dose of happy juice) being food. I had the avocado on toast with rosti on the side for about $10… a uni-student-pocket-friendly delight. This is when I found a new love in the potato and parmesan rosti. The second and third time, however, my rosti failed to please so much. These times it was a tad burnt, taking away from the flavoursome centre the outer usually encrusts. Breakfast at Cirque, it seems, is a game of hit and miss. Sometimes it’s crowded and you have to enjoy your coffee on the rickety stools out front, sometimes you’re swished to a table (usually communally shared), and to my experience sometimes into the street-facing green-tinged sunroom upstairs. Here his and hers had the Chowdown, mine the vegetarian variety ($16). It came with soft poached eggs, roast tomato, mushrooms, rosti, onion jam, avocado, rocket and sourdough. Unfortunately my rosti didn’t take the cake, and neither did the very hard-to-chew crust of the sourdough. The tomato, however, was delectable. Though don’t let my words leave a sour taste in your un-egged mouth, it just wasn’t my cuisine-romantic day. The café does very good business and offers specials for the more adventurous. The guy next to me tried the omelette with fennel, tahini, smoked salmon, shredded beetroot, spinach and sesame seeds ($14.90) and seemed rather whelmed. For the sugar sucker, the French toast or buttermilk pancakes with their choices of choc hazelnut spread, grilled banana and chocolate cream, or berry compote, pouring cream and peanut and almond praline ($13) toppings are sure to tickle your fancy. I have to say in the absence of a good rosti, the blood orange/orange juice concoction I slurped was this week’s foodgasm, a succulent and tree-fresh taste sensation. The ambience is bright and cheery, suited to families and hung-over youth, with breakfast running all day (a lunch menu existing for the later hours too). The budget making brekkies include mushrooms on toast and fruit-topped porridge all marked under $10. The toilets are also worth a quick trip to even if just to read up on the latest Brisbane events.

Food 3/5
Juice 5/5
Service 3/5
Atmosphere 3/5
Price 4/5

Au Cirqué
618 Brunswick Street
New Farm, QLD, 4005
Ph: 3254 0479