Saturday, September 08, 2012

Brother Burger & the Marvellous Brew

Update 15/06/2023: Brother Burger has been replaced by Gogyo.

September 4, 2012



Cindy and I broke with our usual pre-Cherchez la Femme routine by having dinner somewhere other than The Gasometer. Our blog has been all recipes lately and it seemed like it was time for us to try somewhere new. We eventually settled on Brother Burger and the Marvellous Brew, the new fancy burger joint in the back of the old Retro Cafe/Eat Drink Man Woman space. From the outside, it's decorated with street-art and a minimalist neon burger sign, while the inside starts with the exposed-brick ex-warehouse style that's widespread in Melbourne and fits it out with some nostalgic milk bar features.


The menu is relatively kind to vegetarians (although vegans are probably out of luck). There's a couple of burgers, two starters and an array of chip-like sides (onion rings, fat chips, french fries). We started things off with the cheesy corn croquettes ($6).


These are pretty basic cylinders of fried goodness with a simple corn and cheese filling, served up with a crispy golden shell and some tomato sauce. They were gone in a matter of minutes.


Onto the burgers! Cindy couldn't go past the chip butty (despite her disappointing experience in their spiritual home), which was $9 worth of chips, bun, sauce and pickle. The fries were super crispy and heavily salted, which is exactly how I like them, and the addition of a few slices of pickle provided enough contrast to the sauce and chips to make this surprisingly successful.

I went for the more substantial veggie option, the magic mushroom (crumbed field mushroom, peppers, spinach, goats cheese, onion, mayo and sauce, $14 - I'm pretty sure they snuck a pickle slice or two in here as well, although it's not on the menu description).


It's a heavily stuffed bun roll (the rolls, by the way, are delicious - and baked on site apparently), and there's no way to eat it with any real dignity. I had mayo, mushroom juice and tomato sauce dripping everywhere pretty quickly. What it is, though, is very very tasty. The slightly garlicky mayo was particularly excellent with the crisply crumbed mushie. This is one of the best mushroom-based burgers I've had - definitely a real challenger to the $10 Beatbox version.

Observant readers will notice the beer in the background above - Brother Burger has an excellent booze selection, including this rather impressive Belgian-style witbier from Kooinda. They also offer a range of glorious-sounding boozy milkshakes, but the blue heaven and silver rum shake will have to wait for our next visit. Service was friendly, relaxed and efficient (which is probably pretty easy at 5:30 when there are 3 occupied tables, but still) and the whole vibe was laidback and pleasant. Slightly upmarket junk-food is being done to death in Melbourne right now but Brother Burger do it pretty well - we'll be back.

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There are only a couple of reviews of Brother Burger out there, both positive: see Double Dutch Oven and Burger Hop.
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Brother Burger & the Marvellous Brew
413 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
9419 0088
veg burgers $9 - $14
http://www.brotherburger.com.au/

Accessibility: There's a small step as you come into the venue, which is a little bit cramped on the inside. There are a mix of high and regular tables. Ordering happens at the table - we paid at a low-ish bar. We didn't check out the toilets.

2 comments:

  1. Yep - the boyfriend went to this one with his housemates, without me, as at the time I was having a Dogustation... He had the mushroom one, too, and really liked it. I had some leftover onion rings afterwards.

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    Replies
    1. Onion rings! I need to order those next time. :-)

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