Gillian's Garden Cafe

Gillian's Gaden Cafe

Enchanting food in an enchanted garden setting to laze the day away; Gillian’s Garden Cafe @ East Brisbane is a suburban gem where good food segue into good conversation and a good day.

* Palate: 8/10 * Wallet: 7/10 * Coffee: 5/10 * Benchmark: The Gunshop Cafe *

Legend has it that Gillian created the sandcrab lasagne while (wo)manning the kitchen in a famous CBD establishment. She created her namesake nursery-and-food hybrid venue (location) pivoted around her famous creation when she left. She created history.

Kitchen Eaten had the privilege of lunching at this awesome place over 2 consecutive weekends; both times, the food and the setting leaves Kitchen Eaten warm and fuzzy.

Ultimately, this is what Gillian’s Garden Café is about – homely setting and family style cooking (with a big dose of class) that reminds you of a va va va voom family meal that nourishes your body, your soul, and your taste buds.

And so we begin.

Warm setting anyone?

Food


Kitchen Eaten warned his company that he'll be anally snapping pictures of their food; his company consented.

Kitchen Eaten also warned his company that he’ll be sampling whatever it is they ordered; his company consented to having their food gleefully violated.

Spiced quail with rose petal and yoghurt salad

Quail, when done right, taste like chicken with supercharged flavour. The version from this establishment is tender and the spice (taste like curry? turmeric?) complements the food well. However, Kitchen Eaten prefers a bit more contrast to the texture - if the quail skin can be crisp without sacrificing the tenderness, it'd have been breath-taking. The salad is pretty looking and adds a lot of lovely colour to the food, but is otherwise tasty without lifting the dish.

Perfectly respectable.

Champagne and asparagus risotto with pan-fried scallops and herbs

The risotto is creamy, perfectly textured and has a complex taste - Kitchen Eaten reckons it must the perfect marriage between the champagne and the stock. A lot of care goes into the scallop - the surface is well crusted while the underside is so tendered it feels like biting into a pillow. Importantly, mild whites and seafood goes perfectly together, as is a champagne-stock mix and scallop. Execute the concept well in a stock based dish like a risotto, and a yummy dish is born.

What a winner!

Pork belly with kumquat glaze and kaffir lime scallops

Pork belly's magic lies in its layered structure - the intertwining of fat and lean means no two bites give the same texture. Nothing else is quite like that. Kitchen Eaten has had a lot of good pork belly, and this ranks pretty high up the list. The demi-glaze has just the right amount of salt, sweet and stickiness to accentuate and to match the perfectly cooked pork; the distinctive and perfectly complemented taste of pork melts in the mouth like a molten ball of awesomeness. 

Also worth mentioning - the scallop adds a dose sanity to the carnivorous testosterone of the pork belly. Clean tasting, tender, crispy on the outside. Like marshmallow, only better.

The dish isn't quite perfect, simply because Kitchen Eaten prefers the skin to crackle and reckons the citrus notes of the sauces should be accentuated more given the name of the dish. But these are minor complains.

Saliva-inducing.

Sandcrab lasagne with abalone cream sauce

The signature dish is among the very best of a very good bunch. Imagine a richly textured lasagne without the conventional taste of red meat and tomato; imagine the rich texture  married with the supercharged flavour of the usually subtle sandcrab. Imagine cutting through the lasagna to find layers of packed crab meat. Imagine all of that in your mouth, with the doughy top layer lasagne skin, and with a dollop of the rich savoury sauce. 

Kitchen Eaten wish you were there to taste it.

So good.

Twice cooked beef with cafe de Paris butter

Kitchen Eaten reckons this is beef stewed to extreme tenderness in a magical stock that is subsequently reconstructed into the shape of a Mignon and then deep-friend/pan-friend.

The meat is crusty on the outside, juicy and tender and tasting like a casserole on the inside, and supported well by a demiglaze, and profited from a little intrigue from the cafe de Paris sauce, all butter and thyme.

In the mouth, it is an explosion of texture, of contrasting yet complimentary taste, but never strayed from the true flavour of the dish - a very good chunk of beef.

Kitchen Eaten can't say enough good thing about this dish; he can easily down 3 servings of that. And be very happy indeed.

Masterpiece.

Service & Coffee


The service is friendly, attentive, but never imposing. Everyone felt relaxed even though the cafe is packed and busy on both occasions. Credit must be given to the well-drilled floor staff.

Gillian's Garden Cafe is not about the coffee.


The coffee is middle of the road - Wega machine and De Bella beans. Adds nothing to the experience, but did not subtract anything from it either.

Wallet


$25 - $30 per head for a lunch item and a coffee. 

The price is slightly expensive, but the quality pokes through.

It is worth it.

You want to eat?


Gillian's Garden Cafe cooks everything to perfection. The sauce preparation may be a little hit-and-miss, but nothing is perfectly cooked. 

A quality venue that does not compromise on the cooking basics.

Eat here.

Links

• Gillian's Garden Cafe home