Au Cirque, New Farm, Brisbane

June 29, 2014

Though widely known for its breakfast dishes and its individuality in them, came in a bit too late one day so only a few of the breakfast dishes were available. Ended up choosing from their lunch menu but I reckon their breakfast will probably be as good. A bit quiet for an early lunch time, with only a few tables filled, but as time passed by, more people started to come in. Named one of the best, and currently the best breakfast spot in Brisbane, and I won't need to go against it either, and you'll see why..

Exterior of Au Cirque

Seats downstairs and upstairs (I think..)

Breakfast & Lunch Menu + Specials menu..

Lunch Menu starts at 12pm weekdays and offers a wide range of various dishes including haloumi burger, lamb backstrap salad, reuben sandwich, roast beetroot risotto, duck liver pate and so on. Just by reading the lunch menu, I knew it would be good. If one has the confidence to serve all these various dishes, with their combination of other ingredients which is rather unique to combine them with, then it must be either good, or they're just trying their luck..

'Cirque Chicken Burger w/ bacon crisps, char-grilled pear, tomato, cos lettuce, avocado and basil aioli' ($15.5) was the first dish ordered. Filling up most of the plate, portion and presentation was well done. Burger buns weren't used but instead of sourdough bread which was quite interesting though I thought that it might get a bit messy to eat.

The chicken was nice, though dry outside but bit moist on the inside and was a nice combination with the basil aioli and the lettuce. The bacon crisp was likely to be eaten alone and I would recomend it too, since you would want to be able to taste that crispiness of the bacon. The Char-grilled pear was what gave it that nice balance overall, along with the avocado. I found the char-grilled pear to be done well and was an interesting mix with the burger overall.

The potato crisps was petite and was placed seperately, not directly on the plate along with the burger but was placed in a small terracotta plate. I liked how it wasn't totally like those bagged potato chips you get in supermarkets, but then it also didn't feel like you were eating fries.

'Smoked salmon on rye bread w/ wasabi cream cheese, red onion, pink peppercorns, fried capers, red peppers & dressed watercress salad' ($13) was the second dish ordered and again, presentation was quite pretty.

The smoked salmon and the watercress salad really made this dish fresh. The capers, red onion was a nice side for it but the wasabi cream cheese was quite a unique cream cheese, being able to taste the wasabi which would give it that little bit of a kick. The rye bread was the most let down for me, since it was hard to slice through it, especially around the crust. The rye was also quite thin which I thought could be around the same size as the sourdough bread used in the burger bun, or even just a bit thicker would suffice.