Auction Rooms- North Melbourne

Auction Rooms 103- 107 Errol St. North Melbourne.

The Auction Rooms is a modern- industrial open café in the very cool north Melbourne. The café claims their specialty is coffee roasting and brewing and décor matches this.

Visited 1st of June 2010 by Scott, Nick & Will

Anyone who serves me curdled coffee can go dig themselves a hole and die in it. Luckily the curdled coffee was served to William and Scott. Henceforth, I didn’t hand over the shovel for them to start their grave. Another thing is just serve me plain sugar. I do not care for organic cane sugar that has had so many damp spoons in it that it just becomes one giant sugar cube. GROSSCUSTING. OH and as for the smarmy Barista who death-stared us down when the coffees were sent back, I just want him to know that no matter where you are from (even North Melbourne) you just look like a giant douche bag if you you wear a green silk shirt with every single button done up. I just wanted to walk up to him, pull on his excessively long emo fringe and tell him that my 90-year-old grandpa (named Allan), who shops at Bi-Lo, looks ten fold sexier then he did. I was so angered by this casualty to fashion and wankerness that i was turned of my ham hock cassoulet… which, by the way, should not have talleggio cheese in it as it over powers any of the other flavors. Auction rooms??? Auction going, going… PASSED IN. (Nick)

The cold morning that we to headed Auction Rooms, Nick did inform me that they had received a mention in the Age’s Cheap Eats guide for its coffee. Unfortunately this meant that every second until my first sip of my coffee was filled with excitement and expectations. This only increased my disappointment when we received our curdled soy coffees. So we discreetly had the coffees taken away and asked for replacements. Soon after our arrogant waiter informed us that the arrogant Barista would like us to know that that this “is just what happens” when coffee is mixed with soy and he couldn’t promise that the next ones would be different. And yes, in the end we did receive 2 curdled coffees each. I was not happy. But maybe time to move on. I ordered the sweet corn fritters with avocado, tomato relish and rocket. Now I must say, I really enjoyed my brunch. After the coffee incident I was quickly sent to a happy place thanks to the interesting dishes on the menu and the awesome combination I found on my plate. (Scott)

Who wants a bet that Nick will delete this before I get the chance to post it? Next question, who loves curdled milk? No one? Surprising, as seen as though the ‘barista’ at Auction Rooms thought that this was a perfectly fine way to serve his product, twice. The decor was nice enough, maybe a little too big and manufactured to be considered cosy. Back to the beverages: We were informed, after our initial coffees were taken away, that the same thing would happen again because of the acidity of the coffee. If this is the case, change the coffee, change the milk, or change your attitude. For reals, the ‘tude this dude was sporting was ridics. Smile once in a while, buddy. Don’t scowl at your customers. The food was lovely. Crisp polenta cake, buttery spinach and mushrooms, and creamy poached eggs. Nick’s and Scott’s looked lovely too. The home-made relish was delish. Just a shame that we were hated on a little because we weren’t happy with our curdled beverages. Did I mention that my coffee was lumpy? That’s all. (Will)

Bagel Rating!

Scott: 6.5/10 – (Food alone 8.5/10)  Cool place and location but shit service and extremely disappointing coffee. Food was the highlight.

Nick: 5/10 - Very pretty place but pretentious waiters are not welcome in NJKs life.

Will: 3/10 – Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you. I know that’s not the saying, but the point is that you don’t fool Will Hanley. Fact.