Trunk Diner

275 Exhibition St
Melbourne, 3000
www.trunktown.com.au

Brunch is, without a doubt, the best meal of the day. It’s the meal for everything from French toast to baguettes to waffles to omelettes. It’s the meal where decadence isn’t just allowed, it’s ENCOURAGED. And after finishing all my mid-semester exams (though finishing is one thing, doing well is another), I felt like I deserved a bit of extra decadence. And where can you get brunch for less than $10 each that isn’t run of the mill? Trunk Diner.

Trunk Diner

Located next to Trunk, Trunk Diner feels like a halfway between a car port and a green house, in the best way possible. Besides, who cares if it looks like a green house when it’s nice and snug inside on a 15 degree day?

Table Condiments

Table service is friendly and casual, and there’s plenty to look at whilst waiting for our food to arrive. I was particularly impressed with the coarse black pepper and pink murray river salt they had sitting in a tiny dish, though I’m not quite sure how to get at it without using my fingers to take a pinch, which seems kinda unhygienic to me. There were also two types of chilli sauce (the same as the ones at ­MAMASITA!), tomato sauce, and BBQ sauce sitting on each table for your saucing pleasure. The number branded into each wooden table added to the effortless cool of the place.

Portabello Mushroom, Roast Corn, Fetta and Fontina Cheese Quesadilla ($10)

I smelt my food before I saw it coming. And it smelt AMAZING. Granted it might be because I was facing away from the kitchen, but that doesn’t change the fact that my Portabello Mushroom, Roast Corn, Fetta and Fontina Cheese Quesadilla ($10) smelt like the food of the Gods. As it was placed in front of me, my senses were assailed with the dark, earthy aroma of mushrooms. Really good mushrooms. And with  just a tiny forkful came a flavour explosion in my mouth. Meaty mushrooms with juicy popping kernels of corn, lifted by the pungent scent of oregano, held together by creamy, melted fontina, topped with crumbed fetta, and sandwiched in a crispy tortilla. Forget cutlery, I wanted to pick the tortilla up in my hands and tear into it like an animal.

The Breakfast Burger ($7)

In hindsight, I wished I had paid a little more attention to The Breakfast Burger – Toasted Brioche Bun,  Bacon, Free Range Egg and Melted Cheddar ($7), because it was pretty damn good. Served on a cute little wooden tray like the quesadilla, the bun was soft, sweet and fluffy, the egg was perfectly cooked, topped with a rasher of bacon, and completed with 2 slices of cheddar. It may have been on the small side, it may have lacked the OOMPH of the quesadilla, but it did leave Chris dreaming of waking up to this in the morning.   

We left entirely satisfied with our experience, though maybe not entirely full. But we will be back. Soon. And in the meantime, we spent some time walking off our brunch tummies, and we wandered into St. Paul’s Cathedral, resplendent with high ceilings and stained glass. What a way to finish off a fortnight of hardcore study!

Rating: 15.5/20 – excellent brunch at excellent prices