Place: The Glass Den
Address: 15 Urquhart St, Coburg,VIC 3058
Website: https://m.facebook.com/
TheGlassDenCoburg/
Summary Review: Straight off the bat Instagram worthy dishes, tummy worthy dishes and most of all service excellence cafe. Most of their food are fusion, asian inspired and a quirky touch of unusual ingredients like charcoal (Don’t be scared it’s more for colours). I highly recommend the following to try Donkka burger , Prawn Tempura Ramen, Bibimnao bowl , and for a sweet kick, try the Charcoal egg waffles. As funky as those dishes sounds, they don’t compromise on taste either, they’re really delicious. They also have friendly staff and efficient service. If you’re after the waffles, you need to let them know early when ordering dishes as it takes 20mins for it to make. You’ll see why as you read further on to this post. Overall I give this place a 9/10.
These days with the hype of social media, restaurants & cafes have carefully design dishes to ensure its trendy, vibrant & unique in its own way. Even spaces where good lighting are also being considered to capture great photos. Some of these are all good but taste should never be compromised, and this is what’s good about The Glass Den, they tick all the boxes, delicious food, Instagram worthy and excellent service.
Starting with my favourite dish The Donkka Burger is spicy fried pork cutlet served on a charcoal brioche bun with cos lettuce, pickled ginger, Granny Smith, coriander and charcoal aioli. Lotsa things going on there but you can up the ante and add jalapeno’s and avocado plus a side of sweetpotato fries. It’s messy to eat, but I love a good mess!
Another fave is the Prawn Tempura Ramen with enoki mushrooms, nori sheets, boiled egg and pickled daikon with broth that is in a little kettle.
We love a bit of theatre in our dish lol!
Another dish to try is the Bibimnao bowl, it’s their take on the popular Korean dish called “bibimbap”. It’s so pretty, so delicious but can be a bit rich at times as lotsa rich ingredients in like the kewpie mayo, egg and wakame.
It is a Bowl of goodness though, it has beef bulgogi, brown rice, quinoa, red cabbage, edamame, wakame, pickled carrots & yolk jelly in the centre. Definitely fills you up for longer when you have it.
So…are you ready for dessert? If you’re one to try almost everything in the menu including dessert then just go all out and have the Charcoal Egg Waffles.
This dish is like a garden, packed with every sweet ingredients you can think of.
The Charcoal Egg Waffles has passionfruit icecream, timtams, meringue kisses, matcha soil, chocolate soil, raspberry coolie, strawberries & edible flowers. It has a lot of ingredients, lots of flavour profile, but the great thing is each element has a purpose so the dish can be thoroughly enjoyed without it being sickly sweet. The waffles itself has a subtle taste therefore as you pick up each of the ingredient it becomes the flavour note of the waffle. For me the best part was the passionfruit icecream and timtams, who doesn’t love timtams right?
So I’ve been to the Glass Den twice and never felt disappointed, it has a cool, funky & relaxed environment where you can take your time and receive a great service. Overall this place calls for a 9/10.