Joe's Garage, Fitzroy

Joe's Garage, at 366 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, Tel +61 3 9419 9944, was the first real hit for restaurateur Paul Mathis, who has since gone on to many bigger and better things (like setting up restaurants in pretty much every square inch of Fed Square, excluding the toilets). It was also the title of a triple-album rock opera by Frank Zappa, in which a nice boy called Joe, having paid lots of money to L. Ron Hoover and the Church of Appliantology, is diagnosed as a latent appliance fetishist and instructed to go into the closet and hump some vaccuum cleaners. Maybe Paul Mathis is a Zappa fan? Tom Cruise almost certainly is not.



Call me cynical, but more than a decade after the Joe's Garage glory years, I was almost expecting disappointment. So I was pleasantly surprised to find the place buzzing happily along, with good food and snappy service. My serve of scrambled eggs with avocado and chili wasn't bad (the avocado was still a bit hard), and the sides of bacon and hash browns were excellent. I would, however, recommend an upgrade to the toast, which was a rather bland light rye, light brown, or something similar.

Joe's seems to have two signature breakfast dishes. First, the Joe's Big Breakfast of eggs Florentine, mushrooms, tomatoes and a lamb sausage (or sausages, I'm not sure which). Second, Joe's "Legendary" Pancake, with berry compote, lemon and sugar, or banana and honey. The menu warns of a minimum 20 minute wait for this latter dish. Presumably this is the time it takes to rob a bank to pay for the bananas.

13/20 "good hash"