The Garden Café has opened up recently in the Think building at the end of Cobden Chambers taking the place of the former occupant Kiosk. They are serving up seasonal dishes using local independent suppliers and growers,

How local? well so much so that inside on the specials menu board they were offering a Hockley Allotment salad!

In case the layout or any of the people seem familiar when you stroll in, well here is why,  you will be pleased to hear that even though the owner of Kiosk had decided to move on and step aside, many of the other people working there didn’t want to leave so they have just taken over the place and are now striving to keep on feeding us tasty local food. Most excellent news!

I always liked this spot and had been regretting that I really had not been enough, now though we all have another chance to give it some love  🙂

I was loving the new menu I understand that they could not keep on the old menu, but this is a great chance to put a mark down on the page and give us some inspirational stuff to yearn after, well hopefully anyway, lets have a look..

It would have been too easy to have just had a ‘Sausage sandwich with handmade tomato sauce‘, I mean it’s a total Sunday morning brunch classic and I was seriously tempted!, but I resisted 🙂

I was pretty keen on getting the ‘Mushrooms and Spinach on toast‘, I saw someone else having that and it did look good, sounds good on that menu as well with ‘nutmeg and wild garlic’, ‘feta, tarragon and crème fraiche‘.. um yum!

In the end though I was quite taken by and sold on the ‘Good morning brunch bowl‘ which they say is their take on ‘Mexican huevos rancheros‘ describing it on the menu as ‘vibrant peppers in our smoky spiced tomato sauce with wilted greens, fried egg, topped with toasted spiced seeds and served with a chunk of bread‘.

There was also an option to ‘add a Wright’s Lincolnshire Sausage, griddled halloumi or golden chickpea and spring onion mash’. I took up the offer of the sausage!

Good Morning Brunch Bowl

This was a pretty good choice, one shining star was very much that ‘sausage’ but it was taking equal billing on the stage with all it’s fellow companions in that bowl, it had competition for my attentions.

I was totally loving the slightly smoky tomato juice in the bottom of the bowl, and the soft sweet mixed bell peppers underneath the egg, combined with that well herbed meat were really excellent.

The sausages from Taylors are really quite good, they supply all over the city, it’s like a gold standard of sorts, you know you on to a good thing when you see their name on the menu.

I liked my soft yolk egg as well and that dusting of seasoned sesame and peppers sprinkled generously over the top of it was really piquing and adding to my interest.

The slices of scallions and scatter of flatleaf parsley on and in amongst the layers added crunch and a little bit of fresh green is always nice, even if you have to fish it out of your teeth before you move on 🙂

If I had any quibble I might or probably would have liked more of that lovely bread, I suppose I could (if I had thought about it) ordered a side dish of bread for another £2 and thinking about it as I am on a bit of a health kick I probably didn’t need the extra carbs anyway 🙂

I was just pondering after the event, that there was quite a lot of jolly spicy and flavoured juice left in the bowl after I ate everything and it would have been lovely mopping it up with a another slice of bread. I will ask for that and a spoon next time 🙂 sorted!

I was really liking all the other options on the menu as well, the Puff Pastry Tart with ‘griddled fennel, roast onion and Feta‘ sounds great, and the Frittata with ‘Baby potato and grilled spring onion‘ alongside one of those ‘local’ salads also sounds like a winner of a dish.

I mean man alive it ALL sounds good!

I was very happy to find The Garden Café alive and kicking down in the Think space at Cobden Chambers. It is a lovely space and in the warmer times of the year it is a great spot to sit outside with a bite of food and perhaps a little coffee or cup of tea.

The Garden Café is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but Think have stuff going on all the time so check them out too.

You can check out Think on their Twitter feed, Facebook page and their Instagram Profile

They are located at 1 Winchester Street, Cobden Chambers, Nottingham, NG5 4AH