Bagel time

Jungle Juice

20 Centre Place, Melbourne CBD

He says:
Jungle Juice, or as I like to call it, “the bagel place”, is one of my favourite inner city lunch haunts. The quirky, pokey interior, really is the embodiment of inner city Melbourne. It’s got to be no more than 3 metres wide, with the patrons sitting effectively in the middle of the kitchen; as such, finding a seat can sometimes be very difficult.

Picking up the menu for the first time is itself a joyous experience. They’ve repurposed old children’s books, in particular Little Golden Books; it’s fun reminiscing about your childhood. The bagels on offer range from the standard, to the more modern (mmmm Kransky), and they arrive pretty quickly. After being teased by Margaret for continually ordering the same bagel (the bagel burger), this visit I branched out and ordered a Borek Bagel. The bagel was tasty, but a little oilier than the venerable bagel burger.

This place really stands out as a great place to grab a quick a bite with a friend, or if you’re a little luckier, a lunch date. The cosy interior means you’ll get to sit together nice and close, and more importantly, you’ll get to demonstrate how edgy you are by recommending somewhere as cool as Jungle Juice. Hey, It might work.

She says:
The slightly hard to find Jungle Juice is one of the places that Gerard and I default to for lunch in the City. It’s small, it’s tasty and it’s roughly half way between our offices. What more could we want?

Despite the juice-centric name Jungle Juice is essentially a bagelry (is that what they call shops that sell bagels? Bagelry, bagel place, house of bagels?). The cafe seats about 20 so it can be a bit hard to get a seat, but if you do a seat there’s a selection of bagels as well as a daily soup. All of the meals are put together in what is easily the smallest commercial kitchen I’ve ever seen. I didn’t manage to get a photo this time but take my word for it that I’m surprised they manage to fit two people in there.

The store may be tiny but it’s packed with a lot of attitude. The decor is eclectic and obviously aimed at saving space (especially the almost minature stools).  I also already mentioned my favourite thing about this place other than the food, the menus, which are in old little golden books, I think they make everything sound more delicious.

Good simple lunch offerings, a fun atmosphere and top quality people watching make this one of my favourite CBD lunch locations.

We ate:
Gerard moved away from his standard Bagel Burger (homemade beef pattie, crispy bacon, cheese, hot sauce, tomato, rocket and jungle may for $11) and instead went for another meaty option, the Borek Bagel with Turkish spiced beef, onion, green pepper, roasted pine nuts, tomato, rocket and minted yoghurt ($10.50).

Marg was boring and stuck with her standard order of a Deluxe – a bagel with Virginian ham, tasty cheese, tomato, avocado, basil mayo and rocket ($9.50).