Montana Brew Bar

A colleague had recommended Montana Brew Bar (MBB for short) so the wife and I made a trip down after work one evening to give it a shot.

MBB occupies a small space on the first floor of PoMo and plays neighbour to an outlet of Ya Kun Kaya Toast. MBB attempts to distinguish itself by utilising earthy colours in its design and through the placement of warm lights. Seating is rather limited with space for approximately 20 pax or so. How the place works is you place your order and make payment at the counter and the food will be served to you. One small gripe I had was that I couldn't order everything at once and request for dessert to be served later; not particularly flexible in my humble opinion.

Southern Fried Chicken Waffle - This dish inevitably brought about comparisons with The Beast's offering of this classic Southern dish. First up, the chicken. MBB's chicken was a mess of spicy, a tad dry chicken pieces thrown together and topped with spicy mustard coleslaw; clearly in a totally different league from that of The Beast's juicy, flavourful rendition. The waffles were a totally different story altogether though. Whilst The Beast's waffles came across as hard and unpleasantly sourish, MBB's waffles were light and fluffy with a mildly crisp exterior. Maybe both eateries could contemplate working together?

Umami Burger - At $14, this was honestly quite small and came adorned with cheese, mushrooms and bonito flakes. Which was all good because of the various layers of flavour except that the basic beefy taste was a little lacking. I liked the overall flavour but mourned the absence of the beefiness. The bun (apparently it's made from sweet potato) came across as soft and mildly sweet; no great shakes honestly. You have the option of topping up $2 to "upgrade" your fries to truffle fries, which isn't such a great idea in my humble opinion as the quantity of fries is very limited and the fries I had came seriously drenched in truffle oil (where's the QC?) with loads of fragrance but not much of a truffle taste.

Chocolate Banana Waffles - As the waffles were good, we decided to have another waffle for dessert; the chocolate banana waffle. And it came across as decent. The waffle sported the same light, fluffy texture as the one that came with the chicken earlier on except that this was darker in colour and had bits of what seemed like oreo crumbs wedged in random spots within the waffle. No chocolate taste whatsoever. The vanilla bean ice cream was relatively smooth with no discernible ice chips whilst the banana slices could do with more caramelisation. What I found interesting was the Nutella truffle butter that was sprinkled sporadically throughout; in the form of tiny clumps and mildly sweet.

Moral of the story? Stick to the original waffles.

Overall we spent $38 for two waffles and a burger. Not too expensive and overall food quality is still decent. But I would skip the burgers in future and head straight for the waffles.

See all my pictures here.