EatDrinkBrisbane

ally | 02/12/2010

The Gunshop Cafe

D and I have one regret about our recent trip to New York. Cupcakes.

“I cannot BELIEVE we split that cupcake.”

“I am never splitting a Magnolia cupcake with you again.”

Yes, it would seem our newly greedy selves are disgusted that we shared a famed Magnolia cupcake. I don’t know where the hell that self-restraint came from, but suffice to say it’s been pretty absent lately.

Somehow, we dug deep and found that sharing vibe on a recent trip to The Gunshop Cafe for breakfast. I was worried we’d have to join a huge line up, but we only had to wait for about 10 minutes before our friendly waiter showed us to a nice outdoor table.

Both of our eyes immediately zeroed in on the Canadian brioche french toast with bacon, caramelized banana, pecans and maple syrup ($17.50). We both wanted it. However, I was neither starving nor hungover, and also thought the simple Sonoma spelt maple & almond muesli with d’agen prunes and ‘barambah’ natural yoghurt ($9.5o) sounded good.

I KNOW RIGHT

I suggested we order both and share. D agreed, pouting. I admit, when the french toast arrived I had to stop myself from dashing off with it. Thick slices of maple syrup-drenched, fluffy brioche were the anchor to a tower of bacon, gooey banana, and perfectly toasted pecans.

I started in on the muesli first, which was a very generous serve (it’s under the ‘light’ heading, but it’s definitely a hearty meal). The prunes were a great touch, transforming what could be just an average (albeit tasty) bowl of muesli into something gourmet.

I couldn’t wait until it was time to swap, and eagerly dug into my half of the french toast. Now – here we go – are you ready?

Best French Toast EVER.

This french toast is no joke. Brioche is hands-down the perfect bread for this dish. The slices were cooked perfectly, with a crispy golden crust and fluffy inside. The combination of banana, bacon, pecan, and maple is just insanely perfect. I moaned my way through this dish.

Afterwards I was feeling pretty full – the french toast may be no joke but it is rich. Wasn’t splitting it such a good idea? I asked D.

D begrudgingly agreed. “I could still eat the whole thing myself. I still want to next time,” he frowned.

This was one instance when I didn’t regret flexing my willpower and sharing muscle, but for all of you out there who aren’t so strong: get into it and enjoy every damn bite.

The Gunshop Cafe

53 Mollison Street, West End

07 3844 2241

www.thegunshopcafe.com

Category: CAFE, INNER CITY, INNER CITY, RESTAURANT |

ally | 02/12/2010

2 comments

Confessions of a Food Blogger

1. I use the spray can Homebrand Canola Oil for most cooking.

2. I have never had truffles.

3. I love Starbucks.

4. I think my cupcakes taste better than any of the ones I’ve bought in Brisbane.

5. I steal salt and pepper packets from McDonalds.

6. I refuse to eat fast food, unless I’m drunk.

7. After I eat blue cheese I periodically smell my fingers.

8. Sometimes I bake just so I can eat the raw batter.

9. I’m often more concerned with nutrition in food than the taste, rarity, or skill.

10. Vending machines will always have a power over me.

Category: ABOUT EDB |

ally | 24/11/2010

No comments

FaB Burgers

Who watches Man Vs. Food? It’s AMAZING. I totally have a crush on Adam Richmond. He is the biggest ladies man, and it’s not hard to see why. The man knows every delicious food joint in North America – actually, probably the world. Anyway, Adam is always moaning over pulled pork. Pulled pork is very popular in Southern USA y’all, and involves slow-cooking pork until it’s so tender it can literally be ‘pulled’ off Sir Oinksalot.

D loves these slightly pornographic images of pulled pork. Whenever they come on the screen, he clutches my arm and looks very flustered. Unfortunately, pulled pork has been neigh impossible to find in Australia. So, when we went to FaB Burgers the other night, we were both pretty excited to see it on the menu.

D went for the ‘Miss Piggy’, a burger with pulled pork, lettuce, tomato, apple chutney, and aioli ($13, above). I decided on the ‘Blues Brother’, which had a beef patty, blue cheese, roast pumpkin, and tomato ($12, top left).

Our burgers arrived and D happily tucked in to his precious pulled pork, happily chewing away. My burger was solid. The beef patty was lean and flavoursome, and paired well with the pumpkin and melty blue cheese. I can’t complain about the burger, but it didn’t really blow me away either; it was tasty, but not out-of-this-world.

D’s burger was tops. The pulled pork was piled high on the bun, and was succulent and tender. The apple chutney was an absolute perfect match. Oinking good.

Kudos must go to FaB for their terrific beer selection. They feature all the old favourites, as well as craft and microbrew varities. We got the Feral Beglian White Beer ($7.50), which I pronounced my new favourite beer, and the Red Duck Pale Ale. It’s stupidly hard to find craft and wheat beer in Brisbane eateries (hell, even bars), so this was awesome.

We also go the chips with aioli ($6), which were fine; again, nothing to complain about, but nothing mind blowing (yes, potato products can be mind blowing). The aioli was tasty, and there was a generous serve so we weren’t fighting over it.

While the beef burger at FaB was pretty standard, they really must be applauded for featuring such rarities as pulled pork and craft beer. It may have been saved me from a life time of D moaning about the lack of pulled pork in his life. I thank you for that, FaB.

FaB

Fish and Burger Grill

11/5-61 Petrie Terrace (The Barracks)
Brisbane
(07) 3367 8088

Category: INNER CITY, INNER CITY, RESTAURANT, TAKE-AWAY |

ally | 04/11/2010

One comment

Room 81 & Moo Moos

Oh hai! Check out my posts over at www.eatdrinkgoldcoast.com for reviews on the fab cocktails at Room 81 and Moo Moos:

http://eatdrinkgoldcoast.com/2010/11/room-81/

http://eatdrinkgoldcoast.com/2010/09/moo-moo/

Category: BAR, NEWS |

ally | 29/10/2010

3 comments

Sangrita Challenge

There are two types of people in this world: those who dunk their cookies into hot drinks, and those who do not. I am a dunker and damn proud of it. I love dunking buttery, sweet treats into a cup of freshly brewed coffee. I also love tequila. I also love cocktails.

Wait – this isn’t a crazy tangent I’m going off on. The other night I had the pleasure of trying the top three Queensland entries for Sangrita, in the World Class competition.

World Class is a global competition that celebrates cocktail culture, and the art of bartending. Run by Diageo RESERVE Brands (these guys make Johnnie Walker, Ketel One, and Don Julio), the competition kicks off with three heats throughout Australia. State finalists are then decided, then one winner per state, and then 15 final barentenders compete in a national final in 2011, with the winner chosen to represent Australia against the best bartenders around the world.

The Mexican Sangrita Ritual round recently finished, with the three state winners all hailing from Brisbane. The original Sangrita Ritual involves a spicy, tomato-citrus drink that’s sipped alternately with a shot of tequila. The flavours bring out the tequila’s natural flavour, and the drink is one to savor. In this round, bartenders were asked to put their own spin on this 90-year-old tradition, using either Jose Cuervo Platino or Don Julio tequila.
Our first stop was Cloudland, where we tried Adam Brewer’s creation that earned him third place. At first I was a little nervous when informed I’d have to sip the Don Julio tequila straight up. Um, excuse me? Where is the lime and sachet of salt? Jay from RESERVE and Adam explained that a big part of the appeal of the sangrita challenge was to change people’s perceptions of tequila. Everyone thinks you just shot the stuff – not so. In fact, our comrades over in Mexico have been sippin’ on the agave-based spirit forever.

To my surprise, it was very easy to drink. We sipped it after trying the food component of Adam’s sangrita experience – oytsers with white chocolate shavings, coriander, and a cucumber sorbet. Again, I was surprised to see such a pairing of flavours, but they worked so well: the white chocolate cut through the overpowering oyster taste, and the coriander providied a burst of fresh flavour that matched perfectly with the sweeter-tasting highland tequila. Adam took his inspiration from the connection Mexico has to the sea, using natural influences.

Next, we moved on to Canvas for a quick nosh (I will review the grub in a upcoming post), and got ready to try the winner’s sangrita – Angus Buton”s “A Little Blood for a Silver Peace”. Angus was inspired by French-Mexican hitsory and Western movies. The food component was macarons. MACARONS. I played it cool but was pretty excited to see the little chewy treats appear on the table.

The macarons were from Monsieur Macaron (who, by the way, is fantastic – get to the New Farm Markets or his Rocklea shop and try them!), and he also incorporated coffee from West End’s Cup Coffee. The speciality Guatemala blend (‘El Injerto’) was brewed through a very elaborate contraption, which was time intensive, thus getting a broader range of aromatics. Indeed, the coffee was very smooth and drinkable – I’d happily down it even without milk.

Angus instructed us to dunk a macaron in a cup of coffee, then eat it. WHAT. Finally, I could dunk in public without judgement. It was exactly how I’d hoped: the coffee injected the macaron with a spicy flavour, and made all the buttercream inside melt and ooze into my mouth. I mean, seriously. All this time I’ve been using my Tim Tams as a straw, when I could have been submerging it totally? I’ve been missing out.

After the macaron, we took a sip of Jose Cuervo Platino tequila. This was the good stuff – a family receipe, it’s a premium white tequila and only been on the market for a short time.

Finally, we tried second place (and Canvas owner) Marco’s creation – “Noble’s Consort”. Marco’s ritual had us eating white pepper and tequila sausage, then taking a sip of tequila, then a sip of an earthy, spicy fruit juice. I loved the sausage (that’s what she said), and the smoky flavours paired surprisingly well with the clean taste of the tequila. The spicy juice was my favourite – it had a wonderful peppery flavour, and had been chilled through an absinthe chamber.

During the night all of the guys kept talking about the idea of drinks and experiences. Rather than knocking back a cheap stubby of beer, it’s much more enjoyable to be involved in the theatrics of creating a truly amazing cocktail. Lately I have been getting over slamming $8 jugs (Momma T will be pleased), and have really started to appreciate just one or two quality drinks. Sadly, the rest of Brisbane has some catching up to do, but it is very reassuring to see that guys like Angus, Marco, and Adam are slowly leading the way.

Anyone who advocates public cookie dunking and quality drinks gets my vote.

WorldClass

www.weareworldclass.com

Cloudland

641 Ann St, Fortitude Valley

(07) 3872 6600

www.cloudland.tv

Canvas

16B Logan Road,. Woolloongabba

(07) 3891 2111

www.canvasclub.com.au/

Many thanks to Splendid Communications, Reserve, Canvas, and Cloudland.

Category: BAR, INNER CITY, SPOTLIGHT |

ally | 20/10/2010

One comment

Because I’m Awesome

I keep saying I’m a mad baker. Well, here is proof:

Have a great, sugary week.

Category: DESSERT, NEWS |

ally | 13/10/2010

One comment

Vapiano Pizza Class

D and I are a little bit competitive. I blame the fact that neither of us were competitive with our respective siblings growing up. I was the cute little sister, whose eight-year-old brother changed her diapers, and D was the annoying, creepy eldest brother in his family.

So, it made sense that at a recent pizza making class – which the folk at Vapiano so kindly invited me to – we were trying to out-do eachother with our pizzas.

Step 1: Kneading.

It started with kneading some of Vapiano’s freshly made dough. D had a go first at shaping the semolina/flour based dough in a pizza base shape. The semolina gives the dough a bit of a crunch to it. D’s result on his kneading? All good except for a gaping hole in the centre.

I stepped up to the plate, put the guns to work, and banged out a pretty good hole-free base.

Verdict: Ally – 1. D – 0.

Step 2: Flipping and Spinning.

Next up, Tomic – one of Vapiano’s skilled chefs – showed us how to spin the doughy discs high into the air, shaping them out even more. These guys know what they’re doing – during one of their busiest services, they banged out over 700 pizzas.

I gave mine a tentative, girlish little hoist into the air. Pretty sub-par, but at least I didn’t drop it.

Verdict: Unknown! D tells me he threw his high up into the air. I was busy eyeing off the cabinets of fresh pasta and didn’t notice.

Step 3: The Sauce.

The Vapiano boys showed us how to expertly swirl tomato sauce onto our bases. Make sure you do it quickly, otherwise the bases will start to get soggy if they’re left out too long. No one likes a soggy base.

I was quite chuffed with my efforts: the key is to start in the middle and slowly spiral your way out. D gave it a try, and sucked.

Verdict: Ally – 2. D – 0.

Step 4: The Toppings.

I started to panic a bit when faced with the sheer variety of toppings. Parma ham, smoked cheese, fresh buffalo mozarella, prawns?? The choices. I blindly threw a whole bunch of stuff on my pizza and hoped for the best. Meanwhile, D was assembling the most boring pizza ever. There were essentially scraps of vegies and a crapload of cheese.

Verdict: Draw. I think we both failed.

Step 5: The Taste.

The pizzas cooked for about five minutes, then we garnished them with fresh rocket, parma, and other herbs and spices. Once again, I blindly threw parma and rocket on. D carefully assembled parma on his too. Then we ate.

Verdict: Ally – 2. D – 2.

I have to give D an extra point because his pizza (left) was so much better than mine. As I suspected, my pizza (right) was thoroughly confused. The mish mash of ingredients I’d thrown on had resulted in something that was tasty, but weird. In fact, the best pizza of the night was one the Vapiano guys had made for us as a demo – it simply had pesto, fresh chopped spinach, and cheese on it. This is keeping with the true Italian roots of pizza: simple, fresh, quality ingredients.

Overall Verdict

So, it is to my disgust that I announce a draw with D on our pizza making class. This pains me, but at least he didn’t win. I suppose we’ll just have to have a re-match…

Vapiano

Pizza & Pasta

191 Albert St (Albert Lane)
Brisbane

(07) 3221 4933

www.vapiano.com.au

Other Vapiano Posts:

http://www.eatdrinkbrisbane.com/2010/02/quick-bites-vapiano-launch.html

Category: CBD, RESTAURANT, SPOTLIGHT |

ally | 12/10/2010

3 comments

Hosokawa

I’ve got a very special guest post for you guys this week. Meet Emma! We used to sell phones and teh internetz at a telecomm shop. We’re cool like that. Nowadays we both prefer writing about food to smiling through a stream of cusomter abuse.

Enjoy!

Recently a work pal and myself broke a dirty force of habit, all thanks to the lure of a newish Japanese
haunt at Hamilton. Instead of saying that we should go out to dinner together and then end up ‘drinking’ the equivalent of entrée, dinner and dessert in a bevy of tasty cocktails we actually made a formal reservation with the new Japanese kid on the block, Hosokawa on Racecourse Rd.

Hailing from a suburban west side upbringing, even just mentioning I had dins at Racecourse Rd on a school night makes me cool by association. The idea was to have achieve the near impossible- go out for a midweek meal that’s tasty and yet healthy without having to run a half marathon at the gym the next day. After all, summer is menacingly close now!Japanese seemed the obvious answer.

We had both heard good reports from friends and family that had already tried the place which recently opened, so maybe we placed our expectations a little high. The décor was what you would expect from a casual Japanese restaurant, simple, clean and minimalist. Service was friendly and speedy, although admittedly we had booked the ‘senior’ timeslot of 6pm so we could go straight after work.

I have a penchant for good hearty Udon soups with big chunks of vegies and crazy mushrooms or fresh seafood, however the menu had little variety on this front, with half served as cold. I however was still enthusiastic with our choices: scallops wrapped in bacon (Hotate- $7 for 2 pieces), simmered vegetables (Yasai Nimono, $12), handmade fishcakes (Satsuma Age, $8) and grilled squid with teriyaki sauce (Ikayaki, $12).

The scallops and vegie dish were the first to hit our table and we eyed them off with gusto. The vegie dish was great, all sorts of interesting and tasty vegetables and types of tofu to expand on my rich mental catalogue of vegetables from other cultures I might never know the name to- delicious regardless, with my favourite part being the soft fluffy potato balls, all in a tasty sauce and cute bowl. The scallops wrapped in bacon were also delicious and succulent with a more natural flavour, however rather small in portion size
for the price.

The first two dishes were followed in quick succession by the squid (which I was particularly looking forward to) and fishcake, not to mention the obligatory must of miso soup. I had high hopes for the squid, it looked rather special when it arrived- and had I taken it on surface value alone it would have scored top points. However I was disappointed to be greeted with a chewy texture and sauce that tasted suspiciously
the same as my vegie dish in flavour and consistency. I wanted to like it, I really did. Maybe they had an apprentice chef on, maybe they had their favourite episodes of 2 and a half men playing as their distraction, but this particular dish missed the mark a bit. The fish cake was good, succulent but lacking in flavour or condiments, the miso…..well it was miso!

We pondered our eclectic feelings over a glass or three of reasonably priced bubbly, which is always a winner. I would definitely be interested to try some of their other dishes, especially ones that had enticed the good reports from our friends and their larger sushi selection ($8- $12 for two pieces, or $32 for a platter of 11 pieces). Perhaps a lunch date is in order…followed by a dessert cocktail at a new schmick looking joint back towards the city I eyed off on the drive home- some habits never die hard!

Hosokawa

Japanese Restaurant

Shop 3/53 Racecourse Rd
Hamilton

(07) 3868 3762

Category: INNER CITY, RESTAURANT |

ally | 06/10/2010

No comments

Espresso Garage

I feel like there are two categories of people in this world: cyclists and runners. Not too fond of the way my ass looks in spandex, I am a runner. I proudly pound the pavement, bits jiggling everywhere, sweating my little heart out, and ignoring the fact that every kilometre brings me closer to a knee reconstruction.

I know there are people who enjoy both activities, but when you hit a run/cycle track, you can definitely sense the separation. And I’m just going to say it: there is some animosity. Not from everyone, sure, but I know that a lot of cyclists think they are better than runners, and that a lot of runners scoff at those who are bike-bound.

I don’t have a problem with cyclists per se, but they intimidate me when they whiz by in ultra-fit packs, taut bums in the air, taunting me with their firmness.

That was why D warned me recently as we were about to visit Espresso Garage, a cafe in South Bank: “It is a cyclist hangout.”

And sure enough, there they all were: lapping up the sunshine at the few tables Espresso Garage has, admiring the pretty view of South Bank, reading the basic but thoughtful menu, chatting with the friendly waitstaff, and stretching out their legs with their perfect patellas inside.

I, in my little running shoes and sweaty hair, cautiously sat down and let D order. He had been raving about Espresso Garage’s avocado toast, so we shared an order. A thick serve of toasted turkish bread was served with half an avocado, and a little tub of tomato salsa. This salsa was crazy good: sweet, salty, spicy, hearty, and it paired so well with the avo. This was simple food, but done so freaking well. A bit of salt and pepper on top brought out the flavours even more. I know people might think avo toast is not rocket science, but food like this is surprisingly difficult to do well. Take vegemite toast: no one makes it better than your mum, correct?

The coffees were pretty good too; my skim capp was smooth and had a lovely after taste, and D’s flat white was milky and tasty. But the winner here really was the toast. This toast could write tax returns; it could prevent stock market crashes and win presidential elections. It could, even, narrow the divide between cyclists and runners. If there’s one thing that can draw the two of us to the same place willingly, it will be this avocado toast.

Espresso Garage

176 Grey St

South Bank

(07) 3846 6162

Category: CAFE, INNER CITY, INNER CITY, TAKE-AWAY |

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