Let me start with a disclaimer, their current Head Chef is leaving this coming week.

My dining companions had recently sampled the redundant Autumn menu and were keen to try the newly launched Winter menu. So we booked in on the first night.
I arrived early and was promptly seated and poured a glass of the Chandon Brut bubbles. A light, fresh, dry sparkling to awaken the palette. My companions soon arrived and we discovered that all diners were there for the degustation launch. Our starter of brushettea with heirloom tomatoes and sweet basil was promptly served. I’m not a basil fan, but the sweetness of the tomatoes and basil was a great start. We were soon served the Chandon Chardonnay, heralding the arrival of our second course, Artichoke ravioli. Though the artichoke was too subtle for me, the sweetness of the red onion and semi-dried tomatoes worked well with the ricotta. I was looking forward to the potted prawns with the caramelised shallot parfait, and I was not disappointed.

Salmon is also far from the top of my list of favourites, however, the salmon mousseline with the rich tomato and taragon coulis was terribly complementary. Turns out I quite like buckwheat as well, as was served with the final main dish of glazed duck breast, also served with a rich shitake mushroom broth. Divine! To finish our meal we were served a triple cream brie with crackers and crisp breads. Finally a rhubarb and ginger jam pie was served, with a remarkably robust portion of ice-cream that refused to melt. A wee dram of port accompanied our dessert. Strangely though, tea and coffee were not part of the meal and needed to be ordered and paid for separately.

Overall, a wonderful dining experience. Lovely warm, inviting atmosphere with friendly obliging staff. I would recommend following chef Sian Bressolles to her next venture. Saying that, McMahon’s is highly recommended and worth seeing what their new head chef serves up. I would suggest Friday and Saturday nights warrant booking ahead.

132 Alice Street
City QLD 4000
(07) 3853 6000

My friend has a penchant for Greek and Turkish food, so she went seeking a tasty quick Sunday dinner.  Reluctantly, I agreed to go to Ahmet’s at Southbank.  A few weeks ago we had a delightful meal with great service at the Bulimba restaurant, but I’m yet to have a good one at the Southbank Ahmet’s.  I was hopeful…

A busy Sunday night trade dictated we wait for a few minutes for a table for our party of 3.  A drink order was promptly taken, an Efes beer and I had a LL&B, and we were left to peruse the menu, notably different to their sister Ahmet’s.  As we were all quite hungry and my female companion is quite the fan of breads and dips, we ordered the beetroot dip and pumpkin dip to be accompanied by garlic Turkish bread as our starter.  I was tossing up between the Moussaka and a Vegetarian pide (pid-eh), my companions ordered the Karides (Prawns) and Pilic Sehrazat (chicken) and I settled on the Moussaka.

We sat and waited and sat and waited, finally I summoned a waitress to check on the progress of our entrees, meanwhile joking that our mains should be served soon.  Not 2 minutes after the first waitress walked away a second delivered our joked about mains.  We then had to explain that we no longer wanted our entree…much to my dip-loving companion’s dismay.  She did however request a piece of bread to accompany her meal, only to be told that was not possible as bread was only sold in baskets…The Prawns looked lovely, with 2 golden fried croquets and a small side salad.  My moussaka was accompanied by a small salad with a lovely zesty dressing and turkish rice.  My other companion’s chicken dish while very tasty seemed to be lacking something:  no potato, no rice, no bread, not even a vegetable…

We had previously decided to have dessert elsewhere, though I had noticed the usual suspects – turkish delight, baklava, ice-cream and Turkish fairy floss.

I would have to say another disappointing experience at Ahmet’s, and made moreso by the fact we had not long ago had such a great experience.  WHilst our many servers were adequate, they weren’t particulary accommodating.  I believe there are other better options available nearby if you are feeling like Turkish..but I suppose to each their own.

South Bank
07 3846 6699
Shop 10/164 Grey St South Bank

Bulimba
07 3395 8600
136 Oxford St Bulimba

For a birthday treat, my brother, friend and I headed to Lure at The Coro for their degustation.  It came highly recommended and was a slightly more affordable option than my other choice, which shall remain nameless.

The decor struck me as a tad eclectic, and our table was situated in a too well lit spot.  As with most, everyone in the party must have the degustation, so our first course was delivered promptly.  The Seafood Chowder with a piece of lemon myrtle bread was delightful, rich, creamy, thick and full of seafood pieces AND without a mussel in sight.  After clearing our first course the second came out very quickly, the bug salad was again lovely with good portions of bug.  The accompanying Pinot Gris was perfect.  I found my piece of coral trout as the third dish to be a little undercooked, however the grilled prawn was bursting with flavour.  I was getting concerned my brother may not be satisfied at the end of  the meal, and this was further cemented when our Eye fillet was served.  Possibly a 100gm piece of steak cooked to perfection.  Note:  the steak is automatically served medium, so if you prefer it dry and burnt you’ll need to let the kitchen know.  The Geoff Merrill Cabernet Sauvignon was matched very well and probably my favourite of the night.  I don’t pretend to know a lot about wine, but I do know what I like and I liked this one.

Finally our Chocolate Assiette, a selection of 3 chocolate desserts, was served and found to be quite rich for all of us, though the cheese platter and tea helped ease our taste buds. 

I actually thought the dishes were served too close together and felt I needed to scull my wine to keep up, or waste it.  I was quite correct in my concerns about the meal satisfying my brother, so men with big appetites beware!!  Our meal wasn’t as relaxed as I had hoped.  However, the food was lovely, the service: professional.

A side note:  the female toilets are like none I’ve ever seen, the glass frosts up when the door is latched, but is otherwise quite transparent and slightly off-putting, as is the fact the cubicles feel to be out in the room and aren’t housed within a toilet “room”.

Our weeknight visit was quite, however I would suggest reservations for a Friday or Saturday  night seating.  I would definitely consider returning to Lure, but would request a table near the window and less well lit.

The Coro (Street Address)
28 McDougall Street
Milton, Brisbane QLD 4064

07 3369 9955

My dining companion has long been wanting to go to the Ship Inn for a meal, dinner or lunch, not fussy.  So, one lazy sunday, after some retail therapy in the city we wandered over to Southbank, for lunch at the Ship Inn.  With indoor or outdoor seating, a sunny day was to be taken advantage of.  A bit of confusion with ordering, table service, counter service?  The waitress informed us it was table service and that lunch was served until 5pm!!  How very civilised!!  So we order a glass of wine each, me the Sauv Blanc and my friend the Pinot grigio.  I ordered the lamb rack (Corrish lamb from Goondiwindi, thank you very much – am an old Gundy-girl myself) and my companion the pork ribs.  The menu has a small number of options for each meat, some pasta and salad options too.

The food took slightly longer than I thought, that starter we neglected to order was much rued!!  Though when it did arrive, it was a good sized portion and quite nicely presented, though the rack pretty much just slapped on a rectangular plate…what else can you do really…?

I guess overall it was ok, maybe we would have had a different experience if we were there earlier in the day or for dinner.  The confusion over service and the delay in receiving our meals was a little disappointing.  Though we had an Entertainment book voucher, so we get off a bit more lightly and that helped ease the disappointment.

Well, almost desperate to try my first degustation, I was happy to go nearly anywhere, I even booked 2! places with the view to cancel one.  Being that we could only do a weeknight, Montrachet in Paddington was the place!!  And what a place!!!

Friendly, knowledgable, casual yet efficient service, a very enticing menu and great company made for a fantastic night. 

The amuse bouche was a roquefort creme broulet – a rich, creamy, flavoursome delight.  A teeny, tiny portion was more than enough.  This was followed by a salmon gravlax with a touch of goats curd.  A light and satisfying delight.  3rd course was a prawn and scallop pasta in a tomato based sauce with cognac, bursting with flavour, the bite on the cognac evident in every mouthful.  The chicken and foie gras boudin was very interesting in texture, accompanied with a light red cabbage and cassis sauce, a great combination.  The course I was most looking forward to was the rack of lamb with a mushroom ragout and truffle gnocchi.  And it didnt’ disappoint.  Perfectly cooked (very pink the middle – beware if you like them cooked through)!  We then had our choice of cheese, some interesting options.  I’m not a great cheese fan and 2 of the 3 were not to my liking.  However, my companions thought they were delicious! Then of course:  dessert.  It was a tough decision, the tussel over potentially THE best creme brulee or something new and different coffee and mascarpone cheese cake with caramelised banana and kahlua crème Anglaise.  I DID chose the classic and wasn’t disappointed!!  I’ll try something different next time…promise. 

This degustation is not matched with wine.  So we settled on a French Pinot Blanc.  A lovely summer wine, light and fruity.

This restuarant is small and very popular, so booking is strongly recommended.  The degustation took us a little over 4 hours, so don’t chose this option if you don’t have the time.  The meal and wine were both very reasonably priced, $95ea for dinner.  The wine list contained a very extensive selection of French wines, which seemed to be quite reasonably priced. A selectionof Australian wines is also available.

[rating5/5]

A pre-football dinner brought us to Bistrot Bistro, in the revamped Logan Rd precint of Woolloongabba.  We arrived on time and were seated, we had all reviewed the menu online prior to booking our dinner, there were many very enticing choices.  Our server eventually came over to us, and to this point we hadn’t even been offered drinks.  The soup of the day sounded very appealling, cauliflower and black truffle oil.  However, we settled on mains with dessert as we were a bit limited by time. 

I chose the pork belly after much deliberation, the linguine came a very close second though.  My dining companions chose the whole trout and the lamp pie.  We ordered the chocolate fondant and lemon pie as well.  There was a good selection of wines by the glass on offer.

After we received the correct drink order, our meals were soon to follow.  The presentation of our meals was beautiful, the trout had a lovely yellow butter sauce.  My pork was served with some asian greens and petit pois, we also ordered brocollini and potato chips as sides.  I thoroughly enjoyed my meal, with beautifully mixed flavours and textures.  The trout was soft and moist.  The lamb, while tasty, was nothing special.  A slow cooker could probably whip up an as tasty dish as this one.  Though it had a lovely puffy pastry lid.

Our plates were cleared and our desserts arrived soon after.  The 2 fondants were beautifully plated with strawberry cream and diced strawberries.  The lemon tart, served with ginger cream, was apparently very well matched.

The service unfortunately was a bit lacking, from blank stares as we walked through the door to having to request a server taking a pre-dinner drink order, then struggling to get attention enough to order coffees to accompany our desserts.  The staff all seemed to have French accents, we did debate their authenticity…

The Entertainment book took us there, the service and baklava brought us back!

A Friday night dinner outing following a Turkish craving lead us to The Ottoman cafe in West End.  We made a booking but it was quieter than either of us expected.  Friendly and attentive service was again on offer.

We ordered some drinks and a dip platter to start with so we could starve off the hunger, chat and decide on mains.  Having sampled the Ottoman platter previously, we knew what we were in for,  though can I say restaurants/cafes NEVER give you enough bread.

The toasted herb and garlic pide is perfect!  Dining with 2 vegetarians was easy with plenty of options for them.  The pide was good, the lamb was tender and the tomatoes were hot.  And before we had a chance to order: a platter of baklava and turkish delight magically appeared.  Some of the BEST baklava you’ll ever have pleasure of experiencing.

This was another favourable experience at this restaurant. The host is perfect for his job, very friendly, helpful and entertaining.  If you are after a relaxing Turkish meal, this is your place on the southside.

ottomancafe.com.au

After overhearing a work mate talking of the Tapas Train, I was sucked in, sadly this New Farm restaurant failed to impress.  The options are sit at the Tapas train, which was decidedly empty or a regular table, I booked a table.

The menu as far as I could tell offered only banquet options, however, we could order more than 1 type of banquet as long as we ordered at least 2.  Does that make sense…?

So we had 2 “All hot” banquets and 2 Pintxo banquets.  There were four ladies dining, with a fifth to join, after being advised we should order a 5th banquet we chose to keep with our 4 – big mistake.

The portions, while delicious, are small!  Deep fried olives, salad, gambas, chorizo, meatballs, scollaps and bruschetta were our offerings.  All quite tasty, though again I repeat, small.

From what we could tell, the Tapas train concept is pretty much the same as the Sushi trains around town, $/plate depending on the plate colour and contents.

After polishing off the banquets, we all got very excited about a traditional Spanish dessert - churos!!  However, all of us were again disappointed, gooey inside, and way too crunchy – not in a good way either.

The South Americans amongst us thought little of the Spanish offerings too.

The other positive I can offer is the service was good, attentive and helpful.

Be ware:  it’s byo with a $3/PERSON charge for corkage which turns a cheap and cheerful bottle of wine into something not worth what you’ve paid.

I walked away hungry…maybe we should have heeded the waitresses words.

http://www.pintxo.com/

Pintxo Spanish Taperia

561 Brunswick Street
New Farm
Queensland, Australia

phone: 07 3333 2231

After being recommended by a couple of colleagues the opportunity presented itself for dinner at this South Brisbane gem.  After being informed they “do” sittings, I opted for the early sitting.

We were greeted by friendly smiling staff who obliged us our request of a change of table.  There are benches or tables to chose from, with timber accents and soft lighting the atmosphere was casual yet classy.

We were presented with our menus and a lacklustre offering of the special of the day. After our dinner companion arrived, our next waiter took our drink order and gave a winning description of the special and thus had a winner with B.

At this point I would like to say how fantastic our waiter was for the evening, a young English guy with a great knowledge of the menu and personality to suit his vocation – as we all know there is very little service in customer service these days!!

Ok the menu, it was brief but very enticing.  We decided to share 3 entrees, and have our own mains.  2 steaks and, of course, the special.  The scallops, prawns and salmon entrees were delivered really quite promptly and tasted as delicious as they looked.  The creamy, mustardy, brandy sauce on the prawns was devine!

After a suitable rest our mains were served.  My steak was cooked perfectly and the special was getting a glowing review.  The only thing I wasn’t a fan of was the treviso (?) served with my steak, however, our companion commented that the flavour grew on her.

We all caved and ordered dessert, 1 of each of the 3 offerings – creme brulee, chocolate pudding and apple and chestnut tart.  All were delicious!!

The wine list is predominantly French, with a sneaky NZ entry.  Generous sized glasses of wine too, a glass and a half for those who are driving. I go the impression if you only had a hankering for a glass of French wine, then that would be just fine too.

Overall, a great experience, great food, great service, great atmosphere and of course great company!!

Our first event of the revamped WNDC was a tad disappointing.  After discovering our original choice was closed down, B decided on Kafe Meze.  A Greek restaurant/cafe in South Brisbane, a neighbour of the Brisbane institution 3 Monkeys.  A nice, bright, white interior greeted me, arriving slightly late.   We had a table out on the back deck, which was nice, though bring a coat, potential for chilliness!

There was water on the table when i arrived, but no-one had any other drinks, whether they were offered or not, I can’t say, I suspect the offer hadn’t yet been forthcoming.

A moderate sized menu of all things Greek.  The traditional offering of Dolmades, Haloumi, eggplant, dips with bread etc for starters followed by a large selection of souvlaki and salads for mains.  The wine list consisted of a mix of both Greek and Australian offerings.

I have to say I was none to impressed when our meals arrived.  $30 for a plate of iceberg and some souvlaki is a bit rich for my taste.  The moussaka was flavourless, how one manages that with Lamb I’m not sure.  Our buckets of wine arrived shortly before our meals – make sure you have plenty of time up your sleeve before you have to drive!!  Which I suppose represents good value.

Some indulged in the Greek desserts but I chose to sit that one out. 

I guess if you go with low expectations, you wont be disappointed.

Kafe Meze