PPP: Obaltan and Chocolateria San Churro

So originally H., and I had planned in November for a day out in early December. We'd get our hair cut at Koogi in the city and then go out for lunch, somewhere fun like New Farm or something. My sister, V-Girl heard about it and decided to tag along as well, she had been umming and ahhing over getting her hair cut down from its mermaid-butt length down to something more manageable for at least a year now. So it would be a really girly day having haircuts with my sister and H., followed by lunch.

THIS WAS GOING TO BE US. BUT ASIAN DUH

Instead H., went back to South Korea, got her hair cut twice there in the month she was gone from Australia and when she came back, promised another of our work mates that she'd get her hair cut with them in January. At first, she said she'd still go with me and then said it would be too much effort and we'd just meet for lunch. My sister piked out saying she was too tired to go anywhere and actually got her haircut with J-Girl a few days later. For the first time since we were kids, her hair is actually shorter than armpit length.

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO MY HAIR.
Loljk, she looks good with her new hair. It takes less than three hours to dry!

This was probably not a bad thing all in all, we decided to just go out for a PPP style lunch. We chose to go Korean BBQ since going to Korean BBQ with an actual Korean is a wonderful thing, and J-Dawg, T and I have been planning it forever. Too bad the only day we had off together happened once in four rosters, and three times this current roster. T., ended up flying to Sydney to meet up with her boyfriend once again.

I picked Obaltan for us since it had such good reviews on Urbanspoon and it was quite easy for me to get to. Ms Chatterbox also came along and V., who has luckily been on holiday for the last few weeks, spotted my Facebook status for the day, and invited herself along. She did text me on the sly asking if it was okay if she came along, just in case I didn't invite her for an actual reason haha. Normally V.'s social calender is so full, its no use asking her because she always has stuff on

My Boyfriend handily manned the fort for us, securing us a six seater table and looking after my stuff, a whole bunch of books that I had just bought, my umbrella cause it was threatening rain in the big bad south side of Brisbane and my beat up bag. He poured water for everyone for when they would be there and in return I repaid him by saying I'd be back from taking photos and then walking out of the restaurant.

Oh google search.
Apparently this is what a husband chair looks like.

I actually took some photos and walked out of there because I got a call from J-Dawg.

This is because, my Boyfriend and I were the first to arrive, as per anal retentive traits from yours truly and not having to worry about parking a car, since we're public transport hobos. We were therefore, the couple who actually knew where the restaurant was and how to get there, while no one else had been there. H., and Ms Chatterbox car pooled and were running late again almost twenty minutes after our decided meeting time of 10am. J-Dawg went solo on bus and arrived at the same time as H., and Ms Chatterbox, with her phone singing its swan song as she tried to locate us. This was the phone call I received when I abandoned my Boyfriend.

After some really confusing instructions from me, we met up at Starbucks at the corner of Albert and Elizabeth and high tailed it back. This was just moments before my Boyfriend was going to call me to see where I was. V., decided to try her luck for almost an hour over near QPAC before high tailing it to the Myer Centre at the very last minute. Mr M., for Megababe had been invited too but forgot and went to the gym instead, and promised us he would be there later, he didn't show.

As you can gather, Obaltan is very hard to find, its very low key in a weird way. The entrance of the restaurant is street level, but the actual floor of the restaurant is about half a metre below that. The facade of the shop is a shiny grey, with the name very close to the floor so its not something your eye is easily drawn to. What is easy to find however is the bright yellow, adult shop beside it. I was sure if you told someone to go to the porn shop on Elizabeth it would be easier to find than 91 Elizabeth Street, unfortunately this must just be how my brain works because no one else found it any easier to find. I told V., to go near Madtongsan II and she walked straight past Obaltan.

Hard to find ):

The interior is a bit dimly lit but full of sleek black tables with an insert for a charcoal burner, grill and exhaust hose to suck out all the smoke. There's a partition down the centre of the restaurant, blocked off by some bookcases and painted fly screens, separating the restaurant in two. This makeshift hallway is full of stuff that the waiters need to dispense like menus, chilled water and cutlery. I bet its also very useful in ensuring quick service as very few customers wander down this hallway and they can rush past at breakneck speeds.

Nice

Blurry much

Upon sitting down, my Boyfriend instantly spots this rather dangerous looking electrical outlet. Pretty sure that's like crazy dangerous and violates OHS or something, since it was actually hanging off the wall. I didn't look too closely to see if the wires were still attached or anything.

Hmmm dodgy

Also the chair I was seated on was a bit shabby too. The seat is very comfy though.

:(

The tables were lovely. A lovely shiny wooden table with a hole in the centre where the charcoal was meant to go. Every setting had a metal tumbler, a large Korean style spoon, wooden chopsticks and a serviette. At the head of every table was a large pair of plastic scissors and a call bell for wait staff. The metal water jug was very light and covered in fine condensation, the water was freezing but it was lovely on such a hot day! I really liked their cups as well, nice and light.

Pretty pretty pretty

I liked this water jug! Ice colddddd

Upon arriving to the restaurant, H., told me to leave the ordering to her or she'd hit me, to which I meekly acquiesced. J-Dawg and my Boyfriend made fun of me, because the last time we went out it was to Yum Cha at Carindale where I dominated all the ordering with the party of nine, most of whom hadn't been to yum cha before. She ordered the bulgogi off the lunch special that J-Dawg was keen for, some marinated pork neck for each burner, dwae ji gal bi, splitting the group in half, some vegetable and potato glass noodles, jap chae. Then my Boyfriend and I decided to be difficult. Here is a link to the menu btw.

Thankfully, I wasn't hit. We both wanted to try things on the menu that no one else wanted to eat. My Boyfriend wanted to try the chicken feet in chilli sauce, maeun dak bal, which I refused saying I only like black bean braised chicken feet.

He then wanted some type of intestine. I refused saying I disliked gastrointestinal offal such as stomach, tripe and intestines due to the texture, though I will happily eat heart, lungs, kidneys and adore liver. I read somewhere that intestines are very popular in Asian countries though, apparently they contain a lot of collagen which is good for your skin.

I didn't want seafood or hot pot, I want ox tongue! U-seul! Pork belly! Tong Sam Kyup Sal! But I didn't really care about those. My heart was set on marinated eel or eel in rice! Jang eo gui or jang eo bupap! Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. H., hotly contested that since she had just found out that she was in fact, NOT allergic to fish like she had thought for the last 20 odd years and had just tried sushi and fish and chips the other day, she wasn't even ready to try eel. My counterargument was that she should be brave and try it, I asked my Boyfriend if eel was tasty and he said yes, but he didn't sound convinced. So I didn't get any eel.

I still wanted to be difficult though! I had been reading blogs and blogs worth of KFC, Korean fried chicken, these succulent looking, earth shattering golden brown fried pieces of chicken that could put Western KFC to shame. I knew since they were Asian fried chicken too, that the flavour would reach even the bone. Unfortunately, this wasn't even on the menu and I was in a huff until H., and J-Dawg pointed out the kkan pung ki, a deep fried chicken covered in spicy sauce. I said okay and everyone laughed at how quickly I complied considering how obstinate I had been just before, I still remembered H.,'s threat you see.

 The pork was the first to arrive. H., and I opted to be the cooks, H's out of long practice and me before I'm bossy like that. I cooked for my boyfriend, J-Dawg and myself, while Ms Chatterbox, V., and H., were on the other side. I spent quite a while struggling with the raw meat, trying in vain to hack the pieces into smaller blobs so that they could cook faster. H., was busy slamming down meat on her own side, but later told me that the traditional method is to put the meat on the grill. Then as it becomes more and more cooked, to cut them into smaller pieces, with the scissors provided, to bite sized pieces. This then speeds up the cooking process and apparently the meat will last longer on the grill before burning.

Pork~! I'm secretly a hand model

Lifting the exhaust hood made it hotter. Realised it at the end of the meal

The banchan also arrived at the same time, freebie side dishes ftw! We got some kimchi, pickles comprised of mostly red and white onions, some pickled onions of a different sort, a sweet pumpkin mash, a weird jelly like savoury thing that H., couldn't think of the name of, which might be mung bean jelly and some dipping sauces, miso paste and gochujang, sesame oil and something. This is one set of banchan and there was two more sets, so we effectively had a set between two people although we just ate whatever and passed around what went missing. The kimchi was good, well balanced in flavour, they were very long thin pieces of nappa cabbage in a nicely sour, and spicy flavour with an excellent crunch. The first thin multi onion pickles were delicious too, reminding me a lot of Vietnamese pickles, being very crunchy and freshly sour in flavour, The darker onions at the back I didn't care for, I think with the thicker pieces the onion flavour became quite overwhelming. I think I was the only one that tried the jelly like thing, I've had better elsewhere to be honest.

All the banchan barring the kimchi for some reason

While the pork was cooking, we tucked into the other beef dishes. The bulgogi I didn't care for, but it was one of the first dishes completely gone, so I think everyone else liked it.

Bulgogi!

The jaepae, the glass noodles were absolutely fantastic. I would eat these noodles by themselves by the bucketful, ignore the vegetables, just aim straight for the noodles. I knew they were good when everyone else had an exploratory bite, and then started to shovel more onto their plates. But I knew they were really good when my Boyfriend picked up the shared plate I had made for us and refused to give it back. I actually got really annoyed at him, since I had to serve him constantly since he sat at the very edge of the table, and then he goes and steals our joint plate! They were deliciously plump, slightly chewy and firm but still very soft.

So delicious. Three bowls of noodles were removed before this picture was taken

The other massive dish of the day was when the fried chicken came out. Oh god, doesn't it look almost scarily red hot? Its looks almost dangerous with that shade of fluro red. It was so spicy and also super sweet. Also mouth scaldingingly hot, fresh out of the fryer it seems. I had nose sweats it was so spicy, we were worried about J-Dawg since she was the only white girl there, and she was happily digging in saying she could eat this every day of her life and that the chilli was just right. They were deboned dark meat chicken pieces battered and coated in that volcanic sauce. They were so good, especially with the rice that we had, I think I ate all the salad we got given for the pork with this dish.

Oh my god. So goddamn good.

The pork was done by the time we had eaten everything else. It was fantastic as well, so tender, charry flavoured from the charcoal that was placed down and marinated in a delicious sauce that we puzzled out was soy sauce, sesame oil and that's all we figured out.

Yummmmm

The meal actually turned out to be really cheap being $22 per person. We split the bill thanks to some wrangling by H., We didn't know what to do afterwards, my Boyfriend and I intended to watch a movie, but everyone still felt like hanging out so we decided to go back across the river for dessert. The decision was to try Chocolateria San Churro which has been open for a few months now and the talk of the town, since it came from Sydney and opened up along South Bank. To San Churro!

This place!

V., my Boyfriend and I were the first to arrive there. We managed to get a park just outside Poppy's Bakery. We asked for an indoors table since it starting threatening rain quite suddenly and had started sprinkling, but there were no indoors seats available for six people.So the waitress sat us outside under the overhanging canopy, saying that it should protect us. It didn't and we did get drizzled on for a while there. The inside of the cafe is lovely though, full of wrapped chocolates and colourful displays.

Chocolate products!

The truffle display!

So many colourful macarons

Outside is a different story. Our tables were grossly sticky and the tables weren't very attractive at all. Not sure why half the chairs are stools and the other half regular garden chairs either.

Weirdly sticky

J-Dawg ordered this soy latte.

With a weird chocolate I can't recall if she liked

Miss Chatterbox got this coffee. For the life of me I can't remember what it was.

What are you weird coffee, why don't I remember!?

J-Dawg shouted us all to two churros for two, six churros and two pots of melted couverture chocolate. We were briefly entertaining the thought of the churros fiesta which is eighteen churros and six pots of melted chocolate but felt this was too much. Two per person would be enough as a dessert! And then we were all fatties and ordered a dessert each as well. Since we had a total of four pots of sauce, we decided to get one of each, a dark, milk and white chocolate as well as a dulce de leche one. The favourite was the dark chocolate, but my personal favourite was the dulce de leche, that gorgeous condensed milk caramel. It was served so goddamn hot, I nearly burnt my mouth.

Dulce de leche, churros and white chocolate

Milk chocolate, churros and dark chocolate

Everyone but me enjoyed the churros, stating they were light, fluffy and very very crunchy. I felt the pastry was a bit odd, since it wasn't as sweet as I'm used to and that the oil used to fry them had imparted an almost savoury taste. No one else could taste this though. Like someone had made a really light and fluffy bread, actually it reminds me a lot of a dense you tiao in flavour, those twin dough sticks used in congee. They weren't bad, and I would eat them again but I've had better. I did like that they weren't drenched in kilos and kilos of cinnamon laced icing sugar. Looking at you Freestyle Tout.

H., and I ordered the strawberry bizcocho, even after I had snarled at her for attempting to order the same thing as me for the purpose of food blogging. She proceeded to order the same dessert as me! The nerve! Anyway, it was composed of strawberries halves, smooth custard, chocolate sauce, chocolate cake and topped with peanuts. The strawberries were my favourite part but they weren't particularly great strawberries. The custard was smooth, rich and silky textured but I found it a bit cloying combined with the chocolate sauce, the same as the one we got for our churros. The chocolate cake was dense and chocolately, but I've had better commercial cake and made better myself, it reminded me more of a brownie than a cake. I ate all my strawberries and then mashed it into a pulp.

People were craving this over Facebook

Miss Chatterbox ordered the fondue for one. A pot of milk chocolate and a large glass full of chopped bananas, strawberries, kiwi fruit and oddly pineapple. I suppose chocolate makes anything taste good. She polished it all off without a hitch.

Fruit fondue!

My Boyfriend ordered the only drink, a dulce de leche milkshake with chocolate sauce and their vanilla ice cream. Oh god, the look on his face when he had this, he described it as tasting like pure caramel mixed with a bit of milk but in a good way. I barely had a sip before I made a face and refused to have any more. It was so ridiculously sweet, any kid would be swinging from the rooftops for days after having that whole thing! I'm amazed he finished it all off! I also really liked the swirly chocolate pattern they made on the inside of the glass on serving it too. Once you got down to that level you could break off the chocolate and eat it :)

Pretty and 40% cream apparently

V., ordered this massive ice cream sundae, made from three scoops of a very dense rich chocolate ice cream, choc brownies, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. She finished maybe a third of this, scooping off the cream and throwing it down on an empty churros plate. She then joined me in mashing our desserts into a sickly pulp.

So much cream!

J-Dawg ordered my standby option of the Spanish parfait, ice cream with pistachios, nougat, honey, dark chocolate bits, strawberries and chocolate fudge sauce. I think J-Dawg finished most of hers off.

Pretty no?

This was the final result. We all went a bit crazy playing with out food while we were chatting. It looks disgusting doesn't it? My Boyfriend willingly had a spoonful of the final concoction without any coercion at all. Sometimes I wonder about that boy.

Blehhhh. Looks like malena.

After having all the Korean BBQ, drinks, individual desserts and churros. We were all too full to move for several long minutes and just sat there groaning, as we said it was a good day and that we would get fat from this. It actually hurt to breath for a while, like oh god, is this chest pain? Type of thing. When I left later on with my Boyfriend, it actually hurt more to sit down after as if the dessert had finally settled and decided to wreck its revenge upon my prone body. I gained a kilo after that day and lost it the day after.

Obaltan:
Atmosphere: 6, cool little BBQ place. We went during the weekdays so there was only business people grabbing a quick lunch and some uni students but it was nice. Points off for the general dilapidated state of the place. I like the central partition though, very handy for all.

Service: 8/5? Not sure how it would've been without a Korean on board. All our requests were promptly met with a press of the central table buzzer, there was one weird moment when V., arrived late and attempted to order a green tea. They took my Boyfriend's one and placed it in front of her haha.
Food: 9, really, really good food. Cheap, filling, high quality food that was great to share amongst a group of friends. This was good enough to change my option of Korean food.

Chocolateria San Churro:
Atmosphere: Inside, 7, outside 4. We were sad little orphans outside.
Service: 8, our waiter was named Bobo, no joke. He seemed like a cool dude, prompt ordering and very friendly.
Food: 5, average for me. Good meeting place but I doubt I'd go here again.