Fish Kitchen

I looked after Mr M for Megababe's dog, George the other day! He's about the same age, one year old, that Siri is, and half the same breed! He's a purebred golden retriever and Siri is half husky/golden retriever. They've met once before at my 22rd birthday party, when George was about 4-5 months and Siri was 7-8 months old, they played together all night even though he was tiny, about a foot long and Siri was about 16kg then and not her full height. Siri is now about 24kg, and the size of a tall border collie, a solid medium, bordering on large dog. They chased each other all around the party and when George had to leave, he was digging in his feet trying to stay with Siri!

They're both very sweet, cuddly dogs and they loved playing with each other all day. Although they kept taking it in turns to hump each other, George would just randomly do it to Siri, and Siri would do it once she got jealous of George getting cuddles from me, even though she didn't want one.

Scoping out his new temporary home! There's more in the back and other side

He had a bit of separation anxiety, so I let them sleep inside the house with me when they were together. The first night he stayed over, I went to work and when I came back he ran circles around me, knocking me around with his big feathery tail and crying while he did it. Siri stood aloofly by but was just as happy to see me! I let them sleep in the garage and I slept inside the house behind the fly screen on a mattress. That way, George wasn't crying and barking all night.

The golden couple! George and Siri

George is also a bit bigger than Siri, she's all lean husky running speed! He's a bit pudgier, not excluding the fact that he's a boy and they're generally heavier. We went for a 40 minute walk and we had to stop cause he kept drinking out of puddles, we came back home and he drank three bowls of water before he stopped drinking. It took him an hour to cool down and stop panting, and it took Siri fifteen minutes. These pictures were taken during that time.

He's such a pretty boy! When he went back home to Mr M for Megababe's house, he pined for a few days and so did Siri. Poor loves :)

They're super cute together :)

 That story had nothing to do with this review. I just like dogs :)

This is one of the local eateries around my Boyfriend's house, I've always wondered if it was any good. L., has been here a few times and I remember enviously looking at her fish chowder, but I also remember I had instant noodles that day so it was a bit of an unfair comparison.

We went to Fish Kitchen that day because I wanted to go somewhere for lunch before work, and it was just a stone's throw away really. We mosied on it and ordered our meals before sitting down and scoping the place out. Its bright, flooded with sunlight and wouldn't be out of place at a beach somewhere.

I like this big chest. I wonder what else it was used for besides as a table for the water jugs and glasses? I wasn't game to open it, cause the waiter was always lurking nearby. I barely got any photos off cause he was always polishing the window and rearranging things!

I like the green painting :)

There's wicker chairs that aren't particularly comfy, but there's also some love seats under these pretty paintings for a more informal chat.

Here's the printed menu by the way as well as a picture of their fish selection the day that we went.

The menu!

The fish for the day

The salads you could choose from. Most of them had noodles?

I ordered the fish pie, but after several moments, the waiter told me that the fish pie was unavailable and if I had a second choice. I picked the fish wrap with beer battered chips as a side, he didn't give me back any money though. My Boyfriend also got us some dill aioli which they didn't charge us for. A bit later on, the chef came out to apologise to me and explained that he was frantically trying to make the white sauce for the fish pie and didn't want to serve it to us with lumps in it. He did add that it was a popular dish the night before and if I wanted anything else while I was there.

Add caption

It was a very soft, tangy wrap, the crumbed fish piece looks small in this picture but it was very large. The salad inside the wrap was the exact same as the stuff on my plate. It was a nice mix of textures from the soft firm fish, crunchy salad, creamy salad dressing and soft wrap. The beer battered chips were the tastiest part of the entire plate, my Boyfriend kept swiping my chips and dipping them in dill mayo.

Tradies meal!

He ordered the Tradies pack, a fried combination of calamari, crumbed fish and potato chips with a can of soft drink, only available before 4pm! He figured this was a good way of sampling all the main fried attractions in one go, the only thing missing from this typical line up is probably scallops, prawns and a free sauce, but I suppose that's more of a fisherman's basket sort of thing. The crumbed fish was the same as mine, the calamari was lovely and tender, and his chips weren't fantastic despite being fresh out of the fryer. It was pretty average for an average price, so my Boyfriend was satisfied with what he got.

We went here again before work on a Friday, apparently they do a massive trade on Fridays because it was packed. The kitchen had five staff on that I could see/hear, plus one dedicated front of house waitress. We waited forty minutes for a fish pie and a grilled chicken wrap, it was actually almost an hour wait, but I had to leave for work and my Boyfriend took my fish pie into work for me to have, twenty minutes after I left.

There was an issue getting my fish pie reboxed for takeaway since it was served in its own ceramic container. The kitchen said that they couldn't do it and it would become mushy if put in a container. I said I was happy for it to go that way, or I wouldn't be able to have it at all since I was late for work. The waitress apologised profusely for the very late coming out of the fish pie, but she also added that it did take a while to do. I think it would've been nice if she had told me that at the beginning or if there was a sign indicating the average wait time like most other places have.

Fish Kitchen
Atmosphere: 8, I liked the couch area and I liked the little garnishes everywhere. I really like that painting, I would steal it for my house.
Service: 8, pretty good service. The waiter was lovely and I've never had the chef apologise for such a little slight before, its not like I got served raw fish or anything. I went to an Asian restaurant once, which has since shut down, where we got served a steamed fish that was raw in the centre. The waitress serving us looked horrified, ran off to the kitchen and we got the same fish back resteamed, no apologies/discounts or anything.
The second time I went, would be a 3. It was almost farcical in nature how badly that went. If you know something is going to take a while to make on your menu, attach a warning about it or inform the people ordering. I distinctly ordering fish and chips behind us, get told there would be a 10-15 minute wait because it was so busy, and then they got their order 5-10 minutes later. 
Food: 5, my chips were good. It was pretty average to be honest. My fish pie was solid, not sure I'd ever get it again.

The German Sausage Hut

The German Sausage Hut is tucked away in Burnett Lane in the city, home to some other cool eateries like Super Whatnot and the Survey Co., both of which I'll go to when my Boyfriend gets over his disgust of "gourmet" hotdogs. Its the easiest one of the lot to find however, since its brightly lit and right across from a little florist.

I enticed him to this restaurant with the menu and the fact that I recognised this place from their regular market stalls at the Jan Power markets, they're the ones with the brown stall by the way. The other one that commonly appears there, that now do suckling pig, are the Chriberg guys.

Anyway, we went on a cold windy day and the location is not particularly wind resistant. We ordered our choices off the menu, picked our salads and sat down.

Here are the menus by the way.

The photos are a big grainy now, my phone was rapidly running out of charge and I got the lady serving us to plug it into an outlet for me while we had our meal.

Possibly the messiest plate ever

I got the pork schnitzel with a choice of two traditional salads since I wanted to be a bit healthy and as well as that the salads looked pretty good! That's coming from me, a person who abhors salad, especially when eating out. I picked the nudel salat and kraut salat, a pasta salad and a sauerkraut based salad respectively. The nudel salat had a light creamy mayo dressing, there were pieces of cold frankfurters, tiny peas, diced carrot and crunchy gherkins. The kraut salat came with speck pieces  and small pieces of onion. If I were to go back there again, I would be keen to get their cucumber salad, its got a dill, onion and sour cream dressing. I'm a fiend for dill.

What you want is a hot dog ain't it

The pork schnitzel was good, it was very thin, tender yet crispy and a nice golden brown shade. I picked a mushroom sauce and it was placed on top of my schnitzel, I scrapped it off to the side because I don't like wet and crunchy stuff mixing since it equals soggy. Its honestly the best mushroom sauce I've had ever, smooth and intensely mushroom flavoured, I could've drank an entire bowl of the stuff. The waitress serving me came back and asked if there was anything wrong with the sauce and I said that there wasn't, I just didn't like my food to get soggy. She tersely replied that I could have told her and she would have put it in a separate bowl.

 My Boyfriend picked a bratwurst in a roll with a side of potato salad, I say side, but it came piled on top of the wurst. Its a very long thin wurst, it had a nice smoky flavour but I really wish there was more of it. The bread was a soft white roll and the potato salad was average. He comments that it was average but on the nicer side of average with the note that he prefers his potato salads slightly sweeter.

Disgusting in a can

After the meal, we bought a drink and retrieved my phone. The drink we chose out of the cabinet was a coffee/energy drink blend called Kick+, the waitress explained that people either loved it or hated it. It was a plain black coffee with no milk and was preferred by those who enjoyed coffee. We didn't like it, it tasted like someone had mixed a sour/bitter black coffee with a can of flat lemonade. I don't recommend it.

German Sausage Hut:
Atmosphere: 4, it was freezing ass cold when we went there. I guess it would be a fun place to go drinking?
Service: 5, meh. We got our food, she plugged in my phone, but I'm sure most places would if I asked them to, I know my massage place does it all the time. She was a bit cranky about the sauce. Then again, they did get us extra cutlery since we were sharing, but then I guess they assumed my Boyfriend wouldn't need any cause he got his bratwurst on a roll? Eh, this is confusing. 5 it is.
Food: 10 for the mushroom sauce. 8 for the salads which I would try again. 6 for the meats, they weren't anything special.

PJ's Steaks

I have been wanting to go here forever. My Boyfriend is terrible at remembering the names of restaurants because firstly, he pretty much doesn't care about them and secondly I tell him about so many restaurants, they're not worth remembering. I will pass a restaurant and say, so and so told me this was good, and he will say, do you want to eat here, no I will reply and continue walking. This happens for the entire length of a street.

Finally!

PJ Steakhouse on the other hand, is somewhere where I have been saying I would go to, since we started dating back in September 2012. Pretty every time we get there though, it would be closed or I would decide on somewhere new at the last second. So, we decided we would go there once and for all, especially since it had started getting quite a large fan base around the city.

Its a very narrow bar like establishment with lots of posters up and neon lighting on the inside. Above their ordering counter is chalkboard with a few options then in on their actual printed out menu.

Visuals, looks exactly as displayed

Food side

Drinks!

The history of cheese steak!

I didn't take a picture, because people were looking at me. Directly beside the front counter, is their open view kitchen which can you also see from the front of the shop and watch your food being made.

Pretty solid drinks

We ordered at the front counter and headed out with our drinks. They have a really wide selection of American beers and soft drinks and I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what I wanted. I got a Hanks Philadelphia recipe Root Beer and he got a Hanks Creaming Soda. I didn't like my root beer, it tasted sarsaparilla with artificial vanilla flavouring in it. My Boyfriend really liked his, it tasted like good vanilla ice cream and regular creaming soda.

Squeezy sauce bottles

Red hot original!

On most of the tables around the shop, there is an assortment of sauces available. When we sat down, we got handed this basket, containing mustard, barbeque sauce, tomato sauce and Frank's Red Hot Original Cayenne Pepper sauce. There was a few more sauce baskets inside with sweet chilli and tabasco sauces present.

L-R, tomato, mustard, barbeque and hot sauce!

The mustard was good, a nice strong American mustard with a good tang but not a terrible mustardy burn like English mustard or wasabi has. The tomato sauce was terrible, thin and runny, with that odd taste when its past its best by date. The barbeque sauce was good, although my Boyfriend disagrees, its a slightly smokey sweet flavoured barbeque, I think it would be good on ribs or chicken wings. I've never had Frank's Red Hot sauce, it wasn't what I was expecting. Its actually a very mild, in my option, hot sauce, like Sriraicha is three times as spicy as that stuff. Its very vinegary and reminds me of what Nando's mild sauce should properly taste like if it were actually mild.

Hmmm

We ordered an original cheese steak with Provolone cheese and a side of chips to share between us since we weren't feeling that hungry. We were seriously thinking of getting tater tots or their spicy wings though. Our waiter thoughtfully split the roll in half and came back with extra greaseproof paper when he figured out we were sharing the roll.

The Italian roll was a soft hot dog like roll, soft and squishy. The steak was just that, plain well cooked steak, nothing else, no discernable seasoning and that was it. There was heaps of it and the onions were sweetly caramelized. The Provolone cheese was sharp and a touch on the stinky side but it went well with everything else. It was a bit of a let down to be honest, but its very much simple comfort food, you could do just as well at home to be honest.

Chips!

The chips came in a little metal bucket to keep them together. The chips were crunchy but a bit floury. They were sprinkled with a light savoury and spicy salt.

PJ's Steaks

Atmosphere: 8, its nice place. You feel you're in a hole in wall American diner, with all the celebrity photos and the authentic accents from all the staff. Its a good place where you can just sit and chill out with a few friends after work with a beer and some cheese steaks. We saw quite a few people doing that as we were there.
Service: 7, our waiter came out with extra stuff when he saw we were sharing and was quick to wipe down table tops when people left. I also saw them chatting with other patrons when things were a bit slower.
Food: 5, you could easily do just as well as home for the same price with way more portions. Plain and simple food.

RJIE 11: Poutine @ 5 Dogs

Say that in the most Canadian accent you have within you

What is poutine? Poutine is super Canadian food composed of the utterly delicious, completely disgusting looking, carb overload that is deep fried potato chips, semi melted fresh cheese curds and a rich brown gravy. It looks like someone puked over a bunch of nice chips but goddamn is it delicious.

POUTINE

These days when I crave something unhealthy, I don't think of a Maccas cheeseburger anymore, I think, damn, I want me some poutine. I think its up there with drunk people food like kebabs, Maccas, convenience store hot dogs and that sort of thing, things to eat when blindly drunk, but maybe not whilst sober. I dread to think of the number of calories in this meal.

Work poutine

Once I was half an hour early to work so I went downstairs to the cafeteria to buy something for lunch. I had a brainwave and bought hot chips and gravy, and plastic melted cheese and made bastardised poutine. My god it was delicious.

Despite its small list of ingredients, it is very hard to find in Queensland. Google, "poutine - brisbane", and you see pages of homesick Canadians wondering where to find this treat, in fact let me google that for you. This is because to have a truly authentic poutine you need, fresh cheese curds, something you cannot get because there is a ban on Australian made unpasteurised/raw milk products in Australia. At the time of writing, we import all our raw milk cheeses such as parmigiano reggiano, roquefort and gruyere. This is very common in most countries around the world, to reduce the pathogen risk in unpasteurised milk, however they are allowed to make their own cheese or allow the sale of dairy products made from raw cheese within a certain time frame.

Why don't we import cheese curds? Fresh cheese curds are made from soured raw milk and go off within hours of being made. They apparently have a mild flavour, and squeak when eaten. I guess like haloumi does, with more melt properties? Thanks to wikipedia for this information, since I haven't tried cheese curds before. You can make cheese curds from milk, but you can't buy raw milk to make it with either, since raw milk is banned under the same act. Unless you want to buy raw milk in the form of bath milk, reportedly about $4.50/L from this website. Making cheese curds is annoying but, you need a lot of chemistry stuff like rennet and bacterial cultures.

Mmmmm corrupted

That being said, I'm not a Canadian purist, and will happily accept any bastardised poutine I find. This particular one is at 5Dogs in Fortitude Valley. The large portion is indeed very large at about $5 from memory and it was glorious. I ate half the box before reluctantly throwing it all away. I think he uses a mozarella/tasty cheese mix with a really solid brown oniony gravy. The chips were scorching hot out of the fryer and really crunchy, they were sprinkled with chicken salt. It is goooood stuff.

If you find yourself in the Valley near the McWhirter's Arcade, head towards 5Dogs and treat yourself to some poutine. You'll thank me, or curse me down as you succumb to a heart attack.

Creamed Rice

 As a child, were you a picky eater? I wasn't, my mum still happily remarks to new mothers that when I was a toddler, she would just give me a bottle of milk, I would drain it in one go and then go back to playing. If she fed me "new" food like traditional Vietnamese food, I would happily eat it, a lot of my Aussie born Vietnamese friends don't eat simple traditional foods even nowadays. I've eat all the usual proteins, beef, chicken, pork, cuisine ones like quail, duck, unusual ones like kangaroo, crocodile, emu, and straight out squeamish stuff like heart, kidneys, liver, tripe, chicken feet and balut. As well as this, I've tried almost every vegetable I've come across at least once.

On the other hand, VGirl was terrible at trying new things. She went through phrases where she was a vegetarian, where she would only eat meat, continuous times where she would eat one or two foods and now she's a vegetarian again. VGirl has some strange food obsessions too, there were lots of Vietnamese food that she absolutely adored and would be the only eat if they were present, nem nuong - fermented pork meatballs, ca com kho - caramelised anchovies, thit heo quay - roast pork belly, thit heo kho- caramalised pork belly and eggs, bo vien - beef meatballs, bo la lot - marinated beef in betel leaf and my mum's secret recipe for sticky chicken, you'll get the recipe one day. She loves cucumber, tomato, cruskits, watermelon specifically the white bit, pickled radish, any potato chip and really hard fruit. Sweet wise she loves fruit tingles, pop rocks and cookies and cream ice cream.

Ca com kho - Caramelised anchovies

Thit heo quay - roast pork belly

Thit heo kho - caramelised pork belly and eggs

Bo vien - beef meatballs used in pho soup

Nem nuong, we ate this so much I felt like dying

Bo la lot - love this stuff, such a pain to make

On the other hand, I had food I disliked a lot but would stomach eating, it took me years to like spicy foods, so I avoided anything red that was Vietnamese, like bo kho - Vietnamese paprika beef curry, bun rieu - crab and tomato soup, bun bo Hue - spicy beef noodle soup, ca ri ga/bo- Vietnam's take on beef/chicken curry. Any sort of bitter taste. Any sort of shellfish, I eat crab and prawns though. Fruit and meat combos like ham and pineapple pizza. Time consuming foods to eat like crab or steamboat. I had a lot of fruit I disliked though, like red grapes, banana, pumpkin, white nectarines, soft pears, any melons and floury apples like red delicious.

Bo kho - paprika beef, so goddamn spicy. Now I can't even feel it

Bun rieu - crab and tomato noodle soup, it was super spicy as a kid

Ca ri ga - mild but to me, mouth burning

I read this article on Buzzfeed about this Youtube video on a little Japanese girl who loves to try her mother's international cooking. It mentions in the article that its hard to get most children to try new foods, and I never really thought of it that way. NZ-A's children happily chow down strange food, they ate chicken feet at my birthday party last year for one and went to yum cha with us and tried everything. My friend's nephew on the other hand, doesn't eat anything besides meat and will hide vegetables in tissue paper to get rid of it. On the other hand some of the people I work with have strange food avoidances, like Br., who can't stomach any brown parts on her food, Becky doesn't eat any fruit and Mrs D., can't stand any part of the chicken besides the breast and freaked out when I said I used stock made from bones.

Just mentioned this because I never though I would find myself eating rice any way besides as a savoury side or a soup like in chao. Risotto still weirds me out and it was a long time before I even tried creamed rice. The concept was completely bizarre to me, sweet rice? What the hell. I remember getting into a fight with someone once for eating buttered rice once.

Anyway, one day I tried LeRice when it was on special and it was pretty good. I guess you never know until you try it huh? A few weeks ago I had this craving for creamed rice, so I looked up some recipes and made it. Its good when you can cook, even better than that, is when its easy to make. This is an incredibly easy recipe, the hardest part of it is the constant stirring and the amount of time it takes. Generally I cook it for at least 45 minutes, or the better part of an episode of the Walking Dead.

 Creamed Rice

Uses: something to do while watching the Walking Dead

The lineup barring rice

Cause a 25kg bag is too heavy to lift duh.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup of uncooked rice
1/3-1/2 cup of white sugar, depending on how sweet you like your creamed rice
125-250ml cream
750-1000ml milk
1tbsp vanilla bean paste
1/4 cup of sultanas

Optional:
1tbsp cinnamon or nutmeg or both

Method:
1. Rinse your rice twice under cold running water until the rice water is clear
2. Combine the rice, sugar, cream and milk into a large saucepan and heat on a steady medium, stir frequently

The beginning, all is quiet

3. Turn down the heat if you suspect its going to boil over because milk boils over really really quickly

This level of simmer is fine

Grab your spoon ladies and gents, its about to boil over

4. Once the liquid has reduced by 1/3, add in your raisins and spices. Continue to stir frequently, otherwise it will catch and begin burning.
5. Once you're happy with the consistency, take off the heat and serve immediately. If the creamed rice appears too thick, add more milk, if too thin allow to cook for several more minutes.