The Burrow

The Burrow is a little further up from the mega breakfast establishments of Three Monkeys and the Gunshop. Its that little wooden looking shop a few metres down that is always quite full. I've always wanted to go in there but there is one major turn off that my Boyfriend, JGirl, VGirl and a few other people have commented on. Its full of hipsters.

God damn.

I know its mainstream to hate on hipsters but the reason I don't like them in food places is because of their attitude. Little pretentious organic/vegan cafes, that served you expensive bad coffees, surly teen hipster serving staff that are too cool to give your their time and overly cool/weird/kooky decor. If they spent even half the time on their food as they did everything else, I suppose it would be approaching something even close to palatable. Blehhh. You know whats the worst thing though, everyone always goes to these hipster places.

Everyone goes here!

The Burrow is that kind of place. It has like 9 pages worth of fancy drinks. I wouldn't have been seen dead in that kind of place, I actually dress so terribly I could be mistaken for a hipster. I used to have this wallet that would always set off alarms when I was going through different store check outs, and once it went off after I left Myers. The door girl took one look at me and said I couldn't possibly have anything from there and let me go.

A hipster in its natural habitat

Thankfully we went at an hour too early for hipsters to be seen in.

Did you even know there was a 8 AM?

We walked in and were seated next to a group of young business people chattering away about stuff. We got some menus and our waitress explained the specials of the day and how things worked since we hadn't been there before. Basically choose anything and choose either as a sub, which grants chips, or a pizza, no chips but cheaper. Everything is cut into smaller pieces so you can easily share. The day we went there, there was large revisions to the Burrow Burger which my Boyfriend was considering, I can't remember what all the revisions were but once he heard them, he ordered it instantly.

Actually quite small, 15-20cms or so?

I got the Big Voodoo Daddy pizza after some contemplation, I wasn't super keen for the subs they had at the other table no matter how tasty they looked. Its a pulled pork, jerked chicken, Cajun sausage, red onion and coated in a red Bourbon glaze. Also random coleslaw on top of the pizza. I would've definitely preferred the coleslaw in a bowl or something, so my hot and cold food don't touch.

It was a very tasty and meaty pizza under that mound of coleslaw! The base was super thing and golden brown crunchy. The pizza was split into four pieces and the coleslaw made it hard to grab onto, but it was a good combination of flavours. I think the jerked chicken could've been a bit stronger in spice but that Bourbon glaze was fantastic!

On the other hand, deceptively huge

This is the changed Burrow burger, I don't remember much that was changed but it did have feta, yoghurt dressing of some sort and I think some of the salad was changed. I really liked it though! It was a pretty huge burger, one of those ones you had to squish to fit your mouth around and my Boyfriend said he was satisfied even though we hadn't had lunch that day. Not a hundred percent sure what the balsamic squiggle and oil were there for, but it was a mightily tasty balsamic squiggle.

The chips were solid, crunchy with a clump of sea salt flakes thrown at it. Just going out on a limb here, but flaky sea salt isn't the best thing for chips since they don't cling well. I'd be happy with a ground salt any day. Not that I don't enjoy sea salt flakes, I like how they dissolve in your mouth.

The Burrow:

Atmosphere: 8. Hipster bar. Not my sorta place but if you like that sort of thing, its nice. Clean, lots of menus, weird decorations all over the shop. Not sure what upstairs looks like.
Service:8, prompt and easy to grab their attention. The waitress we had knew the entire special and menu off by heart. I also got called halfway through my order and she came back when I was finished as my Boyfriend didn't remember what I wanted.
Food: 8, delicious! Interesting combinations of flavours, I'd go here again when the hipsters aren't there.

Sushi Taro

You get excited when a new place opens up in your hood, especially if its sushi. I've been eagerly awaiting the opening of this place every since I saw the construction for it begin below my massage haunt and I saw that it finally opened!

Its a very small place and I actually never had time to take a photo of the inside. Since there were so many people around eating. Its a very oddly shaped sushi train layout/bar. It looks like the stylised F shape you get on a violin, I guess its designed to take up the maximum space possible since its such a narrow space.

There's a counter at the front where you stand until seated, there are loyalty cards there too, a little tipping jar and a waving cat. The sushi chefs had a kitchen in the back that you couldn't see which was odd, they didn't stand in the centre probably because there was none. Directly opposite it, are two brightly lit drink cabinets where you can help yourself to whatever. 

Beer and serving cards!

We picked up a Kirks brewed ginger beer and my Boyfriend grabbed an Appletiser, which I didn't take a photo of. The ginger beer was really good, with a sharp gingery zing and excellent bubbles, but not so much you choked. I don't like the Appletiser drinks, they taste like carbonated apple juice or something. You can also see some little cards on the right, all the menu items can be ordered on here, just put down the menu number and a quantity as well as any specific requests as well. Hand it over to your waitress and boom, easy service.

Sushi!

More sushi!

Here is the rather large menu of food you can get here. Since this is a sushi train, I can only hazard a guess to what these items could be, since I picked most of them off the train.

Its like a colourful bird of paradise or something

Crumbed chicken maki. The crumb wasn't very crunchy and quite plain, there was a blob of avocado encased in there and some shredded carrot, daikon and cucumber that did nothing for the roll.

Deliciously messy

Eel hand roll. This was really tasty, messy, but tasty. The eel was a lovely melting texture and the sweet sauce was perfect. This is one the few places that actually have hand rolls on their sushi train going around in circles constantly. Most places in Brisbane have hand rolls on their menus, but you normally have to order them as you want them. I always like the fillings of hand rolls and their appearance but I really dislike the nori sheets used for them since they tend to be a poorer quality and quite dry?

What is that red thing?

Spicy chicken maki. This was not that spicy at all, in fact the only thing different about this roll to the crumbed chicken is that there no avocado, and it is instead covered with a dry chilli powder? Some mayo is there and these red threads, I'm not sure what they are but they don't taste like anything. I asked JGirl and Shishi about it, JGirl's mum says they could be sliced beetroot or dyed red ginger, for appearance only. There is also some lettuce in there.

Two lonely ships in the night

Seaweed salad ships! A good seaweed salad, the seaweed was crunchy, it wasn't overly salty, sweet or dripping wet. It was a well balanced dressing and in addition to that, there was a lot of salad present.

Cloudy miso!

Miso soup! I thought it was quite tasty, super hot and literally just miso soup, tofu and green onions. We got it free cause we picked the membership card when we got to the front to pay! So when the waitress saw us pick up the card, she instantly deducted the price of the miso soup and told us it was free! Hahaha, its part of their membership deal, get a stamp with every $10 spent, and a free miso soup every meal. Once you hit a ridiculous $300 aka 30 stamps, you get $20 off your next meal.

The Italian roll! It was an oddly tasty fusion roll consisting of smoked salmon, cream cheese, some type of lettuce, sun dried tomatoes and basil sauce, which tasted like pesto. It was odd, but it worked. Even my Boyfriend who thinks of cream cheese in sushi as an abomination liked it.

DUN DUN DUN!

Unfortunately the salmon wasn't pinboned properly and I got little shards of bone in my sushi! Le gasp.

Its very uneven looking.

Crumbed prawn nigiri with homemade tartare sauce. This was actually really good, and I normally don't order prawns at a sushi place. The tempura was light and crunchy and the texture of the prawns was still crisp and bursty. It was a very sweet and large prawn, with the tail still attached for convenience sake.

Gross.

 Fish tempura nigiri with mayo and a weird sweet sauce? It looks like honey and tasted quite sweet. The fish itself was very soft, I was a bit weirded out by it. I can't describe it. I love cooked fish, I love smoked fish and I love raw fish. The texture was gross and cloyingly sweet sauce was not a good match. I had another discussion with JGirl and we had no idea what it could be, but she suggested several different fish sauces. She suggested I ask the server next time, NEVER.

What I disliked was that all the nigiri pieces weren't secured with anything and the rice wasn't firmly compacted down. So when you went to pick a piece, the rice would scatter and the topping would lift off, so were left with a mess. I think it would've been good if they had tied a little strip of nori or omelet to keep the topping and rice together. Or even with a sneaky dab of mayo or something to keep it on.

Bleh.

Chicken karaage with spicy mayo. This came with a few different choices of sauce but this sounded the tastiest. The spicy mayo comes with the spice on the bottom, like a tablespoon of spice and then a blob of mayo. Its not really well incorporated and we didn't think to mix it. We dipped straight down the middle and then there was a slight hint of some mild burning, it wasn't to be fussed over.  The little paper pattie was cute but impractical, it stuck to the mayo and required two hands, one to hold onto the chicken, the other to the pattie to remove it.

The chicken karaage itself was terrible. It wasn't super crunchy, you couldn't taste anything, no soy sauce, no ginger, no garlic, no sake or mirin, nothing. It was just deep fried chicken and that was it. Not worth it.

Weird but tasty.

I'm not sure what this is, salmon, cucumber and fish roe maki? A dab of mayo too from the looks of it. It was really good! I like the pop of fish roe and this was no exception. I always love the crunch of cucumber in sushi as well, it provides good textural balance against the softness of fish. The fish was a bit on the cool side for some reason, like noticeably cooler but it wasn't bad.

Sushi Taro:
Atmosphere: 7, its clean and plain. No frills dining.
Service: 8, she gave free miso soup! They quietly accepted our order and stuck it onto our table when least intrusive, like ninjas.
Food: 6, hit and miss. Some things were good and some things were average at best. The presentation wasn't very consistent and quite messy which I found unusual.

RJIE 12: Some sort of Korean Dried Seaweed

How do you feel about seaweed snacks? Its a dried layer of seaweed that is normally crunchy when dry and slighty chewy when moistened by saliva. Its pretty umamai salty and somehow tasty. Some of my friends at work are weirded out by it, but why couldn't you snack on seaweed if you're fine eating it as part of sushi? Logic doesn't work sometimes.

 Apparently these sushi snacks are healthier than stuff like chips, a packet of any seaweed snack weights in at about 4-10g but they fill you up/satisfy your craving for salty crunchy things. Apparently there are low calories, salt content, fat and carbohydrate in them while there are high amounts of minerals and vitamins. Says this.

While I was looking up seaweed snacks, apparently you can make homemade ones by just getting a sheet of nori, brushing it down with toasted sesame oil, sprinkling some salt on it and then baking it in the oven. Neat, will have to try that some time.

Anyway, this is a pretty good brand, I don't know what it says and I originally took the picture upside down. Its a touch on the thin side, I prefer mine slightly thicker, but it has a good flavour and you can get a four pack for a dollar or two depending on where you get it.

What is this, its upside down is what!

So thin! Needs to be slightly thicker.

Ben's Chinese Restaurant

As an ethnic child, nothing was more time consuming than teaching your parent how to do something in a mishmash of English and their native language. For me, it was always with computers. My dad is like early fifties and never grew up with a computer, I'm pretty sure they weren't invented, readily available back then and I'm pretty sure that 1950-1970s Vietnam had bigger things to worry about back then. Like I don't know, the Vietnam war, like recovering from it or fleeing the country on boats.

 For such an intelligent man, my dad just doesn't understand or refuses to understand, how computers basically work. He has piles of meticulously written notes telling him how to turn on a computer, how to save pictures, how to copy links, how to password protect his word documents, how to submit emails and that sort of thing. He is the type of guy who types with two fingers basically.

Herpderpderp.com@yahoo

At the same time he is also a very paranoid, overly cautious and yet entirely mislead by "legit" stuff. He does things like forward chain emails about urban legends, he clicks on online ad banners, he still uses Internet Explorer, he has massive handwritten lists of all his email contacts on sheets of paper and he safely ejects USBs cause it could destroy his work. He once took me home from the library, before we had a internet ready PC, because he was trying to make an email account and he couldn't think of a user name. When I suggested he use his real name, he said the North Vietnamese government could track him down and send him to gaol.

Anyway, both him and VGirl don't have Paypal or Ebay accounts because they refuse to have them in case hackers get their accounts and steal all their money. Yet somehow internet banking is okay without virus protection software. My dad got me to buy him some stuff off Ebay and therein lies the problem.

It was a very painful twenty minute phone call where I had to explain to him how to copy and paste links from his word docx document to the main body of his email since I couldn't open the file, finding the flowers when he was referring to them by the numbers he had assigned them in the email, not understanding that Australia customs confiscates almost everything, explaining that he had to pay postage and handling on the Aussie orchids he wanted, explained I didn't have enough money in Paypal to pay for it and explaining that internet transfers weren't instantaneous.

Yep

To top it all off, I died in Don't Starve on day 82. This is a big deal.

You also never went out, cause your parents didn't trust you to order for them but you could fill out their tax returns and other important paperwork. Ben's Chinese Restaurant used to be the only place my family ever went to when we went out. It was cheap, there were huge proportions, there were menus in Vietnamese and there was karaoke as well. There would be anywhere between 10-20 of us split between two tables, adults and kids of course.

It brought back fond memories and I remembered it was good, so we decided to have dinner there one night. It wasn't as good as I remembered.

The menus were fabulous laminated folders that were slightly sticky.

Chinese banquet

Vietnamese Banquets

Chinese side

More Chinese food

Vietnamese food

Vietnamese side continued and the chef specials

Lunch special

The Vietnamese super special

More Vietnamese food, steam boat!

All the pretty lunch specials

The second page of pretty lunch specials

It was a pretty plain restaurant to be honest, we went on a weekday but it was still pretty busy. Lots of Vietnamese families and older Aussie couples eating, also lots and lots of children running around.

The tables.

We got bottles of water as soon as we sat down, most of our table was laid out already. We also got a basket of condiments including a house made tuong ot, or chilli paste and a bottle of Sriraicha.

H20?

CHILLI!

I didn't particularly want anything from the Chinese side so I went with the Vietnamese side and picked the prawn meat on sugar cane with vermicelli salad (cha tom bao mia yi bom). My mum rarely the prawn meat part because of the sheer number of prawns required to make it to her salad, possibly 90% prawns/pork mince and 10% seasonings. She also complains it takes a while to make which is odd because you just blitz it in a food processor.

Deceptive.

I adored the prawn, it was exactly how I remembered it. It was deliciously savoury, crispy edged, slightly sweet and there were huge amounts of it. I didn't like anything else. The salad was literally a mouthful of soggy carrot pickles, that were so finely shredded to be turned into mush when they pickled, dried out julienned cucumber, bean sprouts and finely shredded lettuce.

This salad was mostly vermicelli noodles to be honest, and the vermicelli noodles used were what is called banh hoi in Vietnamese, a much more delicate strand of noodle that's probably only as thick as a drawn pencil line. Its normally used for weddings and fancy things since its hard to make and topped with a green onion oil. It makes it bloody hard to eat in a salad since this one wasn't well made and it was falling apart with each mouthful.

Regular vermicelli size noodles

Super fine banh hoi type noodles
Technically both could be banh hoi, since they are parcels but the second is more skillful

This is my nuoc mam cham, fish sauce. It was perfectly seasoned, not too salty, not too sour and not too sweet.

Nuoc mam cham

I ordered a coconut juice drink. It was served warm with ice in it. Like bath water warm, all the ice melted in seconds. I wonder if they used those coconut juice packets that you can get frozen?

Not worth the money, buy yourself a packet of young coconut juice instead

My Boyfriend ordered the chicken noodle soup. Exactly as it says on the packet.

Mostly onion.

The soup was good, it had a solid flavour and would be something of the calibre that my mum would produce. My Boyfriend argues that it didn't have much flavour. Unfortunately we both agree that the rest of the soup was terrible, it was marred by the fact that the noodles were undercooked and still a touch hard, the chicken used was just steamed/boiled breast pieces and there was just huge amounts of green and white onion everywhere and not much else. And the kicker?

Ben's Chinese Restaurant:
Atmosphere: 5, your average local Asian restaurant, sticky menus, lots of rowdy Asian kids and none of the waiters speak much English
Service: 5, average. Got our food. We left our umbrella behind and they ignored my Boyfriend for ten minutes, so he just went back inside and picked it off the floor, he had to ask another customer to move to get to it.
Food: 4, pretty bleh all around, thank god its so cheap otherwise I'd be more upset about the whole thing

Lime curd

Lime curd is also known as lime butter, its basically a concoction of lime juice, zest, eggs, and lots of sugar to make a gloriously buttery yellow spread that tastes of intense lime. Every time I see and smell it, its like someone grated a lime in my face and made me lick the sweetened juice after. Its intensely sweet and sour and great on anything that deserves a hit of sweet/sour stuff. I've had it on toast, ice cream, in tarts, glazing on cakes and I personally know my Boyfriend ate the entire jar I made him in a few days of receiving it.

I have big plans of using this in a ton of cakes and things. So watch this space. I've been using it on ice cream, toast, rice cakes with peanut butter and lamingtons too! I have some cream cheese in the fridge so I'll be whipping up some cheesecake in the future I think!

Its very easy to make but its also a bit of a pain in the arse, since its easy to curdle the egg whites since they heat at a lower temperature than egg yolks. Then you get little white pieces of egg yolk throughout your spread that is very visually unappealing. A lot of recipes call for just egg yolks but then I dislike wasting egg whites and I always find myself stuck for ideas with what to do with it, there's only so many coconut meringues a girl can stand! I found this which details how to make a fool proof lemon curd recipe that never curdles. Its fantastic.

This recipe was stolen from Taste.com  since I can't find my original recipe for it.

Lime Curd

Uses: Making your significant other a type 2 diabetic

Ingredients:

100g unsalted cubed butter
1 cup of sugar
1 tbsp of lime zest
1/3 cup of strained lime juice
3 eggs, lightly beaten

Instructions:
1. Zap your limes in the microwave for at least 20 seconds, it helps release more juice. Then roll them on the kitchen bench while squishing them. It also helps release more juice!
2. Zest all your limes, I'm happy if I just zest the limes I needed to get a 1/3 of a cup of juice
3. Juice your limes. Strain so there are no floaters.
4. Cream the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the lime zest. Beat in the eggs slowly. Add the lime juice last

Creamed!

Zested

5. Give it a mix. It'll start to curdle, don't worry that's completely normally. It'll fix itself up once you start cooking it.

Disgusting, curdled filth

 6. Put this into a bowl that fits just above a saucepan of water, double boiler is fine if you're fancy. If you're cheap like me, even a bowl that you're happy to lower the bowl in and out of water when it gets too hot.

Scoop off the thick foam that appears

Thicker damn you!

7.  Heat on a steady medium until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. If you can draw a line through the mixture steadily, its the right shade. It'll thicken further on standing. This could take a while. Alternatively, you can pour it straight into the saucepan and heat it directly since the creaming seems to really reduce the egg white coagulation rate.

Could be thicker, but good enough!