Moose and Gibson

Another new breakfast place that has opened up along Woolloongabba, joining the ranks of such breakfast giants as Pearl, Crosstown Eating House and Foxy Bean. I first found this place by checking out Urbanspoon's newest Brisbane food photos, when I saw an enticing picture of some potato and three cheese croquettes. Then I got really excited when I found that there was no bloggers than had posted anything about them yet. OFF WE GO.

I like their decorations

Jurgens Street is at the back of the main Logan Road/Antique District part of Woollongabba, so only a stones throw away from the cafes I just mentioned. Its a weird area, when we turned down the street we weren't sure if this was the right spot since it was so industrial looking with factories and hardware shops. It was only when I spotted all the hipsters on the wooden deck that I declared, MOOSE AND GIBSON AHOY!

Their opening times!

Its a very cool looking place. I really liked some of the features like the potted plants, the swing, the antler chandelier that I forgot to take a photo of!

This swing is alarming to sit on

Their water barrel

The other side of the sign.

We picked a table outside, or I did for the light haha. We pondered over the menu and I ordered the Mad Moose and Jubi went with the Bircher museli since she likes a lighter and sweeter option most of the time.

Their menu!

As usual, she ordered her usual of English Breakfast tea with honey and milk on the side. She was very happy to find that they got her a teapot and she could get a few cups out of it. It was very runny honey and she enjoyed splashing it on her muesli. I wasn't taken by any of the drink options and so declined a drink. They serve Two Seasons coffee here incidentally.

Tea!

Here is the aforementioned museli. Its a house made mix of goji berries, rolled oats, pepitas and flaked almonds, topped with orange segments, dried apricot chunks, thick yoghurt and finely julienned Granny Smith apple. Jubi really enjoyed her Bircher muesli, she waxed lyrical about the inclusion of goji berries, how the Granny smith apple was julienned and not say diced, sliced or grated and she liked the dried apricots because she was keen on them now. I startled her with the news that what separates bircher muesli from say a normal muesli is that its typically soaked overnight with a mix of different liquids like say, milk or apple juice. Towards the end, she dumped her leftover milk and honey over the remains of the muesli.

A mish mash of museli!

I ordered the Mad Moose! I pretty much always order the biggest breakfast on the menu because it has the greatest number of things to try of their staples. The Mad Moose consists of a choice of eggs, I picked scrambled, one three cheese potato croquette, garlic mushrooms, wilted spinach, roasted tomatoes, bacon, house baked beans, black pudding and toasted Turkish bread. In order of my preference, the tastiest thing was the potato croquette, it was super cheesy, golden brown crunchy and well seasoned. Then the black pudding, I've never had it before but it was rich, spicy and had a nubblely texture to it, I would order this as a main by itself if they could somehow make it, I like offal. The garlic mushrooms were good but I didn't detect any garlic, they were large flat mushroom that were cooked until blackened and shriveled, they had a very meaty texture.

The massive Mad Moose!

My middle point of excellence goes to the house baked beans, which was served warm in a rich tomato sauce that was subtly spicy too. The tomatoes were good considering I don't normally like them. The spinach was also good, it was very, very salty though and garlicky, I normally enjoy saltiness but I had to eat this with other things to balance out the flavour. The shortcut bacon was okay, I didn't find it particularly tasty despite my love of bacon. I know it sounds blasphemous and this is coming from a girl, who has eaten cold bacon before from a leftover breakfast that as I was eating it, the bacon was making me nauseous and I still continued eating it. This bacon was meh, it wasn't crunchy, the colour wasn't great and the fat wasn't rendered. The scrambled eggs were very creamy but they were just scrambled eggs, nothing else added to them, I thought they were very plain and I'm used to breakfast places adding a lot of cheese or herbs to them. Lastly, the Turkish was horrific, I have never had such bad Turkish bread before. Even the Turkish bread that you can get for like three dollars from the Gold Coast bakery is better than this, it has very small holes, was doughy and was bad. It just tasted like normal bread!

On coming home, I stalked online for every mention of them possible, finding out that it was named after the owners two horse dog style mastiffs, Moose and Gibson. They were lounging casually outside the restaurant when we went. They are very cute/sad dogs, with heavy jowly faces that turn from ecstatic dog joy at one minute and then droop into utter despondent sadness the other. They were very well behaved and spent most of their time lapping out of their big water bowl or knocking it over. One of the co-owners is a famous Queensland Reds player. The other co-owners also own Leaf Expresso. Also, horror of horrors, blog posts had begun appearing online, so that is why despite having going with Jubi the day before my post on Greek on Cav, this actually appeared later.

I also went there again with H., and L., the following week for breakfast before work. This time we did order drinks, flat white, cappuccino and a soy latte for myself, H., and L., respectively. I'm not normally a coffee drinker, so I instantly dumped two teaspoons of brown sugar into the mix, it was not bitter, had a nice rounded taste to it and a good aroma. H., and L., liked their coffees too and would've happily ordered another round, if anyone had asked us. H., was jealous that we got prettier coffee and she had the stock standard cocoa scattered cappuccino, while I was jealous of L.'s perfectly shaped pattern. The coffees came in a really small size, like think slightly larger than your average tea cup. That's what it felt like. Their takeaway small coffee is bigger, get that instead. Also they had bags of LAVAZZA COFFEE out, instead of their Two Seasons?

A flat white

Cappuccino

A perfect soy latte with a sip taken out

I ordered the three cheese croquette with house made chutney and cucumber and dill salad despite already having the croquette on my Mad Moose brekkie on my earlier visit. I was really out of ideas on what else to try, since I was only interested in the potted eggs as my alternative. I don't like sweet breakfasts, I'm generally a big eater and I've heard dodgy reviews of the quark eggs, pointing that out a bit as the dud part of the menu.

As earlier they were deliciously crunchy with their golden brown crust, soft mashed potato insides and much more noticeable gooey cheese strings erupting every time I took a slice off. The dill and cucumber yoghurt salad was light, tangy and had a lovely smell from dill, its my favourite herb haha. The tomato chutney wasn't particularly great I think, at least not on this day. I was really hungry so I finished my meal a lot sooner than everyone else did and was pity fed by L., and H., from their plates. I wasn't aware that I could get extra meats and things as a side, so next time I will keep that in mind, this plate would've gone really well with say, a breakfast sausage, some bacon or something to round out the flavours a bit more.

Needs more stuff

L., got the ham, cream cheese and spinach folded omelet with toasted bread. It also came with a little golden curl of butter sprinkled with good sea salt. I know because I ate Hanna's sea salt flakes. It was was a soft and creamy omelet, well seasoned with good colour, on the inside there wasn't much discernible cream cheese present although it did leak a lot of fluid towards the end, there was a lot of thin slices of ham and wilted spinach throughout the omelet.

That omelet was huge, no joke

Ahh the potted baked eggs with chorizo, olive, spinach and tomato sauce. H., had had her eyes on this for so long, either it was going to be really, really, really good or she would be disappointed bitterly as usual. Take note people, this is the first and only time H., has ever chosen a good dish. THE BEST DISH ON THE MENU. The olives were all black and pitted, a salty burst in the rich sauce. The chorizo was some of the best I've tasted with a good medium burn and that tasty hit of paprika and garlic. The tomato sauce was rich and chunky but I wanted it to be spicy but that's just personal. The ciabatta was great and they gave you six slices that were lightly toasted and just small enough to invoke the idea of toasted soldiers into your mind. I think the only actual downside were the eggs themselves, I prefer my baked eggs to have a gooey, poppable centre and you can definitely see that in all of the pictures of the baked eggs that they are cooked right through. Once again, a personal opinion.

It was utterly delicious and I was quite jealous of H., I really should have picked this the first time around and gone for the Mad Moose the second time around. Just an appearance wise thing, the board was quite heavy and took up a fair amount of space on the table, as did all the plates. It looks hard to carry being so heavy and hot as well, I think it'd be better if they had a little depression to slide the baked eggs tray into to allow it to rest nicely on the board and not for it to slide around. Occupational health and safety hooray!

Is beautiful no?

Then H., went there again with some of our workmates who all ordered potted eggs except for Mr M for Megababe who got the Mad Moose and complained that he should've gotten the potted eggs too. Like me, he loves offal.

I also know that Shishi, PeachGirl and HawkMan have all gone here for breakfast as well. Shishi ordered the baked eggs and noted that it was more liquidy than he expected and he'd have liked more bread with the meal. PeachGirl and HawkMan both enjoyed their pancakes reportedly.

Moose and Gibson.
Atmosphere:8, very cool hipster zone. I really like the decoration and little touches like having a different serving plate for each meal, the massive signs they have outside, their lovely chairs, swing set and chandelier.
Service: 6, hit and miss. One of the girls who served us the first time, an Asian lass, was great, happy, chatty and seemed like she was glad to be there, we had a good chat about massages. The other blonde girl who seated us was a bit clueless, she was milling around an awful lot. The second time we were briefly ignored by the two waiters there, before getting a table inside. A big beardy guy and another girl, although the Asian girl was working elsewhere. They seemed a bit new, being a bit hard to signal, not coming back midmeal to ask how things were as this is a great time to get a second round of drinks, they asked us for drinks as soon as we sat down and cleared plates readily enough.
Food: 8, from what I've eaten there, currently one of the best breakfasts in Brisbane if generally a bit on the pricier side. I would be very eager to revisit this place once they've finished work on their lunch menu. I think they have a good future ahead of them if they continue in this vein.

RJIE 14: Almond Croissant at Chouquette

Sometimes I go on rampages for an almond croissant. Only the thought of a lack lustre one or one from Banneton can appease me. So before we went to Little Larder, I spotted Chouquette, which I recalled was supposed to be a solid French bakery and went to investigate. What I thought was funny was that upon seeing the sign, my Boyfriend immediately guessed it was a bakery without even being able to smell anything or see inside.

Apparently the font screams bakery

I felt somewhat dubious when their Aussie staff greeted me with a cheerful, bonjour! That reeks of pretentiousness to me. Exactly how I felt when I was in Sake and my waitress said irasshaimase. That being said, the staff were very friendly, it seemed well loved by patrons at 9am on a Wednesday morning and the selection was huge.

My almond croissant

I got my almond croissant and was a bit disappointed. The croissant itself wasn't particularly good, the filling was a bit custard like in nature, being soft and squishy. The scent of this custard was slightly alcoholic? I find this happens when places use too much almond extract which for some reason has a very strong alcoholic scent. There were very few flaked almond pieces on top of the croissant. I wouldn't get one of these again.

Golden BBQ

I made a new tag a while back called student cheap, that's cheap enough for a student to eat out at, $15 or less for a main including a drink but no dessert. It has to decent enough that you could buy another meal for later on, or bring your mates around for a study session or a quick break from uni here. I initially though of doing a $10 limit but that's near impossible nowadays unless you're buying from one of those small takeaway shops that have like a salad bar and do fish and chips only.

On this occasion my Boyfriend and I were going out . . . to meet up with his parents and his sister, brother in law and nephew who had flown up for the weekend. As always, I was a bit nervous meeting up with his family. I think until I get to know them all better, I'll always be a bit more nervous and I guess you're always more nervous around sisters than brothers. Sisters judge, I know because I am one. Anyway, we meet up at his house and then went off into the city.

Old man just casually strolled into my photo

We headed straight away for Golden Barbeque although yum cha was briefly discussed. I would have never gone into one of these shops if I had been looking for a meal. It's one of those Chinese area essentials where you see sides of roast pork, ducks, chickens, curled up sausages and char siu in the front window and it serves variations on roast meats. In we go!

Not lens flares, just shiny everything.

Everything's chopped, ready for assembling. L-R Soya eggs, cabbage, roasted duck and soya chicken quarters

A massive side of roast pork too!

We got a very wobbly table at the very back of the shop beside the kitchen and were handed these laminated menus.

Getting better at photographing menus!

Same stuff with noodles/rice basically :/

Oh hey choices

And then just meat meat meat

There's a drinks cabinet at the very back near their help yourself hot tea and cold water set up. It had basic Coca-Cola drinks and Lipton Iced teas.

The tea wasn't too bitter actually

Hot dog.

The brother in law picked the char siu and roast pork on top of noodles. I don't think he liked it very much as more than half the meat and noodles were left behind at the end of the meal. You can also see in the corner of the picture the minced ginger, garlic and green onion oil for the roast duck as well as the complimentary soup.

My Boyfriend, his parents and his sister all picked the roasted duck and rice. At the very back there is a side of steamed wombok cabbage. This was finished in its entirety by everyone who ordered it.

Times 4

I on the other hand picked the mighty five treasures, a pick of roast pork, char siu, soya chicken, roast duck and a choice of fried egg or soya eggs. I picked the soya egg because I was interested to see what it was. This is why I left my descriptions of meat until the end because I had a sample of everyone's!

L-R roast duck, char siu, roast pork, soya eggs, wombok on bottom. Soya chicken is hiding

The roast pork is juicy with a nice crunchy and salty golden crackling. The char siu isn't too bad, moist, a bit light on the actual molassy sweet flavour of the basting but still tasty, the colour was nice. The roast duck was tender and juice, had a good layer of fat as well as meat and a crisp skin with no feathers sticking out. The soya chicken was odd, its sort of like a braised/steamed in soy sauce dish and considering the paleness of the chicken, I was really surprised, I was wondering why it was called soya chicken when it honestly looked steamed, not that you can see any in my picture. The soya egg is the same, there is a better flavour in these hard boiled eggs and their whites are slightly darker, but I've had better colour on soya stuff before. All in all, its good but not the greatest examples of any of these barbeque essentials I've had.

Blergh

Here is the complimentary soup that everyone got. Its very cloudy and had pieces of wombok in it I think. Everyone took one sip and pushed it to the side. It didn't really taste like anything besides warm vegetable water. My Boyfriend's dad said, "dishwater would be tastier."

My mouth was on fire.

There is also this super dangerous, dare I say noxious looking homemade garlic and chilli oil/sauce. The oil was delicious and the chilli seeds were firey hot, I dumped it all over my food and some of the oil seeped into my rice. I finished all my food the fastest despite being the last person to receive their meal and I sat there panting for a good five minutes post because of how hot that sauce was. Boy, it was good though!

Golden Barbeque
Atmosphere: 7, could easily be your local super busy, get in, eat and get lost Chinese takeway shop. Laminated menus? Check. Help yourself drinks and tea? Check. Pictures of all the food? Check. Mandarin/English menus? Check. Super busy staff? Check.
Service: 5. We got our food. Yep, that's it.
Food: 6 1/2? I'd go here again, its not the best stuff I've ever tasted barring that garlic and chilli oil, but its a huge feed and for a very good price, I think.

Arabella's Charcoal and Middle Eastern Cuisine

Yass of Redefining the Narrative was briefly back in town and she stopped by to take me out to dinner for my birthday! After I did some serious hinting the day after my birthday, that maybe she had forgotten something. Once again, we fought over where to go and after our first choice of the Persian Restaurant in Cooparoo was closed since it was a Monday, here we are at Arabella's Charcoal and Middle Eastern Cuisine!

They didn't really have a sign

Its located in The Village, a shopping centre surrounded by a lot of food shops in Upper Mount Gravatt just opposite to the Westfield Garden City Centre. I've been past this group of shops a lot but never felt enticed inside when Westfield is just across the road, you know? I think I should now that I know Arabellas is there!

When we roared up there in Yass' mum's very cool flame red convertible, I was a little anxious as we couldn't immediately see if the restaurant was open, we were rapidly running out of options and getting hungry too. Thankfully, it was.

My next biggest fret was if they were halal or not. I couldn't see that Arabic bubble of text that means halal. Yass reassured me that she knew it was halal as soon as we walked beside it because of how "ethnic" the store looked with its shisha in the window, I didn't spot anything else that would be a dead giveaway? She asked and was warmly greeted in Arabic, her and the two guys working there continued to chatter away while I scoured the menus.

This one

These are the menus by the way, not that you can really see them.

They were very laminated

Also teas.

Yass did the ordering and got it wrong, which turned out to be fine as we had attempted to order too much once again. I chose to sit outside in the light beside the entrance after we left, she laughed at me cause I chose it for the best lighting.

I was intrigued by this drink. Yass saw me staring at it and said, "its an ethnic drink." She told me she's had the purple one of these, whatever that flavour may be. This one is a mango Rani Float, I wasn't sure what to expect, maybe a lightly carbonated drink with chunks of mango? When I cracked open that can I got a moderately thick mango nectar with chunks of mango. A pleasant surprise to be honest.

Actually really delicious

Yass got this gasp, is that a Muslim girl drinking alcohol- oh wait! Its a non alcoholic malt beverage that is flavoured with raspberries. I find it strange when things like this look so close to alcoholic drinks, there was also a can of something in the drinks cabinet that looked a lot like a Heineken. I dunno its like fake vegetarian meat, whats the point you know? Weird. It wasn't particularly tasty drink, distinctly malty and slightly fruity.

Its a pretty label anyway.

Raspberry!

Lamb shawerma  was our starter! Strips of lamb, sumac, onions, tomatos and very brightly coloured pickles. The lamb was well flavoured if a bit dry. Tahini and toum that we received in a little dish along with massive plate of flat breads were wrapped up with these bits of lamb and quickly eaten. The tahini was smooth and creamy while the toum gave me a dose of garlic breath that would've knocked out any vampire haha. Yass ate the pickles while my Boyfriend and I ignored them, they are very salty which we both didn't like. There wasn't any sourness or sweetness to them at all and they had an odd wet snap to them, like old cucumbers.

So much lamb

Flatbread looks like paper

We ran out of that sauce pretty fast

We got a side of kibbeh as well, these are deep fried bulghur pockets of lamb mince, onion and pine nuts. I've never had these before and I found them to be interesting. A very thick crunch followed by super temperature hot bits of mince, I think the mince:bulghur ratio could've been a bit higher to be honest. See how there were four of these? I snagged two. They were great piping hot, but since we were polite people, the last one was ice cold when I decided to end its misery.

Lovely football shapped kibbeh!

Insides!

Falafel! Six of them so a bit of a better split between the three of us. Crunchy on the outside and soft and moist on the inside. It was fragrant and thankfully not overwhelmingly flavoured with coriander. Yass told me that she doesn't normally like falafel but these were very good. I had to agree with her and my Boyfriend was busy eating them which indicates good things. He did mention that he liked their shape and how well shaped they were, solid but not dense.

We then got this combination meat platter which consisted of more lamb, a kofta, a shish kebab and chicken tawouk with a side of rice, hummus and pickles. All of this was delicious, with the most delicious being that buried kofta, it was the very last thing left on the plate and we were almost done eating cause we were so stuffed from everything else. My Boyfriend grabbed a third, Yassmin grabbed a larger third and I got the last little bit. It was a deliciously tender, slightly spicy, slighly charred and I feel myself getting misty eyed just thinking about it again. The chicken was also gone really quickly, being juicy and tender as well. The kebab wasn't anything to look twice at.

 Also, the day after we went here, I took my dog for a walk. Siri has never noticed this statue beside my suburb sign ever before. We walk past it every day for the last two years roughly.

Its got creepy eyes

She thought it was real. She kept growling, barking and rushing it to try and make it run away. When I tried to walk past it, she put her body in front of mine and pushed me away to protect me haha.

Silly Siri

Arabella's Charcoal and Middle Eastern Cuisine
Atmosphere: 6, it was a plain store counter with a space for sitting down to eat. Nothing else particularly fancy.
Service: Wary 7, they were very cheerful and friendly, they saw that we were running out of bread and toum so they asked us if we needed a refill and ran off to get it. Yass had a really good chat with them but they did get forget our haloumi wrap until the very end and we had to remind them about it. They were very apologetic but since there was nothing else going on that night, I'm warily giving them a 7, otherwise it would be a 8-9.
Food: 8, I would definitely go here again, delicious food, brought out to you fast.