Birthday Post! Tobaki

How appropriate to celebrate my first hundred posts with a birthday post! It was my birthday on the 25th of May, I actually had the time off this year and spent the day with my Boyfriend and family. Here are some of the things I did, most of my friends are working full time, in exam mode or overseas so there wasn't a good time to catch up. I don't really expect much at all on my birthday so this year was one of the better ones.

After some issues with public transport, we arrived at Rocklea Markets. Run to the food court! There was this delicious roti stall there. You can also hire the ladies who work here to do roti for stalls or a party even.

Their stall

Here is their menu.

+_+ eat all the roti

We got there a bit late so when I asked for the roti canai, the chicken curry one, she explained there wasn't much actual chicken left, so she would give me the sauce and a container of veggie curry too. Happy to accept extra food always. The chicken curry was a very thin curry sauce with shredded barbeque chicken in there, it was tasty but the veggie curry was so much better. Much much thicker, you could scoop up huge chunks of it, there was an amazing aroma from the spices used and you could see pieces of mustard seed, pepper, potato and other things all in the curry. It was really good. The roti itself was perfect, light, crispy, paper thin and buttery, it was freshly made on the spot by a bored looking Malaysian lady, good god, I'd have eaten hundreds and hundreds of these just plain.

Veggie curry on the left and chicken one on the right

I got some cold apple tea from a Turkish place right beside the roti stall. It was a slightly cooler than room temperature drink which was very sweet and barely had any tea flavour at all. That being said, it had a very pronounced apple flavour, think apple Starburst chews, that kinda KAPOW intensity.

Such a dark colour

I also chugged down an orange slushie. It was a very good orange juice, no pulps, seeds or extra sugar added, with just a tiny bit of ice in it. I wish it had come fresh from the churning ice machine they had in the back, but otherwise very good.

This place

Coming back home we dropped by Sunnybank and picked up a coffee bun from Pappa Roti as well as a birthday lychee crush from Boost Juice. You can pretty much only get one of these at the Sunnybank Plaza Boost Juice, its a mix of ice, sorbet, lychees and mangoes. Did you know you can get a free Boost at any Boost outlet on the day of your birthday if you have their Vibe membership card? I know VGirl and her friends love to hit up as many as they can in one day when their birthday comes around.

So many drinks!

We got home and unloaded my purchases. I got two hot cured chorizo, 500g of hazelnut meal, 500g of mushrooms, two organic bulbs of Aussie purple garlic, 200ishg of chestnuts, organic unwaxed Stanthorpe pink lady and granny smith apples, green grapes and two punnets of strawberries.

So much stuff!

Later that evening we went out to Tobaki! I heard from Dr. H and Yannikins that this was a good buffet restaurant to go to since it had a lot of meat and was reasonably priced. Its located near a few other places I've wanted to go to for a long time like Taste of Penang and Crazy Wings, so I was very happy when I saw it.

Too many people milling around to get a good shot

That being said, this place is stupid chaotic and was designed by a moron. There is clearly way too many people for the size of this place with about 20-30 barbeque tables being placed at the back and constantly expanding into the parking lot to accommodate more customers. When we got there at about 7pm, they had already expanded into two parking spaces as well as all the available sidewalk in front of their restaurant and around the corner. By the end of the night they had moved into the fourth parking spot and the customers at Taste of Penang were watching warily at this subtle takeover. Why don't they just hire out a bigger restaurant?

There is one counter that was manned on the night we went by a young guy in casual polo shirt and jeans, everyone else that is waiter staff is running around in all black Tobaki gear. We stood around for about ten minutes with another family as we were trying to figure out who to ask to get a table. VGirl finally asked the young guy who was standing around who we had to ask to get a table and he sorted it out for us right then and there. They pulled out a table for us and put it down beside the bumper of the second parking space.

The food itself is keep in the storefront, a bit behind the counter. So imagine you're facing right into the shop. On the left is the counter, then a rice cooker, kimchi and beef soup, chicken soup and bowl of green onions. Beside that is fresh vegetables like mushrooms, onions, corn, sweet potato, potato and really tasty gyoza, tongs, scissors, spoons as well as an assortment of sauces. Next to this is fresh salad spot with lettuce leaves and mixed dressed garden salad. The first of the cold displays with mussels, octopus, prawns as well as kimchi and that glazed sweet potato banchan. Beside this is the meat display, which has marinated beef rib, chicken and pork, plain pork belly and flank steak.

This is all on the left hand side and there is only one of each display. Each display is only 1m long and placed against a wall, with a narrow space for kitchen staff to run in from kitchen and dump additional food. At the back are barbeque tables and on the right is shelf of utensils as well as a drinks cabinet.

This is a massive problem as it heavily reduces good movement throughout the shop. You stand in an awkward queue as there is only one place to grab food and due to the restaurants popularity you end up hoarding food and running away every time something is restocked. At the beginning of the day the utensil shelf was stocked, they did not restock it for the entire duration of the night.

Inside our table

Before they put down the grill and the charcoal.

This is our first set up. Pork belly strips on the left then going clockwise, marinated chicken, onions, potatoes, really squishy tofu and then marinated beef.

This was on my right hand side, a whole bunch of water, a large plate of kimchi, some chicken soup with buckwheat noodles, some beef japchae and you can just see some lettuce at the top. That raw meat is some marinated chicken. That cup in the middle is some really nasty honey and barley drink.

Pretty much the same picture but some corn appeared, and VGirl's hand.

A few minutes later

This was several minutes into our first grilling. Everything is starting to get some really nice colour on it and we began cutting the pieces up into smaller sizes so it could cook faster.

We quickly rushed away to get more food. Some more beef ribs here and marinated pork which Mama Pham is turning. After this lot cleared, we didn't really eat much more, we were nibbling at gyoza when it came out and grilled corn. The potatoes never really cooked all that nicely, they had a slight bitter taste to them from going near fatty pieces of meat and burning that way. The tofu fell apart and was very soft to the touch, I'd have thought a firmer pressed tofu would've been the way to go for grilling. All the marinated meats were very good but the plainer ones I'd have avoided.

Tobaki
Atmosphere: 3. It was super busy and cold despite the outdoor heaters. We were sitting in the parking lot for god's sake. Also please read my extensive complaint about the stupidity of their layout.
Service:  3. It took them forever to notice us, and it was hard to get their attention.
Food: 7, the marinated meats were good as was the gyoza. Generally the quality of food was quite good, only the tofu and the soups stood out as being absolutely terrible. I'm not 100% sure I would go here again though, maybe with friends and people who didn't complain all the time like Mama Pham.