PPP: Cafe O-Mai

Oh hey a PPP, its been a while since one of those huh? This was prompted by Ms L., and myself wanting to get together. We always try and catch up outside of work but it rarely happens despite living pretty close to each other. Ms L., always gets a bit miffed when she hears me going out with other work mates or if I've been to somewhere new without her. She normally says that "TSG, we should go out sometime! When are you next off!" Then it never eventuates haha.

This time I picked out Cafe O-Mai being close to work and her having the day off, while I was off to work in the evening. It has solid rave reviews on Urbanspoon and it has a fusion Vietnamese restaurant. When I was planning this, a lot of friends who lived nearby were saying that it was very nearby and that it was their favourite local location.

I like the layout of this cafe, the tables are very spacious and the the cafe opens up on all sides, flooding the area with sunlight. Its a very brightly lit cafe and the resulting picture quality was amazing.

Despite having the furthest to commute, I was the first person here at about 8am. I was seated and handed some menus before telling the waitress that I was waiting for a few friends. She quickly passed on the message and I wasn't disturbed again until my friends arrived.

Ms Liz, M., and Gill., were the first girls to arrive. We started ordering teas and coffees for ourselves before the other few people arrived. Cafe O-Mai has Toby's Estate coffee.

Gill.,'s cappachino, she really enjoyed it.

These very cute teapot and cups held English Breakfast teas, enough for three cups worth as well as  a pitcher of milk. Everyone loved the cups especially Ms Liz, who turned the cup upside to find out they were from IKEA. She was very excited since she's been moving into her new house and buying things like pretty crockery.

I got Vietnamese style iced coffee aka ca phe phin. Its a dark French roast coffee, that is served with/over a glass of ice, with condensed milk at the bottom and a small amount of hot water dripping down. Condensed milk is normally used as the sweetener and instead of milk in Vietnam, as the high humidity and temperature, make milk go off easily. Its a very sweet, strong, rich drink, ideal for a hot, lazy day.

I got Vietnamese pork meatballs with quail eggs, cooked in a tomato sauce with a baguette. I was intrigued by the quail eggs since they are a firm favourite of mine. They tasted exactly like my mum's recipe, which is a very good thing! Although they made theirs a lot larger, my mum's are about 20 cent piece size and these were golf ball sized. They are a soft pork mince, crunchy jicama cubes, onion, garlic and a very savoury and rich tomato sauce that they swim around in. Delicious mopped up with that crusty baguette.

Wondering where the quail eggs are? I had no idea where they were when I recieved this dish, they were inside like little Scotch eggs!

This was Gill's choice, Aunty Five's claypot baked eggs with Vietnamese lemongrass and chilli pork sausage, spring onions, tamarind sauce with sourdough. I really love the tangy sourness of tamarind so when I had a taste of this I really enjoyed it. Gill was a bit befuddled by the flavour combination but she said she loved it as well. My only complaint was that the lemongrass and chilli pork sausage was a bit lacklustre, I'm used to getting better ones when I go to Inala.

Ms L., got granola, she's boring like there. It had puffed wheat, oats, prunes, dried coconut pieces, pepitas, strawberries, a little pitcher of milk and that's about it. She enjoyed it but she said the mix at the Foxy Bean is still better.

Everyone else, Chelle, Ms M for Megababe and Lis., all ordered the same Phat Breakfast consisting of a choice of eggs, fried tomato, sweet potato hash cake, mushrooms, bacon, sourdough, lemongrass and chilli pork sausage and a side of avocado. I got Lis.,'s sourdough chunk since her teeth were still aching from her brace. All of these ladies enjoyed their meal thoroughly, I did notice that the sausage was left behind on almost everyone's plate however. After eating, we then proceeded to make the entire cafe very uncomfortable with our bawdy nurse talk.

Cafe O-Mai
Atmosphere: 9, a beautiful, well lit and tastefully decorated little cafe with wonderful furniture too. It was a busy little place, but a little out of the way so you weren't listening to the roar of the nearby Ipswich main road.
Service: 9, wonderful service. Good communication, cheerful, enthusiastic and very prompt when we called them over. They accidentally made Chelle's flat white as a double shot cappuccino, which they gave us for free.
Food: 8, very solid Vietnamese food. The meatballs are just as good as my mum's.

RJIE 16: Lunch at Moose and Gibson

Oh hey, so Moose and Gibson has a lunch menu now? On it.

I picked up a blackberry, honey and yoghurt smoothie. It had a lot of seeds in it as expected of blackberries, I'm the kind of person who chews fruit seeds so I did more chewing than swallowing with this drink. The texture reminded me of a really thick Greek style yoghurt rather than a drink.

My Boyfriend ordered the iced coffee with whipped cream and ice cream. Its a very tasty iced coffee with the lovely taste of their smooth, sweet coffee and a very good vanilla ice cream. I was quite envious, not only of the appearance but the lovely taste of this ice coffee. I stole more than my fair share to be honest.

My Boyfriend ordered the beer battered fish and chips with lemon aioli. The fish was lovely, firm, fresh tasting and deliciously flakey. It was a bit strange looking with its batter due to the smallest size of the fillets, they resembled nothing more than deep fried worms haha. The lemon aioli was intensely lemony, so much so that the lemon was completely ignored by my Boyfriend when he was eating his fish. The house cut chips he stated were crispy and salty.

I got the beef cheek pot pie. The pot pie is super cute by the way, I wish I had little pots this cute for my pot pies, I just use my white hobo ramekins from Target. The beef was meltingly tender, and when I poked it with my fork it just fell apart. The sauce was quite rich, I was a little apprehensive initially due to the small size, but since it was so rich I didn't even finish most of it. The red wine flavour was very strong and almost slightly bitter, like when the wine hasn't evaporated properly? I'm a bit sensitive to alcohol so that's just my impression. I ate most of my salad, except the slightly dodgy chunk of mesculin that had dirt on its leaves still. My chips were floppy, soft but still hard in the centre and had zero salt on them. I stole his aioli to dip the chips into to compensate.

Moose and Gibson
Atmosphere: 8, beautiful as ever.
Service: 8. They've really stepped up their game since the last time I was here. Much more prompt and welcoming.
Food: 6, not particularly excited by the lunch menu. Some things were good but a bit hit and miss.

Sticky Chicken

Every home has their own sticky chicken recipe. This is one of ours, specifically my mum's one. I have no idea how she came up with this recipe but its a cracker. Its sticky, sweet, salty, a bit sour and super garlicky! All the best things in a sticky chicken recipe.

Un/fortunately its also Vietnamese so its got fish sauce in it. You have to put it in a hot pan and it stinks up the house. I don't know what the ratios are, you just do.

Sticky Chicken

Uses: Delicious chicken for dinner, fumigation.

Ingredients:

Oil
Chicken wings/drumsticks
Fish sauce
Sugar
White Vinegar
Minced garlic

Instructions:
1. Shallow fry your chicken at a medium heat in oil, until it is this brown. Pat dry and place aside.

2. While you're waiting for your chicken to cook through and brown, mince up some garlic. Set aside.
3. Mix up at least 3 tablespoons of sugar, vinegar and fish sauce together. It should taste a lot like nuoc mam cham.
4. Brown your garlic in a large saucepan. Throw the sauce on top, avoid the fumes and when its starts bubbling like this, coat your chicken in it. Toss rapidly to ensure a good coat.

5. Serve immediately in all its garlicky goodness. No pics cause I ate them all already.

Pablo

Pablo has been on my go to list for about three years. It has also been on H.,'s go to list forever. Know what that means? H., would kill me if I ever went without her and vice versa. So after three years, here we finally are!

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNN

This was their specials board the day we went. Just some soup :).

Specials

This is their very interesting menu, a bit more than the usual eggs and bacon for breakfast. They offer all day breakfast! If you're lazy like me, all day breakfast is a big deal haha.

Breakfast menu

Lunch!

Cold drinks

Cold drinks 2

Hot drinks!

They asked if we wanted drinks as soon as we got our menu. I ordered a flat white and H., ordered a soy latte as usual. Then we realised there was a very large drinks menu, H., went pelting after the waiter to order a pink grapefruit juice while I ummed and ahhed before not changing my order. I always feel a bit of a pain when I change my order, which doesn't help my indecisiveness. I really wanted to reorder to either a tin of the Oreo milkshake or the blueberry, strawberry, vanilla ice cream and milk smoothie. My flat white was smooth, strong and delicious. I downed it in pretty much one shot, they stock Genovese here.

My flat white

They have really cute vintage spoons. I have no idea how or why I get the impression that these spoons are vintage. I feel like I've seen very similar ones at like flea markets and op shops however.

Cute vintage spoons

H.,'s pink grapefruit juice was nice, slightly bitter, tart and sweet all at once. She really liked it. The juice looks really shiny because we sat outside and H., endured having the sun shine in her eyes for ten minutes before she hid on the shady side with me haha.

Shiny pink grapefruit juice

H., ended up getting the confit of portabella mushrooms with a feta and herb crumble, braised fennel, dill scrambled eggs, smoked tomato compote, crumbled feta, a lemon wedge and rye and caraway toast. That's a bit of a mouthful isn't it! Wait until you see that portabella mushroom! As you can guess, with a mushroom this size, the texture was very meaty and tender, it was bigger than the slice of bread beneath it! The herb and feta crumble was delicious, like the crunchy bread crumbs you get on top of a macaroni and cheese bake, so flavoursome and crispy. The feta was nice and salty, a good contrast to the rest of the dish. The roasted fennel was sweet with a mild aniseed flavour. The bread was also delicious! The dill scrambled eggs, were almost exactly how I make mine at home except a touch more set. A very good dish all in all. Good work H.,!

Phoar, what bread? Mushroom only!

On the other hand, I ordered smoked salmon, verjuice pickled apple and fennel salad, dill scrambled eggs, smoked tomato compote and seeded peasant toast. The smoked salmon was good, as smoked salmon always is. The pickles were odd, palate cleansing but odd. The eggs were just as good as H.,'s and I loved my butter soaked bread. I wasn't overly impressed with this dish to be honest. I wish I had gone with my conflicting choice of slow cooked mince.

Smoked salmon!

Pablo
Atmosphere: 8, the interior is lovely. I wish I had taken photos of it, but there were too many people floating around. Just like the outside tables, they were very well lit and just above us, was a little alcove where two guys were happily sitting. H., was quite jealous and was keen to come back and sit in that little sunny nook.
Service: 7, not bad. Nothing spectacular, and I don't recall anything besides, it wasn't bad. Prompt seating, menu arrival and water.
 Food: 8, I'd definitely go back here again. The food is very interesting for a breakfast menu and the flavour combinations were very solid.

 

Wagaya

I remember when Wagaya first opened, I was so excited to see it here as I had been to its flagship store in Sydney. It was on Urbanspoon talk of the town for almost two years before it finally dropped off. What was special about the Wagaya chain and its sister stores, was that you could do all your ordering on iPad screens where you could see an image of the food, a brief description as well as the price. You could also easily order food and ensure that it was freshly made, especially with dicey things like sushi. The restaurant is set out into corridors of cozy little booths surrounding a iPad, which is slightly dimly light and also quite soundproofed against other diners. The very back of the restaurant contains larger sitting rooms which you can hire and sit anywhere from 10+ people quite comfortably.

Its a bit hard to find

You can check out their entire menu online, although there are a few additions that they always seem to be working on. Brisbane only lunch menu.  Here is their dinner menu. Their extensive drink and cocktail menu.

The screen! Above it are rules to follow.

Jubi was keen for a salad and requested the tofu and seaweed salad. It contains a mass of bonito flakes, rocket, spinach, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, corn, soft blobs of tofu under it all and a mass of slippery green seaweed on top. The combination of flavours was interesting and I quite liked this salad, although the dressing was strong and odd, a mix of seaweed salad dressing and something else. T., has never really eaten Japanese food before so we bullied her into eating some crunchy green seaweed and she said it was quite nice. The tongs that came with this dish however, are stupidly made, they are quite heavy and don't pinch things very well.

Jumbly

I wanted edamame as a snack and Jubi curiously agreed. She said she had never tried it before and that she had seen it on anime and in manga before. Edamame are young hairy soy bean pods boiled in a salt/soy sauce mixture, they are normally served cold, you just pop out the beans and eat them while discarding the pods. Despite the strong sounding taste of having things boiled in soy sauce, the flavour is very subtle in the beans themselves. These were served slightly warm which I disliked, but the flavour was quite good. After some initial hesitation and watching what I did with them, Jubi and T., began eating them as well. They polished off most of them I think. I was busy ordering more food!

Hairy

Takoyaki!You can't really see it to be honest, as there is stupid amounts of bonito and mayonnaise covering them but there were four squishy octopus balls there. I like takoyaki, it has that crisp golden shell, before yielding to a creamy filling with tender bits of octopus throughout it. This one wasn't particularly good as I found the octopus to be particularly chewy. I bullied T., into eating this as well and she said she really liked it but I think found her discretely spitting out the bits of octopus into her tissue.

I've had better ):

We picked out vegetable tempura as well. I'm not really a fan of tempura vegetables, most because they are deceptively fried and sometimes the vegetables chosen are weird. We had carrot, pumpkin, zucchini and lastly red and green capsicum. Jubi ate most of this. It was light, bubbly golden and crunchy.

I got pork gyoza as well. These were quite tiny, their skins weren't as crunchy as I'd like although the filling was quite tasty. They were still a little wet from being boiled despite having being fried.

I thought I had taken more pictures of the drinks we ordered but I guess not. This was the Topaz mocktail, a mixture of calpis, grapefruit juice and some other things I cannot recall. T., had this drink and like it more than my Garnet drink.

Shio ramen was picked next! A soy sauce based soup that was warm and creamy. There was a surprising spice to the soup that caught me off guard at first, I choked on my first swallow and had chilli burn. T., and Jubi were forewarned by me and said it wasn't particularly spicy, guess it was just when you were surprised. There were egg noodles, seaweed, green onion and a soy boiled egg in this stock.

Yakitori, a soy sauce based chicken skewer were tender, juicy and well seasoned. We were getting really full by this stage.

Salmon skewers were gobbled up by Jubi. I passed despite normally liking salmon.

This was the chicken katsu crunch roll, chicken katsu cutlets, avocado, sushi rice and topped with a layer of golden panko crumb. These were tasty but we had had so much, I basically just shredded it to pieces from boredom.

Wagaya:
Atmosphere: 8,
Service: 5, pretty average despite its touch screen ordering. I wish the waiters grabbed more plates when they were clearing tables.
Food: 6, I feel like my standards have increased since I've started going here. It is a very good starting block for people who haven't had Japanese before. The cocktails are still as good as ever however and I'd gladly go back for those alone.

Chorizo and Cheese Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki?

Siri loves this recipe and so should you. I made this for five meals in a row. I can't even eat my Mama Pham's pho for three meals in a row, let alone five. I really find it difficult to eat the same food for more than two meals in a row, no matter how delicious, first world problems much.

There's not really much to it. Mix anything you want into the batter, add some extra water or stock to make the batter a bit thinner if you want. I normally use the majority of the thin batter to cover up the ingredients that could be lost in the frying pan. It cooks quite well but it makes it a bit dome shaped.

Why did I use chorizo and cheese? It was the only meat in my pantry is why. It was actually really delicious. I wouldn't knock the combination until you tried it.

Chorizo and Cheese Okonomiyaki

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 cup of dashi or water or stock
1 cup of plain flour
1/2 white part of a leek
2 1/2 cups of shredded cabbage
1/2 julienned medium carrot
200g of corn kernels
1-2 tablespoons of finely diced green onion
As much chopped up cured chorizo and cheese as you can stomach
Cooking oil

Instructions:
1. Mix the eggs, water and flour together into a paste. Thin with more water if desired.
2. Add everything, barring the chorizo and cheese, into the paste. Mix lightly until just combined.
3. Heat up a small frying pan with a splash of cooking oil, one of the smallest ones you have, on a low medium heat.
4. When the oil starts to become hot enough to shimmer, put in a blob of the okonomiyaki batter into the centre of the pan. Spread it out in like a well, with the edges being thicker, and the centre being quite thin.
5. After the batter begins to cook, throw your chopped chorizo and cheese into the centre. Pour a small amount of the thinner batter on top.

6. Flip over and allow to cook until evenly brown. Serve with Japanese mayonnaise and tonkatsu sauce immediately.

The Dark Chocolatier

I really like the products from the Noosa Chocolate Factory. They have really interesting combinations of chocolates, a really high quality chocolate, a large range of different products and they tend to sell them in small enough amounts that you can buy enough for a little pick me up without feeling bad.

They've been appearing for the last two years or so at the Jan Power Markets in the Brisbane CBD. Then they mysteriously sprouted two shops on Adelaide Street and I felt myself drawn into them despite their lack of savoury goods. This is the rest of the store by the way. Its a very narrow, timber floored place with trays bearing the name of the company filled with either slabs or self serve chocolate.

Pretty pretty pretty

Don't mind if I do

All the packaged bars and slabs

In addition to chocolate, they also do a roaring trade in hot chocolate and coffee.

So many hot choccies

More menus!

I went here with T., we decided to have some hot chocolate to warm us up before we went to dinner that night. We were a bit stuck for ideas but both agreed that a pure milk hot chocolate would be too sweet so we both got the 56% Ecuadar hot chocolate.

Huge semi dark chocolate

It was the best hot chocolate I've ever had. I could've easily had half of this with T., and we'd have both been satisfied by the end of it. Due to high quality of the chocolate used, this drink was incredibly rich and sweet. I shudder to think what their much sweeter milk chocolate would taste like and I love sweet drinks. I've had larger quantities of hot chocolate before, say at Max Brenner or at Starbucks or something, but due to way its made, I could not match it drink by drink. I feel toasty warm after having a few sips, and it was also at that perfect temperature where you have to cautiously sip to have some of your drink. We were there for almost half an hour, drinking and chatting before we pulled off the lids to see how far we had gotten. Both of us had barely gone down by half a cup.

We also picked up some random chocolate while we were there. At the time we went there we had gotten, milk chocolate honeycomb and milk chocolate hazelnuts, dark cranberries, inca berries, goji berries, strawberries, blueberries, pistachios, almonds, macademias, peanuts and cocoa dusted dark macademia pieces. My pick of the lot were the dark cranberries which had a lovely sourness to them and went well with the oily richness of the dark chocolate.

The Dark Chocolatier
Atmosphere: 7, the yellowed lighting here is somehow oddly soothing and cheerful. I like the bustle of the place and how its a nice place to just pick out some chocolates and meet up with friends for a hot chocolate.
Service: 7, fast, friendly and cheerful service from the lone lady at the front desk. She personally finds you if you've wandered away while waiting for a chocolate. She also kept picking up my umbrella which kept falling down haha.
Food: 10, some of the best chocolate found anywhere as well as the best hot chocolate. When I want to impress someone, I buy chocolates from this place, its that good. Every time I see my Boyfriend's parents I buy them a bar of dark chocolate here, they really like the dark chocolate and chilli slab.