Char Char Yiros

Char Char Yiros! I picked this place to go to when my French cousin was in town. He hadn't ever had Greek food and I thought it would be good to try, especially since he had been exploring West End and other bits of Brisbane all day.

For once, I didn't bother taking a photo of the place. This place is ridiculously easy to find being on the corner of Boundary and Russell Street in West, straight across from the Suncorp ATM and next to Ouzeri, another Greek restaurant. Its the slightly shabbier looking place next door, the storefront is basically a kebab/dessert display, drinks cabinet, menus and a place to order. It looks like your standard Aussie takeway shop. 

Here is their menu.

The night we went almost everyone ordered variations on the charcoal dinner plate, which consists of hand cut chips, Greek salad, grilled haloumi, pita bread and yogurt and garlic sauce and your choice of main protein. So really, the only difference is the protein. I'll explain my dish since I got the meze dinner which had an assortment of the main charcoal meats and a few others. The proteins I received were charcoal chicken, lamb and a puck of falafel, I was supposed to receive sheftalia, which is a pork sausage, but I didn't have any in my dish. I didn't really care though, I was already pretty full working my way through half this meal.

Both the chicken and lamb had a wonderful charcoal flavour, that smoky scent that makes your mouth water, with no excess fat and a tender texture. The lamb was my favourite of the two, since I had some oddly crunchy chicken pieces. I disliked the falafel, it was almost overcooked with the darkness of its colour and very distinctive thick crunch when I bite into it. It was very dense without the spices I normally enjoy in falafel and it had lots of pinenuts in there too. VGirl seemed to like it, and I gave her mine after the first bite.

So much food

The chips are absolutely delicious, they're cooked in rice bran oil which is basically liquid crack in my eyes. I have no idea why, but it imparts such a wonderful flavour to things its cooked with. I ate my chips first, no joke, then I some of VGirl's when she wasn't looked and pinched my dad's, cause that is what family is for. I found these chips so unbelievably delicious, I swear VGirl's probably couldn't eat them because of how savoury delicious they were, MEAT MUST'VE BEEN INVOLVED SOMEHOW.

Chicken dinner plate

The haloumi is delicious, thin slices that have a great golden colour and a squeaky texture. Nothing more to say, just some solid haloumi. I found that everyone received a large amount of pita bread slices which we used to wrap everything in, in one neat little bundle. The garlic and yoghurt sauce was okay, but I avoided it due to its lack of garlicky flavour and the impending doom of my lactose intolerance kicking in, it wasn't good enough to risk being unwell all night.

VGirl's falafel

The Greek salad was filler for me, baby spinach leaves, tomato, a few assorted olives, cucumber and purple onion with an olive oil and oregano dressing. I was too busy eating other things to care about salad, VGirl ate the tomatoes and I found them to be slightly overripe. I didn't have any olives in my dish but VGirl had about five so we swapped, they were intensely salty.

French Cousin's lamb dinner plate

For some dumb reason, I decided we should have appetisers since we're eating with boys and boys eat a lot right? Yeah they eat a lot, as in finished their mammoth proportions but then they didn't finished our massive appetisers. We got the trio of dips with pita bread, we picked the beetroot dip, eggplant dip and spicy chilli dip. The beetroot dip is unremarkable, so much so I have no idea what it tasted like while the chilli dip have the wrong sort of notoriety with the red side tasting as if straight from a bottle of chilli sauce and the right side tastes like tomato sauce. The eggplant dip was amazing, I don't even know how to explain it, it was soft, smokey, creamy and I smeared it on everything. I scrapped that bad boy dry, VGirl, my dad and my French Cousin got in on the action too.

L-R, beetroot, bread, eggplant, bread, chilli

Z., saw my pictures on Facebook and scheduled a lunch here that week. I was free so I went along as well. Despite my warnings about the enormity of the portion sizes, everyone got a charcoal dinner and couldn't finish their meals. Considering how many people went, myself, Jubi, my Boyfriend, S., Z., A., H., and Ms. Chatterbox, if every other person had ordered a meal, we'd still have had too much food. We ended up asking for takeaway boxes which they gave us free of charge to take away food in. H., apparently made her fiancee a meal out of the leftover meat which he loved.

We went during they day, so you can see much prettier and brighter photos! I know I'm a bad food blogger but I figured everyone else would order something else. I was completely wrong.

Chicken lunch platter!

My Boyfriend ordered a chicken dinner platter as well as lemon potatoes. The lemon potatoes are quite obvious, with a distinctive lemon flavour and the scent of zest floating around. They were scattered with shredded oregano as well. They were served reheated with that odd chewy skin that roasted potatoes have when reheated. I can imagine these being amazing when fresh out of the oven, as you could tell the skin would've been crunchy while the insides were fluffy and the smell would've been overwhelming. Unfortunately this was all underwhelming, S., heartily agreed with us when she tried some.

So close but so far

Z., ordered the octopus and chicken dinner. That octopus was honestly the best I've ever had, she offered me a piece and I ate about five. I just couldn't believe the texture of that octopus, so unbelievably tender that I honestly though I was eating chicken. I had to check a few times to make sure they were tentacles I was eating and not pieces of chicken. I was expecting that octopus to have a slightly rubbery texture but it didn't! I'm so amazed at that octopus even now and that octopus has set the standard for all future octopus.

She also had the eggplant dip on my recommendation. I found this time the eggplant dip had a slightly metallic, fizzy taste on the tongue that reminded me of baking soda? I had some of mine and some of Z.,'s but I was the only person to taste it. It really turned me off eating it.

Oooh octopus

S., came with us today! Somehow every time we go out it seems to be before her night shifts, I don't know how she does it! She ordered the prawn and lamb combination dinner and we both praised the prawns for their intensely garlic flavour, they were quite large prawns although you can barely see them in that picture and still plump and juicy.

Prawn and lamb dinner!

My little chicken lunch

Jubi went with us as well and since she had eaten a large breakfast, she decided to order a vegetarian yiros. I didn't bother taking a picture since they tend to look pretty much the same, regardless of location. With that being said, she complained that the yiros she had was absolutely horrific, due to the poor quality of the lettuce being used. It was brown, limp and mildly slimy, in the manner of lettuce left out too long without proper preservation. I wasn't keen to try it but I did see the lettuce they used in the shop and I can very clearly imagine what it tasted like. Bleh.

Char Char Yiros
Service: 5, cheerful counter service, nothing too flash. We got given a weird swinging thingo to scare off flies the time we went for lunch. On both occasions, someone was waiting until the last second to get their meal, the first time being my French Cousin and the second time was S., We had to remind the waitresses both times for their meals to arrive.
Atmosphere: 5, not exactly the flashiest of places. Basically a jumped up local takeaway. Its nice for just a casual catch up with friends.
Food: 7, everyone mostly loved the food, my Boyfriend and Jubi didn't. In general, the food here is quite good, although its best if you pick food that is freshly prepared. The portions are very generous although the presentation is quite haphazard. It seems like whatever dish is free is what is used, so there's not much consistency between two dishes that are exactly the same.