Green Papaya

At the end of 2013, we went through a really bad phase where we would go out to hip restaurants without a reservation and get knocked back every time cause we were in a big group without a reservation. I've always been really casual/last minute as a diner, the most organised I am is picking a place, a date, the menu, who bloggers/Urbanspoon thinks of it and who I'm going with. Finer details such as booking the restaurant, finding a way there and whatever else aren't worried about.

Green Papaya was our second choice as we got knocked back from Red Lotus. We all vaguely recognised the name, checked out the menu online and weren't adverse to having Thai for dinner so away we went!

Oh this place!

It was a bit touch and go at first as they asked us if we have a reservation too. Thankfully they let us into the back of Green Papaya aka the front of Pawpaw! I think all the people who didn't have reservations ended up back here with us haha. I didn't manage to get any photos of the front of Green Papaya but it was very solemn/serious looking, a nice place to go for a date.

I liked our table setting

I ordered the Thai lemon iced tea.It was very sickly sweet and served slightly warm despite the ice cubes in the glass. I didn't like it and neither did my Boyfriend.

Sweet :(

I ordered the Thai fishcakes as an entree and requested to have them arrive first. I received four fragrant and super hot fish cakes with a side of sweet chilli sauce. They were fragrant with that crispy/chewy fishcake texture and lots of lemongrass and shredded kaffir lime leaves to flavour the mixture. With that being said, it was a struggle to finish them because they were quite watery? Not oily, but distinctly watery and they felt like they squirted you when you bit into them. JGirl, Dr H and my Boyfriend had one bite and politely declined another.

Hmmm

I ordered the ayam cincane, grilled chicken in a mild chilli, tumeric, coconut and tamarind sauce. There wasn't much else in the curry besides chicken and the sauce, once I had eaten the garnishes. It was very good that I had gotten the rice because I wouldn't have been able to enjoy my curry sauce without it. The sauce was absolutely wonderful, so fragrant with creamy, creamy coconut, that slight heat from the chilli and the slightly sour note of tamarind to round things out. The grilled chicken was tender, but really, I'd have been happy for a bowl of that curry sauce and some plain rice to round things out.

Mmmm so good with the coconut rice

This is VGirl's vegetarian mee goreng it had lots of jumbled cut up veggies, carrot, cauliflower, red capsicum, onion and broccoli! I liked that they cut the carrot into a little star/flower shape haha, very visually appealing. VGirl ordered hers mild and she was very happy with the meal, I had a bit of the noodle and found the seasoning to be a bit on the salty side but tasty nevertheless. She finished her meal in record time as usual haha.

Veggo mee goreng!

JGirl and I both ordered coconut rice which came out in this single serve, we were both quite puzzled and we had to ask our waitress about the second portion. They had served it to us on one plate, and we were both disappointed with this because it made out serving size seem a lot smaller than we had initially though. Side portions of rice are one of those things that are weird in a restaurant, cause somehow that big a portion never seems enough for how much you pay for it. This rice was well cooked, fragrant, firm but not hard separate grains of rice with a creamy texture and shreds of coconut mixed throughout.

Rice!

This was one of the chef's specials so it doesn't appear on their online menu. Dr H ordered this as she had been existing on a pure chicken breast and fish diet for the last month and wanted something different. This was the soft shell crab in some type of salty, tangy and sweet sauce. It was amazing, you wanted to lick off every vegetable to savour the sauce whatever it was. The soft shell crab was deep fried to have a crunchy exterior and the white flesh was so sweet and soft, a wonderful contrast! I did find the sauce to be a bit overpowering when I had more than a few pieces, it would've gone well with some rice I think.

Ohhhh so tasty.

JGirl ordered this, the duck jungle curry with fresh pineapple, lychee, cherry tomato, capsicum and I forgot what else! Served in a hollowed out pineapple. The flavour of this sauce was quite similar to mine, with a much more noticeable sweetness from all the sweet fruits involved. I really enjoyed the pineapple, it was one of those perfect ones that are sweetly tart, juicy and taste like summer! The lychees weren't bad either but I don't think they were fresh somehow. I don't remember what the duck tasted like but JGirl did polish off this meal very easily.

Pineapple!

This is my Boyfriend's beef rendang. It's not a bad rendition, the meat was tender and the sauce was mildly spicy. We got into an argument as I stated my piece of beef was cold, while he said his was almost too hot to eat. I know I can make a better beef rendang so I didn't have much of this.

Darker please

Green Papaya
Atmosphere: 7, intimate little dining spot, a great place to go to impress someone I think!
Service: 8, quick, friendly and expert service. They were able to give us a good recommendation for drinks and meals when we wanted it. Frequent top ups of our water while we were being cheap, fantastic service.
Food: 6, I would definitely go back here. The meals are a little pricey and some of the meals are a bit strongly flavoured, but they were all very tasty and good portion sized. If I wanted to go somewhere nice with friends I would highly recommend this spot.

Mighty Mighty Cue and Brew

My workplace started a social club so we can get together after work, raise money for charity and whatever else we wanna do. Big V and Lis., are in charge of it and thus far, we've just been going out to new restaurants. I managed to go to the first one which was Might Mighty Cue and Brew, but didn't get to make it to Papa Jacks.

We decided on Mighty Mighty, as when we went it had just started making big waves in Brissie being underneath the new apartments in the Valley. Lis., is a major aficionado of American food and has gone to nearly every single American restaurant in Brisbane, so when we were looking at the menu for this place we were in heaven. We tried to get a booking for 10 for Papa Jacks but they were unable to book us, so Mighty Mighty was out second option. Here is their menu!

I took like 10 pictures to get this one right

Its a very, very open space with a super high ceiling, wide open spaces with a large courtyard, giant floor to ceiling windows and lots of glass doors everywhere. The acoustics in this place are absolutely shocking, I had to really struggle to make myself heard to someone sitting across from me and visually, everyone around us was just chatting quietly. There was one really loud table but they were far enough away that I couldn't hear what they were saying, although I could hear them laughing.

Mustachioed cowboy

In hindsight, most of us ordered sides and we should've got the three sides for $18. That would've made the meal slightly cheaper for all of us. Anyway, first thing we got was the buffalo wings with a side of blue cheese vinegar dipping sauce, we got two serves of this. The chicken was tender and I absolutely hated the sauce. Sour, tangy in the way of tomatoes and mildly spicy, Lis and DJ Kez were sweating up a storm though. The blue cheese dipping sauce was even worse somehow, I think they combined way too much vinegar and a very strong blue cheese to make a really strong, creamy textured, sour and stinky feet rankness. My Boyfriend, who hates blue cheese, commented that it tasted rancid like bile, that hot sour acidity, and refused to touch it again.

Absolutely disgusting

My Boyfriend had eaten a little bit before coming here so he ordered the potato and apple salad, which came in a tangy yoghurt/sour cream dressing with ample amounts of dill. The apple was a sweet and tangy contrast to the creamy dressing. I think its referred to on the menu as the pickled shallot salad, but I didn't notice any shallots really.

Mmm tater saald

These are the jalapeno poppers with cream cheese filling and wrapped in smoked pork belly. Since we've gone, they've changed up the recipe a bit since it now says Monterey Jack cheese. I've never had jalapeno poppers, so I was very intrigued by these. A hollowed out, deseeded jalapeno chilli filled with cream cheese, wrapped in pork belly and then grilled to perfection? Sounds good to me!

It was quite crunchy with a mildly numbing mouth sensation, the cream cheese dulled these down quite a bit and it was beautifully melty. The pork belly was plain and I honestly would've preferred it with some maple cured bacon or something, as the pork belly wasn't tender enough to be worthwhile. At least with maple bacon, it would've added some intense sweetness and saltiness to this. Not bad! I quite enjoyed my little popper.

Yummy little things

This was my beef brisket! It came with a molasses barbeque sauce, two pickle spears and the same potato salad that my Boyfriend got. It was a bit on the small side. The beef brisket was amazing, smokey, tender with these glorious, rendered, jelly like blobs of delicious fat veining through the meat. When the plank was laid down, my brisket wobbled like jelly, I thought I was seeing things so I did it again, and again, and again. It was so tender, it collapsed when I poked it with my fork. It melted, I melted, the meat melted in my mouth and it was a joy to eat. I sat there and made everyone eat a piece of my brisket and watched their eyes roll back in ecstasy. In hindsight, it may be the fact that I shared my main with eight other people that made it seem small.

The barbeque sauce was nothing fancy. The pickle spears were odd, definitely a pickle, but still very hard somehow but not in the way that a pickle is normally hard? My eyes say jumbo dill pickle, my mouth says iunno like maybe a pear or something. The potato salad was lovely. I personally felt that it could've gone with another good carb, like a bread roll or something, so I could make myself a nice little sandwich to munch away at.

The meat is bigger than my glass

This is Lis.,'s buttermilk fried chicken with buttermilk slaw and a ranch dressing. The piece of chicken used was a very large maryland piece. The coating was very crunchy and the buttermilk brining had left the chicken very, very, very scarily tender. Like the kind of tenderness you expect from uncooked chicken, but it was white, white, white all the way through. That being said the chicken was very plain with no additional seasoning. The buttermilk slaw wasn't liked by anyone, since it seemed like it was drenched in a thin yoghurt, well buttermilk but you get my drift. The ranch dressing was also very blue cheesy and was also ignored.

Big chicken

We ended up getting two serves of this jalapeno cornbread with whipped butter. I can see green flecks in the cornbread but I didn't notice the jalapeno pieces other than that. The cornbread was served warm, with a definite golden crust and steaming, moist centre. The cornbread was so moist and crumbly, you had to be really quick with cutting a slice and slathering it with the rich butter. The heat of the cornbread melted the butter and the crumbliness was such that the ensuring slice of cornbread soaked in its own weigh in butter, like a homemade crumpet without the holes.

Butter and its side, cornbread

Three people at our table, C., Ms M for Megababe, and Ms D., all ordered the barbeque beef short ribs with Southern spiced sweet potato fries. The sauces on their plate were the same as the ranch dressing and my molasses barbeque sauce. The short ribs were really tender, falling off the bone with a faint smokiness and hint of spice from the dry rub used. The sweet potato fries were crisp but not as crunchy as I thought they would be from their appearance. Everyone praised their meal and said they absolutely loved it.

Ribsssssssssss

T., ordered this unappealing atrocity, pulled pork collar butt with popped corn mash, carmelised maple butter, grits and adobo cider ketchup. It didn't help that she had started eating before I got to take a photo of it. The pulled pork was the best meat I ate that night, so tender and soaking in that ketchup and butter to make a wonderful meaty sauce. The real highlight for me was that popped corn mash, it was so smooth, buttery and creamy, like the smoothest potato mash you've ever encountered, with the tiniest nubs of cut corn. However the aroma was distinctly popcorn and when you tasted it after the creamy bliss, your mouth screamed BUTTERED POPCORN, while your eyes said, corn mash or potato mash! T., ate about half of her meal before passing it to me saying she was too full. I ate the rest of her mash and most of her pulled pork as I pondered what the hell was going on.

Surprise hit of the night

Mighty Mighty Cue and Brew
Atmosphere: 5, much too loud. It looks like an upmarket casual dining sorta place and the cool place to be seen with your mates.
Service: 6, our service was good as. T., was flirting up a storm with our waiter, so he was constantly floating around our table. We ended up splitting out bill at the counter and when we were leaving, he came up to me saying that a meal had been unpaid for. I paid it but when I spoke to my friends, they said that it had all been paid for and we had the receipts to prove it. We ended up getting my money back but I still think that that waiter has his eyes a little too much on T., and not on his job.
Food: 6, the food is expensive here and full of dairy. If you were lactose intolerant, I don't think there could be very much that you would be able to eat on this menu, as they seem to lace every meal with dairy. The servings are good, but they seem to skimp a little on all the sides that came with our mains. Everyone made the comment that they wished for some bread or something to have something to do with all the meat they had received. I would have personally liked a choice of sides to go with my main, as I'm used to eating large amounts of protein like that with a salad or something else to lighten up the meal. 

In summary, I am unsure if I would go back here again. The good food was very good, the bad food was atrocious and asides from the four serves for the ribs, we picked a good assortment of the menu to figure this out. The prices are a bit on the expensive side and things are a bit small for what you get. If I were to go back here again, it would be for a special occasion and not for a casual weekday dinner, this place could never be my local.

Vue Lounge

My friends and I excel at being terrible at communication. There's a term for it, pulling a VGirl, because she dropped off the face of the planet when she went to Japan for two weeks. She called our dad once a day, but for the rest of us, she might as well have been dead.

That being said, quite recently VGirl stayed over at my house and I forgot what that was like. She is in the bedroom in the back of this photo of Siri.

That door in the background

It's about 3-4 metres away from my bedroom. She still was using Facebook chat/Line to ask me things. I can turn my head and see her from the end of my room. She is within casual speaking distance of me. I can hear her giggle about something before she sends me the link to the content. Yet she is still messaging me online when she could just as easily tell me about it. It reminds me of when we were in high school and she used to Skype me from her room to get her things from the kitchen, which she was closest to.

My sister's spirit animal

I sent my friends a Snapchat of my sister texting me from within walking distance and nearly everyone I knew replied that their sister did the exact same thing. What a world we live in.

Anyway, Vue Lounge is one of those places that everyone seems to have gone to, except me. At the time of writing, it has seventeen blogger reviews, that's like a billionty. I went here initially with JGirl as we hadn't caught up in a long time. So long in fact, that I was surprised when I saw her with her short hair, apparently it had been lopped off at the beginning of spring with the heat waves then. We met up in September so it had been a really long time since we had last met up haha.

We both severely underestimated the time it took to get here, we were both late and I had to reschedule my driving lesson as a result. JGirl was unluckier as she didn't bring an umbrella but she had a shorter distance to go before she got home.

Vue Lounge is located in the Merthyr Shopping Village in New Farm, its easy to spot from the road and parking is ample due to its location. It has lots of shiny dark wooden furniture in an open setting, the front room is under cover and the back room is the perfect place to grab a meal and have a chat with a friend.

I found the place setting a bit strange since they had sugar/salt/Equal in medicine bottles complete with their bottle caps. It reminded me a lot off work and I had to wonder where on earth they got so many of these bottles.

Medicine dropper bottles?

So shiny

Here is a link to their website, its under construction at the moment, so its not worthwhile linking to the menu in case it changes. JGirl ordered a flat white which she polished off very quickly. She said that it was quite a good coffee but declined a second cup.

Can't remember what coffee they stock ):

I ordered the raspberry crush, a mixture of crushed raspberry, orange segments and juice and who knows what other tasty things. It was absolutely delicious, sweet, tart and utterly refreshing. I would go here again just to have that drink.

Amazing

JGirl ordered the crumbed pork belly with poached eggs, wilted spinach, corn bread and a honey and mustard sauce drizzled over the top. I didn't try much of this as JGirl was fighting off a bad chest infection at the time, but I can attest to the fact that on the positive side, the poached eggs were bright orange and super oozy gooey in the centre and the mustard cream had a solid bite to it.

I don't recall it being a corn bread and I distinctly remember it being two pieces of toast but it was a long time ago. The spinach was just wilted and had no additional flavour to them as was the crumbed pork belly. The pork belly consisted of about five small 20 cent size pieces that were golden brown crunchy with a soft melting texture, we both expressed disappointment with how the portion sizing was. Without the eggs and toast, there was absolutely no way this could've filled anyone up as a main meal. Overall, JGirl enjoyed it but wished there was more to the dish.

More please!

I ordered their chicken and Camembert burger which came with a side of beer battered chips. It was a plain, super tender chunk of chicken breast sandwiched with melted Camembert cheese, rocket, tomato and a fried egg. I prefer my burgers with a bit of sauce so I was a bit disappointed with the relative dryness of this burger. Everything was well cooked but I didn't really like the flavours of this burger. I did love the chips but I'd be very disappointed the day I discover bad beer battered chips.

Delicious chips

Blurry midsection

A blurry drinks menu

I went back here a few weeks later with Jubi. She ordered a very milk top heavy soy latte. It seems to have a disproportionally high amount of foamy milk in it doesn't it? She said it was a good coffee anyway, a touch on the weak side but smooth and nutty.

40% foam?

I ordered another muddled drink, this time it was a citrus crush with passion fruit, orange, mint and who knows what else. I preferred the raspberry one only because the passion fruit pulp was a little too sour for even my tastes. I really enjoyed the scent of passion fruit in this drink however, its such a gorgeous smell.

Pulp!

This was the meal I was eying off the last time I went here, I was very hungry so I went for the lunch menu instead. This is two fried eggs, chorizo, haloumi, ratatouille on a bed of rocket and sourdough.   It was a deliciously savoury combination, the eggs were deliciously gooey, erupting in a golden lava over my pan fried chorizo and and ratatouille, amply soaking the bread. The haloumi was firm, slightly crisp on the outside while still being squeaky. The chorizo was smokey and fatty, a nice contrast to the soft stewed eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes. I really enjoyed this and made a point of telling Jubi so.

Oh chorizo, where are you~

Jubi went with a sweet breakfast of course, deciding to get the bircher museli with berry compote, pistachios, Greek yoghurt and honey. This is literally a list of everything she likes in a breakfast menu, she loves crunchy things, yoghurt, museli and berries. The bircher museli here was really heavily soaked, it stayed in a thick porridge like structure that constantly held its shape. I had a try of the berry compote and it was extremely sweet, syrupy and refreshingly sour. It went well with the bircher museli. Jubi always eats her museli extremely neatly, one bite at a time, with a spoonful consisting of a piece of every component. If it were me, I would mash it into a blob and eat it like that. Efficiency.

So shiny

Vue Lounge
Atmosphere: 7, bright, open cafe with lots of places to sit with friends.
Service: 8, attentive, cheerful and quick for everything, to bring us drinks, to ask if we needed anything, easy to grab the attention of and they were very prompt with their service all in all.
Food: 6, I would definitely go here again. The portions are a touch on the small/pricey side but from the two trips we had here, it looks like its really all down to what you order. Go for casual breakfast drinks.

Jackpot Dining - West End

When I was finalising this post, I realised that this place has never been blogged about ever. Seriously guys, it's been open for at least four years and no one has ever blogged about it, and its in the direct centre of West End practically. It has like four sister stores. Well, I took advantage and your chance to take the first post is long gone, like your ex girlfriend who will never return!

There seem to be lots of little Jackpot Dining places sprouting all over the city and with that in mind VGirl and I decided to go here. No, I'm lying, we totally went to go out to this Mexican place in West End that was closed for the New Year. Then we weren't able to go to Lock and Load Bistro cause we didn't have a reservation and so we ended up here.

It was absolutely bucketing rain during this time and I had gotten a lot of water into my flats when protecting VGirl and Dr H., from the rain. Dr H., went to dinner at Little Greek Taverna which VGirl and I didn't want to go to.

SAFE HAVEN FROM THE RAIN

Look out for this flag!

The interior is nothing exciting, it reminds me of a slightly upmarket cafeteria hall. At the front is a counter where you pay, order and get your drinks. The majority of the restaurant is taken up with plain white booths and tables. At the back is a counter that contains help yourself sauces and the entrance to the kitchen where you can watch chefs chopping up barbequed meat.

Their drinks range!

More drinks!

Even more drinks

The sauces, soy, chilli, chilli garlic oil, plum and black vinegar

I picked up this can of lychees juice. It's one of those deceptively heavy Asian cans, that are super thick and have a deceptively small amount of juice in them. This juice was very syrupy, sweet and had a strong taste of lychees, think the texture of mango nectar and the like. I'm unsure if I would buy it again, but it was an interesting taste.

I felt like eating roasted duck but also wanted noodles, so I ended up getting shredded duck with vegetable noodles! It was initially quite disappointed with the appearance of this dish since the garnish of white and purple cabbage, whilst striking was very haphazard. There didn't seem to be enough duck, as I was expecting the usual deceptive pile at the top and nothing beneath. With every mouthful, there was a chunk of duck and I found I had quite a lot of duck in my noodles. As well as a LOT of vegetables, cabbage, bok choy, garlic, onion and small slivers of carrot. It was a very healthy dish I think and I really enjoyed it in the end.

These spring rolls were vegetarian so VGirl snagged a few as well. I honestly can't remember what was in it besides carrot, peas, corn and cabbage. They were freshly fried and super, super hot when they arrived at the table. I'm pretty sure VGirl burned her mouth when she ate them. They came with a little side dish of sweet chilli sauce.

When I was writing this I had no idea what this was. I looked at the photo and said to myself, that is unmistakably barbeque pork buns. I had no idea why I would order this as I don't usually like it. Its in my Facebook pictures as well so I must've gotten it but I wrote no notes on the dish which is strange. I honestly have no recollection of eating this.

Then I remember that these were VGirl's fresh green vegetable buns! She said they weren't that great. That's all she said.

Memory loss barbeque pork buns

HAR GAO! Delicious, thin skinned, multi pleated, prawn filled morsels of deliciousness. For their price, at the time of writing 3 for $4.80, its a little pricey but still a delicious and consistent alternative to the usual yum cha hotspots. I would happily drop by for these har gao if I had a hankering for yum cha in West End.

Delicious!

These are steamed vegetable dumplings, these were expensive considering its two largish dumplings for $4.50. VGirl said they were really delicious but she did baulk a bit at the price, odd considering I had to pay for our dinner. She said she would go here again, solely for these dumplings but only for a special occasion.

Tell me your secrets dumplings.

We ordered the steamed Chinese vegetables with oyster sauce. One of those places that literally gives you oyster sauce sadly. The vegetables were fresh, springy and still a bit crunchy.

Boo plain oyster sauce

This place was so good, I went back here again with my Boyfriend! I had to talk him out of ordering the steamed vegetables as I knew how completely average they were. We also got a serve of the har gao dumplings when we went here. Below is a picture of Bubble Black tea, it doesn't have any pearls or anything, I'm unsure of why the name is Bubble Black tea. Its a very, very sweet earthy black tea, there isn't any bitterness due to how much sugar is present but it has a very distinctive tannic flavour from how long the tea has been brewed. I had to dilute mine with water as it was so intensely sweet.

So, so sweet.

I panicked while ordering and got barbequed pork and roasted duck with veggies. My Boyfriend was not happy as he expressly wanted ONLY roasted duck, but it was too late to take back the order. We all regretted the barbequed pork, it was meltingly tender, so soft you could pull it apart with two forks. With zero flavour. It looked like char siu and tasted like the faintest hint of it. The roasted duck was really good though, tender, fatty, juicy with a great crispy skin. He kept muttering under his breath that he could've had a whole plate of duck. He made me eat the barbequed pork.

BBQ pork and roast duck!

I got the butter garlic chicken with a side of fried rice for an extra $2. The rice was well cooked, a touch plain, but the grains were fluffy and well defined, carrot, peas and egg were present in the fried rice.

I don't know what I expected with the butter garlic chicken. One of my friends heavily recommended this when I said I went here the first time, so I decided to pick it. They were crispy fried chicken bits in literally a butter and garlic sauce. When you bite into the chicken, you got this overwhelmingly strong taste of butter and garlic. It wasn't unpleasant but it was a rich and surprisingly filling taste. I was glad I picked the fried rice as a side as there was little else to this dish besides the chicken.

Oddly tasty

Jackpot Dining West End
Atmosphere: 6, fancy arse cafeteria room. I wouldn't bring a hot date here that's for sure.
Service: 8, wonderful friendly, polite and super efficient staff members. They would helpfully point out each dish and are very patient with people umming and ahhing at the door without being obtrusive.
Food: 8.5, would gladly go back here again. For how much you're paying for food here, the huge portions and very solid cooking? This place is a winner, winner, chicken dinner for me.