Billy Kart Kitchen

If there's one thing everyone needs to know, it is not to look at dates after midnight and during night shifts. You won't know what day it is or what the date actually is. Don't look at calenders, don't schedule things to do on specific days, don't ask people what they're doing tomorrow or rather today, keep asking what the date is after midnight and remember to recheck the actual date when you're fully awake.

This is of course the story of how I showed up to a restaurant a week in advance because I looked at the date during my night shift. Lis., had organised her birthday breakfast here and our nights and all I remember her saying was, "of course you can go, ThatSeriousGirl, it's after your nights." I had two sets of night shifts back to back, so I went after the first set had finished.

I drove by myself in peak hour traffic the week that I got my car. It was a harrowing drive. I got stuck along Ipswich road several times. I drove on the curb and chipped a bit of it off when I fell back off the curb. I then proceeded to wait in front of the restaurant from 7.15am to 7.45am before rechecking Facebook to see that it was the following week for the breakfast. This was not a good start to my day and I had a bad feeling about the restaurant already.

This place!

Its a very large open space with lots of large tables with multi-coloured chairs.

Where I lurked the first visit.

The back wall is full of cookbooks and the written cookbooks by Ben O'Donoghue, the celebrity chef who owns this place.

So many good cook books

This is the main area of the restaurant and here is my stalker photo of the big man himself. Geez, he's tall.

Stalker 101

On the chalkboard there are the daily specials for both breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as the prices for coffee. The glass display cabinet has a lot of cold treats, sweet and savoury. There's freshly baked pastries that keep getting topped up near the register. When I was paying the bill the second time, one of the chefs rushed out with a tray of fresh doughnuts.

Stalking102

Here is the front of the cafe! Tables that line the entire front and sides.

So bright

I ordered a flat white, the restaurant carries Campos coffee. I did not like this particular one, slightly burnt with sour notes. I ended up add two sugars to the coffee to be able to drink it. The second time I came here, I had a sip of Mr M.,'s coffee and felt like it was the same. He said he enjoyed it but I was not a fan.

Perfect fern though

Here is their menu. I really didn't know what to get, there isn't a lot of choice on the menu and I really only like savoury stuff for breakfast. I couldn't decide between the corn fritters or the Aussie Asian eggs and so, since I knew I was going to come back in a weeks time, I got the corn fritters. I wasn't sure of how many I would recieve or how large the meal would be, so I ordered a side of double smoked bacon.

It was mildly disappointing. There are only two of those deep fried corn fritters which were creamy under a crunchy golden brown shell, two split charred halves of avocado, about six or eight quarters of heirloom tomatoes and assorted microherbs and chilli for garnish. The avocado became super soft and creamy under the grill but otherwise, the flavour wasn't really improved beyond that.

I was really glad I ordered the bacon, because that wasn't stingy in the least being three middle rasher bacon slices, cooked to the softer side of cooked, crispy but still slightly chewy bacon. The combination of ingredients was delicious but the size of the serving was a lot less than what I expected, especially considering the price I paid for it.

Overpriced albeit tasty with my added side

The second time we went here was for Lis.,'s birthday. Lis., her husband B., N., Liz., Mr M., K.O., C., Gill., L., and myself all went along. Despite the huge group we were in, I didn't get many photos because a lot of people got similar dishes. Lis., and N., got the poached eggs with a side of bacon and roasted tomatoes. K.O., Gill and C., all got the corn fritters with bacon under my advice that the meal would be too small otherwise, C., was especially happy since she prefers her bacon on the soft side. Liz., forgot that I food blog and was too far away for me to notice that she got the Bircher muesli so I didn't get a photo of that. Everyone else choose different things as you can see below.

I got the fresh orange juice for my drink this time. It was very fluffy but a nicely balanced orange juice, sweet, tart and free of pulp. Just, very, very fluffy. Everyone was very impressed that it came out in a beer stein look alike.

Fluffy

C., ordered their skinny chai tea after they revealed they didn't do chai lattes and didn't stock syrups. She was quite disappointed with the flavour of the tea, bland and milky. It was quite a weak tea despite being brewed with real solid chunky spices, there wasn't a great aroma or flavour of any of the spices that we saw, cinnamon, star anise and cloves is all I remember seeing. There was already milk added to the chai tea, which may have attributed to the lack of flavour since it may not have had time to brew. She had one cup of the chai before pushing it to the side and drinking the water offered.

Average chai

B., and I both ordered the Aussie Asian eggs with king prawn/s, bacon and chilli. I ordered mine with the oven roasted portobello mushroom however as I thought the dish sounded very meaty. The name of this dish is deceptive since prawns imply plural prawns, like more than one, the online menu says prawns the menu I perused on that day said "bloody big king prawn". When I read that description, I thought I'd get one of those huge giant tiger prawn monstrosities the size of my hand. Instead I got a 10cm or so, large king prawn. Purely singular, I just got the one.

The bacon on this dish was the same as the side dish of smoked bacon however it was served much, much crispier than with the corn fritters. It had that delicate snap that crunchy bacon has. The mushrooms were incredibly meaty. The hidden duck egg was a massive fried glob with a giant, bright orange yolk that poured out over the bacon when I popped it. Lis., chucked me a piece of her toast as her braces make it too sore for her to eat with. That brown sauce you can see, is a sticky tamarind and fish sauce combo that was drizzled all over my plate.

All in all, the dish was very, very meaty, Prawns, bacon, duck egg and just some chilli and micro herbs to lighten things up. If I hadn't gotten my side of mushrooms or Lis.,'s toast, it would've been too much for me to handle. I'm a keen meat eater but I like something to graze on to help me appreciate my meat more. B., ordered the same thing and he agreed with me when I commented on this, and he is also a man who likes his meat.

I never thought I'd say that I wanted veggies

L., was feeling pretty gross after our nights so she opted for something light and so she picked their Billykart fruit bowl and yoghurt. It came with a sliced mango cheek, watermelon, slices of Granny Smith apple, a quartered fig, small red grapes, two slices of red dragon fruit, half a banana, some kiwi fruit and a blob of thick greek yoghurt topped with passionfruit and mint. She really enjoyed it, especially the dragon fruit and the mango. I quite liked the presentation here and I really liked how they presented the fruit in very different ways.

Fruit bowl!

Mr M., ordered the buttermilk and ricotta pancakes with banana and coconut caramel with a side of bacon. He said that he had gotten this previously and that he had enjoyed it a lot then too.

I wonder what the caramel tasted like

Billy Kart Kitchen
Atmosphere: 6, lots of places to sit, very approachable layout that encourages you to sit, chat and peruse their large collection of cookbooks. The air conditioning is very cold thought if you sit directly in front of it, all of us girls towards the end of our table went looking for our cardies in summer ):
Service: 7, solid service. Friendly, quick to clear away the table and top up our water. On the second occasion, they helpfully split the bill for us since there wasn't many people around.
Food: 5, I'm really mixed here. The food is beautifully presented and well cooked, there is just not enough of it and especially with the price tag in mind. Every meal I had, I personally felt, was lacking in some element and had to add sides to make it a full meal in my mind. The menu is quite limited, even with the eggs which you can add sides to, to make a basic eggs and friends sorta dish. Everyone who went there with me agreed, the meals were great but only once they had added a side. Without their side, it would've been a small meal. I didn't like their coffee or chai, both times that I went.

I'm going to go with my first thoughts of the place and say I would not go there again. The second visit did nothing to change my mind and I only went cause I had already committed to going. Its pretty and tasty, but there are plenty of other places in Brisbane that can do that and for cheaper too.