Sambal Oelek

So my updates haven't been as frequent as I liked, it's seriously straying into the 5-7 day mark rather than the 4-5 that I like. Lots of things have been happening in my life. As you probably guessed, I broke up with my Boyfriend, I also started going to the gym pretty intensely and dating guys again on Tinder recently. I've been going out lots, as seem on my Instagram account @ThatSeriousGirl, and not doing much writing. Or bothering to post many pictures on my Instagram either come to think of it.

Anyway, I'm trying to do half as much writing as I do gym work, considering I've been going 1-2 hours a day, I better get cracking! I just wish I was able to write my blog and do stuff at the gym at the same time. I suppose I could type and cycle at the same time but there's not good enough internet at my gym!

So here I was at Sambal Oelek, the new Indonesian restaurant in Brisbane, handily located in Underwood right off the highway besides my favourite butchers Big Gun!

The menu!

Another menu!

The interior is all bright red plastic furniture, nothing too fancy!

Noice

That being said, they did have these lovely lanterns. I like the interlaced pattern.

Pretty!

I got this tea both times I was here, teh kotak, or a strong, sweetened jasmine tea with a mildly bitter aftertaste. I found it refreshing and super sweet, it was also super cheap for only $2 a box! I highly recommend trying this if you're used to the taste of bubble teas and the like.

50% extra? Bargain!

I got the pangsit goreng ayam the first time I went here, basically deep fried chicken mince fritters! The filling was very reminiscent of a chicken version of the filling you get in prawn wontons, that slightly gingery, moussey and green onion flavoured combination. The wrapper was deep fried perfection, it had that immensely satisfying crunch like a prawn cracker. It was so wonderfully bubbly and the crispy exterior melted on the tongue, I took great delight in eating each fritter. It came with some sweet chili sauce that was a good contrast.

Tasty!

I got the sop buntut or oxtail soup as well! All the main dishes come with a side of rice or coconut rice depending on your preference. This was listed as being the famous, hearty and comforting dish of Indonesia, tender slow cooked oxtail with potato and carrot chunks in a clear soup.

Oxtail soup!

It tasted like home, like those thick, slowly cooked bone in soups that you get when you were younger as a meal, or at least I did. I could taste the greasy film from the soup on my lips and it reminded me of a warm winter's day. It was a very basic but comforting dish that was very well made. I quite enjoyed it! It came with a little dish of sambal that was mildly spicy but nothing spectacular.

It tastes like home even if I'm not Indonesian :P

I came back about a week later to try the rendang sapi, a beef rendang done in the Indonesian style. There was a huge dish of the beef stew with a thick but very oily sauce. It had all the sauce mostly absorbed by the shredded coconut but I suspected it wasn't pan fried off because it was put it because it was quite chewy and didn't have the same aroma. As beef rendang goes, its not as good as the one I make at home, two or three pieces were horrifically chewy although most of them were quite soft and tender. As far as restaurant ones go, its probably the best one I've had. Good level of spice, well balanced spices and mostly tender meat. I got coconut rice as my pick this time as well.

Someone at work saw this and said ITS A BOOB

Yum~!

Sambal Oelek
Atmosphere: 5, basic little Asian eatery. Clean with laminated menus hurray!
Service: 8, very friendly service. The first time I was here, the owner walked me through the menu and highly recommended the oxtail soup, fried chicken and beef rendang and they were good!
Food: 7.5, tasty and cheap food! Plus close to where I love, what else is there in life hahaha

Qwerk Espresso

This was the first and last time I went to C.,'s house before she moved down to Melbourne so this breakfast will stick out in my memory for a lot of reasons. I also got to meet her lovely golden retriever puppy Lucy and she was so cute, I could've stolen her in my handbag. She was such a sweet, well behaved and bouncy little puppy.

Since I don't go too far north of the Brisbane CBD, she took me to her local cafe and we had a great time. It's easily found since it's on an intersection.

This place!

The interior is very mismatched furniture, lots of cosy nooks to sit in and band posters, upcoming festivals and events to catch your eye.

This spot

Their syrups

Another cosy nook

They have their menu chalked up on the chalkboard/desk which I thought was neat.

They also have a paper menu with that being said.

I got the Frooty Tooty juice, pineapple, watermelon, apple and orange drink. Or that's what it would be if they had any watermelon that day, that was fine with me because I don't actually like watermelon that much, It was a sweet, tart and icy cold drink, I really enjoyed it and would recommend it.

Tasty fluffy drink

I got the homemade spicy Texas beans with sausages on sourdough with cheese, tomato and jalapenos. It originally came with avocado, but I didn't want it so they knocked off a $2 off the price and they had no sour cream so I got two sauces free! My lactose intolerance flares up so badly with sour cream its a bit ridiculous. I quite liked the dish! The house made beans were kidney beans, slow cooked in a rich and slightly sweet tomato sauce, the sausage were thick cut, pork and mildly spicy. I found the cheese would've been more appealing briefly melted on top of the food, it was a bit sweaty looking when it arrived.

Free sauces, a tomato chutney and a hollandaise sauce.

Much better than sour cream anyway :D

C., got the smashed avocado and haloumi on toast with a drizzle of balsamic glaze. She said it was delicious, although you can't go wrong with a good avo smash!

Qwerk Espresso
Atmosphere: 7, lovely little local cafe! Nice sunny spots to sit and lots of different little nooks you can sit in.
Service: 8, really friendly and lovely people. Happy to oblige with any requests and sub in or out anything you want.
Food: 7, pretty good food and for a super cheap price. I'd head down for sure if it was my local :)

Saj and Grill

I really enjoy Middle Eastern food, I've had this place on my radar for ages but its opening times are really odd so I've never managed it. I decided to go here for a solo breakfast one day, just out of boredom.

Mmm this place

This place was absolutely freaking freezing, even when I sat on the inside. I can't even emphasise how cold it was that day, I couldn't feel my face.

Grahhh

Here is their menu! This is their little set up, its a very simple little place, a front counter, menus on the cupboards and the saj oven in the corner.

The Saj!

Small!

I picked the chicken saj, it was made out of marinated garlic chicken tenderloin, olives, mushroom, cheese and onion. The saj was a flexible, lightly golden brown but slightly fluffy flat bread. I got an option of homemade hot sauce or sweet chilli sauce and I went with the hot sauce. It was so scorching hot that I couldn't really enjoy the rest of the saj, it was a sweet, fruity and yet super spicy sauce. I was panting so hard in between bites to cool my mouth down, it was tasty but I wouldn't order it again.

Drowning in sauce ):

I came back here a few weeks later for a second meal, this time just their plain herb za'atar. Za'atar is an amazing mix of salt, thyme, oregano, sesame seeds and sumac. It can be used as a topping on pizza with some olive oil to moisten it, as a dip or as a spice rub with meats. Any way you have it, it's an amazing flavour combination, salty, fragrant, lemony from the use of sumac and nutty from the roasted sesame seeds. It does get stuck everywhere in your teeth though, so there's that.

There's another foot of it

Just a peek of za'atar poking out

The za'atar herb saj is amazing, a super skinny but very long roll of freshly cooked saj, spread over with an olive oil and za'atar combination that is intensely flaky, buttery and intensely flavoured from the za'atar mixture. It's a great snack.

Those layers!

Saj and Grill
Atmosphere: 4, freezing spartan in appearance. ): not my favourite of places to sit.
Service: 8, absolutely lovely guys who recognised everyone by name/order and had a joke with them.
Food: 7, utterly redeemed by the za'atar herb saj, I'd definitely avoid the garlic chicken with hot chilli option and try the za'atar. It's one of those flavours you'll find yourself craving months down the track.

King Ahiman's Lebanese Food

I heard this place had the best falafel in town from one of my patients, although that being said, his uncle was the owner so I was a bit dubious. I regularly have a massage in West End at the wonderful Skeletal Harmonics, so I was in the area to check it out. For $4 a falafel roll, it wasn't anything that was going to break my budget if I had it.

Jesus Christ, it was one of the best falafels I've ever eaten. You get about eight densely packed, super crunchy falalel with bright green insides from the parsley, pine nut and chickpea mixture that isn't too stodgy but remains very light and moist, all in one roll. The rest of the roll isn't anything fancy with some lebanese wraps, bean sprouts, grated carrot, shredded lettuce and some hummus spread across the bread to round things out, but its a thick and generously portioned roll for the cheap price of $4.

Since that one faithful day I tried it, I have not looked back and every time I get a massage, I buy myself some of these falafels as a snack.

50 cents a pop

They sell other stuff too and just as cheap, not that I care because its all about the falafel. The chicken, lamb or beef shawamas are just as cheap for only an extra $0.50, and just as generously portioned. I didn't think the garlic chicken shawama was anything to write home about but the falafels definitely are.

Garlic chicken shawarma

King Ahiram Lebanese Food
Atmosphere: 5, its a little hole in the wall restaurant. It has a few tables you can sit and have your meal at but its nothing glamorous.
Service: 5, brisk and non too friendly, you get your food and not a single smile with it. They are super quick and efficient though so that sort of balances things out.
Food: 10, best falafel ever. Disregard everything else acquire falafels.

RJIE: Breakfast at Ponycat

Oh Ponycat, one of the most beloved of the New Farm breakfast scene. I have wanted to go here for years, but newer and shinier places have always beckoned. It's finally time!

I had a good run of no RJIE posts but its time to have them again, cause even though Ponycat does a slightly fancy normal brekkie, nothing is really pulling me back to try their menu again :/.

Eyeball the menu!

More menu options

I like the interior decorating, I don't actually know if you can sit and eat under those windows but it looks like a nice place to curl up and read a book. I think I'm a sucker for reading nooks.

The interior is lovely

I got the iced tea, I don't know why it had such a high head of foam on it. It had a lemon and green flavour but it wasn't particularly sweet and was mostly ice. I wouldn't get it again.

Beer steins

I got the mushroom stack with goats cheese, poached eggs and honey baked ham. There is one sole piece of honey baked ham, but its a very large, thick, succulent and sweet piece, which is slouched on the left hand side of that stack. The flavours and ingredients used in the stack, spinach, garlic roasted mushrooms, pesto and creamy goats cheese are hardly new combinations, but they always work so beautifully together, who can fault them?

Classic flavours

I'm not sure why the lighting changed so dramatically between these two pictures but I have to add I got suspicious of the poached eggs as they were joined together. They did have a gorgeous oozy centre, so I suppose I'll forgive them, the crazy amounts of cracked pepper was my idea not Ponycat's.

Still runny!

Ponycat:
Atmosphere: 7, bright, eclectically decorated little cafe. I love the reading nook.
Service: 6, solid. I can't remember anything particularly interesting about their service or negative.
Food: 6, well cooked, classic flavours in a good size. Nothing particularly revolutionary but great for a solid feed. I wouldn't go back there with that being said, only because I don't feel like I'd try anything else off their menu.

Long Dragon Dumpling

I went to Melbourne for a conference! The conference had its ups and downs. I missed the arriving flight's check in by 40 minutes, Tiger Air has a strict pre 45 minute check in time with no web check in. so never again! I'm out of pocket by quite a bit of money since the hotel the conference was at was so expensive but all in all I enjoyed the experience!

One of my friend's Aki and lives in Victoria, came to stay with me in my hotel room so I wasn't too lonely. I'd never been to Melbourne before so I had a blast! I really enjoyed how neatly set out the city blocks are because its a planned city, unlike Brisbane and Sydney's narrow, one way street hells. The tram system was interesting and very convenient! Like the width and comfort of a train's seating with the physical size and road capabilities of a bus!

I wish I had more time to explore Melbourne and had bought some checked in luggage, but time was pretty tight since the conference was from 7-8am right unti 4-5pm and then it was bitterly cold since it was winter in Melbourne. For the luggage, I was already strapped for space since I had a near full suitcase when I went down and coming back up, I had grabbed a whole bunch of freebies from the conference. I regret leaving my free yoga mat behind, I came away with about 50 pens, a few lanyards, two cups, three USBs, a water bottle, some Moo Goo skin care products, lots of free chocolate, tea and notepads that I had to leave behind.

I think it goes without saying that I loved the food in Melbourne too, I didn't finish a single dish and the prices were so much cheaper than Brisbane! Plus since they have such a higher urban density, their Urbanspoon is really put through the wringer, the average upvotes for a good place range in the high 800-2000s range! A dramatic difference to Brisbane where a good place will have between 200-600 votes!

This is the first place we went to on the first day I arrived in Melbourne. I got us lost as I was fascinated walking around Albert Park and following the black swans everywhere! They're part of a breeding program Aki tells me, so they all wear neck rings and bibs to identify them. All traffic has to stop when they cross the road, I always had a good laugh when that happened which was pretty frequently!

Hahahaha

Its a very easy to find restaurant from the main road as its a bright yellow sign with lit up pictures of their best dishes.

This place!

I think we arrived during the swap to the evening service, as it was pretty quiet when we came into eat. So quiet in fact that one of the staff members was having snooze in the corner of the restaurant. We were there quite a while so it was about 1/2 full when we left around 7pm.

Quite a plain interior

Lots of comfy black leather seats

All the tables had a container of salt, pepper, soy sauce, black vinegar and chilli and garlic oil on them.

The perfect sides to dumplings

Here is their very extensive menu! The prices are super cheap and the portion sizing is massive!

I ordered the Shanghai fried noodles to share between us, the noodles appeared to be handmade from their slightly irregular appearance and deliciously bouncy texture, they were coated in a sticky soy sauce with black cloud ear fungus, button mushrooms, gai lan, garlic, onion and small slices of pork. Aki and I really enjoyed this dish and we both thought they were very good noodles with an excellent balance between vegetables and meat.

Love saucy handmade noodles

Aki ordered the prawn and pork wonton soup minus noodles, she had just gotten some braces for her front teeth and was still a bit sore from the whole thing. She said that since the braces weren't on all her teeth she could still eat quite well, it was only that she couldn't bite anything and the braces restricted her jaw from opening any further too. She said that the egg noodles commonly used in these wonton soups were often too firm for her liking. The soup was a crystal clear chicken broth with a hint of ginger, very traditional in flavour. The wontons were freshly made we figured since they didn't have that slightly chewy edge from being rehydrated in hot stock. The pork and prawn wonton soup was a minced filling, well seasoned with salt and pepper, a slightly gingery flavour and it had a nice crisp texture to the meat. Yes, there were indeed 15 large wontons floating in this soup. There was also lots of floating seaweed sheets and lots of sliced omelette.

Odd mix of toppings

I insisted that we also get har gao to share since that's the gold standard for a good yum cha place. The skins were thin, nearly translucent with lots of pretty pleats. There was a small butterflied prawn in the filling plus a big blob of minced prawn as well. They were very plump and tasty har gao.

Long Dragon Dumpling:
Atmosphere: 5, your cheap local Chinese dumpling house! Laminated menu and photos of the food everywhere as can be expected.
Service: 5, pretty stock standard.
Food: 8, cheap, tasty and super large portions! What more do you want in a Chinese eatery haha!