Next Door Kitchen and Bar

Oh man, I went to Next Door for my first date with Sir A., literally last year! I remember this day really well because I was a dickweed who left my wallet in the glove compartment of my car, so when we went to split the bill, I had nothing. Sir A., paid for me without complaint and then took us out for milkshakes. I was absolutely mortified and made a huge point of showing him my wallet when he walked me back to my car. He still refused to accept my money as he said guys are used to footing the bill. I'm a strong, independent woman who earns bank! I don't need anyone to pay for me!

Look out for this place!

Its a lovely little place, right in the centre of Gray Street looking out into South Bank.

Lots and lots of tables

They have a massive bar section!

Nice!

We instantly got a bottle of ice cold water to start with.

Reused booze bottle!

Here is their menu! We got their shoestring fries with a wonderful truffled aioli. V., told me that this was really good and she wasn't wrong! Super crispy, well salted shoestring fries and a super truffley, garlicky aioli!

Yesssss

I got this as my entree, a pan fried calamari with crispy onion bits and a salsa verde sauce. It was a very light and refreshing taste, the calamari was super tender. Ehh, I prefer crispy calamari all the time, I would've preferred it that way for sure.

Sir A., got this New York style sirloin steak, it came with thick cut smoked bacon, red wine jus, mashed potato and colcannon aka an Irish dish with mashed potato and crispy kale bits. The steak was a perfect medium rare and melted on the tongue like pure butter, oh man that was a good steak! Even as good as that, the thick smoky chunks of bacon were an absolute delight as well, you can't see any in the picture but they're as thick as your finger nail! Sir A was desperately hoping that I wouldn't ask for any.

Really delicious!

I got their BLT, fancy as anything with its delicious crunchy bacon, ripe tomato, lettuce, bacon jam and aioli on toasted white bread. I really enjoyed this BLT and its the standard by which I measure them now! Every single ingredient was perfect and I would happily go back and order this if it was still on the menu.

Bacon!

Next Door Kitchen and Bar
Atmosphere: 7, I quite liked the physical breeziness of the location. You can do some great people watching there.
Service: 6, really prompt service.
Food: 7, pretty good! I would definitely go here again if I ever remembered that it was there. I don't know why I've never gone back considering I liked nearly everything I ate here.

Sing's Asian Kitchen Cooparoo

Jubi told me about this place a long time ago. Before when she lived up here in Brisbane before her family relocated to the Gold Coast, it was her local Asian takeaway joint!

This place!

Dr S., C., JGirl, VGirl and I all went together and we had to wait a while for a table since we hadn't bothered getting a reservation despite it being a Friday night haha. The restaurant was packed and they were also doing a roaring trade in takeaway food as we watched. I wish that they did delivery but I guess they would be incredibly busy doing that! Here is their menu!

Bamboo styled cutlery

I got the salt and pepper calamari as an entree. It was crispy tempura coating with five spice powder mixed, the onions were well caramelised and add some sweetness to the dish. Did you know JGirl doesn't eat seafood DESPITE BEING JAPANESE? She eats sashimi and that's it, everything else makes her nauseated, she understands the appeal but can't stomach the taste no matter how often she tries it. I pretty much ate this myself after I gave everyone a piece.

I also got wing wings aka deboned and pork mince stuffed chicken wings that have been deep fried. It tasted like someone had shoved a spring roll inside of a chicken wing, it consisted of pork mince, mung bean noodles, water chestnuts and coriander. The technique is wonderful but I'd rather eat something else for my entree.

Blurry

VGirl got the vegetarian pad thai, she said it was a touch sweet but hoovered it down very quickly. There were cashew pieces, carrot, zucchini, baby corn, green onions, kai lan and onion in this pad thai. It's an interesting mix since vegetarian pad thais are usually just chockers with tofu pieces, this is kinda like when your mum wants you to eat more veggies and adds whatever in.

Your basic stir fry mix

I got green thai curry fried rice, I really like the idea of frying in spice pastes into fried rice like how Indonesian fried rices are. I love that spicy tomato based paste. Anyway, I quite liked the heat in this green thai curry fried rice, it had a great aroma just like the regular curry. It had pieces of chicken breast, egg. kaffir lime and Thai basil pieces. I ended up taking this back to work for my dinner. The rice was a touch gluggy though.

A giant chunk of rice

The other girls, Dr S., C., and JGirl got this beef red curry to share as they had already eaten and really just wanted to chat and hang out with us. This had the same vegetables with the addition of broccoli, capsicum and snow peas so I guess that's actually a bigger change. The beef was tender and the sauce was average.

I've had better

I got the soft shell crab salad, I thought I had ordered the soft shell crab papaya salad so when I received this I was absolutely furious. I cannot review this at all because all my thoughts were tainted by the fact that I got a garden salad instead of a papaya salad. It's been over eight months and I still get angry thinking about, I don't know why I didn't send it back.

Stupid ThatSeriousGirl

Sings Asian Kitchen
Atmosphere: 5, busy Asian restaurant.
Service: 5, nothing spectacular. 
Food: 5, I didn't really enjoy my meal here and neither did the other girls. We were wondering why it was so busy considering what we got. Maybe we picked the wrong food, but there's plenty of other Asian/Thai restaurant other to go to.

Mosaic Pizza

I remember driving past this place and thinking, NEW MEAT? Yeah I get pretty excited when new places open up in Logan. Especially pizza, because my all time favourite breakfast food is basically day old pizza reheated up. Nothing else quite comes up to the crunch of reheated pizza!

This one is located along Bryants Road aka, the road across from Foodworks at Loganholme, same place has a KFC and a Pizza Hut!  Yeah I totally forgot to take a picture of the outside of this place.

This is the interior of the store!

Here is their menu!

First thing is the garlic bread. It was terrible, like my dad put an average, non garlicky, garlic butter on a roll that he had split in half. So all the butter had dried up and then the bread was really average too. I want my garlic bread one of two ways, a soft butter soaked sponge, or a super crispy crunchy garlic bread. I also want my garlic bread to have like SPICY garlic and lots of parsley for freshness!

Angrily eats bread

I got the Yogi because I adore the equivalent of meatlover's pizza anywhere. This one has beef, bacon, pepperoni, ham, their Italian sausage and mozzarella on a napoli sauce. Great toppings, generously applied and a lovely golden brown colour to everything on this pizza. I felt like their Italian sausage was a touch sweet but it wasn't too bad. I really liked the chewy, charred flavour of this crust as well. I love seeing the little black marks on the bottom of pizza slices, it means there's wood fired oven's involved!

Not bad!

The second time I went here I got the Arachidi, roasted chicken, capsicum, coriander, mushrooms, red onions and satay sauce. I want more satay sauce! A bit more spice to it would have been nice too, it was a very creamy sauce and not very spiced at all. Think your jar of Chicken Tonight Satay vs the one you get at your favourite Thai restaurant. That being said, it was a nice change and a pretty interesting change to your usual pizza. VGirl dropped by after work and pushed off the topping off a slice to try it. She said that she really liked the taste of the satay sauce and would have to start putting satay sauce on her pizzas soon!

Note to self, satay sauce is great on pizza

Mosaic Pizza
Atmosphere: 5, your usual tiny pizza joint.
Service: 5, nothing special!
Food: 6, not bad considering its price, size, inventiveness and wood fire taste. Not bad for pizza in Logan either! Its not my favourite pizza place in Brisbane, especially since it closes so early but its not bad for a hit of wood fire goodness close to home!

Cowch Dessert and Cocktail Bar

I went to Cowch a long, long, long time ago, A*., and I went here straight after we went to Zeus Greek Food. If you can recall, we were still fairly peckish after our feed at Zeus so we were super keen to have something else to fill up on.

Cowch is in the Southbank strip right next Guzman y Gomez,  that means parking is terrible. Good luck finding a parking place.

The interior is a bit odd in Cowch? See below.

I hate sitting at tables that are knee height

Udder lamps

Slightly dark everywhere else

You can get their menu here!

A*., got the chocolate fondant cake with vanilla ice cream. Their ice cream is supplied by Lick! Aka the same guys who supply the Ekka strawberry sundaes! It was perfectly executed, the vanilla ice cream was dense, creamy and flecked with vanilla bean seeds and then the molten hot fondant cake. We smashed it open and watched the warm chocolate spill onto the plate. The cake was quite light and fluffy with a good chocolately flavour.

+_+

Action shot!

Perfectly gooey

Meanwhile I got a belgian waffle with strawberries, banana, salted caramel and vanilla ice cream. All the components were tasty and went well together. The freshly cooked waffle melted the cold ice cream and I was able to interspace the bites with pieces of fresh fruit.

All standard ingredients!

A* also got the hot chocolate milk, rich and creamy, she struggled to finish this with her dessert as well haha.

Cowch Dessert and Cocktail Bar
Atmosphere: 5, ahh I don't really the place.
Service: 5, we got served by a trainee waiter. He got my order of icecream completely wrong and gave me salted caramel by accident.
Food: 5, nothing special with their desserts, they do classic stuff well. Its located in Southbank and its pretty cheap by Southbank standards. 

Mamaku Kitchen

Did you know that I love Indonesian food? It's like my top 5 cuisines to eat out, like Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian, all the Middle Eastern cuisines and Japanese. Notice that Vietnamese isn't there because I can cook that at home. Also American comfort food, cause I love burgers and fried chicken but not every other aspect of that cuisine.

There's a very small amount of parking at this place, its along Sandgate road and in the same section as the Night Owl!

This place!

I didn't take any photos of the interior cause nearly every table as taken up . . . all ten of them! It's tiny, tiny little spot. Here is a copy of their menu!

I went with Manda and rather than let her pick, I just committed and picked a few dishes for us to share. The first thing we got was this home made pork crackling! Manda sang this dishes' praises as it reminded her of the old fashioned pork crackling you could get in bags. It was perfectly puffy, well seasoned and had a great crunch. She was talking to me and I was trying my best to look interested as I continued to stuff them in my mouth. We both agreed that to satisfy our fattiness, we really needed about $20 worth of pork crackling.

Mmmmm crackling

We were both iffy about the addition of the kale salad to this chicken satay dish but in the end it ended up being our second favourite dish of the night! The chicken was bland, tender but bland in the way that plain chicken can be. We both agreed that we both enjoyed it when you got a ton of peanut sauce to dunk it in, not that we found anything particularly tasty with the peanut sauce. 

The real winner was, and I can't believe I'm saying this, THE KALE SALAD. Or rather it's dressing, it was a rich, creamy, peanutty, slightly sour dressing that coated all the leaves of the kale salad and contrasted beautifully against the richness of the other dishes. I like the kale salad and dressing so much, I'd have happily shelled out top dollar for a giant bowl of the stuff.

FEED ME KALE SALAD

We got the lamb curry with potato pieces. The potato pieces were quite large and slightly starchy, they were very filling. The lamb pieces were fall apart tender but we found the flavour of the sauce to be quite bland? Like it needed a good whack of salt or some more spices to entice the taste buds. Both Manda and I both agreed that despite being well cooked, the flavour wasn't to either of our liking.

Pass

We got the vegetarian mi goreng to be healthy, it came out looking like a great jumble of carrot, kai lan, scrambled egg, thick egg noodles, spring onions and a scattering of fried onion pieces. We both love noodles and could have ignored this dish, the noodles were great but the dish needed more salt! At least we were healthy with our low sodium and ton of veggies noodle dish?

I've had better!

We did not finish our food ):

Stuffed!

Mamaku Kitchen
Atmosphere: 7, tiny, tiny little cafe, I think its really cute though with its ingredients in jars and family photos.
Service: 4, a bit slapdash, considering the space is so small, I felt like it was hard to get the server's attention. I remember our waiter zoned out and we couldn't get his attention so we could order. Also we got given the wrong food, even though our order was taken correctly :/
Food: 5, pretty average. Not good enough that we would go back again, its a shame cause the menu looked fantastic.