The Establishment

Imma start off by saying this is my favourite Italian place in Brisbane because its pretty cheap, has huge portions and I like people watching in West End. I definitely prefer this place for dinners but their breakfast dishes are pretty huge too. It's easy to get to being on the Boundary St intersection opposite the Commonwealth Bank. Park at the Coles and run!

This place!

They have a massive wall of coffee!

Ah!

Here is some of their menu. I honestly forgot to take photos, thinking I had already had them. My bad. Anyway I got a really strong mocha with an extra shot to survive the the drive home.

<3

I got a serve of chorizo scrambled eggs with spinach, mushrooms and a massive slab of sourdough under there. The chorizo was a super fine dice which I wasn't happy about but there was a lot of it so I guess that kind of balanced it out. The eggs were really creamy with a soft curd. I have nothing else to say about this dish because it's something you can easily make at home but it also pretty tasty.

Spot the bread

There was a ridiculous amount of food and I failed to finish my food.

Woah

Dr. S., VGirl, JGirl, and myself went again after we went to the Lifeline Bookfest earlier this year. We wanted something in the area that was also a prime spot to watch the dodgy set of lights where there were numerous close calls with car crashes. Its a traffic light intersection where you CANNOT do a U-turn to get into Coles however, people attempt it anyway with near disastrous effects.

Here is their menu!

We got this freaking huge bowl of chips to start with as per VGirl's requests. Crispy hand cut chips! What more could you want!

Plus aioli and tomato sauce

We got these potato croquettes as well to share between us, I don't think they're on the menu any longer but they were pretty good as well.

Crunchy crunchy!

Next up were the arancini balls filled with mushrooms, pine nuts, parmiggano cheese and truffle oil. These came in a group of three that we split between the four of us. They were super hot and burnt our tongues in our haste to polish them off haha.

<3!

I can't remember who got this seafood fettucine, it came full of scallops, prawns and a super garlicky and bright tomato sauce. Like a ridiculous amount of seafood, we were feeding each other prawns and scallops for the length of the meal. There wasn't just the jumble on the top but also a whole heap inside the pasta nest as well. This giant portion wasn't finished, it was taken home for lunch the next day!

So much

This is VGirl's spinach and ricotta canneloni with a giant serve of balsamic vinegar drizzled garden salad, lots of rocket, tomato, purple onion, pine nuts and capsicum. As usual, VGirl didn't comment very much on her dish, her comment in it's entirety was, "its spinach and ricotta." She's not wrong I suppose, I don't have high expectations of spinach and ricotta dishes, I find it a bit of a bland combination. Too creamy and mild for my tastes, spinach and feta all the way. She liked the huge side salad though.

This blurry blob

JGirl ordered the chorizo and pesto gnocchi with sweet potato crisp, thats the crunchy pile on top! She adored this dish so much that she bought it again the next time we came here. We all had a lot of fun eating the super crunchy, deep fried sweet potato bits but I still miss the fluffiness of sweet potato. The sauce is very rich and creamy while the gnocchi is obviously homemade, so light and fluffy.

<3

Dr S., got gnocchi as well, the zucca! Roasted pumpkin, goats cheese, spinach, pine nuts and sun dried tomatoes, a perfect vegetarian assortment. Dr S., said that she never understood the appeal of gnocchi until she had this dish saying that the ones she had eaten in the past were rubbery and dense. Not like these fluffy square pillows, haha, not a pretty appearance but a great taste, right up my alley!

Shiny

I went again with just Dr S., and JGirl about a week later. We got this garlic bread as our entree. It needed more garlic, you should be able to see it! Not a fan of how they cut the bread as well, it makes it hard to share if you have two noticeably smaller pieces and a jumbo middle one.

Uneven cuts too

I got the jumbo lasagna and side salad, its not called jumbo lasagna, that's just obviously the freaking size of that slab. That's like, what your nonna feeds you when you come over for dinner and she thinks you look too thin. It was delicious, probably one of the best lasagnas I've had ever! Easily detected layers of beef and pork ragu, bechamel sauce, Napoli sauce and parmeggiano regiano sprinkled on top. I did not finish this and so I took the rest of it into work!

Yessss

Dr S., got the sand crab ravioli, a classic Brissie dish I feel! The sand crab ravioli were densely packed with sweet crab meat and covered in a gorgeous buttery sauce of burnt butter and sage. Honestly one of my favourite classic sauce flavours, I loved the piece that I got but compared to my dish, the serving size was underwhelming.

Haha food envy!

The Establishment
Atmosphere: 5, the corner of a busy intersection!
Service: 7, solid, they always check if we're enjoying our meal and top up the water quickly.
Food: 9, really delicious Italian food, cheap, plentiful and with a few more options than your traditional Italian restaurant! Put this one down as my fav Italian place in Brisbane!