Dapur Dahlia

I love Malaysian food so its a wonder that I hadn't already been to Dapur Dahlia in my travels! I decided that VGirl and her boyfriend, Zbag, JGirl, Dr S., and myself, should all head here for dinner one day.

Dapur Dahlia is a bit hard to spot, its pretty near to the Pizza Hut/Night Owl store in Upper Mount Gravatt so keep an eye out for that. Parking is a bit limited since its not particularly a big shopping lot. This restaurant is super popular, while the Indian restaurant beside it had barely any customers the entire time we were there. Perhaps they should expand that way?

This place!

The restaurant is extremely small by the way, not to mention the furniture is pretty small and uncomfortable to sit on. We had to wait about 20 minutes to get a table simply for the fact that there are only about . . . 8 tables in the entire place, the majority of which end up being put together due to limited tabletop space. In short, I hate this tiny restaurant's atmosphere!

Here is their collection of menus.

We all got random drinks. VGirl got this Soda Bandung, aka iced rose water soda. It's bright pink and icy cold, it also tastes exactly like creaming soda, surprise!

Fave for VGirl

I got the traditional teh ais, thick black tea and condensed milk thats been stretched. Zero stretching here, there is no foamy top at all! That being said its delicious, but what more do you expect from condensed milk drinks?

Love condensed milk

Zbag picked ais limau, a black tea with lime juice added. It was a very refreshing and sweet iced tea flavour.

Yummy

I made VGirl get the Maggi migoreng as opposed to the regular migoreng, this is because I wanted to eat Maggi noodles over hokkien noodles. Also it was the chef's special! This is even though VGirl would only allow me a small mouthful of the noodles. She said it was delicious and finished it before the rest of the dishes were even put down. When I asked her if she wanted another serve, she declined but spent a lot of time inquiring after other peoples meals, so maybe I should have gotten one . . . oh the vegetables in this dish were bean sprouts, carrot, cabbage and gai lan!

Yassss

I got the ayam goreng and beef rendang nasi lemak! I love nasi lemak because it allows me to pick and choose bits off the menu that I want to try without having to actually order that dish as a main! So yeah I picked fried chicken of course and beef rendang! To be truthful, since I started making beef rendang, I've never found one as good as my own. I love the sauce super dense, full of spices and coconut and the beef to fall apart. This was okay. The fried chicken reminds me of home with the way the winglet is still kept on it! That's the good bit, there's so much skin on there to eat! I enjoyed the sambal that they had here as well as the fact that the egg was a medium boil, no dodgy iron grey ring for me thanks!

<3 nasi lemak

Chicken satay, the way it should be! Charred, fat skewers of chicken absolutely doused in finger licking satay sauce accompanied with cucumber and red onion! They come four to a serve, so there was enough for everyone to eat one and get

Ideal number, so easily divisible!

This is their roti telur bawang aka egg and onion flatbread that comes with dahl, lentil curry, and a curry gravy, chicken! I feel like that sentence has a lot of commas in there but I'm too lazy to fix it, so please endure! Dr S., and JGirl both enjoyed this!

!

However, they also ordered roti jala aka net bread, which also came with a curry gravy and chicken curry. I have no idea why they basically ordered the same dish twice to share. I don't understand the appeal of roti jala because its meant to go with curry dishes as a means of sopping or picking up curry. So why would you use a bread that has so many holes in it to do that? Doesn't that seem fundamentally arduous somehow? Like eating soup with a spoon?

?_?

CBoy got the seafood laksa. It is a massive, massive bowl! It comes with lots of prawns, calamari, fish cakes, three types of noodle, flat rice, egg and a homemade rice starch noodle as well as a very rich and flavourful coconut broth! He did not finish this bowl by the way, it defeated him!

Truck size bowl

We got the cendol as our shareable dessert, bright green pandan noodles, shaved ice and palm sugar syrup! I like that they actually used real palm sugar, you can taste the caramel sweetness of it. I had to scoff this down as everyone else was too full and wanted to go home and sleep.

Refreshing!

Dapur Dahlia 
Atmosphere: 3, I hate this tiny restaurant. Please expand more!
Service: 5, nothing special.
Food: 7, average! The drinks are pretty good as are the dishes barring the roti. The serving size is solid and the pricing is pretty cheap. Give this place a shot, I'd say! 

Princess Thai

I really wish Thai Phoenix wasn't located so far north side, I think its a really solid place to go to and everything I ate here was amazing! I went with my friend Dani and we loved everything we had here. I'd go here more frequently if it wasn't north side.

Parking is a bit shit, its near the Nandos! There is SOME parking but if its busy, I doubt you'd get a park directly in front of the store.

Here is their menu!

We went during lunch so they had an amazing lunch special that we took full advantage of. Below is a drink that I remember sounded so good that I wanted seconds after chugging it even before my food arrived. Dani got the same drink and loved it.

Yesssssss

We went with classic dishes for our entree, pork spring rolls and chicken satay. The pork spring rolls tasted very much like what Mama Pham makes at home, a good amount of pork mince and lots of veggies too. They had a really crispy shell despite being a bit pale. The chicken satay was really good, it had a nice char on the outside and the satay sauce was some of the best I've ever had. I could drink it or bath in it. We scraped that dish dry.

Yesssssss

Dani got the chicken and cashew stir fry with plain rice for her main meal. It had a ridiculous amount of birds eye chilli hidden within its depths. We hid them in the leftover pad thai for her boyfriend to accidentally eat haha. She said that she liked how much chicken there was as well as the plentiful cashews you can see in the picture. This was a lunch special for $10! Quite the bargain I think.

+_+ cashews

The real reason I went here is for their Princess Curry aka khao soi, Northern Thai style coconut curry with crispy egg noodles and your choice of chicken or beef. I got chicken and it was melt in your mouth, home cooked style tender! It came with the traditional accompaniments of mustard pickles, chilli oil and lemon wedges, so you adjust it to your preference. I really loved this version of the dish and it had Dani in heaven. She told me that since then she has gotten this every time she's gone there. This is also a lunch special!

Love you <3

Pad thai is always on your go to Thai dish list! This one was really good, well balanced, with tender noodles and lots of egg, tofu and chicken bits to pick at. We did not finish our meals so this became takeaway.

<3

Princess Thai
Atmosphere: 8, I really liked the interior, unfortunately, even during a weekday lunch there were too many people for me to get a good photograph!
Service: 6, friendly and very obliging staff.
Food: 9, really good Thai food. The lunch specials are super cheap and they offer my favourite Thai dish, khao soi, as one of their specials! What's not to love? I took off a point because they are located north side. I'm petty like that.

Ashton and Old

N., and I went to Ashton and Old as a quick lunch before work! We were entranced by the sounds of pork belly fried rice and so off we went! I really enjoy working with N., like me, she rarely has plans and if so it's planned so far in advance that she can easily join me in my random food adventures around Brisbane. We're both notorious in our work place for having lunches together and going to Korean fried chicken joints late after work ends haha.

Anyway, Ashton and Old is located on Old Cleveland Road, it has 1P parking in the front and some parking at the back if you're lucky! Just hope that you're on the right side of the road approaching, or you might have to leg it across busy traffic!

This place!

Here is their menu!

We went agesssss ago!

I like the set up of the cafe, but you know by now that I love open plan restaurants with an airy appearance. I like sunlit rooms!

I like succulents!

View from where we were sitting

Lots of seating space

Those photos are olden day Camp Hill!

I went there for their pulled pork eggs benedict, cause both those things massively appeal to me! I love the silky creaminess of this hollandaise sauce. I adored that doorstop wedge of bread that soaked up all the juices from my tender pulled pork and the yolk from my perfectly poached eggs. This meal was a dream come true and everything I expected and more, when it came to pulled pork eggs bene!

Yessss

This is the dish that made us come here in the first place! Sticky pork belly fried brown rice with fried egg, fresh Asian coleslaw and lots of crunchy deep fried onion garnishes. The pork belly was tender and cooked enough that the fat had rendered nicely but despite that we didn't really like the fried rice. N., noted that she felt like it was way too healthy for her with the inclusion of brown rice, we both felt like the plum sauce used in the fried rice made it way too sweet and made the rice clump together. It looked great but fell flat in execution.

Meh

We also got giant hand cut sweet potato chips to share, you can tell they are lovingly hand cut because one is the size of an entire sweet potato. They had a nice crunchy exterior and soft sweet fluffy interior. I love sweet potato chips. They also gave us a dish of garlic aioli to dip with!

Giant chip

N., got this fluffy strawberry, apple and orange juice drink.

Fluffy drink

I got this coffee frappe, without sugar syrup like a dummy. So it was just a fancy iced coffee really. Note to self, don't get it without sugar syrup.

Bleh needs sugar

Ashton and Old
Atmosphere: 7, I love the look of this little cafe.
Service: 5, not bad, nothing special.
Food: 7, pretty good! They have an inventive menu that constantly changes and I would go back to try some other stuff on their menu.

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.

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. 

Landmark Restaurant

Oh man Landmark is probably the best known yum cha restaurant in all of Brisbane. I swear if you've ever been to yum cha, you've probably been here before. I don't really like it though, mostly because the food can be a bit hit and miss. If you go there during peak hour, everything is great otherwise it's really average. The fried food can be a bit oily, the calamari can be tough at best and the service is surly at best.

Anyway, it's still an easy place to go to for a quick catch up with friends. Especially since parking is so easy since its in the shopping centre at Sunny Plaza. The day we went was really a get together for all the parents and me, because I like to eat.

I was on the prowl as soon as we entered the restaurant! My friends normally leave me to order for the table because I usually know whats good, but H., has to rein me in because I usually over order! We started off with har gao, some prawn and coriander dumplings plus siu mai! The har gao and prawn and coriander dumplings had very juicy, plump and flavoursome whole prawns inside, you can pretty much guarantee for all of Landmark's failings that their prawns dishes are pretty good. The siu mai was nothing special, the won ton wrapper was a little tough for some reason but I guess that's because we went a little before lunch time.

We had doubles of this!

You can faintly see in this photo that we had deep fried prawn rolls, salt and pepper calamari, steamed pork buns and crunchy kai lan with a side of oyster sauce. The salt and pepper calamari were a hit with the kids at our table, S.,'s daughter Olivia had one tentacle in each hand and was chewing gleefully. She kept trying to share her food with the other little boy there, Oliver, he was somehow convinced that he was eating chewy chips but tried the calamari anyway. He was a very shy little boy and kept asking his dad for more "chips". That being said, they were rubbery as anything, I don't think there's been a single time that I've had tender calamari here. The steamed pork buns were too sweet for my liking and had very little char siu inside them.

The token vegetable

A slightly different angle

You can't really see through all the steam but this was an interesting dish with eggplant where the hollowed inside was filled with fish paste and prawns before being steamed! Oliver was also gamely trying this considering he hadn't had eggplant or fish paste before. I feel like I shouldn't be allowed near small children cause I'd just feed them exotic foods without telling them what it was. I guess that's no different to how I treat some of my adult friends really.

What's behind that cloud of steam????

These were more deep fried prawns and beside them is a slippery plate of steamed rice noodles with more prawns inside them covered in a sweet soy sauce.

Well at least their prawns are good

Landmark Restaurant
Atmosphere: 5, your usual bright red and gold Chinese restaurant! Complete with tanks full of live seafood for you to pick and consume at your leisure. 
Service: 3, surly and unhelpful. Skip the trolleys and bring your bill straight to where they steam the food. Your variety will be a lot better and the food a lot fresher.
Food: 4. the food is nothing special. Anything with prawns is a safe bet, otherwise gloves are off as to what you're getting.