Scout

I had heard about Scout and seen their menu before and finally decided to go there after my night shifts. Parking is hard since its along a one way street with very limited spots due to their timing. The side streets are pretty small and on hills so good luck.

Keep an eye out for this spot!

I have to add that I hated the furniture for this place, the stools were too short for the tables and then the bench was too high for the table. Otherwise the decoration for the place isn't too bad. It's a cool little hipster place with a very solid following of loyal locals judging from the constant flow of foot traffic. The menu is normally up on their FB page.

I got a massive coffee in order to fuel the rest of my day. This was a giant double shot mocha in a giant mug. It was immensely drinkable, no bitterness or sour tones to this coffee!

<3

I got the Scout's Honour, their version of the big breakfast which came with two poached eggs, sourdough, pork and fennel sausage, roasted tomato, garlic mushrooms and potato bake. It. Was. Amazing. I loved every part of this dish, perfectly cooked eggs, crunchy toast, caramelised slices of sausage, garlicky mushrooms, sweet tomatoes and a creamy, cheese potato bake. I got this dish twice, thats recommendation enough.

The best

The second time I went here, I bought Manda with me. We both got the same drink, I slapped her for doing that. Well not really, but I almost did! We got Vietnamese iced coffee, she had a sip of mine and decided to go get her own. She also made the set yourself on fire mistake of asking some random hipster girl for the iced coffee, she did not work there. I was so embarrassed I nearly spontaneously combusted of shame.

Anyway, this Vietnamese iced coffee isn't made the same way that its traditionally done with the filter and dripped onto ice. However that is like a third of condensed milk, a third of straight up espresso and then a third of ice, that in my mind, the perfect ratio. Manda didn't get quite as much condensed milk as I did and the waitress got us some more. Its perfect for slow days and shit talking with friends!

Noice

Manda got this brekkie bagel, rocket, crispy kaiserflesch, fried egg, tomato relish, tomato and aioli. It was deliciously dense, she only had half and hid the rest for lunch. I tried to take a bite, but I got scared off when Manda could only finish half of it.

Mmmm

Scout Cafe
Atmosphere: 8, love that little place but I hate the furniture!
Service: 8, really good service. Prompt and the waitresses are on patrol, if you can spot them hahaha
Food: 9, DELICIOUS! Nothing else to say. Eat everything here. No questions asked. 

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! 

Seven South

I was prompted to go to this place by Instagram and one of my work mates who is a food blogger too! Her instagram name is SouthEastEats and she's a big deal. Unfortunately we were on very different shifts so I went straight after nights with a friend of mine called W., and K.,!

Parking is a bit sparse, it's a weird little shopping strip in the middle of suburbia. Leg it, if you're unlucky.

Look out for this place!

I like the look of the place though! Nice, brightly lit cafe with minimalist furniture and lots of little plants everywhere. Steal Zomato's menu!

I got this juice and I have no idea what it is. Just from the picture, I can already say I didn't like it because it is ridiculously fluffy. I hate fluffy drinks.

MINT >:

This was K.,'s meal, fried potato and parmesan hotcakes, poached eggs, avocado aioli, poached eggs and your choice of bacon or hot smoked salmon. She got the hot smoked salmon! They had a lovely fresh yolk on these eggs which I forgot to take a photo of. We were both a bit iffy about the potato cakes due to their lack of all over frying, just a shallow pan fry for these poor things! I want crunchy hash brown type potatos for my breakfast please! I think the salmon could have done with a strong smoke flavour too.

Bwah

W., got this dish, char grilled seasonal greens, kale, salsa verde, haloumi and poached eggs on the side. She wanted a fresh option for breakfast, this just looks like a salad gone rogue to me. She doesn't eat out much besides all Asian foods so she had actually never had kale, haloumi or poached eggs before which was interesting to watch haha. She said that she liked this dish but she freaked out over poached eggs and I ended up eating them. I find a lot of traditional Asian people balk at the idea of eating uncooked eggs, which is weird cause we will eat a lot of weird stuff given the chance.

So healthy for breakfast :/

I got this fancy avo on toast, with spiced pepitas, goats feta, smoked salmon and their pumpkin bread. I will stick my foot down and say that cold smoked salmon is my one true love, not hot smoked! The flavour in hot smoked is too mild for my liking and the fatty texture is all gone when they hot smoke it too. This goats feta wasn't too bad, not super goaty/strong on the taste buds like many can be. My pepitas were actually shelled unlike another breakfast joint I won't care to mention!

Lime!

Seven South
Atmosphere: 8, gorgeous little cafe! I love this kind of design.
Service: 5, nothing special.
Food: 7, nothing was bad, nothing was particularly enjoyable but nothing was poorly done? There is actually very little on the menu that I would say I wanted to eat? Mostly because its predominantly sweets or vegetables and I'm a big breakfast kinda girl. Give it a crack but I wouldn't go back here again personally, a swing and a miss!

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!

Snag and Brown

Post night shift breakfasts ahoy! I went here with Mr 2., and a straggler who invited them self along, a real shame cause I wanted to talk trash about them while we were at breakfast. Nothing worse than going to a meal with someone you dislike, it taints my food.

This cafe is located down Ekibin Road in Annerley, the end further away from Ipswich Road if that helps. Parking is alright I suppose, just crossing the road in the morning can take a little while.

Local feeds

Here is their menu. Below is their disclosure? Or rather, an explanation of their menu items.

Good to know

Here is their drinks menu!

I love different drink options

I got the bounty hot chocolate made on soy milk with a double shot of espresso added in. It had a great coconut flavour and small pieces of toasted coconut in the drink to add some texture. I dunno why but its surprisingly hard to find flavoured hot chocolate drinks that aren't at a dessert cafe, the only other brekkie place that I know always makes them is Cafe Wrapture in West End!

+_+ yesss flavoured hot chocolates

Mr 2 got the English breakfast. Why is the cup the same size as the teapot?

?_?

This is the medley of mushroom with truss tomatoes, poached eggs, toast, leafy greens and weird polenta sausage.

Ehhh

I got the braised pork belly with black pudding, sweet potato and caramelised onion hash brown, poached eggs, popcorn crackling and an onion and apple puree. What is it with me and ordering braised pork belly and receiving this dry looking roast chunk? Wikipedia even says so! Braising is when you fry something on a high heat and then continue the rest of the cooking in a liquid, until it becomes so tender you can push it apart with a fork. I was expecting this gelatinous brown blob where the fat had rendered down into the meat, where if I looked at it threateningly, it would just collapse!

So as you can expect, I was already irritable when I saw this. I didn't like this meal, the black pudding was cut unevenly and just warmed, they didn't fry off the black pudding until it was crispy. The apple puree was pretty sweet, The crackling was pretty and crunchy but not salty in the least. The sweet potato hash was pretty good though, quite sweet from the caramelised onion and the sweet potato pieces had a good crispy edge. I was expecting a different appearance though, more like the usual potato hash browns or like a squished hash to be honest?

Wow, I didn't realise how much I disliked this meal until I began typing this :/, before I did this, I would have classed my annoyance as mild.

Uhhh

At least my egg popped?

Yay?

Mr 2 got the big breakfast, pork chipolatas, thick cut bacon, your choice of eggs, your choice of hash brown, mushrooms, roasted truss tomatoes, white bean, house relish and pork cassoulet and leafy greens. He decided to go with poached eggs and the sweet potato and caramelised onion hash brown that I got with my dish. His comment was that everything was okay, nothing great but he wouldn't go back here based off that. He also adds that he doesn't like 62C degree poached eggs, he finds them too runny for his liking.

Thick bacon!

Snag and Brown
Atmosphere: 7, pretty cute converted house!
Service: 7, pretty friendly service, more than happy to change my drink for me as well as explain the menu.
Food: 5, average food.