Ze Pickle

I went out with JGirl to Ze Pickle cause we love dirty burgers, it had also been having great photos all over Instagram. Also I was still salty about it being closed when I tried to go with Dr H. This time we parked on the outside of the Emporium and we legged it across the four lanes of road to get to Ze Pickle.

Here is their website! We went on a Friday night and I had to go to work straight afterwards. We waited for almost 45-50 minutes for a table, it was freaking crazy. I was getting twitchy paranoid that I would show up late or I wouldn't eat. We ended up sitting at the bar and it was great, TABLES ARE OVER RATED. I just want a spot to eat food at!

We got the Ze Chips! Jesus H., Christ, this is the standard by which I measure loaded fries now. The excellent Ipa beer cheese sauce, the hand chopped maple bacon bits, the fresh green onions to cut through all that richness and those crispy, crunchy chips! Ahh this was so good, I was scraping the sauce off the plate with chips, then my fingers, then licking my fingers and rubbing them on the plate when I thought JGirl wasn't looking. 10/10 would eat again.

Omg so so good!

I got the Double Double, two hand pressed wagyu beef patties, double cheese, double maple smoked bacon and ZP sauce. For a place that touts itself on the awesomeness of its real wagyu beef burgers, I think they should've bothered seasoning the stuff, it was blandly medium rare beef. Even the cheese and bacon didn't help that much with how freaking thick the pattie was. Kudos on generosity, boo to the lack of seasoning.

>:

JGirl got the 3pm burger, wagyu beef patty, maple smoked bacon, guacamole, mozzarella sticks and more ZP sauce. She struggled to finish this burger due to the immense greasiness of the burger, she was trying to down it heroically but to no avail. She ate the patty and continued to breath heavily for a while before admitting defeat.

:(

Ze Pickle
Atmosphere: 5, dark and dingy pub hole!
Service: 8, excellent! They were very polite despite the hum of activity in the place, quick to take drink orders and clear tables. I always find that bar staff are always the best at service no matter where you go.
Food: 5, pretty average burgers. I was really disappointed by their burgers and the lack of seasoning too. If giant, greasy, over indulgent burgers are your thing, have at it!

Lord of the Wings

I'm trying to post my massive archive of 2015 posts, so bare with me as I get them out of the way now that we've hit 2016 and part of my New Years Resolution is to get back on track with my blog! 

VGirl, JGirl and I decided to go out for dinner one day, so long ago I forgot why we went! Anyway, we wanted to eat some type of American food and we also needed to do some quick shopping so off we went to Lord of the Wings in Westfield Carindale Shopping centre.

Uhh, parking is easy of course. Park in the shopping centre, the GoHealth Club/new food court end and then walk in. Here is a link to where their menu can be downloaded.

The decor is very similar to a bar set up with high tables and stools, there are also lots of little booths if you prefer a more restauranty feel.

We sat in a booth, VGirl prefers this

JGirl and I decided to split everything, because we're generous girls and JGirl is student poor. The first thing we got was a serve of eight bone in wings, cause bones are where flavour lives, in classic BBQ. Tiny little wings just about as big as that dipping sauce of blue cheese sauce, they were cooked perfectly tender. The sauce was nothing spectacular. I've heard a lot about these "life changing" wings and I don't get the hype to be honest. I wish that places with lots of sauce choices let you try sauces before you settled on an order, or is that just me? How can I commit to one out of sixteen choices when I haven't tried most of them? Ice cream places let me try their stuff before I buy ):

Oh how the mighty have fallen?

VGirl got the garden salad, it's pretty sad because that's one of the few things she can eat beside every single appetiser. She says she enjoys salad but I don't see the point of going out to eat salad? This was a simple garden salad of lettuce, tomato, grated carrot, purple onion, raw button mushroom, cherry tomatoes and a drizzle of ranch dressing. She wolfed or should I say cowed hahaha it down in about a minute. The girl eats fast.

Inhaled.

JGirl and I split this pulled pork and coleslaw burger as our meaty main, figuring that with everything else we needed to squash it down a little bit more. Don't ever split a pulled pork burger by the way, not if you want to leave the place with your clothing intact. You think eating a pulled pork burger is messy? Try ripping a brioche bun, a notoriously soft bread, then the lusciously wet pork and the fiddly bits of coleslaw spilling everywhere. Solid pulled pork burger, I must say.

On another note, I think it's funny that the pulled pork and slaw burger on the menu has a picture of fries in the background. Then there is a disclaimer in each photo that the burgers don't come with sides. Like, "please excuse our food porn, we were doing it for the 'grams." I get it man, you do you.

I could be a hand model

We got sticks and rings to share between the three of us, deep fried mozzarella sticks, onion rings and a side of both Thousand Island dipping sauce and the same classic barbecue sauce that's on our wings. The onion rings were pretty greasy but still better than the atrocity I had at 8 Bit Burger earlier this year. The mozzarella sticks were disappointing, I pulled apart the sticks, gleefully awaiting the spectacle of endlessly stretchhhhhhhhing cheese and got nothing. Even fresh, mouth burning out of the fryer hot and they still didn't do their thing.

I recognise that BBQ sauce!

I got the traditional poutine, because VGirl loves potato chips more than she loves me and I love poutine, it's in my top 10 foods. Don't ask me to rank the loves of my life though, its just a loose list that changes whenever I'm eating a food that's on the list. Anyway, I wasn't a huge fan of this poutine, mostly cause they had clearly shoved the whole thing in a skillet and shoved it in the oven to heat up the cheese so the chips lost their crunch. FOR SHAME.

POUTINE?

Lord of the Wings
Atmosphere: 5, vaguely bar like enterprise. I dunno why there are so many groups here.
Service: 5, permabusy teens, enough said.
Food: 5, passable but I wouldn't go back here again. There's cheaper, larger portioned American food joints in Brisbane, don't bother with here.

Little Loco

I went with my pseudo girlfriend N., to Little Loco after we finished our night shifts together. We spent part of the night checking out restaurants and her eyes lit up when she saw the behemoth of a milkshake that they serve here! She demanded that we go here, so here we are!

Mr H., was supposed to come here with us but he got super tired walking to his car and just went home. He had just started at our workplace so none of us had his number, and so he didn't call us. We just thought he died or something and were talking shit about him for the entire meal.

Here is a menu from Zomato.

N., got the salted caramel milkshake of course, she believes the only way you should eat popcorn is if its sweet. She's a petite, dainty little thing with eyes bigger than her stomach, so I really had my doubts when she decided to get both this and a meal for breakfast. We both didn't really like this milkshake despite its beautiful appearance. The milkshake was made with three scoops of vanilla ice cream and tasted like straight up ice cream, which sounds great but really wasn't, The salted caramel sauce was had an oddly sour tang to it and we got annoyed that there were drips of salted caramel everywhere cause we wanted to eat that. The doughnut on top was gluten free, enough kind of said right?

Beautiful though!

Great minds think alike so N., decided to get the breakfast burger that I wanted, like me, she dislikes sweets for breakfast. This breakfast burger had streaky bacon, egg, avocado, spinach, mature cheddar, tomato relish and a polenta brioche burger bun. I had a nibble of this burger and I was actually quite happy that I had to get the choice that I did. There just wasn't enough bacon! Other than that, the other components were solid. The polenta brioche is an interesting experience, its quite buttery/sweet bun which is odd considering its supposed to be a healthy place.

More, more bacon!

You know what is always a rock solid combination? Haloumi and mushroom, no regrets ever. This was the mushroom and haloumi burger with onion jam, rocket, tomato, jalapeno mayonnaise and polenta brioche burger bun! It was amazing, I swear this is one of my versions of a safe bet.

Definitely recommend!

Little Loco
Atmosphere: 5, nothing fancy.
Service: 5, waiters and waitresses seem friendlier to regulars.
Food: 5, not bad, the place isn't my cup of tea with their focus on healthy stuff. If you were into that sort of thing, give the place a crack. 

Little Clive

H., decided that S., W., and I should go to Little Clive before work since they had amazing looking burgers and sweet potato fries on Instagram! It's located near the antique store in Annerley, its a bit annoying to find parking but there is some inside the shopping centre and across the road.

There's not much to the cafe, it is very pet friendly though since there is a dog groomer right beside the cafe! We had a lot of fun looking at all the cute doggies there. There was a very cute little white dog that got left in the waiting room of the dog grooming while its bigger brother and owner went inside. It was very sad and kept sighing dramatically while looking at the grooming room.

Here's a copy of their menu! We all decided to get burgers since we were pretty hungry and wanted the sweet potato fries that came as their side. W., and I passive aggressively fought over the twice cooked pork belly burger but I gave it because haloumi is an acceptable substitute in my eyes. The haloumi burger came with beetroot, tomato, lettuce and horseradish cream. One of my haloumi slices came out with a weird hair on it so they replaced it promptly.Solid burger components but I found the burger bun to be quite dry.

Haloumi~

H., got the soft shell crab burger which came with a mixed leaf salad, preserved lemon aioli and bright pink pickled onions! The pickle was a great addition to the burger as it helped cut out a bit of the oiliness of the soft shell crab. This one was my pick of the burgers, I love soft shell crab! Its always super juicy, crunchy and still super sweet. H., was the only one who didn't get a dry burger bun in her burger.

Pickles and fried food are a match made in heaven

W., didn't offer me any of his burger so I'm not sure what this tastes like. This is a twice cooked pork belly with coleslaw and chipotle mayonnaise. W., also said his burger bun was quite dry.

Big slab of pork belly though!

I also got the dips platter to share between us, I really enjoyed the bread for some reason, it was toasted quite crunchy and I felt like it was rubbed over with garlic when toasted. The three dips were a tomato salsa, an avocado and feta dip and then this odd foamy beetroot dip. I regret getting this dish.

Do not recommend

Sweet potato fries absolutely blew my mind. They were quite thinly cut, super crunchy and still had a good core of sweet potato sweetness and fluffiness. They were rave quality and I think they're honestly the best sweet potato fries I've had in Brisbane.

Great!

Little Clive:
Atmosphere: 8. mostly cause I love dogs.
Service: 7, super friendly staff members!
Food: 6, pretty average. I'd have left at a 5, but I do enjoy their sweet potato fries. Otherwise everything was pretty non eventful.

Chompers Springwood

I had been seeing a lot of Chompers on Instagram from other Brisbane based food bloggers so I got really excited when I went to the Hills Pizzeria and saw that there was a Chompers there as well! Its the first thing you see when entering the shopping complex so it's easy to find as well as find parking.

Here is a link to their menu! They have quite a wide range of options on their menu.

The first thing I got was a six pack of barbecue chicken wings. They weren't great, a quite salty or perhaps overly brined, soft crumbed chicken wing that was drizzled lightly with some barbecue sauce. It has a very homey feel to it.

?_?

This was my side of snack sized plain chips that came with my burger. They're quite a fair size that being said. I chose to have them with chicken salt but I thought they would be crunchier. They were all evenly sized, none of those fun, weird, super skinny crunchy ones or anything.

Chips chips chips

I picked the standard Chompers burger which consisted of fried egg, bacon, beef, tomato, cheese, lettuce and Chompers sauce. I found the beef patty to be quite dry and was unable to finish my burger. The fried egg was a bit too well done but I'm one of those people who want my egg on my burger slopping everywhere. I got this vibe of when I went to little takeaway shops and got a solid $10 burger with a drink when I was younger, or that feeling when your dad is running the BBQ on the weekend and he makes burgers with all the fixings rather than you kids go out to Maccas and waste money.

Dad, do you work at Chompers?

On another random occasion, I had gotten the beer battered chips with the rockstar option, their special seven blend cheese with bacon bits. I didn't notice any particular difference between the two chips in terms of flavour or crunch.

Rockstar style

Chompers
Atmosphere: 5, your local fast food joint. 
Service: 7, friendly and quick to help!
Food: 4, ahh pretty average for a specialist burger joint. It really reminds me of when my dad made me burgers at home and my dad is an average cook to say the least. There's a lot of other burger joints in Brisbane you can go to. Never again. 

Greaser Bar

I got invited to Greaser Bar! It's been on my list of go to places because it was one of the very few place in Brisbane that was open after 10pm at night! A*., Mr A., Manda and I found a list of places to go to our after late shifts at work but they are woefully few and far between. That is unless you count Korean places and sometimes you just want a bit break from all that Korean food!

Its super hard to find Greaser Bar because its modeled on the old school Prohibition speakeasies. Head down Brunswick Street, its just a little bit past the bottle shop and you'll see what looks like a random alleyway. There should be two big security guards there and a plaque to their left that says Greaser Bar! Head down the alleyway, and follow the signs to the bar, if you walk past what looks like an industrial kitchen you're heading in the right direction!

We sat at different tables and I didn't know anyone so I just sat down at the closest one. It seems like everyone else knew it each other but we still played by food blogging etiquette, foods down, cameras up! This was the buttermilk Southern fried chicken that we got! Wing and drum pieces in a crispy southern spice coating, the chicken flesh was very juicy and tender while the coating was KFC style crunchy. The two sauces that came with the chicken were a redeye gravy and a chipotle mayonnaise, the gravy wasn't anything special but we used up every single bit of that creamy and mildly spicy mayonnaise.

Deliciouso~

We also got their cheeseburger and crinkle cut fries as well! It was a touch on the small size but the cheeseburger was absolutely delicious! It had a soft squishy bun, ground Angus beef that was very juicy and tender, a giant slice of melted cheese, lettuce leaf, tomato and a pickle that had been cut on an angle that was too big. The pickle had been cut so that it was nearly the entire length of the pickle, that's too long! You need little slices, or slices the length or width of the burger so it doesn't flop out everywhere! Simple but delicious. Fries were great too, but almost all fries are who are we kidding?

Burger burger burger~!

Grill n Bao

Grill n Bao is one of the darlings of 8 Street in Garden City! It's one of the few restaurants there that isn't a smaller shop from a bigger store in Market Square in Sunnybank. Its quite similar to Bun Mobile which has steamed buns around a delicious burger option. I decided to get a quick bite to eat here one day and this is what I got! Here is a collection of all the menus for 8 Street!

I got the hot and spicy chicken steak, which was a golden brown fried chicken breast with a basic Asian coleslaw, lettuce and your choice of sauce. I got the teriyaki sauce and it was amazing, I also got cheese and bacon because that's always a good option. I loved the soft, sweet pillows of the steamed buns! They were freshly steamed and didn't stick to the roof of your mouth as badly as Bun Mobile's did.

So delicious

I came back several months later and had the wagyu beerf burger with Japanese mayo with no additional bits this time. The wagyu was tough and chewy, I would not recommend it.

Much sad

I also got their karaage chicken but forgot to take a photo. It was terrible, quite greasy, with no crunchy coating and it was very plain in flavour. I would not recommend getting it.

Grill n Bao
Atmosphere: 6, super crowded little place in 8 Street.
Service: 5, quick and efficient!
Food: 5, eh solid food court food. 

 

Yard Bird Ale House

Yardbird Alehouse has been on my list of go to places for a long freaking time, I've never gone because I dislike bar settings, all the noise, drunken people and uncomfortable chairs make me hate them.

Watch out for this sign in the corner of the little food district.

Aw yiss

There are a lot of interesting pieces of artwork around the bar but they're hard to take photos of!

Kitchen

Overexposed photo :(

See! They're pretty hard to take photos of, I really need to work on playing around with exposure settings.

Aw yiss

Love em!

Huh?

Lovely couches!

Here is a link to their menu! The first thing we ordered was the New Orleans Chicken pizza, grilled Cajun chicken, chorizo, roasted capsicum, Spanish onions, mozzarella cheese on a chipotle tomato base. I found this to be a wonderfully meaty pizza with great flavours from all the ingredients. The base was American style, slightly thick but still crispy crunchy on the bottom.

Awesome!

You can only choose one flavour for your wings for every six wings that you buy, we got try all the flavours since we bought so many wings between the . . . fifteen of us or whatever it was that arrived.  Honey BBQ was slightly sweet but had a good BBQ flavour, the Southern fried wings were garlic and parmesan flavoured but I wasn't a fan, Chipotle BBQ was my absolute flavour with a great smoky BBQ flavour that I wanted to lick off the wings and original buffalo had a solid heat and sour flavour.

Lastly was the death sentence wings, they were the spiciest thing I've ever had. I have a solid medium heat tolerance for everything, and like a brown person level of spice too. Ms M for Megababe and I each had one each, my mouth quickly went numb but I stopped being able to feel it and just finished eating my wing. After about a minute, someone asked if something was wrong as I had tears streaming down my face from the heat. I wasn't even aware that I was crying, I looked over to Ms M for Megababe and she was also silently crying. Everyone was very impressed by how strong the spice was and most people there refused to even have a full wing, contending to just lick a bit of the sauce.

Garlic and parmesan on top and then the original buffalo sauce wings

Chipotle BBQ!

I went here a second time with Mr J on a date. He ordered the Cuban sandwich based on my recommendation, I actually had it the first time I was here but I used this photo instead. Its filled with pulled pork, smoked leg ham, Swiss cheese, gherkins and American mustard. The pulled pork was the main part of the sandwich, I found it slightly too dry and needed some more sauce to stop it being so cloying. The sandwich was huge and it was a massive struggle to finish it, even Mr J had issues trying to eat it all.

Meat tornado sandwich

I got the cheeseburger which came with a side of fries. It was terrible, the beef patty was quite dry, cooked to a well done state and the patty itself was quite small in size.

Tiny patty

The chips were delicious, freshly fried and well salted.

Good chips!

Yard Bird Ale House
Atmosphere: 5, its a pub. It could be worse I suppose.
Service: 7, super fast pub service!
Food: 5.5, sometimes passable, sometimes bad, generally huge portions for cheap prices though. I'd happily go here for food while drunk.

Boom Boom Burger

I got invited to Boom Boom Burger Bar and Cafe the other day! It was a 1940s style New York style bar with burgers and bar place on Chevron Island down the Gold Coast! I know only one person down on the Gold Coast so Jubi came with me to this place!

It's on the main strip of Chevron Island just slightly off the side, so watch out for this sign!

Aw yiss

I liked all the murals and decorative pieces around the bar. I wish I was able to take more photos but there were way too many people around everywhere. I'm talking like 1-2 free tables at any time, except the freezing outside tables. I found the atmosphere to be like a buzzing restaurant, constant background noise but you're still able to talk to your dinner partner without shouting.

So bright

We sat right near the kitchen and enjoyed the view of the restaurant.

Bar!

I liked this table of cutlery and napkins, I like the worn look of it.

Not sure why I like it

Once again, I love the murals. This one was just outside the kitchen.

Great art!

Here is their menu! We got $40 off the tab since we got invited there but we ordered so much stuff we still had to pay a bit hahaha. We got a drink, tapas, side, burger and sauce each for roughly $30! The first pick was by Jubi! We were really indecisive for a long time about what tapas to get because we wanted to eat everything and I mean like, I would eat everything on the menu just to try it. Jubi is the queen of best decisions when it comes to her picks and it was no different this time.

She chose the four hour braised beef cheeks with mushrooms and small pieces of juicy, intensely flavoured tomatoes. I wish I could even convey how tender these slices of melting beef were, I poked it with a knife and the meat fell to pieces. It had a rich, intensely flavoured sauce that was thick, glossy and with that wonderful beef, tomato and mushroom flavour of winter.

Winter food at its best

I went with the slow cooked pork rib sticky fingers, I have no idea what a pork rib sticky finger is but its a super meaty pork rib and I'm a fan of that. This was another super tender cut of meat, when I grabbed the bone to pick it off the plate, the rest of the meat fell off right back onto the plate. The sauce was delectable, I was licking it off the plate when I thought Jubi wasn't looking.

Sooo good

The house specialty on the side dishes was the puff potatoes which after much discussion, Jubi decided to get. We were eagerly discussing what we possibly thought this could be when it arrived at our table. Perfectly round, golden brown, shallow fried, well seasoned mashed potato balls! They were super hot and I'm pretty sure Jubi burnt her tongue trying to eat one, they were amazing but definitely something you should eat promptly.

Amazing!

I picked the onion rings after much umming and ahhing over what to get. The onion rings had very large, sweet slices of onion in a thin and super crispy tempura batter. We got a sauce each that appeared in the photo below, I got the house mayonnaise and Jubi got the tomato relish. I disliked the flavour of the mayo, finding it to have a strong flavour to the oil used and not much of a tang or sweetness. The relish was very good and Jubi ate the entire dish on EVERYTHING, she was highly tempted to bring a jar of it home to be honest.

Wonderful!

I decided to go with the option of two sliders for $12 to try a few more things. My first instant pick was the Hello Lucy! Haloumi, roasted pumpkin, walnut, tomato relish, lettuce and rocket burger and if that doesn't sound amazing I don't know what else does. This is the first and only time I've ever wanted a vegetarian burger and I'm just as amazed as you are. The flavours worked perfectly together from the crunchy of the walnut, the sweetness of the pumpkin, that salty, chewy hit from the haloumi and the freshness and bitterness of the rocket! Oh man, this is the perfect combination and I was in heaven! Jubi was very polite and decided to go with a different burger option but she later confessed this is what she originally wanted. I will make a salad with these exact ingredients one day and it will be glorious, I have all these ingredients at home right now barring the rocket.

Too bad, so sad, its all mine!

I also got the Pig Me Up, 6 hour slow cooked pork belly, green apple chutney, blue cheese, tomato and lettuce. I was somehow under the expectation that this was pulled pork so I was quite surprised when I tasted blue cheese, pork belly and tart green apple. It was tasty but I was so irritated by this that I was put off since I had been expecting pulled pork. Jubi later showed me the menu and I admitted that it was good just unexpected. The pork belly has gorgeously melting layers of fat and soft pork and contrasted beautifully with the rich, creamy blue cheese and tart chunks of green apple chutney. 

So much chutney

This fat slob of a burger is their Boom Boom Bang, wagyu beef, tomato relish, cheese, lettuce and caramelised onion. Jubi ordered it and said it wasn't a super tall burger but the patty was cooked to a perfect medium rare and the burger was very wide. She said it was delicious but ended up having to eat it with a knife and fork due to the sheer size of it.

Classic burger!

Boom Boom Burgers
Atmosphere: 9, bustling American diner, intimate, buzzing but you can still hear people, it would be the perfect place to get together with friends especially with their bar and cheap prices.
Service: 10, absolutely wonderful. They were super attentive, cleared the plates away promptly and asked us multiple times how everything was. I noticed they did this to everyone and not just us as well!
Food: 10, I adored everything I ate here. It has the distinction of having the best vegetarian burger I've ever had the pleasure of eating, the sides are plentiful and cheap and the tapas were all delicious. I only regretted my choice of the house mayo for dipping my onion rings into due to whatever oil they used to make it up having a strong flavour.