Malacca Malay

I was initially very excited to find that there was a new restaurant opening up at the Hyperdome aka my local shopping centre. I know that I say that Garden City is my local but that is because no one would happily claim the Hyperdome as their local. When I saw that this place had opened, I knew I had to go and try their food.

Parking is easy, its at a major shopping centre. Just park down at the Coles end and leg it. It's right in front of Aldi, its hard to miss. Here is their menu, thanks Zomato!

I got the chicken satay skewers as my entree. I found the chicken to be a touch dry with a very heavy hand on the tumeric in their marinade. I was quite saddened that there was no heavy charring or smokey flavour on the chicken. Their satay sauce was quite sweet. It came chopped onion, cuucmber and sour pineapple on the side.

):

This was the curry pork rib with noodles. I could not finish this dish, both due to the generous portion sizing as well as the taste not being to my liking. The pork rib pieces that they use are the cartilage heavy, tasty pork rib tips that are loved in Asian cooking. They were smothered in a thick, grainy, spice heavy curry that reminded me of fresh curry powder? I'm not sure how to explain it because the flavour was very familiar but I was unable to really place it or describe it besides, "the equivalent of fresh curry powder."

:<

I got the teh tarik which was a gigantic delicious serve.

Another reason I didn't finish my meal was the large slick of oil present.

Pork remnants

Malacca Malay
Atmosphere: 5, nothing fancy.
Service: 5, counter service!
Food: 4, not to my liking. I didn't enjoy anything I ate.

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! 

Kitchen Inn

S* and I usually gossip like crazy during our walk to our cars. We hadn't seen each other in quite a while so we decided to go out to dinner together. S* promised me that this place had the best noodles in Brisbane and she regularly made the trip out to Calamvale from Kangaroo Point just to eat it. So with that in mind, I had to go didn't I?

Steal the menu from Zomato. The restaurant is on the corner of the Calamvale shopping centre, so there's lots of parking! Just don't do what S* did and park on the wrong road. She ended up parking on the road above the shopping centre and had to hop off the rocks to get down.

I got teh C special, I have no idea what it stands for but it tastes delicious! Some type of strong black tea with condensed milk to sweeten it. I really enjoyed this and would drop by for this to takeaway if I'm in the area! On googling, I found it its red tea, evaporated milk and brown sugar mixed in.

<3

S* told me buys the same thing each and every time she goes here. She tried it once and has never gotten anything else since then. It's the kolo mee special! Homemade wheat noodles, barbecue pork, pork mince and prawns. The noodles are the same as the one in my dish, super long, springy, with a slight chew to their texture, they were amazing! The toppings were very generous as well, to the extent that S* ended up taking half of it home, the bowl was endless!

It comes with this generic vegetable soup.

Ah yes

I got the braised pork rib and chili kolo mee, there was a ridiculous amount of dried chili in this dish! I ended up pulling out almost 20 pieces of red chili out, thankfully they just added a good smokiness to the dish and a bit of spice too! It had a thick, dark sauce that coated the noodles very well. I have no idea what you call this cut of pork, Google tells me they're called rib tips! Those knobbly, chewy, white gristly bits are well beloved of most Asians out there.

Mmm pork

I got the fried chicken, juicy, covered in a light battered and brined to perfection. They came with a solid chili sauce and I ate nearly all the plate by mself!

$8 bargain

Kitchen Inn
Atmosphere: 5, your local Asian takeway. 
Service: 5, nothing special.
Food: 8. solid food. Super cheap, huge portions and delicious. Defs go here again.

Limon Restaurant

Without a doubt, Limon is my local. More so than Seoul Bistro was due to its proximity with my home. Just a quick nip down the road for a place where we will always have a table, an excellent feed for a cheap price and where everyone we bought has had a good time. I have probably been here about six times, most of which I have stopped taking photos because I end up ordering this same thing. I've also tried nearly everything on their menu. The only thing I don't like about the place is parking is limited.

Limon has an extremely dingy sign, its not neon but watch out for fairy lights and you'll be right.

The interior is a simple little affair, lots of red patterned table tops that can be easily assembled for more seating space! Here is their menu!

With our powers combined!

This is the start of every meal I have there. Their very excellent dips platter! So from the top going clockwise its baba ganoush, a lovely smokey number, cecik, yoghurt, garlic and cucumber, hummus, the king of dips and then cemen, a spicy and salty capsicum and walnut number. My favourite is usually baba ganoush but I actually love the cacik here, its amazing with their bread. The dips platter is a meal in itself basically!

The dips!

For an extra $2 you can get it changed from regular Turkish bread to wonderful cheesy garlic Turkish bread. That's not even a choice, it's such a bargain! The Turkish bread here is baked on site and has a wonderful crust and fluffiness. I love Turkish bread so much, it's the leading reason for my fear of braces, the fear that I might not be able to eat bread afterwards with braces insitu.

The bread!

These are the sigara bogregi, little filo pastry wrapped herb, feta and ricotta cheese delights. I wish they were just bigger, but they have a lovely crunch from being deep fried and the salty creaminess of the cheeses is lightened with the taste of dill and mint. I'd just like a bigger serve please, like an entire bowl of them.

We sat outside, pardon the lighting

This was one time when we just got a vegetarian mezze platter for sharing because we weren't that hungry for some reason. It has haloumi, a fresh garden salad, mixed olives, baba ganoush, hummus, cacik, falafal, stuffed vine leaves and tiny sigara bogregi. Its basically a very good entree for a couple haha.

Noice

I really love this lamb cutlet dish, the lamb is frenched beautifully with not a skerrick of meat left behind, there's a perfectly medium rare lollipop of tender lamb meat with a gloriously puddle of creamy mustard sauce that I slather onto the mashed potato and spinach that the lamb rests upon. For a meal that's basically meat and three veg, its a cracked of a dish. I could drink that sauce down, sometimes I buy an extra serve of sauce and just drown my potatoes in it. The lamb cutlets are small, but when are they ever really tomahawk steak size?

<3

I have no idea what this is. I have a feeling the menus changed since I've last been. I can guess what it is from the photo, but you can too. So that's all I have to say on the matter.

What is this even? Lamb?

VGirl's favourite dish is this falafal plate, six blobs of falafel, Turkish bread, tabbouleh and cecik. This has since been revamped a bit but the idea is still the same. My pick for best falafel in Brisbane is still for King Ahiram in West End but these aren't bad either.

VGirl's fav

Oh man, the Limon style Istanbul kebab is not something I can take lightly, I can NEVER finish this in one sitting. Chips, Turkish bread, a fresh garden salad, haloumi, marinated lamb with capsicum and onion. You get it initially and mock the tiny serving of meat before taking it all home in a takeaway container.

#dying

We failed hard. It makes for a fine second dinner too, might I add!

Failed!

I loved this giant lamb steak with mustard sauce, rice and salad that used to be on the menu. I'm super sad that it's been removed as it was my favourite dish. It was this giant hunk of meat that they grilled to perfection, so tender! You shall be sorely missed giant lamb steak.

Miss you babe.

This is a picture of one of their specials from ages ago, a veggie stack. VGirl was very excited because she never gets the option of a vegetarian special. She hoovered it up and has pined for it ever since.

!!!

Limon Restaurant 
Atmosphere: 5, nothing fancy, brightly lit inside despite its dark interior and big enough inside for lots of people.
Service: 7, really good service actually. Even single time I'm here, the waiters are super friendly and happy to explain anything. 
Food: 10, I love this place. My family go here all the time for good reason! 

District 1

I went here quite a while ago, just after the Storey Bridge event in fact! I want with Manda to the event thanks to some leftover passes from Dandelion. We walked there from the CBD and were late for our midday session, we barely got through 1/3rd of the Storey Bridge before we had to wrap it up and head home! As a result, we were pretty hungry and I was in maximum seek out mode for the best feed possible. Something that was near impossible considering the sheer size of the crowds that day.

That day was the day I broke my brand new phone as well, I'm not even sure how it happened. One minute I put my phone in my pocket, at the end of the bridge I pulled it out and the screen had fine spiderweb cracks all over it. It's a mystery what on earth happened to it but I was getting super hangry as a result!

So off we went to find food and we stumbled upon District 1, the then darling of Brisbane Instagram for its roast pork belly roll. Manda wanted something light and flavoursome so in we went!

This place!

It's got a mural of all the Instagram photos taken at the restaurant covering their front counter!

I love previewing meals

They also have cute succulent plants in recycled tinned lychee cans.

Lycheesssss

This was their specials menu when we went. Otherwise Zomato has a nice menu.

Manda got the lemongrass beef which came with the usual assortment of Vietnamese herbs, caramelised pineapple, carrot, cucumber, lettuce and bean sprouts as well as a side of nuoc mam. I found the colour of the beef to be quite bland and the flavours used in the marinade to also be quite one dimensional, it had lemongrass, soy sauce and onions. Boom, done. Manda enjoyed her meal but I wasn't impressed.

Meh

Same goes for this roasted pork belly banh mi which consisted of an admittedly great, warm and crusty baguette, mayonnaise, cucumber, coriander, pickled carrot, house made pate, caramelised onion and what I suspected was Sriraicha sauce on top. The pork belly had crunchy crackling but lacked flavour and meat for the rest of it. It was like they had trimmed off most of the meat for another dish and left just the crackling and rendered fat for this dish. Crackling and fat are great but you need that meat in there for contrast and body!

So much fat, and I love fat!

I got their coconut water and lychee frappe as well. As soon as I had a sip, I knew that they used the Thai brand of super sweetened young coconut mixture. I have no idea what its called, but its an iconic drink/cooking ingredient that I'm sure most Vietnamese children would have grown up with. This was blended with lychees, mint, ice to form a chunky lychee and coconut flavoured frappe. Chunky like I stop to chew all the bits of young coconut every few seconds chunky.

Why am I chewing my drinks?

District 1
Atmosphere: 5, tiny little shop packed full of busy tables.
Service: 5, counter service!
Food: 5, passable. I didn't think it was anything special but I'm super, super picky with my Vietnamese food. I wouldn't bring Mama Pham here. You think my complaints are bad, you should hear her in full swing.

The Spaghetti House

I feel like this year has been big for pizzerias and Italian places for me, not really sure why but I feel like I've eaten a lot of pizza this year. Anyway, I got invited to Spaghetti House which has now moved to Southbank, it used to be in West End!

Watch out for this bright blue sign, its right behind the Commonwealth Bank branch on Grey Street. Parking is a bit iffy in Southbank at the best of times, I personally always get parking in SW1 Secure Parking since I don't mind the walk. Sometimes you can get lucky with 2P parks, but there's always parks around Musgrave Park otherwise? Either way, you should probably work off this carb coma you're about the encounter.

The interior is lovely, soft candle lit lighting and lots of intimate seating options. Outside is freezing cold, especially since its winter but there are lots of blankets and giant heaters to keep you warm! It gets pretty busy so that helps things warm up too. The night we went the restaurant was about half full and apparently that's them on a quiet night! That's my kinda quiet!

So warm

I went with the lovely Ms D., since Mr A., promptly forgot that we were going to dinner together after my trip to Sydney, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out my poorly updated Instagram page. Ms D., was supposed to go with me to Holloway's Pizzartist but couldn't last minute, this time she cancelled on her boyfriend to go to Spaghetti House with me!

Here is their menu! Even though we had our pick of free drinks, we both went with pink lemonade. It was delicious, pink lemonade always is.

I've been playing with angles more latelyz

One of the specials of the night was the figs, prosciutto, rocket and balsamic glaze pizza on a tomato base. We had originally gone with the prosciutto wrapped figs and Gorgonzola fondue to be our entree as they are a super popular item on the Spaghetti House menu but also wanted pizza to see how those were. Our waitress reminded us of this special and we thought we'd get the best of both worlds with this choice!

The toppings were a hit! I think the combination of figs, prosciutto, rocket and balsamic vinegar are a winning combination and such a classic, fresh and well balanced combination too. You can't go wrong with it! I loved that the figs were sliced thickly as well! My only complaint with this pizza is that I love, love, love a super crunchy crust and base, this one was quite limpid and so I got them to put the pizza back in the oven for a few more minutes to get the crunch I wanted!

I think I ate five or six slices solo

Ms. D., is obsessed with arancini and so we got the arancini ai gamberi, prawn risotto arancini! She was a little disappointed with these as somehow she was expecting the traditional ragu stuffed arancini. I liked them however, they super hot from the fryer, the risotto was perfectly cooked, I loved the stretch of the mozzarella cheese inside and the prawns were juicy and tender. It came with a sundried tomato aioli which was perfect for dipping.

Delicious!

I couldn't decide what I wanted for my main so I went with an entree sized gnocchi alla Romana! Potato gnocchi with browned butter, crispy sage leaves and Parmigano cheese, I also opted to get fresh parmesan grated over the top cause you can never go wrong with more cheese! I was trying to convince Ms. D., to share a third pasta dish with me but she dodged my question very well and it was for the best, since she went into massive food coma halfway through her pasta. I could still eat but that would've been a superhuman feat of excellence. The gnocchi were fluffy pillows with gorgeously crunchy edges and the crispy sage leaves were a great counterpoint to the buttery sauce as well.

Mmm crunchy gnocchi

Ms D., ordered the ragu alla bolognese, she had a choice of either spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine, pappardelle, penne and GF fettucine or penne. She couldn't decide and went with, "surprise me pasta," which I thought was a hilarious order. She said she absolutely loves bolognese and is what she wants her nonna to make every time she visits her, the flavour was absolutely traditional Italian, slow cooked pork and beef, rich tomato sauce and lots and lots of shaved Parmesan.

Classic

I wanted dessert, Ms D., was so full she felt like she could possible explode or throw up. So I forced her to get some chocolate gelato while I got the vanilla affogato with espresso. I love affogato, I find it to be great fun to mix super hot espresso and freezing cold ice cream together to make slushy stuff. I don't think you can really go wrong with this combination, so that's all I have to say on the matter!

<3

Ms. D., got the chocolate gelato, it was a lovely dark chocolate and mousse textured gelato. I finished this all as well haha.

Spaghetti House
Atmosphere: 8, gorgeous romantic, candle lit restaurant. It's the perfect place for a romantic dinner I think. 
Service: 10, absolutely wonderful service, not just for me but for everyone else there. Prompt orders, water top up, I saw every table get asked how the food was or if they wanted anything. They gave us great recommendation on food and cleared tables super quickly. I saw all their waiters and waitress prowling the floor like tigers, ready to pounce as soon as you needed something!
Food: 9, delicious! My only complaint was that the pizza was floppy. Otherwise I enjoyed everything I had here.