Morning After

Morning After got massive hype when it opened up for their breakfast carbonara and being super cool. So I went out to see if that hype was true and before you scroll down to see my verdict, I basically found the food to be super pretty but a bit expensive. A great place to take someone to impress them though!

It's located further down the road on Vulture Street. Snag a park nearby if you can, otherwise probably park around Nandos and leg it.

This place!

This is their website menu! I wasn't able to take any pictures of the interior due to the sheer number of people in the cafe. It's a very bright and open cafe though, I liked the furniture used, lots of blonde wood and giant tables.

View from where I was sitting

My table

I ordered this coffee, it was a drip coffee that came in a glass beaker and a little pitcher of soy milk. If this was the first coffee I ever had, I would never drink it again. Bland, sour water to say the least. It had no body and you can really taste the lack of textured milk to top up the espresso.

Gross

I got the breakfast carbonara! Slow cooked hen's egg, mushrooms, fresh papardelle, guanciale and pecorino. Guanciale is a cured pork cheek or jowl, so think of it as a bacon like meat. I quite liked this dish, I really wish there were more pieces of the crispy guanciale and a larger egg or a second egg to better coat the pasta. Hen's eggs are traditionally the first egg ever laid by a chicken, they tend be tinier and I don't know why that's appealing. Give me a second egg, a duck egg even! The pasta was wonderful, silky and with a firm bite to it.

The highly vaunted brekkie carbonara

I went back with VGirl later in the week for our regular breakfast get together. VGirl got this green juice, kale, celery. mint, apple, lemon and ginger. She loves green juices but hates the taste of mint, so she goes around Brisbane finding the best green juices. She felt that this one was a particularly good one and says that the one at Chester Street is her all time favourite though.

Such a bright colour

VGirl got this zucchini and corn fritters which came with sauteed Swiss Brown mushrooms, kale and poached eggs. She said that this was an okay dish but said there wasn't anything particularly good about it. That is all she told me, thanks VGirl for your sterling attention to detail.

Plus cheese

I got the good ol' eggs benedict, two poached eggs, smoked salmon, sauteed spinach, sourdough bread and an overly lemon flavoured hollandaise sauce. I have nothing more to say about this eggs benedict, all the flavours work well except the hollandaise could be more balanced in flavour.

Classic

Morning After
Atmosphere:7, well light place with nice furniture and decorations. Also every time I went there, all two times, there were tons of cute dogs present.
Service: 5, nothing spectacular.
Food: 6, I like the breakfast carbonara. Generally the food was super pretty but not to either my or VGirl's tastes. Give the place a shot, but the hype is half hearted.

Five Sisters: Art House, Cafe and Bar

I went ages and ages ago to Five Sisters Art House Cafe with T., as soon as we finished our night shifts. We drove haphazardly into the Coles in West End and staggered across to this little cafe. I think that might be why all my photos were a little blurry cause I swear they looked fine when I took them.

Much blur, such legible

They have both cute outdoor and indoor seating areas. Take advantage of their cool garden space with a lazy drink or two!

Yassss

Wind corridor! 

Shady outdooors

Even more tables

It's a counter service place and they have a really amazing drink selection! A lot of very unusual drinks stocked here.

Cakes and other takeaway stuff!

Not sure if delicious or not

I liked the interior as well, I have a feeling its a converted house to cafe which explains the rooms and fireplace haha. Here is their menu by the way!

It'd be a pretty neat house

Whats that black gap?

I got a soy based flat white which came with two crumbly, super short and buttery biscuits! They had over heated the soy a bit too much so it did that thing where it becomes a nice solid raft of soy. Not the best soy coffee I've ever had to be sure.

Most defs had worst though

T., got the big brekkie which consisted of your choice of eggs, haloumi, wilted spinach, garlic mushrooms, bacon, roasted tomato, sausages and toasted sourdough. It's a pretty huge feed! T., didn't finish this as she usually does but she said that she especially enjoyed the haloumi, crusty sourdough and poached eggs. On the odd side was the super lemony wilted spinach. I thought I was imaging the taste but T., confirmed it for me and we were both puzzled.

Not bad

I got the brekky stack, smashed avocado, bacon, haloumi, poached eggs, wilted spinach and sourdough bread. It had nearly the same ingredients as what was on T.,'s dish barring the rocket and I thought it was a good sized serve of food.

Good flavours

Obligatory yolk porn

Five Sisters Art House, Cafe and Bar
Atmosphere: 8, breezy house turned cafe. I liked the atmosphere!
Service: 5, counter service!
Food: 6, not bad! Cheap, filling breakfast with solid ingredients and flavour combinations. I would easily go back here again if I wanted somewhere I was sure people would easily enjoy it.

Zeus Greek Food

Zeus Greek Food got so damn hyped on Instagram that I was really excited to go. I assembled my food posse, Mr A, Dandelion, A*., and Manda. Unfortunately this was the day after we had that Storey Bridge event and so Dandelion and Manda felt too unwell to go and Mr A., was at work util 7.30pm so we were still waiting for him. A*., and I were the only ones left and we told Mr A., not to bother once we had eaten here.  I feel like I was the only person on Instagram who didn't get a wrap. Or that's how I would feel if I had gotten the photos on Instagram. 

Anyway, Zeus Greek Food is right across from Guzman y Gomez aka the roundabout on Stanley Street. Parking is rough, I highly recommend parking somewhere else and legging it, but I'm cheap and love walking so there's that. 

To the lightning bolt!

All the drinks and a lovely set up!

Nice

They have this wonderful kitchen sink/condiments stand. Yes, I want to wash my hands at all occasions before I eat, because I'm a nurse and a hygienic human being. 

Aw yiss

They also have like a porn window where you can watch all the meat being cooked. 

Thats my fetish

It's got a bit of a weird set up I think? One of those shops that reach both sides of a road cause it occupies all the space in the middle? Head straight to the back, so you can see the view that I've got! 

So bright

A*., and I are dumbasses especially A*., cause she decided to do Dry July. It's a charity project to give up drinking or something for the month of July to fund raise money for more comfortable environments for cancer patients. A*., barely drank anyway but she decided to give up carbs and we had a great conversation about what constituted a carb at work cause we're 15 and love quoting Mean Girls. 

Nope.

We went through with a list of things and I was staunchly of the opinion that if you could make a sandwich out of it, it was a carb. So that removed simple carbs like what you get in fruits and vegetables. She was including things like flat breads and wraps which I vehemently vetoed. Naans, croissants, baguettes, doughnuts, brioche, all the breads really. 

So this little segue way leads me into why A*., isn't eating bread and so we decided to share a main serve of meat and then get sides to bulk it up. The first thing we decided on was haloumi because its delicious and you should always get haloumi, unless you have to pay $11.50 for five pieces. There's nothing wrong with the taste of the haloumi, it was squeaky, golden brown and delicious. We were mumbling words of dissent when we got it though. I know that sides don't constitute a meal but I'm still disappointed. Here is their menu by the way.

It looks sad.

A*., got the naked lamb portion which was 200g of spit roasted lamb which came with a small dish of tzatziki and lemon. Soft and tender, we demolished it in seconds. 

Still hungryyy

Tzatziki, you can't go wrong with it.

Gone in 60 seconds

We got the corn cobs with grated kefalotiri, a hard and salty cheese that you can grill like haloumi! These corn cobs were quite sweet and super buttery, like dripping butter levels. I was surprised that there wasn't a greater char to these corn cobs. 

$9.50 btw

The pita was $3 for two whole pita cut into quarters. I bought that when we had nearly eaten everything else just to fill me up. It was soft, fluffy and buttery, it was delicious.

Can't go wrong with pita bread~

Zeus Street Greek:
Atmosphere: 7, a lovely place to get something to eat. I love the little touches everywhere like the placeholders being ancient Greek philosophers! Our was Socrates if you were wondering.
Service: 5, friendly but a bit slow at times. 
Food: 5, delicious food but so, so expensive. West End is a brisk walk away and you get twice the portion sizes for the same price. I wouldn't go back here unless I was looking to burn money.

Gertrude and Mabel

Oooh, I do love cute little cafes! This was on my post night shift list for quite the while but we always found bigger, better and places with recent menus to go to! Gertrude and Mabel had a really old menu and a few reviews mentioned that the menu was always changing here. I love a seasonal menu, so that's what cinched it for me!

If you're approaching from the south side, it can be a bit difficult to get to as Gladstone road is quite a busy one. Watch out for the local school nearby and its right beside a laundromat!

This place!

The place is cute. I liked the flowers on the table and their large assortment of takeaway cakes!

Up top!

Their cute Christmas decoration

What on earth is this cute little plant! With its crinkly, light edged leaves! It's super cute.

Cuteeee

Anyway, here is the menu for the time that I went!

I was pretty delirious after nights when I went the first time. I said that I wanted a really, really strong coffee so I ordered a chai latte made with soy with a triple shot of espresso. I think they knew I wasn't exhausted/right in the head, and gently told me that chai lattes didn't contain coffee, but they could make me one anyway. It was delicious, albeit made on powdered chai.

Why do I love dirty chais so much?

The cutlery is really cute here, heavy, old fashioned silverware with an embroidered linen napkin!

Cute~

The first time I went here they were out of the loukaniko for the breakfast board so I went with my second choice of the house cured ocean trout, basil, avocado, tomato, buffalo mozzarella, olive oil, eight minute egg on top of black bread. I enjoyed every part of this breakfast, it was a touch on the small side but the ocean trout melted on the tongue, the tomato and basil were very fresh, the eight minute egg had a wonderfully creamy white and soft, slightly gooey yolk. I just wish it was a touch bigger!

Pretty as a picture

The second time around I got the berry iced tea. It was exactly as the name suggested, a cup of tea, with ice and berries. I was surprised at the plain taste of it, I thought there would be a simple sugar syrup to sweeten things up but nope! The berries used were among the best I've ever had, especially the blueberries which were super sweet.

Exactly as the name suggests

Unfortunately I had one bad raspberry. I gave it to my waitress and she whisked it away without a word.

Bleh

This time around I got the loukaniko on ciabatta, smashed peas, goats cheese, lemon mayonnaise and another lot of eight minute egg! The peas were steaming hot which surprised me, I'm not really sure why. They were also super sweet and complimented the strong fatty flavour of the pork loukaniko. The lemon mayo wasn't joking and had a very strong, pronounced lemon flavour to it which helped balance things out. I wasn't a fan of the ciabatta only because I felt like it became super soggy with the peas on top and I love crunchy foods to stay crunchy. If bread is going to be used as a plate, it better be soaked in something delicious not just getting soggy from steam! 

Gertrude and Mabel
Atmosphere: 7, pretty cute. I like the attention to detail in the place. Fresh flowers are always a lovely touch, not to mention the cute cutlery and napkin.
Service: 5, still sad about my dodgy raspberry. 
Food: 7, good flavours, great produce just small portion size, Since I lost weight I actually don't eat as much as I used to, so this was a decent size, but I felt like I could still eat!

Char Char Yiros

Char Char Yiros! I picked this place to go to when my French cousin was in town. He hadn't ever had Greek food and I thought it would be good to try, especially since he had been exploring West End and other bits of Brisbane all day.

For once, I didn't bother taking a photo of the place. This place is ridiculously easy to find being on the corner of Boundary and Russell Street in West, straight across from the Suncorp ATM and next to Ouzeri, another Greek restaurant. Its the slightly shabbier looking place next door, the storefront is basically a kebab/dessert display, drinks cabinet, menus and a place to order. It looks like your standard Aussie takeway shop. 

Here is their menu.

The night we went almost everyone ordered variations on the charcoal dinner plate, which consists of hand cut chips, Greek salad, grilled haloumi, pita bread and yogurt and garlic sauce and your choice of main protein. So really, the only difference is the protein. I'll explain my dish since I got the meze dinner which had an assortment of the main charcoal meats and a few others. The proteins I received were charcoal chicken, lamb and a puck of falafel, I was supposed to receive sheftalia, which is a pork sausage, but I didn't have any in my dish. I didn't really care though, I was already pretty full working my way through half this meal.

Both the chicken and lamb had a wonderful charcoal flavour, that smoky scent that makes your mouth water, with no excess fat and a tender texture. The lamb was my favourite of the two, since I had some oddly crunchy chicken pieces. I disliked the falafel, it was almost overcooked with the darkness of its colour and very distinctive thick crunch when I bite into it. It was very dense without the spices I normally enjoy in falafel and it had lots of pinenuts in there too. VGirl seemed to like it, and I gave her mine after the first bite.

So much food

The chips are absolutely delicious, they're cooked in rice bran oil which is basically liquid crack in my eyes. I have no idea why, but it imparts such a wonderful flavour to things its cooked with. I ate my chips first, no joke, then I some of VGirl's when she wasn't looked and pinched my dad's, cause that is what family is for. I found these chips so unbelievably delicious, I swear VGirl's probably couldn't eat them because of how savoury delicious they were, MEAT MUST'VE BEEN INVOLVED SOMEHOW.

Chicken dinner plate

The haloumi is delicious, thin slices that have a great golden colour and a squeaky texture. Nothing more to say, just some solid haloumi. I found that everyone received a large amount of pita bread slices which we used to wrap everything in, in one neat little bundle. The garlic and yoghurt sauce was okay, but I avoided it due to its lack of garlicky flavour and the impending doom of my lactose intolerance kicking in, it wasn't good enough to risk being unwell all night.

VGirl's falafel

The Greek salad was filler for me, baby spinach leaves, tomato, a few assorted olives, cucumber and purple onion with an olive oil and oregano dressing. I was too busy eating other things to care about salad, VGirl ate the tomatoes and I found them to be slightly overripe. I didn't have any olives in my dish but VGirl had about five so we swapped, they were intensely salty.

French Cousin's lamb dinner plate

For some dumb reason, I decided we should have appetisers since we're eating with boys and boys eat a lot right? Yeah they eat a lot, as in finished their mammoth proportions but then they didn't finished our massive appetisers. We got the trio of dips with pita bread, we picked the beetroot dip, eggplant dip and spicy chilli dip. The beetroot dip is unremarkable, so much so I have no idea what it tasted like while the chilli dip have the wrong sort of notoriety with the red side tasting as if straight from a bottle of chilli sauce and the right side tastes like tomato sauce. The eggplant dip was amazing, I don't even know how to explain it, it was soft, smokey, creamy and I smeared it on everything. I scrapped that bad boy dry, VGirl, my dad and my French Cousin got in on the action too.

L-R, beetroot, bread, eggplant, bread, chilli

Z., saw my pictures on Facebook and scheduled a lunch here that week. I was free so I went along as well. Despite my warnings about the enormity of the portion sizes, everyone got a charcoal dinner and couldn't finish their meals. Considering how many people went, myself, Jubi, my Boyfriend, S., Z., A., H., and Ms. Chatterbox, if every other person had ordered a meal, we'd still have had too much food. We ended up asking for takeaway boxes which they gave us free of charge to take away food in. H., apparently made her fiancee a meal out of the leftover meat which he loved.

We went during they day, so you can see much prettier and brighter photos! I know I'm a bad food blogger but I figured everyone else would order something else. I was completely wrong.

Chicken lunch platter!

My Boyfriend ordered a chicken dinner platter as well as lemon potatoes. The lemon potatoes are quite obvious, with a distinctive lemon flavour and the scent of zest floating around. They were scattered with shredded oregano as well. They were served reheated with that odd chewy skin that roasted potatoes have when reheated. I can imagine these being amazing when fresh out of the oven, as you could tell the skin would've been crunchy while the insides were fluffy and the smell would've been overwhelming. Unfortunately this was all underwhelming, S., heartily agreed with us when she tried some.

So close but so far

Z., ordered the octopus and chicken dinner. That octopus was honestly the best I've ever had, she offered me a piece and I ate about five. I just couldn't believe the texture of that octopus, so unbelievably tender that I honestly though I was eating chicken. I had to check a few times to make sure they were tentacles I was eating and not pieces of chicken. I was expecting that octopus to have a slightly rubbery texture but it didn't! I'm so amazed at that octopus even now and that octopus has set the standard for all future octopus.

She also had the eggplant dip on my recommendation. I found this time the eggplant dip had a slightly metallic, fizzy taste on the tongue that reminded me of baking soda? I had some of mine and some of Z.,'s but I was the only person to taste it. It really turned me off eating it.

Oooh octopus

S., came with us today! Somehow every time we go out it seems to be before her night shifts, I don't know how she does it! She ordered the prawn and lamb combination dinner and we both praised the prawns for their intensely garlic flavour, they were quite large prawns although you can barely see them in that picture and still plump and juicy.

Prawn and lamb dinner!

My little chicken lunch

Jubi went with us as well and since she had eaten a large breakfast, she decided to order a vegetarian yiros. I didn't bother taking a picture since they tend to look pretty much the same, regardless of location. With that being said, she complained that the yiros she had was absolutely horrific, due to the poor quality of the lettuce being used. It was brown, limp and mildly slimy, in the manner of lettuce left out too long without proper preservation. I wasn't keen to try it but I did see the lettuce they used in the shop and I can very clearly imagine what it tasted like. Bleh.

Char Char Yiros
Service: 5, cheerful counter service, nothing too flash. We got given a weird swinging thingo to scare off flies the time we went for lunch. On both occasions, someone was waiting until the last second to get their meal, the first time being my French Cousin and the second time was S., We had to remind the waitresses both times for their meals to arrive.
Atmosphere: 5, not exactly the flashiest of places. Basically a jumped up local takeaway. Its nice for just a casual catch up with friends.
Food: 7, everyone mostly loved the food, my Boyfriend and Jubi didn't. In general, the food here is quite good, although its best if you pick food that is freshly prepared. The portions are very generous although the presentation is quite haphazard. It seems like whatever dish is free is what is used, so there's not much consistency between two dishes that are exactly the same.