Sorellina

I love pizza, any way I can get it! So I had to go to Sorellina, rumoured to be one of the best pizzerias in Brisbane! It frequently tops the charts in bloggers lists, Zomato round ups and my friend's recommendations, so off I go!

Parking is horrific here. Sorellina is located in the antiques district of Woolloongabba along Logan road, right near the Gabba stadium. I don't think I've ever gotten a park in that one way street hell. I recommend parking on Jurgens Street and legging it in. 

Looks like a beer hall!

Here is their menu! I went with VGirl and we opted to share the garlic foccacia as our entree. We got these five wedges of surprisingly dense, charry hunks of bread. It was roughly painted with garlic butter but we both didn't like it. The foccacia was actually really hard to chew through! Despite its appearance it wasn't fluffy at all and we had to really gnaw pieces of it off. Both VGirl and I are of the opinion that garlic bread should be like a fluffy sponge of bread soaked in garlic butter, which was definitely not the case of this bread. Hard pass. 

Boo

I got the pork sausage, salami, caramelised onion, mozzarella and parsley pizza. It was amazing, I absolutely loved their crust with its blistered golden brown bubbles, wafer thin edges and charred bottom, you could taste the wood smoke and can I say again, THAT CRUNCH. Ahh that's the way a wood fired pizza should be! The toppings were really good too, the salami had a hot spiciness to it, the dots of pork sausage mince had a nice fennel taste to cut through the pork and the caramelised onions were delicious sweet. VGirl disagreed with me by saying it was burnt, but she doesn't appreciate good food, just free food.

<333333

I talked VGirl into getting this eggplant, tomato, smoked mozzarella, parmesan and oregano pizza. I thought this was equally as good as my pizza, meltingly soft and smokey eggplant, stretchy mozzarella and the fragrance of oregano! VGirl disagreed, mostly because she actually doesn't like eggplant that much barring dip form. She just managed to be persuaded by me in this, she actually wanted to get the mushroom pizza. 

Great toppings

Whatever I took it to work with me cause I had eaten half of my pizza, VGirl had half of hers and kindly gave me the rest of hers since she didn't want it. T., when she had it work gave it high praise, she said it was an excellent pizza, that it was as good as stuff she had eaten in Sicily and that she would bring her family here if they were in Brisbane. High praise from a proud Italian girl!

Sorellina
Atmosphere: 6, an informal pizzeria where you can get tanked and eat good pizza with mates. Not for date night.
Service: 6, solid, the chefs seem to work dually as both service staff and chefs in a pinch.
Food: 9, amazingly good pizza! Ignore that garlic bread though, go straight for any of their pizzas!

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!

Otello Trattoria and Pizzeria

Every time I go to Otello, I have just had plans cancelled by friends, its not the best association. I really only went to Otello because I was running out of places to go to in West End after my fortnightly haircut and massage.

Parking can be a bit of a pain since its West End, park in a nearby street or the local Coles and walk up.

This place!

Here is their menu! I got the diavola pizza, hot salami, mozzarella, capsicum and hot chilli flakes. While the edge of the crust had a very good flavour, I actually didn't enjoy it the pizza. I had quite a few reasons for the because the salami pieces were really stingy for one! They were torn pieces not whole slices and secondly the base!

Mistake

The mozzarella was a really high moisture one and so made most of the base almost unbearably wet and floppy. I despised that wet base, I love my pizzas able to sustain their own weight but this one was a wet noodle flopping around. Blergh.

So wet

I also got the arancini con bologanese, two arancini balls stuffed with bologanese and peas! It had a nice crisp crumb and gooey centre. The rice grains were perfectly cooked.

Two!

Innards shot

I went a second time, while they were running their $10 lunch promo and decided to take advantage of it by buying two mains for lunch! I got their salt and pepper calamari with aioli sauce. The calamari was very tender with an excellent crumbed coating with lots of salt and pepper. I thought their aioli could have been more garlicky but it was still smooth and creamy.

Not bad

I also got a margarita pizza to eat. I wish there was more basil on this pizza, more basil please! I didn't have the same issue with the super wet toppings that I had when I had the diavola pizza the first time around thankfully. The crust was light, chewy with a good wood fire char.

Not bad!

Otello Trattoria and Pizzeria:
Atmosphere: 5, I just sit at the front, I heard there's a back courtyard but I've never bothered heading back there.
Service: 4, a bit absent minded. Both occasions when I went in the middle of the day I had to wait around to be seated, served or had someone notice me at the front counter to pay. 
Food: 6, ehhh its average. Their pizzas are okay, their entrees are okay. You can get better service/food and atmosphere for the same price if you want to eat traditional Italian food in the Brisbane CBD. May I suggest Spaghetti House?

Julius Pizzeria

A*, Manda and I all caught up for the first time in ages, A* and Manda started working in different areas so we didn't get to catch up as much as we used to. A* suggested we go here since she loves going to Julius Pizzeria since its still magically open after her 12 hour shifts end. I booked us in online and off we went! We were very organised and had already decided on what we wanted to eat before we had even entered the restaurant ahaha.

Parking is a bit hard. Julius Pizzeria is located opposite the Sciencentre. Probs park in a backstreet of West End or South Brisbane and leg it.

Here is their menu!

This is the interior

We all agreed on the salame e fontina pizza, or rather, I forced everyone into buying that since fontina is in my top five favourite cheeses for its easy melt and strong, nutty flavour. You can see the crispy edges of the spicy salami below as well as the molten puddles of fontina all over the pizza. The crust was amazing, packed with so much flavour, a slight chew and ample smoky flavour. The funny thing is that this was A*., and Manda's favourite pizza while A*'s suggestion of the Tartufo pizza was my favourite!

Amazing

The Tartufo pizza was our second pick! Mozzarella, smokey bacon, mushrooms and truffle paste, its a match made in heaven! I really enjoyed this pizza because I love all the above, I can't even single out my favourite ingredient out of all those bits. It was a delicious pizza and despite my usually generous nature, I tried to hide my enjoyment of this pizza so I could eat more of it. 

That shadow is me, heavily breathing

Julius Pizzeria
Atmosphere: 7, a busy pizzeria! You can see into the kitchen and see the giant pizza oven at work.
Service: 7, really efficient, always on the prowl and quick to ask if you want dessert or additional drinks. I'm a sucker for that, if anyone asks me if I want another drink, the answer is always yes!
Food: 10, so good! Pizza toppings are ample, crusts are wood fired and delicious. I love this place but I still prefer the crusts at Sorellina. If you want an Italian style pizza with a bit of a modern twist, head here!

Popolo Italian Kitchen and Bar

VGirl has an Italian's love of arancini! She always orders it when we go out because it is nearly always vegetarian and its deep fried, two of her basic dietary requirements. So we have been meaning to go to Popolo Italian Kitchen and Bar in Southbank for quite the while but balked at both parking and the price. We scored one of like four parks nearby having gone straight from our respective works, car pooling at VGirl's and then legging it the rest of the way. Southbank is a menace for parking!

Here is their menu! It has a nice view of the Brisbane river, but it can make it quite chilly at times. Luckily they have giant space heaters everywhere to warm things up.

I invested all my points in food photography

This is their tre formaggi aracini, aka three cheese aracini with roasted pumpkin puree, the three cheeses were taleggio, gorgonzola and parmesan! As a result these aracini were super cheesy with a delicious long stretch that I forgot to photograph. The best part for both of us was the roasted pumpkin puree, I don't know why but when you mix cream and pumpkin it makes this intense kinda mac n cheese sauce feel. We were both fighting over the last bits of puree and I think VGirl may have licked the plate to get the last of it.

Highly recommended!

For once, I wasn't a butthole and got a vegetarian main so VGirl could try some. I got this ravioli con zucca e ricotta, basically pumpkin and ricotta filled ravioli, tossed in a brown butter and sage sauce topped with amaretti crumb and more roasted pumpkin puree. We both liked the silkiness and thinness of this fresh pasta used in their ricotta. I always love a good butter and sage sauce and this one wasn't sitting in a pool of it which is nice. I didn't like the amaretti crumb, it was really sweet and we both didn't understand its inclusion. The pumpkin puree was the same as in the arancini!

Solid!

Haha, I guess if you're vegetarian prepare for pumpkin? VGirl got the pan fried gnocchi, which came with parmesan shaved over the top and more pumpkin puree! She said she liked the lightness of this gnocchi and still was enjoying the pumpkin puree haha.

Golden crust!

Popolo
Atmosphere: 5, we got there super early around 6pm so I can't really say. Its near the river and seems like a good spot to have dinner with friends. Not sure how the noise carries though?
Service: 5, we got our food! Nothing else to say really.
Food: 7, pretty good! Everything we had was pretty tasty but I don't think I'd go here again strictly for the price. We can get cheaper Italian elsewhere!

Purple Olive

It was T.,'s birthday recently! She decided to go the Purple Olive and so there were quite a few of us girls and boys from work who attended her birthday dinner. I had to nip off pretty early on as I had night shifts to go to but it was pretty fun to have a chat with everyone outside of work.

Park on the side streets of James Street's main strip and proceed to leg it to the restaurant! Here is their menu.

I got there late like 45 minutes late because I forgot how bad traffic was coming into the city at that time. Everyone was still happily chatting away though so I managed to get my order in at the same time as everyone else. I decided to go with the special of the day, gnocchi with brown butter sauce, crispy sage, roasted pumpkin bits and shavings of parmesan. The gnocchi were soft and fluffy. I was a bit sad that the brown butter sauce was so bland, it needed a good whack of salt to make it more delicious. There were very small pieces of sweet caramelised pumpkin but I wanted a lot more! It was a delicious entree but I was starving and was definitely a very entree sized entree.

Special of the night!

I got the espresso milkshake as I knew I was going to have to leave for night shifts straight after. Considering it was supposed to be moderately fancy with icecream and cream, it just tasted like a cold milky coffee and not a particularly strong one at that.

Expresso shake!

T., got these zucchini fritters, they were coated in a very little batter. That's all I have to say, they were cooked. I don't see the point of getting this dish, it needs a sauce or something.

Tongs!

W., got this pizza, it was proscuitto and mushroom. He said it was quite salty from the ingredients used. There were only four slices so I didn't bother asking for a slice.

Uneven toppings

I got this quattro fromagi pizza, your classic four cheese pizza with a topping of rocket and it also had proscuitto added on top. I definitely agreed with what W., said, I found this pizza quite salty due to combo of the strong cheese and the proscuitto. Even with the rocket, I found it to be quite salty and I'm a girl who loves her salt. The crust on the pizza is pretty good though.

I've had better

These were the spaghetti con polette della nonna, Nonna's meatballs with spaghetti basically. I think L., ordered these and we were concerned at the giant size of the meatballs that they would be over cooked or even worse under cooked. They were okay, that's kind of all we had to say, not dry, not moist, not salty but not super bland? They were a solid average.

?_?

Purple Olive
Atmosphere: 5, intimate setting as you can see from my dull lighting. 
Service: 6, I was pretty happy that they allowed me to split the bill since I left early. 
Food: 5, I didn't enjoy anything I ate here barring the gnocchi, I felt the portions were quite small and overpriced. I was still hungry on leaving here despite having been the only person to eat an entree, an entire milkshake and a main pizza. I didn't get anything else because I knew I would eat at work later and had already paid about $40~ dollars for an unfilling dinner :(

Corbett and Claude

I got invited to Corbett and Claude when they opened up their first store at the Indooroopilly shopping centre. I hate that place, I rarely go because it's almost a 40 minute drive from where I live and you have to go through Coronation Drive to get there. Not to mention the shopping centre is bits tacked onto bits. I got so lost getting back to my car, I spent almost forty minutes wandering around the empty parking lots at night trying to find it. It's so eerie being somewhere you expect to be

Anyway, it's a bit of a weird place to find but if you just park on the third level of the shopping centre and walk to the food court end where the Lord of the Wings, Yum Cha Cuisine, Guzman y Gomez and other restaurants are you're there! It's on the outside opposite the Pig and Whistle. Don't think you can get there from Station Road by driving! There's nowhere to park!

We got a massive bowl of warm mixed olives to share as our first entree. Beware the pits! As much as I'm a savoury girl I never got into snacking on olives, too briney!

Everyone else loved them though

This is an amazing, amazing cheeseboard! It had so much tasty stuff on it san danielle prosciutto, salumi salami, quattro stelle smoked ham, pita bread, lavosh crackers, maffra red leichester, millawa blue cheese, whitestone double cream brie, whitestone vintage cheddar, swiss gruyere, vanella buffalo mozzarella, pesto, a fruit paste, mini figs and muscatel grapes! I was a massive fan of the blue cheese, mini fig and prosciutto all together.

Cheese please!

After the cheese platters were done we were allowed to pick whatever we wanted from the menu to try and we went a bit nuts picking food. I think everyone picked two or three dishes and we swarmed each other tables like a plague of locusts, snapping photos and sharing food. Food bloggers are great at sharing food, taking photos and waiting patiently to eat!

This was the first thing we got and it was the field mushroom, caramelised onion and goats cheese pizza, a match made in heaven! I can't emphasise enough how much I like the thinness and crispiness of this crust. The other big point I liked about these pizzas is that they had ample topping on each and every slice, at a lot of pizzerias you find there's a dud slice that is smaller than everything else and has no topping. At Corbett and Claude there is no dud slice! I quality tested all the pizzas to make sure!

I love you pizza

This was the crispy potato, rosemary and proscuitto pizza. I've never been a fan of potato on pizza, it's something about the lack of deep fried crunchiness that gets me, even with this one being cut ruffle chip style, they're still not crunchy after being in the oven. The proscuitto crisped up deliciously and of course rosemary and potato is a combination made in heaven. This one had a bit of a higher crust ratio that I'd like, but Mama Pham would love it. Mama Pham steals the crusts and leaves the filling part.

Wonderful crunch!

I didn't try any pizza but I did manage to pinch a prawn, this is grilled prawn, rocket and chili jam! The prawns didn't have any char marks that I could see but they had a great burst to them.

I didn't get to it in time ):

We got random assorted salads bought to our table all the time. This one was a quinoa based one. I didn't try any but the rest of the food bloggers seemed to enjoy it immensely.

Quinoa is weird

This was by far, my favourite pizza as it was the closest thing to a fancy meat lovers! This is the C&C special meatballs with caramelised onion, crispy proscuitto and barbeque sauce. The meatballs were soft, moist and utterly tasty! I think I ate close to half a pizza to myself, quite the feat among nearly 20 hungry foodies!

Yessssss

These all arrived at our table at the same type, nearly too far away for me to sample since I sat right smack bang in the middle. From top going clockwise, there was hand cut fries covered in parsley and grated parmesan with the best garlicky aioli I've ever had, the other food bloggers were rhapsodising ferociously about how these were the best fries they had ever had! Pan fried gnocchi coated in pesto and on a bed of spinach and tomato, I quite enjoyed these gnocchi finding them delicious with their crunchy exteriors and soft, pillowy interiors. I sadly didn't get to try the haloumi ):

CHIPS!

These are the crunchy chicken bits and I paraphrase another food blogger, "these are fancy ass KFC popcorn chicken!" That's exactly what they taste like, just jumbo sized and way crunchier. I'd have gladly eaten the entire tray by myself and I did because everyone had gotten way too full and the waiter made the mistake of putting this directly in front of me hahaha!

Bring on the chicken!

Corbett and Claude
Atmosphere: 5, solid little bar.
Service: 5, mixed at times. The service was a bit all over the place, one minute super attentive, the next forgetting orders.
Food: 8, great food! I would love the crunchy chicken bits or the fries again no problem at all. The pizzas are pretty good as well and I have to commend them on their abundance of toppings. It's just a shame they're so far away from me is all!