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.

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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?

The Persian Restaurant

Two Muslim girls joined my work place recently! Shalalah and Ash., I'm really running out of things to call people with the first name starting with A! Since they're both new to Brisbane I've been giving them recommendations of where to go since I've always gone to halal places with my best Yassmin! This place has always been on the list and so when we had the day free, H., Shalalah, Ash., and I decided to go. It was originally Shalalah and H., going but Ash., and I crashed the party haha.

The Persian Restaurant is on the main strip of Sandgate Road. near Mundo Churrasco if you know where that is. Parking is a bit of a pain since the street parking is limited on a main road the the two car parks for the area are pretty underground and not easily visible from the street. Keep a sharp eye out!

Kitchen!

Haha, even though the restaurant doesn't have halal signage, Ash., and Shalalah both instantly knew it was. Apparently it has that ethnic look to the place? It reminds me of when Yass and I went to Arabellas and she knew it was halal upon seeing it.

Ethnic?

Wall to wall carpets.

Here is their menu! We got this freaking amazing eggplant dip called  kashk-e-Bademjan, grilled eggplant with fried mint and whey sauce. The incredible soft melting texture of eggplant and soft caramelised onions, with the fresh coolness of the mint and whey sauce that added an incredible richness to the dip. Oh it was so, so good! Yeah, it looks like vomit but its so delicious, who cares!

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We got this dips assortment to share as well, it came with flat bread that tasted pretty stale as well as hummus, mast-o-khiyar and mirza ghasemi, the last two being a yoghurt and garlic sauce and then a grilled eggplant, chopped tomato and egg dip. These three dishes don't hold a candle to the earlier eggplant dish, so don't even bother! However, that's only my opinion, Ash., loved the hummus, Shalalah and H., both preferred the eggplant and tomato dish. I wasn't able to try the yoghurt and garlic dish, as you know yoghurt gives me rapid onset diarrhoea with my lactose intolerance.

The colours are easy to figure out

This is the King's Choice, one skewer of the barg, joojeh and koobideh kebabs. Barg is marinated lamb backstrap, the joojeh is chicken marinated in lemon juice, olive oil and saffron while the koobideh is flavoured minced lamb! I felt very strongly about the koobideh being the best, it has the best spice mixture to it and was super tender and juicy. If I were to go back, koobideh x2 for me please! I really like how rice is served in Middle Eastern style restaurants, they have super fluffy rice, with very individual granules and normally serve it with a pat of butter on the side to enrich the rice!

I left out Shalalah's meal because she got the double serve of the joojeh and rice.

<3 fit for a king!

H., wanted to eat something vegetarian and light so I said she should pick this, I wasn't really thinking though so she ended up getting most of what we got earlier. Flat bread, hummus, spicy beetroot dip, dolmades, tabbouleh and pickles. I think she was expecting more of a main meal kinda thing rather than endless nibbles, sorry H.,! 

Although the bread here was a lot fluffier and warmed slightly, unlike the tough bread we received earlier. When I mentioned this, everyone else said that they hadn't noticed any difference?

Hmm

Ash., picked a dud dish as well having gotten the tah chin morgh, chicken cooked with saffron and yoghurt, topped with rice and oven baked. It came with a side salad and more of that yoghurt and garlic dip. It was this giant blob of mushy rice that when she broke apart revealed more yoghurt and then chicken finally. It was a really bland dish, I was expecting the yoghurt to be a marinade not to be included as the sauce/main component of the meal. Looking at google, reveals more a rice crust to provide a textural component. She ate most of the chicken and left the rice behind.

Blergh

The Persian Restaurant
Atmosphere: 7, a lovely place to take photos haha!
Service: 5, average.
Food: 6, what I ate was good, what other people ate wasn't, A bit of a mixed bag! Definitely try the koobideh kebab and that eggplant and fried mint and whey dip!

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!

88 Topokki

Toppokki, toppoki, tteokbokki, ddeokbokki, and however else you decide to spell it, is utterly delicious. Little strips of rice cakes that have a very satisfying chew, you can have them in their signature gochujang spicy sauce with fish balls and other goodies or as an accompaniment to your favourite hotpot! H., tells me its an iconic part of your childhood growing up in South Korea, the perfect quick meal or after school snack alongside Korean fried chicken of course! I will use the word tteokbokki for the rest of this page as it is my preferred spelling and what Wikipedia uses, if its good enough for wiki, its good enough for me.

So when we found out there was a shop called 88 Toppokki, we were extremely excited and had to go. Except we kept forgetting it was closed on Tuesdays. Oops. Its located in the Pinelands Shopping centre so its easy to get parking. Its located in the centre of the shop near the fruit shop.

Thats us!

Random 88 photos

Here are some terrible photos of the menu, otherwise check out Zomato for clearer ones.

The first time I went here was when I was looking for some fried chicken after work. I bought myself half a honey soy chicken for takeaway and chose the tteokbokki as my side. I like that you can choose between several different sides such as the grilled tteokbokki on a stick, rice, chips, regular stir fried tteokbokki or prawn and veggies. I love variety!

This fried chicken was very crispy and moist but I found the sauce a touch sweet so it's not my absolute favourite fried chicken to have. That being said, its definitely not bad though, and lots of people agree with me! They do a deal of 10 drumsticks for $10 and its always sold out when I try and get it.

Yassss

The stir fried tteokbokki is the regular tteokbokki you would order at any Korean restaurant, barring the fact that this is much more obviously a home style slash side dish version. How can you tell? The sheer number of bulk veggies present! Carrot, cabbage, green onion and zucchini a plenty, the fish cakes aren't as prominent but this is still an enjoyable dish. Just think of this as balancing out that chicken you just got! The sauce is a wonderful fluorescent orange from the spicy gochujang paste but despite that its not unbearably spicy like Madtongsan's tteokbokki, you can happily still eat this without stopping.

Yassss

I went back here a second time with H., and A*! H., and I had the same days off and were tossing up between here and Rogue Spice Canteen. H., insisted that we should eat the special hotpot while I was arguing that we couldn't possibly finish a hotpot off between us. Then I saw A* was online on Facebook and I knew she would come with us because she freaking loves tteokbokki. She loves it so much that once when we went to a Korean restaurant, she made us leave because it didn't sell tteokbokki, that was the time we went to FunnyFunny for dinner.

Anyway, we got the triple fried chicken plate, it came with honey soy chicken, plain fried chicken and a sweet and spicy sauce fried chicken. there was also a lightly dressed garden salad that we mostly ignored. A* loves plain fried chicken. I have a deep love of honey soy fried chicken and guess what H., loves? That's right, spicy fried chicken. We were the perfect team hahaha!

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We also got these banchan to go with our fried chicken from left to right its caramelised sweet potato, kimchi and soy marinated fish cakes! I love the sweet potato and the fish cakes the most, I could eat an entire bowl of these without getting sick. I often find myself having to move them away from me so I can't actually get to them before my main meal arrives.

Yesssss

H., was prodding us towards getting the special hotpot and I was being annoying by saying there was no guarantee that A* would agree to getting it. A* is an easy going girl though and she did agree. We got this in the regular size with three additional toppings which cost an extra $8-10 from memory. The ones we picked were an extra serve of deep fried seaweed rolls, quail eggs and tteokbokki since it didn't automatically come with them in there. There are a lot of other ingredients included in the hotpot such as spam, bulgogi beef, pork belly, enoki mushrooms, sweet potato noodles, calamari, deep fried gyoza, whole eggs, cabbage, mussels, prawns, onions, garlic, deep fried seaweed rolls and ramen noodles. We were told by our waitress to eat the deep fried gyoza and seaweed rolls first otherwise they would get too soggy. The soup had a wonderful savoury flavour that wasn't too spicy the best part was fishing out all the different ingredients to eat, you never knew what you were going to get!

H., loves deep fried seaweed rolls and she said this was the first place in Brisbane that she found made them. They're a battered roll of sushi seaweed that is wrapped around a bundle of soft vermicelli noodles, sounds kind of bland but the batter is really tasty! It tastes exactly like the batter on the plain fried chicken.

I really enjoy eating Korean hotpot much more than our Vietnamese version, lau, or Chinese style hotpot just due to the sheer number of ingredients present. Also for the fact that its already layered in for me, where as I would have to grab everything I want and dunk it in. Korean hotpot is already perfectly portioned to boil down to thick saucy goodness! It goes without saying that this place does the best hotpot I've found in Brisbane so far!

So so good!

88 Topokki
Atmosphere: 7, a cosy little place to hide from the world, as we did when it was absolutely bucketing down the day we went. 
Service: 7, pretty good actually. The shop is quite small so the waitresses are always lurking nearby, ready to help or top up your banchan dishes!
Food: 9, I love their hotpots and their fried chicken isn't bad either! I love that you can add whatever you want to the hotpot as well <3