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.

Ashton and Old

N., and I went to Ashton and Old as a quick lunch before work! We were entranced by the sounds of pork belly fried rice and so off we went! I really enjoy working with N., like me, she rarely has plans and if so it's planned so far in advance that she can easily join me in my random food adventures around Brisbane. We're both notorious in our work place for having lunches together and going to Korean fried chicken joints late after work ends haha.

Anyway, Ashton and Old is located on Old Cleveland Road, it has 1P parking in the front and some parking at the back if you're lucky! Just hope that you're on the right side of the road approaching, or you might have to leg it across busy traffic!

This place!

Here is their menu!

We went agesssss ago!

I like the set up of the cafe, but you know by now that I love open plan restaurants with an airy appearance. I like sunlit rooms!

I like succulents!

View from where we were sitting

Lots of seating space

Those photos are olden day Camp Hill!

I went there for their pulled pork eggs benedict, cause both those things massively appeal to me! I love the silky creaminess of this hollandaise sauce. I adored that doorstop wedge of bread that soaked up all the juices from my tender pulled pork and the yolk from my perfectly poached eggs. This meal was a dream come true and everything I expected and more, when it came to pulled pork eggs bene!

Yessss

This is the dish that made us come here in the first place! Sticky pork belly fried brown rice with fried egg, fresh Asian coleslaw and lots of crunchy deep fried onion garnishes. The pork belly was tender and cooked enough that the fat had rendered nicely but despite that we didn't really like the fried rice. N., noted that she felt like it was way too healthy for her with the inclusion of brown rice, we both felt like the plum sauce used in the fried rice made it way too sweet and made the rice clump together. It looked great but fell flat in execution.

Meh

We also got giant hand cut sweet potato chips to share, you can tell they are lovingly hand cut because one is the size of an entire sweet potato. They had a nice crunchy exterior and soft sweet fluffy interior. I love sweet potato chips. They also gave us a dish of garlic aioli to dip with!

Giant chip

N., got this fluffy strawberry, apple and orange juice drink.

Fluffy drink

I got this coffee frappe, without sugar syrup like a dummy. So it was just a fancy iced coffee really. Note to self, don't get it without sugar syrup.

Bleh needs sugar

Ashton and Old
Atmosphere: 7, I love the look of this little cafe.
Service: 5, not bad, nothing special.
Food: 7, pretty good! They have an inventive menu that constantly changes and I would go back to try some other stuff on their menu.

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!

The Stokehouse

Mama Pham and work friend Foodie Auntie have started going to restaurants together all the time, if they're not working together, they're constantly having each other for dinner or heading out to restaurants together. This was one of the occasions where they invited VGirl and myself along. Foodie Auntie and her daughter Foodie Cousin are more inclined to fancier food places than my family are. They said that the food here was delicious so off we went!

Its along the South Bank towards the Maritime Museum end, there is very few parking spots there but its an easy walk from nearly everywhere. Also apologies for the lighting in advance, the restaurant had soft candle light like lighting and I didn't think to change the exposure or ISO settings on my camera before this.

This place!

The restaurant was nearly empty when we arrived but we weren't allowed in until our reservation time. We were seated promptly and were given a basket of bread with a fruity olive oil for dipping.

Little sack of bread

Here is their menu! I was the only person to grab an entree and I went with the chicken liver parfait. I didn't like the aspic layer of the parfait since it had such a strongly alcoholic flavour and I don't like bitter flavours. The chicken liver itself was silky smooth however with a rich flavour. The pickles were a nice sharp contrast but I wish there had been some other kind of carb to go with the chicken liver parfait. I ended up eating a lot of the bread to have something else as a contrast.

Slate block?

I got the slow braised veal and kale cannelloni with a rich tomato sauce, rocket and parmesan topping. I found the veal to be very tender with a melting soft succulence. The tomato sauce was rich but balanced between sweetness and acidity. I found it hard to finish my dish due to the inclusion of kale in the filling. I had a bad run of dishes at this restaurant, however everyone else had much tastier foods and I know that from constantly pinching pieces off their plate.

Not my pick

This was the vegetarian pasta that VGirl picked it was a ricotta gnudi with zucchini, spinach, pinenuts and lots and lots of other cheeses I can't recall. VGirl was entranced by the texture and appearance of the gnudi and its very much a ricotta/gnocchi dumpling, the gnudi pieces were as soft and fluffy as a cloud. VGirl gave me one bite then refused to give me any more until she saw how disheartened I was with my dish, then she gave me the scrapings off her plate out of pity. Needless to say she thought this dish was amazing and scraped every bit off the plate!

Fluffy clouds!

Mama Pham decided to go with the old steady a jumbo 250g eye fillet of beef with potato fondant, roasted onion and a red wine jus. She got it medium rare because thats what you should eat it at, she personally prefers like medium well, well done kind of steaks, she gets disgusted when I cook medium rare steaks at home. Oh god, this was the best steak I've ever had, it was like eating butter if it was meat, does that even make sense? Such a wonderfully flavoursome, buttery, tender cut of meat! The potato fondant was delicious as well with its crispy, crunchy edges!

Steak!

We got the chili salt chips with a side of aioli as our shared side. The heat from the chili salt was quite subtle but the chips were without flaw, perfectly crunchy with fluffy interiors. They were fresh from the fryer burning hot and we enjoyed every last piece of them.

Oh chips <3

Foodie Auntie also got the roasted pumpkin rocket, salted onion, labnah and honey salad. I was surprised that the pieces of pumpkin weren't larger and didn't have a better caramelisation. I love the combination of sweet pumpkin, creamy cheese and sharp rocket!

This blurry thing

Stokehouse
Atmosphere: 5, fancy but makes me feel awkward setting. I can imagine this being somewhere you'd go for a special event, especially as it overlooks the Brisbane river.
Service: 8, pretty solid service, quick top ups of our water, they memorised where our orders came from and were quick to take orders.
Food: 7, I didn't like what I get but everyone else's food was pretty good. I wouldn't go back just because I disagree about the pricing of the food. Also atmosphere.