Ze Pickle

I went out with JGirl to Ze Pickle cause we love dirty burgers, it had also been having great photos all over Instagram. Also I was still salty about it being closed when I tried to go with Dr H. This time we parked on the outside of the Emporium and we legged it across the four lanes of road to get to Ze Pickle.

Here is their website! We went on a Friday night and I had to go to work straight afterwards. We waited for almost 45-50 minutes for a table, it was freaking crazy. I was getting twitchy paranoid that I would show up late or I wouldn't eat. We ended up sitting at the bar and it was great, TABLES ARE OVER RATED. I just want a spot to eat food at!

We got the Ze Chips! Jesus H., Christ, this is the standard by which I measure loaded fries now. The excellent Ipa beer cheese sauce, the hand chopped maple bacon bits, the fresh green onions to cut through all that richness and those crispy, crunchy chips! Ahh this was so good, I was scraping the sauce off the plate with chips, then my fingers, then licking my fingers and rubbing them on the plate when I thought JGirl wasn't looking. 10/10 would eat again.

Omg so so good!

I got the Double Double, two hand pressed wagyu beef patties, double cheese, double maple smoked bacon and ZP sauce. For a place that touts itself on the awesomeness of its real wagyu beef burgers, I think they should've bothered seasoning the stuff, it was blandly medium rare beef. Even the cheese and bacon didn't help that much with how freaking thick the pattie was. Kudos on generosity, boo to the lack of seasoning.

>:

JGirl got the 3pm burger, wagyu beef patty, maple smoked bacon, guacamole, mozzarella sticks and more ZP sauce. She struggled to finish this burger due to the immense greasiness of the burger, she was trying to down it heroically but to no avail. She ate the patty and continued to breath heavily for a while before admitting defeat.

:(

Ze Pickle
Atmosphere: 5, dark and dingy pub hole!
Service: 8, excellent! They were very polite despite the hum of activity in the place, quick to take drink orders and clear tables. I always find that bar staff are always the best at service no matter where you go.
Food: 5, pretty average burgers. I was really disappointed by their burgers and the lack of seasoning too. If giant, greasy, over indulgent burgers are your thing, have at it!

Lord of the Wings

I'm trying to post my massive archive of 2015 posts, so bare with me as I get them out of the way now that we've hit 2016 and part of my New Years Resolution is to get back on track with my blog! 

VGirl, JGirl and I decided to go out for dinner one day, so long ago I forgot why we went! Anyway, we wanted to eat some type of American food and we also needed to do some quick shopping so off we went to Lord of the Wings in Westfield Carindale Shopping centre.

Uhh, parking is easy of course. Park in the shopping centre, the GoHealth Club/new food court end and then walk in. Here is a link to where their menu can be downloaded.

The decor is very similar to a bar set up with high tables and stools, there are also lots of little booths if you prefer a more restauranty feel.

We sat in a booth, VGirl prefers this

JGirl and I decided to split everything, because we're generous girls and JGirl is student poor. The first thing we got was a serve of eight bone in wings, cause bones are where flavour lives, in classic BBQ. Tiny little wings just about as big as that dipping sauce of blue cheese sauce, they were cooked perfectly tender. The sauce was nothing spectacular. I've heard a lot about these "life changing" wings and I don't get the hype to be honest. I wish that places with lots of sauce choices let you try sauces before you settled on an order, or is that just me? How can I commit to one out of sixteen choices when I haven't tried most of them? Ice cream places let me try their stuff before I buy ):

Oh how the mighty have fallen?

VGirl got the garden salad, it's pretty sad because that's one of the few things she can eat beside every single appetiser. She says she enjoys salad but I don't see the point of going out to eat salad? This was a simple garden salad of lettuce, tomato, grated carrot, purple onion, raw button mushroom, cherry tomatoes and a drizzle of ranch dressing. She wolfed or should I say cowed hahaha it down in about a minute. The girl eats fast.

Inhaled.

JGirl and I split this pulled pork and coleslaw burger as our meaty main, figuring that with everything else we needed to squash it down a little bit more. Don't ever split a pulled pork burger by the way, not if you want to leave the place with your clothing intact. You think eating a pulled pork burger is messy? Try ripping a brioche bun, a notoriously soft bread, then the lusciously wet pork and the fiddly bits of coleslaw spilling everywhere. Solid pulled pork burger, I must say.

On another note, I think it's funny that the pulled pork and slaw burger on the menu has a picture of fries in the background. Then there is a disclaimer in each photo that the burgers don't come with sides. Like, "please excuse our food porn, we were doing it for the 'grams." I get it man, you do you.

I could be a hand model

We got sticks and rings to share between the three of us, deep fried mozzarella sticks, onion rings and a side of both Thousand Island dipping sauce and the same classic barbecue sauce that's on our wings. The onion rings were pretty greasy but still better than the atrocity I had at 8 Bit Burger earlier this year. The mozzarella sticks were disappointing, I pulled apart the sticks, gleefully awaiting the spectacle of endlessly stretchhhhhhhhing cheese and got nothing. Even fresh, mouth burning out of the fryer hot and they still didn't do their thing.

I recognise that BBQ sauce!

I got the traditional poutine, because VGirl loves potato chips more than she loves me and I love poutine, it's in my top 10 foods. Don't ask me to rank the loves of my life though, its just a loose list that changes whenever I'm eating a food that's on the list. Anyway, I wasn't a huge fan of this poutine, mostly cause they had clearly shoved the whole thing in a skillet and shoved it in the oven to heat up the cheese so the chips lost their crunch. FOR SHAME.

POUTINE?

Lord of the Wings
Atmosphere: 5, vaguely bar like enterprise. I dunno why there are so many groups here.
Service: 5, permabusy teens, enough said.
Food: 5, passable but I wouldn't go back here again. There's cheaper, larger portioned American food joints in Brisbane, don't bother with here.

Greaser Bar

I got invited to Greaser Bar! It's been on my list of go to places because it was one of the very few place in Brisbane that was open after 10pm at night! A*., Mr A., Manda and I found a list of places to go to our after late shifts at work but they are woefully few and far between. That is unless you count Korean places and sometimes you just want a bit break from all that Korean food!

Its super hard to find Greaser Bar because its modeled on the old school Prohibition speakeasies. Head down Brunswick Street, its just a little bit past the bottle shop and you'll see what looks like a random alleyway. There should be two big security guards there and a plaque to their left that says Greaser Bar! Head down the alleyway, and follow the signs to the bar, if you walk past what looks like an industrial kitchen you're heading in the right direction!

We sat at different tables and I didn't know anyone so I just sat down at the closest one. It seems like everyone else knew it each other but we still played by food blogging etiquette, foods down, cameras up! This was the buttermilk Southern fried chicken that we got! Wing and drum pieces in a crispy southern spice coating, the chicken flesh was very juicy and tender while the coating was KFC style crunchy. The two sauces that came with the chicken were a redeye gravy and a chipotle mayonnaise, the gravy wasn't anything special but we used up every single bit of that creamy and mildly spicy mayonnaise.

Deliciouso~

We also got their cheeseburger and crinkle cut fries as well! It was a touch on the small size but the cheeseburger was absolutely delicious! It had a soft squishy bun, ground Angus beef that was very juicy and tender, a giant slice of melted cheese, lettuce leaf, tomato and a pickle that had been cut on an angle that was too big. The pickle had been cut so that it was nearly the entire length of the pickle, that's too long! You need little slices, or slices the length or width of the burger so it doesn't flop out everywhere! Simple but delicious. Fries were great too, but almost all fries are who are we kidding?

Burger burger burger~!

Boom Boom Burger

I got invited to Boom Boom Burger Bar and Cafe the other day! It was a 1940s style New York style bar with burgers and bar place on Chevron Island down the Gold Coast! I know only one person down on the Gold Coast so Jubi came with me to this place!

It's on the main strip of Chevron Island just slightly off the side, so watch out for this sign!

Aw yiss

I liked all the murals and decorative pieces around the bar. I wish I was able to take more photos but there were way too many people around everywhere. I'm talking like 1-2 free tables at any time, except the freezing outside tables. I found the atmosphere to be like a buzzing restaurant, constant background noise but you're still able to talk to your dinner partner without shouting.

So bright

We sat right near the kitchen and enjoyed the view of the restaurant.

Bar!

I liked this table of cutlery and napkins, I like the worn look of it.

Not sure why I like it

Once again, I love the murals. This one was just outside the kitchen.

Great art!

Here is their menu! We got $40 off the tab since we got invited there but we ordered so much stuff we still had to pay a bit hahaha. We got a drink, tapas, side, burger and sauce each for roughly $30! The first pick was by Jubi! We were really indecisive for a long time about what tapas to get because we wanted to eat everything and I mean like, I would eat everything on the menu just to try it. Jubi is the queen of best decisions when it comes to her picks and it was no different this time.

She chose the four hour braised beef cheeks with mushrooms and small pieces of juicy, intensely flavoured tomatoes. I wish I could even convey how tender these slices of melting beef were, I poked it with a knife and the meat fell to pieces. It had a rich, intensely flavoured sauce that was thick, glossy and with that wonderful beef, tomato and mushroom flavour of winter.

Winter food at its best

I went with the slow cooked pork rib sticky fingers, I have no idea what a pork rib sticky finger is but its a super meaty pork rib and I'm a fan of that. This was another super tender cut of meat, when I grabbed the bone to pick it off the plate, the rest of the meat fell off right back onto the plate. The sauce was delectable, I was licking it off the plate when I thought Jubi wasn't looking.

Sooo good

The house specialty on the side dishes was the puff potatoes which after much discussion, Jubi decided to get. We were eagerly discussing what we possibly thought this could be when it arrived at our table. Perfectly round, golden brown, shallow fried, well seasoned mashed potato balls! They were super hot and I'm pretty sure Jubi burnt her tongue trying to eat one, they were amazing but definitely something you should eat promptly.

Amazing!

I picked the onion rings after much umming and ahhing over what to get. The onion rings had very large, sweet slices of onion in a thin and super crispy tempura batter. We got a sauce each that appeared in the photo below, I got the house mayonnaise and Jubi got the tomato relish. I disliked the flavour of the mayo, finding it to have a strong flavour to the oil used and not much of a tang or sweetness. The relish was very good and Jubi ate the entire dish on EVERYTHING, she was highly tempted to bring a jar of it home to be honest.

Wonderful!

I decided to go with the option of two sliders for $12 to try a few more things. My first instant pick was the Hello Lucy! Haloumi, roasted pumpkin, walnut, tomato relish, lettuce and rocket burger and if that doesn't sound amazing I don't know what else does. This is the first and only time I've ever wanted a vegetarian burger and I'm just as amazed as you are. The flavours worked perfectly together from the crunchy of the walnut, the sweetness of the pumpkin, that salty, chewy hit from the haloumi and the freshness and bitterness of the rocket! Oh man, this is the perfect combination and I was in heaven! Jubi was very polite and decided to go with a different burger option but she later confessed this is what she originally wanted. I will make a salad with these exact ingredients one day and it will be glorious, I have all these ingredients at home right now barring the rocket.

Too bad, so sad, its all mine!

I also got the Pig Me Up, 6 hour slow cooked pork belly, green apple chutney, blue cheese, tomato and lettuce. I was somehow under the expectation that this was pulled pork so I was quite surprised when I tasted blue cheese, pork belly and tart green apple. It was tasty but I was so irritated by this that I was put off since I had been expecting pulled pork. Jubi later showed me the menu and I admitted that it was good just unexpected. The pork belly has gorgeously melting layers of fat and soft pork and contrasted beautifully with the rich, creamy blue cheese and tart chunks of green apple chutney. 

So much chutney

This fat slob of a burger is their Boom Boom Bang, wagyu beef, tomato relish, cheese, lettuce and caramelised onion. Jubi ordered it and said it wasn't a super tall burger but the patty was cooked to a perfect medium rare and the burger was very wide. She said it was delicious but ended up having to eat it with a knife and fork due to the sheer size of it.

Classic burger!

Boom Boom Burgers
Atmosphere: 9, bustling American diner, intimate, buzzing but you can still hear people, it would be the perfect place to get together with friends especially with their bar and cheap prices.
Service: 10, absolutely wonderful. They were super attentive, cleared the plates away promptly and asked us multiple times how everything was. I noticed they did this to everyone and not just us as well!
Food: 10, I adored everything I ate here. It has the distinction of having the best vegetarian burger I've ever had the pleasure of eating, the sides are plentiful and cheap and the tapas were all delicious. I only regretted my choice of the house mayo for dipping my onion rings into due to whatever oil they used to make it up having a strong flavour.

RJIE: Boundary Street Markets

I got invited to try wings from the Wing Stand a long time ago hahaha! I had been aware of them for quite a while but never got to go because they are only open at the Boundary Street Friday night markets and I always seem to work that shift. So as a result I was pretty excited when they contacted me because I do love chicken wings. It took a few weeks to organise it but I eventually was able to see them before my night shifts and try a few places.

 

So basically you choose how many wings you want, six or ten in a pack, choose your sauce and then choose your dressing! They have a buffalo, BBQ, lemon pepper and a rotating special flavour, the day I went it was peach bourbon! I picked the six wing pack and got to try a few different flavours, I got to try almost all the flavours that day despite only getting a six pack of wings!

Nice!

I can't remember which is which but I got the buffalo, BBQ and peach bourbon which was the special when I went. My favourite was the BBQ which had a not overly sweet and smoky flavour, I didn't mind the buffalo wings even though I normally find them annoying sour and mildly spicy, these had a good heat to them. The peach bourbon was quite sweet but it worked well with the spiciness of the sauce. I found the wings to be quite crispy from the frying which I liked and coated in a generous amount of sauce. The blue cheese sauce was strong and creamy.

Mmm wings

I love the Hierba Santa iced teas you can get here as well. They come in a 1L bucket for $7 and the flavours are gorgeous, they are quite sweet but you can always try before you buy! This was the Aztec Rose flavour, a sweet rose flavoured tea.

Chug chug chug!

I got some calamari since I was still feeling peckish from these guys!

Woo!

I got quite a large cone of freshly caught and fried calamari with a lemon slice and a handy stick for poking. They were large rings with a golden brown crunchy breadcrumb layer and super tender flesh underneath. I was very impressed! They also have a selection of different sauces to apply if wanted, I remembered there's an aioli, mayonnaise, sweet chili, tartare, herbed mayonnaise among other things.

So good +_+

I've been a regular at the markets since then, frequently dropping by whenever I'm in the area since they run Fridays, Saturday day and Sunday day. I keep having Saturday off, so I tend to go for a massage at Skeletal Harmonics before wandering down here for a feed afterwards. This is Tom and John's Wings!

New wings?

I got the hot garlic wings supposedly but I have a suspicion these are their buffalo wings instead. I didn't mind, they were super crunchy and had a thick hot sauce coating, hot enough that you were sweating bullets but not enough that you stopped eating!

Man I love wings

I also got a drink at this little place here. Its a pretty trendy/hipster organic food truck called Planted, think lots of kale, handmade nut milks, organic stuff everywhere, superfood everything, that kinda stuff!

Their menu

Very well connected~!

I got a peanut butter milkshake made with soy milk and coconut milk icecream. So rich and creamy, with a strong peanut butter flavour, I barely noticed that it had a soy flavour at all. I would highly recommend this drink and have had it several times since, but only when Hierba Santa isn't around hahaha.

Surprisingly good!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hierba-Santa-Organic/1411472389097416



https://www.facebook.com/plantedwholefoodsco

The Smoke BBQ

One day, Dr S., and JGirl felt like some ribs so they called me. Then because I gave them so many recommendations and strongly hinted that I would like to come along, I got invited. VGirl was at my house at the time, studying for her exam and she was annoyed that she didn't get asked, so she called JGirl to complain. So before I knew it, we all went to eat ribs!

We got a free basket of jalapeno cornbread with a side of honey butter. The cornbread was a touch dry, but with a lovely golden brown crust and cool to touch, so it didn't soak as much butter as you usually get. It was free, so I guess I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Here is their menu!

Ehh

You're wondering how VGirl got to eat ribs right? Since she's a dirty vegetarian and all. She didn't she was coming along for the company since she had already eaten and wanted to "study". She ordered herself a long island iced tea since I was driving and was ecstatic as she has been the designated driver and the only manual car driver out of her group of friends since she got her P plates. For a snack, she ordered side of potato chips which came with a massive dish of ranch dressing that I kept trying to steal.

Studying? With a drink in hand.

I ordered a side of buffalo wings. They weren't crispy as detailed in the description, instead they were tender and smoky with a thin coating of spicy and vinegary sauce. They came with a side of blue cheese dressing that was quite mild. We ordered way too much food and barely finished this.

This stuff!

 JGirl, Dr S., and myself decided to split the signature rib combo, texas beef ribs, bourbon lamb ribs and thick cut pork ribs with fries and a side of coleslaw. We split the ribs into thirds and were heartily stuffed by the end of it. Luckily for us, we all had a distinct favourite, mine was the pork, JGirl's was the lamb and Dr S., was the beef.

Not the prettiest side

My personal favourite as I said was the thick cut pork ribs, I found them sweetly smoky, with a great flavour from whatever spice rub they used and not as dry thanks to the huge amounts of rich, thick, BBQ sauce they slathered on over the ribs. The pork ribs had the largest amount of meat on them as well and were very fatty and super meaty ribs.

Better

The beef ribs were my second favourite, they were less meaty but really tender but not to the stage where it was easy for us to separate the bone. It did require a bit of knife action to remove them. The sauce on the ribs was a lot less heavy, quite mild and creamy.

Best?

The lamb ribs were the ones with the thinnest amount of meat but also the crunchiest as well as more intensely flavour. The fat had rendered off quite nicely but there was a crispy/crackly texture to the meat especially on the more exposed meat towards the end of the bone which I didn't like. Everyone enjoyed the fries and we were clashing over who got to eat the coleslaw since we had to cut through the super meatiness of everything we were eating.

The Smoke BBQ
Atmosphere: 5, we sat outside in the cold on the pavement. Not my favourite of experiences that's for sure. The interior was deserted but since we were on the first seating, we were sat outside. 
Service: 5, despite getting a booking we sat outside under the fluorescent lights. I don't remember anything else other than wishing we had been sitting inside for the meal.
Food: 6, the food is okay. I couldn't imagine finishing that much food by myself, so it was actually quite a good price for us girls to share. I would probably go back here unless I found a better ribs place in Brisbane.

Ribs and Burgers

E., just started at work and we discovered that we had the same birthday, so of course we became friends really quickly. We had nights together not soon after we found this out so we decided to go out for dinner. I heard that a new ribs and burgers place had opened up in the Valley or thereabouts so off we went!

They are located near the Newstead Centro Cinemas, right across from where ChowHouse is located. It's very easy to locate and the parking is easy too since its in the main James Street area. The sign is one of those giant neon signs so its a bit difficult to photograph.

I was taking photos around the restaurant, hopefully discretely but there are some random people in them, like the waiter who unfortunately turned around.

Awkssssssss, I just wanted a picture of the bar set up!

We decided to sit a bit outside on table 2 and while we were waiting, I went around the restaurant for more photos. The weird metal teapot had a bottle of barbecue sauce as well as their pink sauce, metal knives, metal forks and napkins. Just randomly, here is their menu!

Odd teapot?

Its a very industrial looking set up with exposed pipework everywhere. I quite liked its appearance though as did E., They also had a lot of spill over from the kitchen where you can see those cans on the far left. There's also a sink there to wash your hands post ribs.

Hmm

Another shot

We decided to split the best of both meal, your choice of ribs, one side and two sliders, a chicken and a beef one. So we decided to get pork riblets, the two sliders and decided to have the cabbage salad to be "healthy". The pork riblets were pretty tender, enough so that the meat was easily parted from the bone but not shake off the flesh good. They were pretty plain aside from that. 

The beef slider had a tomato, lettuce and onion salad with some of the pink sauce slathered on it, a tangy tomato/mayo sauce combination I think. The chicken slider was a chunk of chicken breast with the same salad accompaniments. E., was pretty happy that the chicken was real chicken not like the crumbed mince they tend to use in Ireland. 

The cabbage salad was quite tasty, white and purple cabbage, roasted pine nuts, onion, parsley and mint for some added freshness along with the lemon dressing. It was a super fresh salad, full of crunchy texture and bright and refreshing flavours with the mint and parsley. We finished pretty quickly as we had a bite every other mouthful to counter all the meat we were consuming.

We got a side of chicken wings in original barbecue sauce which turned out to be THE blurriest photo I've ever taken. For some reason, I thought this was a great photo at the time, now, not so much so. There were a total of six wing pieces, that included the midwing and drumstick piece. They got served with an awesome ranch dipping sauce that I was using for everything. While described as crispy, they were pretty tender/soft like they had been oven roasted. They were very tender chicken wings and we both enjoyed them a great deal.

Ribs and Burgers:
Atmosphere: 6, industrial and open air little eatery, thankfully they have lots of those massive outdoor heaters everywhere to warm you up.
Service: 6, yeah a bit scattered but not bad, friendly service and quick to clear our table.
Food: 5.5, the wings were solid. It was a bit pricey considering what you got and the both of us agreed that we probably wouldn't go back there again.



I got contacted about promoting the James Street Food and Wine Trail, currently in its 3rd year and running from the 31st of July to the 3rd of August. Read the media release below and if you're keen I'll see you there! I'll keep updating this and posting it to the bottom of my posts until the day of the event :)