Malacca Malay

I was initially very excited to find that there was a new restaurant opening up at the Hyperdome aka my local shopping centre. I know that I say that Garden City is my local but that is because no one would happily claim the Hyperdome as their local. When I saw that this place had opened, I knew I had to go and try their food.

Parking is easy, its at a major shopping centre. Just park down at the Coles end and leg it. It's right in front of Aldi, its hard to miss. Here is their menu, thanks Zomato!

I got the chicken satay skewers as my entree. I found the chicken to be a touch dry with a very heavy hand on the tumeric in their marinade. I was quite saddened that there was no heavy charring or smokey flavour on the chicken. Their satay sauce was quite sweet. It came chopped onion, cuucmber and sour pineapple on the side.

):

This was the curry pork rib with noodles. I could not finish this dish, both due to the generous portion sizing as well as the taste not being to my liking. The pork rib pieces that they use are the cartilage heavy, tasty pork rib tips that are loved in Asian cooking. They were smothered in a thick, grainy, spice heavy curry that reminded me of fresh curry powder? I'm not sure how to explain it because the flavour was very familiar but I was unable to really place it or describe it besides, "the equivalent of fresh curry powder."

:<

I got the teh tarik which was a gigantic delicious serve.

Another reason I didn't finish my meal was the large slick of oil present.

Pork remnants

Malacca Malay
Atmosphere: 5, nothing fancy.
Service: 5, counter service!
Food: 4, not to my liking. I didn't enjoy anything I ate.

Sushi Ren

Ren Sushi is my go to sushi place, if I can't be bothered to drive all the way to Sunnybank. It's located just a zip down the high way from my house. It's located in that weird strip between Bunnings and Big Gun butchers, right near the MacDonalds if you know where that is. Parking is okay but quite limited.

The beauty of this place is that everything on the train is $3.50, nothing better than fixed price sushi. You just go crazy trying new things!

This is their menu!

+_+

It looks like every sushi train in Australia really. Sit at the train or sit in a booth. At least on their train its kinda organised? VGirl was all over that Veggie Love.

VGirl says aw yiss

Noice

This VGirl's go to, a giant veggie tempura sushi roll. I actually have no idea what veggies are in here, carrot maybe? Whatever, she seemed happy. You'll notice that all the sushi here is jumbo sized, which is a bit difficult to finish in one bite. The sushi chefs perked up a bit and made quite a few of these for VGirl to eat once they saw that was all she ate.

Veggie tempura

I love that basic bitch combo of canned tuna, mayo and rice, but they spiced it up with a little sprinkle of furikake! This one can be a bit dry at times, not helpful when you're starving and wolfing down food. Despite my shit talking, I'll order this every time.

<3

This lump is chicken katsu with avocado topped with a spicy mayonnaise. Its pretty good despite how awful the presentation is.

Yas.

Here is their crispy chicken and avocado. Once again, a beast of a sushi piece! I envy how sushi places get picture perfect avocado every time, never a smudgy grey or stony bit in them! Just pure creamy green deliciousness.

#skills

This is their lobster roll. I literally have no memory of consuming this.

Wat.

This is their deep fried tuna and avocado roll, I order this all the time and I have no idea why. My soul cringes at the idea of deep fried and crumbed rice, but my mouth is like, yeah I'll have it.

This is another of their deep fried abominations, bulgogi beef on top of a strip of deep fried rice. It's messy but damn, worth a try.

!?!?

Crab claws. They come out super hot, full of dubious meat but still fun to eat!

Blurry

Sushi Ren
Atmosphere: 5, your standard sushi train.
Service: 5, nothing fancy.
Food: 6, nothing fancy, nothing flash. Its cheap sushi if you can't be bothered going all the way to Sushi Edo. The flavour combinations are a bit bizarre and the serving style would make a traditionalist blanch, but its not bad!

Dapur Dahlia

I love Malaysian food so its a wonder that I hadn't already been to Dapur Dahlia in my travels! I decided that VGirl and her boyfriend, Zbag, JGirl, Dr S., and myself, should all head here for dinner one day.

Dapur Dahlia is a bit hard to spot, its pretty near to the Pizza Hut/Night Owl store in Upper Mount Gravatt so keep an eye out for that. Parking is a bit limited since its not particularly a big shopping lot. This restaurant is super popular, while the Indian restaurant beside it had barely any customers the entire time we were there. Perhaps they should expand that way?

This place!

The restaurant is extremely small by the way, not to mention the furniture is pretty small and uncomfortable to sit on. We had to wait about 20 minutes to get a table simply for the fact that there are only about . . . 8 tables in the entire place, the majority of which end up being put together due to limited tabletop space. In short, I hate this tiny restaurant's atmosphere!

Here is their collection of menus.

We all got random drinks. VGirl got this Soda Bandung, aka iced rose water soda. It's bright pink and icy cold, it also tastes exactly like creaming soda, surprise!

Fave for VGirl

I got the traditional teh ais, thick black tea and condensed milk thats been stretched. Zero stretching here, there is no foamy top at all! That being said its delicious, but what more do you expect from condensed milk drinks?

Love condensed milk

Zbag picked ais limau, a black tea with lime juice added. It was a very refreshing and sweet iced tea flavour.

Yummy

I made VGirl get the Maggi migoreng as opposed to the regular migoreng, this is because I wanted to eat Maggi noodles over hokkien noodles. Also it was the chef's special! This is even though VGirl would only allow me a small mouthful of the noodles. She said it was delicious and finished it before the rest of the dishes were even put down. When I asked her if she wanted another serve, she declined but spent a lot of time inquiring after other peoples meals, so maybe I should have gotten one . . . oh the vegetables in this dish were bean sprouts, carrot, cabbage and gai lan!

Yassss

I got the ayam goreng and beef rendang nasi lemak! I love nasi lemak because it allows me to pick and choose bits off the menu that I want to try without having to actually order that dish as a main! So yeah I picked fried chicken of course and beef rendang! To be truthful, since I started making beef rendang, I've never found one as good as my own. I love the sauce super dense, full of spices and coconut and the beef to fall apart. This was okay. The fried chicken reminds me of home with the way the winglet is still kept on it! That's the good bit, there's so much skin on there to eat! I enjoyed the sambal that they had here as well as the fact that the egg was a medium boil, no dodgy iron grey ring for me thanks!

<3 nasi lemak

Chicken satay, the way it should be! Charred, fat skewers of chicken absolutely doused in finger licking satay sauce accompanied with cucumber and red onion! They come four to a serve, so there was enough for everyone to eat one and get

Ideal number, so easily divisible!

This is their roti telur bawang aka egg and onion flatbread that comes with dahl, lentil curry, and a curry gravy, chicken! I feel like that sentence has a lot of commas in there but I'm too lazy to fix it, so please endure! Dr S., and JGirl both enjoyed this!

!

However, they also ordered roti jala aka net bread, which also came with a curry gravy and chicken curry. I have no idea why they basically ordered the same dish twice to share. I don't understand the appeal of roti jala because its meant to go with curry dishes as a means of sopping or picking up curry. So why would you use a bread that has so many holes in it to do that? Doesn't that seem fundamentally arduous somehow? Like eating soup with a spoon?

?_?

CBoy got the seafood laksa. It is a massive, massive bowl! It comes with lots of prawns, calamari, fish cakes, three types of noodle, flat rice, egg and a homemade rice starch noodle as well as a very rich and flavourful coconut broth! He did not finish this bowl by the way, it defeated him!

Truck size bowl

We got the cendol as our shareable dessert, bright green pandan noodles, shaved ice and palm sugar syrup! I like that they actually used real palm sugar, you can taste the caramel sweetness of it. I had to scoff this down as everyone else was too full and wanted to go home and sleep.

Refreshing!

Dapur Dahlia 
Atmosphere: 3, I hate this tiny restaurant. Please expand more!
Service: 5, nothing special.
Food: 7, average! The drinks are pretty good as are the dishes barring the roti. The serving size is solid and the pricing is pretty cheap. Give this place a shot, I'd say! 

Yim Thai

S., and I went here before work one night. We ate dinner and then grabbed takeaway, green Thai curry and something else I forgot. We found the green Thai curry a bit too creamy and sweet, but everything else we had was soliddddd. I'm really sad that they don't do delivery though.

Yim Thai is located in a little shopping centre so there is heaps of parking here. Keep an eye out for Chompers, then you know you're there!

This place!

We couldn't get a table inside because they were all reserved. We had to sit outside.

):<

Also outside was pretty packed.

>:(

I hate metal serving dishes because they get too hot from the food. Here is their menu!

Boo!

S., got these coconut prawns. They were pretty huge and she said they were really good. I'm not a fan of prawns cause they are too much work for when I'm super hungry. Plus I'm stingy so I like to have every piece of meat available. You can see the generous coating of crunchy coconut on there too!

Solid

We also got the curry puffs to share, they are gorgeous little things, look at that perfect tuck! That is the perfection of an Asian auntie, who yells at her useless nieces and nephews. I know that feel because that's what Mama Pham does to me when I try and help her out in the kitchen. The contempt of lifelong skills. I smashed through these in seconds, I freaking love curry puffs, I love their sweet spiciness and mash of vegetables.

Perfect for kids

S., got the scallop and prawn prad prik kin aka a wild ginger and red curry paste stir fry, she could not stop talking about this dish. She got a huge amount of prawns and scallops that were cooked to a perfect juiciness. This is quite a favourite for everyone I've dined with. It comes with quite a large amount of vegetables in with it as well.

!

My honest to god favourite is the crispy pork belly cooked in chilli, coconut cream, young ginger, peppercorns and a ton of veggies, same as all their other stir fry dishes. I love how crispy the crackling is on this dish as well as the soft, melting flavour of the fat and meat pieces. Every time I've gone here, I've ordered this dish!

Hello delicious pork belly

We got som tum as our healthy shared entree. I love papaya salad from any country, the crunch of papaya, sweet cherry tomatoes, salty dried shrimp, the snap of green beans, peanuts, crunch, crunch, crunch! I love things that are crunchy and balanced between multiple flavours, plus its not a seasonal dish so I can get it all the time! The salad had a good amount of heat, enough that we noticed but not enough that we had to stop, it was wonderful! Every time I go here, I get at least two serves of this dish!

Yessss

Also I have been back here twice, for some reason I keep thinking I've already posted this review so I keep forgetting to take more photos. My bad guys, my bad. I went here with L., H., and S.Y, who all agreed it was some of the best Thai food they've had in Brisbane. Then H., went here with her husband and then proceeded to order the worse stuff in the restaurant according to her husband, apparently their jungle curry isn't great.

Yim Thai
Atmosphere: 7, a lovely and well decorated little place. Perfect for a family get together but not quite fancy enough for date night.
Service: 5, nothing stand out.
Food: 8, really good Thai food, just aim for the stir fries rather than the curries. Their som tum is a must!

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!

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?