Wilson's on the River

This was my first invitation of the year! Off to Wilson's on the River, brand spanking new seafood restaurant. They just opened up a few weeks ago along Coronation Drive in Milton. So new in fact that they still hadn't got a website up and going or parking approved. Parking in Milton is a massive pain in the ass due to its 2P regulations. Apparently they will get onsite parking pretty soon!

I went with my friend E., from work! She drives a massive truck car and she lovessssss seafood!

This place!

The interior is absolutely lovely! It's in an old converted Queenslander that's been split in multiple buildings now and they've been super busy sprucing the downstairs for dining and upstairs for a champagne bar. It's the bright white Queenslander near all the office buildings in Milton along the river, it's been quite a few other restaurants in the past so I don't doubt it has a very familiar appearance for everyone Brisbane based.

Lovely!

We sat beside the window and spent a lot of time perusing over the menu before the head chef came out to introduce himself and have a bit of a chat to us. Then the general manager came up to talk to us about the history of the place which I recounted in a nutshell earlier.

Mama Pham would enjoy this place

The first entree that we recieved and arguably the best in my eyes were the Harvey Bay scallops with apple and onion puree, black pepper caramel shards and a truffled cauliflower timbale. The scallops were perfectly grilled, large, sweet and creamy. The apple and onion puree was also perfectly balanced and a tart contrast to the super creamy texture of the timbale, think the creamiest scrambled eggs you've ever had. The only issue I had with these was the huge size of the caramel shards, I found the flavour overwhelming as there was so much of it in one mouthful. I think a bit of a finer crumble would have been preferable.

My fav, defs get it!

This was a super close tie to being my favourite, it was a butter poached Moreton Bay bug, mango salsa, fermented black beans and a chive and sage butter sauce. The super soft, succulent, meaty sweetness of the Moreton Bay bug had me seriously wondering why I don't eat more of the stuff! We were both scraping the plate with this one, everything was delicious from the sweetness of the mango to the salty hit of the funky fermented black beans to the buttery herbaceous sauce pooled under the supple pasta.

I now love Moreton Bay Bugs

This was the Thai coconut milk broth mussels with kaffir lime. I didn't really like this one as I found that the Thai broth lacked the fragrant aromatics that Thai cuisine is characteristically known for. It was a very mild broth and it took me a few sips before I decided whether or not I liked this. E., loved it and said it was her favourite since it combined her two favourite things, Thai and seafood! I've got to say I'm really traditional and love bread with my mussels to soak up the sauce. The chef told me that this was one of their most popular dishes as it was something new and interesting but very mildly spiced so perfect for most people!

Spicier for me thanks!

This was my least favourite dish, I really disliked everything about it, the name of the dish as well as the execution. It was called a Tasmanian salmon ceviche, cured with sea salt and white wine vinegar, dressed with a Glasshouse Mountain honey and pineapple dressing. The slices of fish were very ragged, each slice a different shape and size to the one beside it. There were even some holes in the slices and I felt like this was a terrible way to treat such delicious fish. There wasn't a particularly strong sour flavour from the vinegar and when I've had ceviche in the past, it's been gorgeous hunks of fish cured in some type of citrus juice and a jumble of crunchy and refreshing things like onions, chili, tomato or coriander! It's normally a super fresh and light dish, which I find this dish isn't.

I'm sorry for you salmon ):

This was the Fremantle octopus served grilled over a bed of baby zucchini, red cabbage and radicchio and topped with a green chili jam. I really liked the green chili jam, I love the punchy sweetness of it and I found the octopus well cooked, quite tender but not as tender as the one I had from the new defunct Char Char Yiros that still remains my gold standard. If you get octopus so tender you think its chicken aside from the suckers, you're doing a great job. E., said that she really enjoyed this dish despite not liking octopus.

 A beckoning curl says come on by~

The chef dropped by and asked if we were getting full yet. We said no and so bring on the reef and beef! We got half a Moreton Bay bug grilled with garlic butter dripping off the side, a thick Diamantina Angus tenderloin cooked to a perfect medium, salt and pepper calamari, prawns on top of a cracker of a crunchy potato pieces and sauteed spinach. Remember what I said earlier about Moreton Bay bugs? I double down on that and say this is the best one I've ever had, it was the length of my forearm and I wear a size 9 1/2 woman's shoe! It was so, so, so juicy, pure white succulent meat that I dragged through the garlic butter pooled under the rest of the food! The steak was perfectly cooked as I said and so tender, it cut through like butter! The prawns were also perfectly cooked, juicy and bursty. I think I need to stop saying things were perfectly cooked, because it all was!

Omg yassssss

We got the black truffle risotto with soft boiled egg, three jumbo grilled prawns and a scattering of toasted black rice aka inedible shards of rice that were everywhere. I don't like risotto and this one wasn't an exception, it was cooked to risotto prime standards with a chalky hint in the centre of each rice grain, well separated grains of rice, a buttery pool lightened with a hint of citrus and a strong truffle aroma and flavour. That doesn't mean I like it though, risotto just isn't my thing! That being said if that sounds up your alley, I'm sure you would love this dish.

Shotgun gooey egg

It was time for another main but I made a quick break for the upstairs champagne bar to check out the fixtures and view!

Hella fancy nice

I can imagine leisurely sipping champagne or for me, fancy mocktails as I turn my nose up at the city workers below me!

Brissie river, why you so brown

There's also an upstairs dining area!

Gorgeous otherwise though

Our last main was the angel hair pasta with spanner crab, cherry tomato, broccolini with crunchy garlic and a lemon, olive oil and fresh basil sauce. I thought it was delicious! I loved the large pieces of fluffy white crab meat scattered throughout the pasta. I thought that the pasta itself was more like a noodle but it was still tasty. I loved the freshness of the lemon, crunchy garlic, basil and olive oil sauce! While E., disliked it, I would solidly order this again due to how much I enjoyed this dish.

Omg so good!

There were a few desserts but E., and I were seriously gunning for the passionfruit and mango semifreddo and the hazelnut creme brulee. We were absolutely ecstatic when our waitress told us that's what we would have. The biscuit was a touch on the thick side but packed full of macademia pieces and white chooclate, it was still a bit soft so it was easy to bite through. I was stuffed but I pocketed them for the road since E., was too full to eat them. The creme brulee had a wonderful crunchy sugar top that I smashed through with a spoon. The creme brulee had large chunks of hazelnut pieces and a super smooth frangelico and hazelnut flavoured cream. This has got to be the best creme brulee I've had in a long time!

Omg sooooo good!

On the other hand I wasn't as impressed with this dish. The semifreddo had a good flavour to it and was complemented well by the sourness of the passion fruit, the golden toastiness of the coconut and I felt that the mango was too sweet. I prefer my fruit sour and sweet! I prefer the contrast from that a lot more.

Not bad though

Wilson's on the River
Service: 5, solid 10 actually but they know I'm a food blogger so yeah.
Atmosphere: 10, lovely place and a great place for a fancy dinner.
Food: 9.5, everything was well cooked, super flavoursome, great quality and I'd go here with Mama Pham. If you think I'm picky with food, you KNOW Mama Pham is worse!

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

China House

The best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry. Nothing says that more than indecisive restaurant picking and an unsure way of getting to said restaurant. I honestly cannot remember where we wanted to end up this time. I think we went on the 196 bus through the Valley, that goes into New Farm and maybe we wanted to go somewhere around there? As you know, I'm very indecisive at best and this was no exception.

I think I may have been picking at my Boyfriend about how he never picks anywhere for us to eat, asides from that one time at Otsuru and he threw this wild card into the mix. He said there was a good yum cha restaurant upstairs somewhere in China Town that he had gone to with his parents on several occasions. I asked him if it was King of Kings, which is upstairs and near an anime shop, he said he wasn't sure but it was upstairs.

Hina Hous aka China House

We hopped off the bus and lo and behold, it was near King of Kings, its actually right behind it. Small world huh?

We also found this interesting little product in the front of a hair store.

Hair . . . mayonnaise?

I was a bit skeptical when I first walked in, for one they had a massive wine selection, the fish tanks weren't right before the entrance, three of the waiters weren't Chinese and the colours were quite restrained for a Chinese restaurant. At the time, there were four 10+ seatings of families dining so it wasn't too bad, the restaurant was a bit empty when we first got there at around 11am. I heard our waitress remark that it was always a bit slow on that particular weekday.

Wine selection

The bar area. Btw that blurry dude? French.

The back of the room

One of the many fish tanks

I felt much better after we were seated though and they gave us their very, very extensive yum cha menu. It had all the usual classics plus some interesting additions to the menu.

The classy plastic sheet menu

The first thing we got was the steamed vegetables and oyster sauce to get something healthy on our tables. Its been a long time since I've had this dish, my mother makes a lovely version with a thick, super tasty oyster sauce and chips of crunchy, fried garlic garnished on top of it all. This version was just as good, I think it seemed a touch oily and it does look particularly glistening here. The vegetables were steamed perfectly and still had that gloriously bright fluorescent green colour, there could've been more sauce though but it was a perfect way to start our meal. I went after the leaves and my Boyfriend went after the stems, a perfect way to divide the plate!

Glamour shot

The next dish to arrive was the rice noodle and char siu rolls. They were soft but still slightly too thick for my liking, the sauce was good and the char siu wasn't too bad.

Also very shiny

The golden fried calamari is a favourite of his and I can see why. Its literally as the name suggests, a deep fried, golden brown calamari mostly of tentacle pieces with little seasoning beyond that. They were cooked perfectly and still tender on the inside.

These are our Shanghai style pork dumplings, they were very heavily seasoned and I found myself burping up the flavour of these pork dumplings all day. I have no idea what was in them besides a very fine pork mince, the distinct flavour of coriander and that's about it. The skins were paper thin but we still managed to expertly peel them off their steamer. They also came with a red vinegar.

Not xiao long bao ):

We got a serving of black bean chicken feet. The chicken feet I had here are the best I've ever eaten, even more so than my mum's version of chicken feet. They are much redder than in that photo, picture a mouth scalding, fire engine red shade of chicken feet that screams out this is spicy, spicy, spicy! It wasn't that spicy and I suspect food dye, but the garlic chunks were absolutely finger licking delicious, there was a nice chilli burn that I enjoyed a lot. The skin was beautifully soft and fatty. On the other hand, the feet themselves were a bit on the small side, though with five in that serve in total.

Oh man these were good

The har gao were solid, a minced prawn filling that was tasty but not the best I've ever had.

Solid har gao

This was the mixed seafood dumpling with XO sauce, I had no idea what seafood was in this and no idea where the XO sauce came into play but it was a delicious, tasty dumpling and I would've cheerfully had the entire serve by myself. I really liked the thinness of this dumpling skin, it was amazing.

Omg so good

These were the crab meat dumplings. They were minced with a few other bits and bobs so you didn't get that distinctive delicate crab flesh feel to them. They tasted like a deep fried won ton that had been steamed in a very flavoursome soup/sauce, and while I normally abhor mixing crunchy stuff and wet stuff, this was a very tasty mix. The edges were still crunchy and the rest of the skin was chewy having softened in the soupy sauce. I really liked this and would happily order this again.

Super delicious. I ate these all and didn't offer him any

Lastly, he ordered mango pancakes, a thin yellow crepe wrapped around canned mango slices and sweetened cream. Just as fatty as it sounds and tasty too.

Fat little bundles

Mostly aerated cream ahaha

China House Seafood Restaurant:
Atmosphere: 7, a quiet little restaurant on the day we went. Low key for a Chinese restaurant.
Service: 10, absolutely fantastic. They were super attentive, never lost a single order, joked around with us, asked if we wanted dessert, offered drinks and were generally amazing.
Food: 9, the best yum cha I've had.