King of Kings Seafood Restaurant

True fact, if you lived in Brisbane in the 90's and your parents were keen on ethnic food, you have been to King of Kings at one stage. Its that yum cha restaurant that is upstairs in the Valley, ringing any bells? My family used to go here at least once a month with all my cousins and their families, we would always have a parents table and a kids table. I remember having our families fight and throw money at each other to pay the resulting bill.

I will cut you if you don't let me pay

The last time I went here was about 2007-2008, we went around New Years and I basically gorged myself on prawn dumplings. I then came down the worst food poisoning I have ever had, I would not wish this on my enemies, not my worst enemies, just my regular ones. I literally sat on the toilet for four days, alternatively vomiting or shitting through the eye of a needle. I set myself a personal new record for amount of weight rapidly lost during a period of sickness, from memory I lost eight kilos or so.

So you can understand why when my Boyfriend said he wanted yum cha at that place in the Valley that was upstairs, that wasn't China House, I was a bit dubious. I told him my story about King of Kings and he insisted it wasn't King of Kings. He said the last time he had gone, he was about ten and they had parked in the Chinatown paid parking and had wandered over an adjoining bridge to get inside the restaurant.

We had to go up and down the urine reeking, cramped staircase quite a few times before he figured out where he'd possibly crossed. The bridge was closed down for renovations of course, I suggested somewhere else but he was adamant. He called his parents and they confirmed it was King of Kings. So off we went.

Same old red, red, red decor

We went in the afternoon and so none of the trolleys were circulating, we were handed menus and pondered our decisions.

Pretty standard stuff

Yep

My Boyfriend had a hankering for steamed kai lan and oyster sauce so that was our first order. Bright green, slightly oily and quite plain with just a drizzle of unadulterated oyster sauce drizzled over the top. It was unimpressive but edible.

So bright

We ordered a round of chicken feet in black bean sauce as per usual and we found them underwhelming. They were just very average, not big, not small, not salty, not plain, not garlicky, not oniony, a touch soft but other than that just unexciting. They were well cooked but just very meh/average/uninteresting.

The beans were mild too ):

These were intensely salty pork spare ribs which came with an unusually large pieces of gristle in them. Gristle is pretty usual in pork spare ribs but these were huge.

So salty

I ordered a round of roasted duck. Intensely, intensely salty, that saltiness that leaves you licking your lips due to the tingly numbing sensation they have. The skin was crisp but the flesh was so salty as to be almost unpalatable, if it was a bit less the flavour would have been quite balanced. It came with a little plum sauce as well as batons of crisp pickled radishes.

Even saltier

I, somewhat warily, ordered a round of prawn dumplings. They were as good as I remembered, if a bit tarnished by my latest memory. I was hesitantly guarding myself and making mental notes of the nearest toilets when we were leaving. Plump, round prawn with a minced prawn filling and thin, translucent skin.

No rude surprises this time

These were spicy seafood dumplings. They weren't spicy and I have no idea what seafood was involved in this dumpling. I ate the skins and ditched the filling.

What a deceptive name

We left a far bit of food behind when we finished.

):

King of Kings Seafood Restaurant
Atmosphere: 5, super red and bright golden decor, your usual Chinese restaurant.
Service: 6, decent, friendly and quite to bring the food out.
Food: 1, absolutely terrible. I can't imagine going here ever again, unless I was dragged here kicking and screaming.

PawPaw Cafe

This is one of H.,'s favourite breakfast places of all time. Its a well known Brisbane fact that Pawpaw Cafe/ Foxy Bean and Green Papaya are owned by the same people and the girls and guys at work adore these establishments. Its a favourite haunt before and after work and a lot of us catch up there.

This was the first time I've ever gone. It took us a little while to find because I was wandering around Stanley Street from up around the South Bank end before we wandered out of the city and into Woolloongabba way. My Boyfriend and I were starting to get more than a little bit cranky from hunger and worried from the impending doom clouds looming overhead. Luckily I saw Green Papaya and I knew the end was in sight.

Not the flashiest of signs

Being observant helps since you have to enter from a sort of side door. The cafe seems quite insulated away from the bustle of the nearby road which is nice.

3pm finish, not bad

The place was pretty packed when we went at about 1pm.

The table in the centre is busy taking photos of their food

We got out menus and had a bit of a ponder on what to order.

Lunch stuff

The brekkie stuff!

Despite it being an all day brekkie place, we both went for more substantial lunch stuff! I really want to go back for the breakfast though because they have very interesting stuff on their menu. I decided on the delicious sounding fried chicken burger, consisting of a chicken thigh marinated in butter milk, lettuce, tomato, smashed avocade, sriracha mayo on a brioche bun. It also came with crispy fried shoestring fries with a side of tomato sauce.

This is what chicken burgers are supposed to be, when you crave them and daydream of yourself chasing down burgers, with legs, with a fork and knife in hand. Screw breast pieces, thigh is where its at. You can't imagine the earth shattering crunch when you bite down into this chicken, the flood of warm chicken juices in your mouth and the juicy tenderness. The rest of the burger was great too, but the star of the entire lot, as it rightfully should be, was that fried chicken.

The butter lettuce was crisp and fresh. The tomato, sweet and ripe. The avocado as a savoury item is something I'm not a fan of but my Boyfriend loved it when he had a bite of my burger. The bun was soft and buttery, squishing readily in your hands as you unhinged your jaw, snakelike over that first bite. The sriracha mayo was just spicy enough to leave you reaching for a sip of water, but not enough to deter further consumption. The fries were also good, crisp and salty.

I want to go to there

My Boyfriend got a panko crumbed snapper with shoe string fries, tartare sauce and mushy peas. The snapper was absolutely delicious! Firm, white flesh that flaked away and melted on the tongue. I really enjoyed the bits I had. I kept stealing the tartare to dip my fries in as well, although I personally felt it could've done with a few more bits of caper and gherkin to spice it up. I really liked the presentation of the bag and the chips! Just like you got a serve of fish and chips from your local takeaway shop at the beach, it was a really cute prop.

So crunchy

Unfortunately, the green mushy peas was a discordant note in this dish. I am of the firm opinion that mushy peas are designed to be eaten by babies or on pie floaters. Any other time, a little pop from a round pea is what is called for. Taste wise, it was sweet and slightly minty, but before we even delve into that, I noticed something. There's a hair in there!

It was very hard to photograph!

We just left the peas cause we were so busy eating everything else. We pointed it out at the very end and the waitress told us that we should've told her earlier. Not that anything else happened after she said that, she just literally said it and then we paid and left. Hmmm~

We came here after one of my night shifts for another meal! My Boyfriend ordered an iced coffee which came in a jar. That seems to be a big thing these days to serve things in jars, has anyone else noticed that? It was a very strong, slightly acidic iced coffee and I didn't have any more after my first sip. They serve Campos coffee here but my Boyfriend seemed to like it.

Hairy arm not included

I ordered the Israeli breakfast with a side of black pudding. This meal consisted of house made falafels, hard boiled eggs, dukkah, crumbly feta, a freshly made flat bread and a small side salad of mint, cucumber, red onion and tomato. There was also a small amount of tomato chutney which replaced the red pepper hummus as they had run out.

Mmmmm black pudding

I honestly thought there would be much more salad when I ordered this, like a big chunky bowl of stuff. Probably good since I was struggling to finish it. The falafels were dense with a very nubbly, crunchy exterior and a greenish, moist interior. While I liked these falafels, I felt that they didn't have the usual aromatic scent that they usually have of coriander and cumin. Which is odd as cumin is a very noticeable smell. The eggs were perfectly cooked, still slightly soft with a creamy yolk, none of that grey ring of doom. The flatbread was soft, stretchy and buttery soft, I'd have happily eaten that by itself. The dukkah tasted a lot like the one i have in my pantry. That black pudding is to die for, for offal lovers. Its so rich, chunky, fatty, iron tinged deliciousness. Such fat, chunky morsels of it too.

Very green?

 My Boyfriend grabbed the huevos rancheros with black beans, scrambled eggs, avocado, salsa fresco, chipotle sour cream, warm tortilla and a side of bacon. I thought it needed more protein, its the only reason he got a side of bacon with it. I sort of regretted it because of how pale and uncrunchy that bacon came out. He barely ate any of it, so I finished it off for him.

I had a bite and I didn't like it, I think it was the similar soft texture. There's wasn't enough contrast to hold me. My Boyfriend enjoyed it though and he finished about 2/3rds of it before he had to stop. The flavours were tasty enough with a thick black bean, creamy scrambled eggs, cubes of avocado, fresh zingy tomato, purple onion and coriander salsa and that sour cream. I just wasn't a fan.

Gross insides

Forcing it. I ate the egg.

There is this really weird corner outside of the cafe, where the window opens up and where you turn to get towards the entrance of the cafe. For some really weird reason, there is also a sign here and the curb is parkable. So this means that there is a huge window, an advertising sign and a car taking up this walkway. I kept looking up during our meal because on multiple occasions, someone would stand here and people would have to literally walk around the parked car or squeeze passed to get here. I feel like its almost a fire hazard with that sign being there.

 
PawPaw Cafe
Atmosphere: 7, really busy, bustling cafe. Its almost startlingly noisy when you first enter. I'm not sure I like that the entrance is right next to the tiny toilets and the entrance to the kitchen though, that weirds me out in a way I can't describe.
Service:6, friendly and quick to take away our dishes. Not as high as it could be just from that reaction, I didn't really feel reassured by her response when we mentioned the issue. Like it was a stock statement and not actual concern?
Food: 8, I would happily go here again, either for that fried chicken burger or to try some breakfast foods.

Malaya Corner - Round 2

I went here with my sister VGirl, my dad and my French cousin.

We got vegetarian curry puffs for everyone to share. I quite enjoyed them and so did VGirl, they had a very short, flakey pastry that was super crispy and had small bubbles from their quick golden brown fry. They had a dense, mildly spicy potato curry with peas and corn.

Cute little curry puffs!

Inside!

We also got a side of satay chicken skewers. They were tender, slightly dry and had a good charry flavour underneath the overly sweet satay sauce. It was fragrant and spicy with a lot of gingery flavour to the sauce.

Pineapple?

My dad ordered the dried salty fish with stir fried noodles, there were very, very tiny amounts of dried fish in this stir fry. The pieces were miniscule but tasty. The noodles were mildly chewy and quite tasty, the vegetables were mostly piled on the top. There were small cubes of pork fat throughout the noodles as well. It was surprisingly tasty but I'd have preferred more fish.

I recommend this

I also got combination e-fu noodles that weren't worth mentioning and VGirl ordered her usual vegetarian crispy fried noodles.

 

Char Char Yiros

Char Char Yiros! I picked this place to go to when my French cousin was in town. He hadn't ever had Greek food and I thought it would be good to try, especially since he had been exploring West End and other bits of Brisbane all day.

For once, I didn't bother taking a photo of the place. This place is ridiculously easy to find being on the corner of Boundary and Russell Street in West, straight across from the Suncorp ATM and next to Ouzeri, another Greek restaurant. Its the slightly shabbier looking place next door, the storefront is basically a kebab/dessert display, drinks cabinet, menus and a place to order. It looks like your standard Aussie takeway shop. 

Here is their menu.

The night we went almost everyone ordered variations on the charcoal dinner plate, which consists of hand cut chips, Greek salad, grilled haloumi, pita bread and yogurt and garlic sauce and your choice of main protein. So really, the only difference is the protein. I'll explain my dish since I got the meze dinner which had an assortment of the main charcoal meats and a few others. The proteins I received were charcoal chicken, lamb and a puck of falafel, I was supposed to receive sheftalia, which is a pork sausage, but I didn't have any in my dish. I didn't really care though, I was already pretty full working my way through half this meal.

Both the chicken and lamb had a wonderful charcoal flavour, that smoky scent that makes your mouth water, with no excess fat and a tender texture. The lamb was my favourite of the two, since I had some oddly crunchy chicken pieces. I disliked the falafel, it was almost overcooked with the darkness of its colour and very distinctive thick crunch when I bite into it. It was very dense without the spices I normally enjoy in falafel and it had lots of pinenuts in there too. VGirl seemed to like it, and I gave her mine after the first bite.

So much food

The chips are absolutely delicious, they're cooked in rice bran oil which is basically liquid crack in my eyes. I have no idea why, but it imparts such a wonderful flavour to things its cooked with. I ate my chips first, no joke, then I some of VGirl's when she wasn't looked and pinched my dad's, cause that is what family is for. I found these chips so unbelievably delicious, I swear VGirl's probably couldn't eat them because of how savoury delicious they were, MEAT MUST'VE BEEN INVOLVED SOMEHOW.

Chicken dinner plate

The haloumi is delicious, thin slices that have a great golden colour and a squeaky texture. Nothing more to say, just some solid haloumi. I found that everyone received a large amount of pita bread slices which we used to wrap everything in, in one neat little bundle. The garlic and yoghurt sauce was okay, but I avoided it due to its lack of garlicky flavour and the impending doom of my lactose intolerance kicking in, it wasn't good enough to risk being unwell all night.

VGirl's falafel

The Greek salad was filler for me, baby spinach leaves, tomato, a few assorted olives, cucumber and purple onion with an olive oil and oregano dressing. I was too busy eating other things to care about salad, VGirl ate the tomatoes and I found them to be slightly overripe. I didn't have any olives in my dish but VGirl had about five so we swapped, they were intensely salty.

French Cousin's lamb dinner plate

For some dumb reason, I decided we should have appetisers since we're eating with boys and boys eat a lot right? Yeah they eat a lot, as in finished their mammoth proportions but then they didn't finished our massive appetisers. We got the trio of dips with pita bread, we picked the beetroot dip, eggplant dip and spicy chilli dip. The beetroot dip is unremarkable, so much so I have no idea what it tasted like while the chilli dip have the wrong sort of notoriety with the red side tasting as if straight from a bottle of chilli sauce and the right side tastes like tomato sauce. The eggplant dip was amazing, I don't even know how to explain it, it was soft, smokey, creamy and I smeared it on everything. I scrapped that bad boy dry, VGirl, my dad and my French Cousin got in on the action too.

L-R, beetroot, bread, eggplant, bread, chilli

Z., saw my pictures on Facebook and scheduled a lunch here that week. I was free so I went along as well. Despite my warnings about the enormity of the portion sizes, everyone got a charcoal dinner and couldn't finish their meals. Considering how many people went, myself, Jubi, my Boyfriend, S., Z., A., H., and Ms. Chatterbox, if every other person had ordered a meal, we'd still have had too much food. We ended up asking for takeaway boxes which they gave us free of charge to take away food in. H., apparently made her fiancee a meal out of the leftover meat which he loved.

We went during they day, so you can see much prettier and brighter photos! I know I'm a bad food blogger but I figured everyone else would order something else. I was completely wrong.

Chicken lunch platter!

My Boyfriend ordered a chicken dinner platter as well as lemon potatoes. The lemon potatoes are quite obvious, with a distinctive lemon flavour and the scent of zest floating around. They were scattered with shredded oregano as well. They were served reheated with that odd chewy skin that roasted potatoes have when reheated. I can imagine these being amazing when fresh out of the oven, as you could tell the skin would've been crunchy while the insides were fluffy and the smell would've been overwhelming. Unfortunately this was all underwhelming, S., heartily agreed with us when she tried some.

So close but so far

Z., ordered the octopus and chicken dinner. That octopus was honestly the best I've ever had, she offered me a piece and I ate about five. I just couldn't believe the texture of that octopus, so unbelievably tender that I honestly though I was eating chicken. I had to check a few times to make sure they were tentacles I was eating and not pieces of chicken. I was expecting that octopus to have a slightly rubbery texture but it didn't! I'm so amazed at that octopus even now and that octopus has set the standard for all future octopus.

She also had the eggplant dip on my recommendation. I found this time the eggplant dip had a slightly metallic, fizzy taste on the tongue that reminded me of baking soda? I had some of mine and some of Z.,'s but I was the only person to taste it. It really turned me off eating it.

Oooh octopus

S., came with us today! Somehow every time we go out it seems to be before her night shifts, I don't know how she does it! She ordered the prawn and lamb combination dinner and we both praised the prawns for their intensely garlic flavour, they were quite large prawns although you can barely see them in that picture and still plump and juicy.

Prawn and lamb dinner!

My little chicken lunch

Jubi went with us as well and since she had eaten a large breakfast, she decided to order a vegetarian yiros. I didn't bother taking a picture since they tend to look pretty much the same, regardless of location. With that being said, she complained that the yiros she had was absolutely horrific, due to the poor quality of the lettuce being used. It was brown, limp and mildly slimy, in the manner of lettuce left out too long without proper preservation. I wasn't keen to try it but I did see the lettuce they used in the shop and I can very clearly imagine what it tasted like. Bleh.

Char Char Yiros
Service: 5, cheerful counter service, nothing too flash. We got given a weird swinging thingo to scare off flies the time we went for lunch. On both occasions, someone was waiting until the last second to get their meal, the first time being my French Cousin and the second time was S., We had to remind the waitresses both times for their meals to arrive.
Atmosphere: 5, not exactly the flashiest of places. Basically a jumped up local takeaway. Its nice for just a casual catch up with friends.
Food: 7, everyone mostly loved the food, my Boyfriend and Jubi didn't. In general, the food here is quite good, although its best if you pick food that is freshly prepared. The portions are very generous although the presentation is quite haphazard. It seems like whatever dish is free is what is used, so there's not much consistency between two dishes that are exactly the same.

 

Sushi-1 Train

I don't even have a story for this. We decided to go here because it opened up near my Boyfriend's house.  

Here is the menu for Sushi-1 Train. I forgot to take a photo of the back actually, there's a few other dishes such a don bowls, bento boxes and larger, more substantial meals.

The usual suspects

I ordered calamari rings. I literally saw the sushi chef grab a large bag of frozen calamari rings and furtively shake them into a fryer. They were overcooked, stuck together and very stringy/rubbery in texture. I've had worse, but I've also had better.

Hmmm

I ordered spicy tuna ships just for the novelty. There was cubes of finely diced raw tuna mixed with an odd sauce that tasted like sweet soy and somewhat like Korean soy bean paste/gochujang? It was actually a little bit spicy which I was surprised at. The sauce was quite strong and salty in flavour, so the piece of cucumber was a welcome addition.

Odd thing

I ordered takoyaki, also straight from the freezer. The octopus was extremely chewy in these and I'm actually glad that there were so few pieces of octopus in them for me to eat.

Bleh

My Boyfriend ordered the inari, slightly sweet sushi rice in a hollow bag of tofu. He described it as having just the right amount of sweetness and enjoyed his portion.

Pillowy inari

Seaweed salad and tuna, this was actually quite a good combination with the sweet and sour crunchiness of the seaweed and the creaminess of the tuna. I was briefly contemplating ordering another plate. The seaweed salad could have been slightly more sour for my taste but it was still a pleasant contrast to the tuna.

Interesting

Crispy chicken rolls had a layer of shredded iceburg lettuce and a drizzle of a thickened soy sauce on top. I found the chicken a bit dry on tasting it and not as crispy as I would've imagined.

Inside is iceberg, outside is fancy lettuce?

The chicken karaage was terrible, it had no flavour, the outside wasn't crunchy despite being fresh out of the fryer and was an extremely small portion. I'm glad that it was small because I would've felt bad not eating that much food if there was a large amount of it.

Dubious

Sushi1
Atmosphere: 5, slightly sterile looking modern sushi bar madness. Lots of shiny chrome and white.
Service: 5, it opened an hour later than expected. There was actually a little mob of us waiting for them to open at 11am. We kept wandering away and coming back, only to find that it was still closed. There was only one waiter on at the time we went. Also the back to back Mariah Carey songs were driving me insane.
Food: 3, the food is terrible. Even more so than the Sushi Railway across the road. Do not go here.