Vue Lounge

My friends and I excel at being terrible at communication. There's a term for it, pulling a VGirl, because she dropped off the face of the planet when she went to Japan for two weeks. She called our dad once a day, but for the rest of us, she might as well have been dead.

That being said, quite recently VGirl stayed over at my house and I forgot what that was like. She is in the bedroom in the back of this photo of Siri.

That door in the background

It's about 3-4 metres away from my bedroom. She still was using Facebook chat/Line to ask me things. I can turn my head and see her from the end of my room. She is within casual speaking distance of me. I can hear her giggle about something before she sends me the link to the content. Yet she is still messaging me online when she could just as easily tell me about it. It reminds me of when we were in high school and she used to Skype me from her room to get her things from the kitchen, which she was closest to.

My sister's spirit animal

I sent my friends a Snapchat of my sister texting me from within walking distance and nearly everyone I knew replied that their sister did the exact same thing. What a world we live in.

Anyway, Vue Lounge is one of those places that everyone seems to have gone to, except me. At the time of writing, it has seventeen blogger reviews, that's like a billionty. I went here initially with JGirl as we hadn't caught up in a long time. So long in fact, that I was surprised when I saw her with her short hair, apparently it had been lopped off at the beginning of spring with the heat waves then. We met up in September so it had been a really long time since we had last met up haha.

We both severely underestimated the time it took to get here, we were both late and I had to reschedule my driving lesson as a result. JGirl was unluckier as she didn't bring an umbrella but she had a shorter distance to go before she got home.

Vue Lounge is located in the Merthyr Shopping Village in New Farm, its easy to spot from the road and parking is ample due to its location. It has lots of shiny dark wooden furniture in an open setting, the front room is under cover and the back room is the perfect place to grab a meal and have a chat with a friend.

I found the place setting a bit strange since they had sugar/salt/Equal in medicine bottles complete with their bottle caps. It reminded me a lot off work and I had to wonder where on earth they got so many of these bottles.

Medicine dropper bottles?

So shiny

Here is a link to their website, its under construction at the moment, so its not worthwhile linking to the menu in case it changes. JGirl ordered a flat white which she polished off very quickly. She said that it was quite a good coffee but declined a second cup.

Can't remember what coffee they stock ):

I ordered the raspberry crush, a mixture of crushed raspberry, orange segments and juice and who knows what other tasty things. It was absolutely delicious, sweet, tart and utterly refreshing. I would go here again just to have that drink.

Amazing

JGirl ordered the crumbed pork belly with poached eggs, wilted spinach, corn bread and a honey and mustard sauce drizzled over the top. I didn't try much of this as JGirl was fighting off a bad chest infection at the time, but I can attest to the fact that on the positive side, the poached eggs were bright orange and super oozy gooey in the centre and the mustard cream had a solid bite to it.

I don't recall it being a corn bread and I distinctly remember it being two pieces of toast but it was a long time ago. The spinach was just wilted and had no additional flavour to them as was the crumbed pork belly. The pork belly consisted of about five small 20 cent size pieces that were golden brown crunchy with a soft melting texture, we both expressed disappointment with how the portion sizing was. Without the eggs and toast, there was absolutely no way this could've filled anyone up as a main meal. Overall, JGirl enjoyed it but wished there was more to the dish.

More please!

I ordered their chicken and Camembert burger which came with a side of beer battered chips. It was a plain, super tender chunk of chicken breast sandwiched with melted Camembert cheese, rocket, tomato and a fried egg. I prefer my burgers with a bit of sauce so I was a bit disappointed with the relative dryness of this burger. Everything was well cooked but I didn't really like the flavours of this burger. I did love the chips but I'd be very disappointed the day I discover bad beer battered chips.

Delicious chips

Blurry midsection

A blurry drinks menu

I went back here a few weeks later with Jubi. She ordered a very milk top heavy soy latte. It seems to have a disproportionally high amount of foamy milk in it doesn't it? She said it was a good coffee anyway, a touch on the weak side but smooth and nutty.

40% foam?

I ordered another muddled drink, this time it was a citrus crush with passion fruit, orange, mint and who knows what else. I preferred the raspberry one only because the passion fruit pulp was a little too sour for even my tastes. I really enjoyed the scent of passion fruit in this drink however, its such a gorgeous smell.

Pulp!

This was the meal I was eying off the last time I went here, I was very hungry so I went for the lunch menu instead. This is two fried eggs, chorizo, haloumi, ratatouille on a bed of rocket and sourdough.   It was a deliciously savoury combination, the eggs were deliciously gooey, erupting in a golden lava over my pan fried chorizo and and ratatouille, amply soaking the bread. The haloumi was firm, slightly crisp on the outside while still being squeaky. The chorizo was smokey and fatty, a nice contrast to the soft stewed eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes. I really enjoyed this and made a point of telling Jubi so.

Oh chorizo, where are you~

Jubi went with a sweet breakfast of course, deciding to get the bircher museli with berry compote, pistachios, Greek yoghurt and honey. This is literally a list of everything she likes in a breakfast menu, she loves crunchy things, yoghurt, museli and berries. The bircher museli here was really heavily soaked, it stayed in a thick porridge like structure that constantly held its shape. I had a try of the berry compote and it was extremely sweet, syrupy and refreshingly sour. It went well with the bircher museli. Jubi always eats her museli extremely neatly, one bite at a time, with a spoonful consisting of a piece of every component. If it were me, I would mash it into a blob and eat it like that. Efficiency.

So shiny

Vue Lounge
Atmosphere: 7, bright, open cafe with lots of places to sit with friends.
Service: 8, attentive, cheerful and quick for everything, to bring us drinks, to ask if we needed anything, easy to grab the attention of and they were very prompt with their service all in all.
Food: 6, I would definitely go here again. The portions are a touch on the small/pricey side but from the two trips we had here, it looks like its really all down to what you order. Go for casual breakfast drinks.

Jackpot Dining - West End

When I was finalising this post, I realised that this place has never been blogged about ever. Seriously guys, it's been open for at least four years and no one has ever blogged about it, and its in the direct centre of West End practically. It has like four sister stores. Well, I took advantage and your chance to take the first post is long gone, like your ex girlfriend who will never return!

There seem to be lots of little Jackpot Dining places sprouting all over the city and with that in mind VGirl and I decided to go here. No, I'm lying, we totally went to go out to this Mexican place in West End that was closed for the New Year. Then we weren't able to go to Lock and Load Bistro cause we didn't have a reservation and so we ended up here.

It was absolutely bucketing rain during this time and I had gotten a lot of water into my flats when protecting VGirl and Dr H., from the rain. Dr H., went to dinner at Little Greek Taverna which VGirl and I didn't want to go to.

SAFE HAVEN FROM THE RAIN

Look out for this flag!

The interior is nothing exciting, it reminds me of a slightly upmarket cafeteria hall. At the front is a counter where you pay, order and get your drinks. The majority of the restaurant is taken up with plain white booths and tables. At the back is a counter that contains help yourself sauces and the entrance to the kitchen where you can watch chefs chopping up barbequed meat.

Their drinks range!

More drinks!

Even more drinks

The sauces, soy, chilli, chilli garlic oil, plum and black vinegar

I picked up this can of lychees juice. It's one of those deceptively heavy Asian cans, that are super thick and have a deceptively small amount of juice in them. This juice was very syrupy, sweet and had a strong taste of lychees, think the texture of mango nectar and the like. I'm unsure if I would buy it again, but it was an interesting taste.

I felt like eating roasted duck but also wanted noodles, so I ended up getting shredded duck with vegetable noodles! It was initially quite disappointed with the appearance of this dish since the garnish of white and purple cabbage, whilst striking was very haphazard. There didn't seem to be enough duck, as I was expecting the usual deceptive pile at the top and nothing beneath. With every mouthful, there was a chunk of duck and I found I had quite a lot of duck in my noodles. As well as a LOT of vegetables, cabbage, bok choy, garlic, onion and small slivers of carrot. It was a very healthy dish I think and I really enjoyed it in the end.

These spring rolls were vegetarian so VGirl snagged a few as well. I honestly can't remember what was in it besides carrot, peas, corn and cabbage. They were freshly fried and super, super hot when they arrived at the table. I'm pretty sure VGirl burned her mouth when she ate them. They came with a little side dish of sweet chilli sauce.

When I was writing this I had no idea what this was. I looked at the photo and said to myself, that is unmistakably barbeque pork buns. I had no idea why I would order this as I don't usually like it. Its in my Facebook pictures as well so I must've gotten it but I wrote no notes on the dish which is strange. I honestly have no recollection of eating this.

Then I remember that these were VGirl's fresh green vegetable buns! She said they weren't that great. That's all she said.

Memory loss barbeque pork buns

HAR GAO! Delicious, thin skinned, multi pleated, prawn filled morsels of deliciousness. For their price, at the time of writing 3 for $4.80, its a little pricey but still a delicious and consistent alternative to the usual yum cha hotspots. I would happily drop by for these har gao if I had a hankering for yum cha in West End.

Delicious!

These are steamed vegetable dumplings, these were expensive considering its two largish dumplings for $4.50. VGirl said they were really delicious but she did baulk a bit at the price, odd considering I had to pay for our dinner. She said she would go here again, solely for these dumplings but only for a special occasion.

Tell me your secrets dumplings.

We ordered the steamed Chinese vegetables with oyster sauce. One of those places that literally gives you oyster sauce sadly. The vegetables were fresh, springy and still a bit crunchy.

Boo plain oyster sauce

This place was so good, I went back here again with my Boyfriend! I had to talk him out of ordering the steamed vegetables as I knew how completely average they were. We also got a serve of the har gao dumplings when we went here. Below is a picture of Bubble Black tea, it doesn't have any pearls or anything, I'm unsure of why the name is Bubble Black tea. Its a very, very sweet earthy black tea, there isn't any bitterness due to how much sugar is present but it has a very distinctive tannic flavour from how long the tea has been brewed. I had to dilute mine with water as it was so intensely sweet.

So, so sweet.

I panicked while ordering and got barbequed pork and roasted duck with veggies. My Boyfriend was not happy as he expressly wanted ONLY roasted duck, but it was too late to take back the order. We all regretted the barbequed pork, it was meltingly tender, so soft you could pull it apart with two forks. With zero flavour. It looked like char siu and tasted like the faintest hint of it. The roasted duck was really good though, tender, fatty, juicy with a great crispy skin. He kept muttering under his breath that he could've had a whole plate of duck. He made me eat the barbequed pork.

BBQ pork and roast duck!

I got the butter garlic chicken with a side of fried rice for an extra $2. The rice was well cooked, a touch plain, but the grains were fluffy and well defined, carrot, peas and egg were present in the fried rice.

I don't know what I expected with the butter garlic chicken. One of my friends heavily recommended this when I said I went here the first time, so I decided to pick it. They were crispy fried chicken bits in literally a butter and garlic sauce. When you bite into the chicken, you got this overwhelmingly strong taste of butter and garlic. It wasn't unpleasant but it was a rich and surprisingly filling taste. I was glad I picked the fried rice as a side as there was little else to this dish besides the chicken.

Oddly tasty

Jackpot Dining West End
Atmosphere: 6, fancy arse cafeteria room. I wouldn't bring a hot date here that's for sure.
Service: 8, wonderful friendly, polite and super efficient staff members. They would helpfully point out each dish and are very patient with people umming and ahhing at the door without being obtrusive.
Food: 8.5, would gladly go back here again. For how much you're paying for food here, the huge portions and very solid cooking? This place is a winner, winner, chicken dinner for me.

Spanish style sausage rolls

Oh by the way, do you know why I call my blog Ugly as Sin, Tasty as Hell? Cause I make hideous things like this, that taste amazing.

Cream cheese icing doesn't make for pretty icing ):

   
This was a dark mocha cake that I shaped into Australia for Mr M for Megababe's Australia themed going away party. He threw this party as a farewell before his three month holiday overseas, his new Australia Citizenship, finishing Tough Mudder and finishing his nursing post-graduate certificate. The cake was delicious and so was the cream cheese icing. The decorating job, not so much so.

I made quite a few different things for that party and this was one of the biggest hits, my Spanish style sausage rolls. DJ Kez and D., found out I had made a kilo worth of sausage rolls and they steadily continued eating them until they were all gone. I made a spinach cobb loaf and my dark mocha cake of course, just undecorated. I've already put up a post about the dark mocha cake and the spinach cobb loaf wasn't super awesome, so I'll ignore it.

The recipe was based on this one. However, I rarely have any chorizo floating around my house so I just changed up a few ingredients. I subbed in pork mince, added paprika and garlic to make up for the chorizo flavour and bulked it up with a few other ingredients like sun dried tomato and bread crumbs.

This sausage roll is a very, very flavoursome one with sun dried tomatoes making it seem a little healthier and giving it a nice tang. I also did my usual trick with soaking bread crumbs with milk which made the sausage rolls extremely soft, so much so that DJ Kez was able to have some. Her teeth were aching from having her braces tightened and she said that was pretty much the only thing she could chew on.

The ingredients are very vague, the definite proportions are there for the mince, onion, bread crumbs and milk. The milk, garlic, puff pastry and sun dried tomatoes, I'm not so sure about. I just normally wing it and choose different amounts. The sun dried tomatoes are something I am definitely never sure of because I normally dice them into 3-5cm chunks and mix them up in the mince until there is a bit of tomato in every bite. The same thing happens with the paprika, I normally scatter it all over the bowl in a thin layer. The milk or water seems to help the puff pastry puff up a bit more.

Spanish style sausage rolls

Ingredients:
500g of pork mince
1 medium sized onion, finely diced
1 egg
125g of cream cheese
1/2 cup of milk or water
1 cup of fresh bread crumbs
2-4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1/2-1 tablespoon of paprika
3-6 sheets of semi-thawed puff pastry
Sun dried tomatoes, I dunno, 1/2 cup chopped into 1-2cm bits?
Salt
Pepper

Optional:
100g of grated cheese
Melted butter/egg wash
Sesame seeds/poppy seed 

Instructions:
1. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk or water until it absorbs all the liquid. Preheat your oven to 180C.
2. Mix all of ingredients up together, keep mixing until the milky smears of the bread crumbs are no longer easily seen. Keep mixing some more until the meat turns sticky.
3. If you want regular sized sausage rolls, cut your puff pastry sheets into quarters. Otherwise for mini sausage rolls, cut your puff pastry into halves.
3.a. For regular ones, grab one of the four squares and make a log of sausage mince against the edge and roll it around until the other edge seals on the bottom.
3.b For mini ones, grab one of the halves and do the same thing as with the regular ones just cut them with a knife until you are happy with the size.
4. Brush the tops of the sausage rolls with either egg wash or melted butter and top with a few seeds to make it pretty.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. The cream cheese does make it weep a bit of fat so line your baking trays!

Picnic

Did you know I just recently passed my practical driving test? I was 16 before the new Queensland driving laws made you do 100 hours supervised but I was never interested in driving, so I didn't even bother getting my learners until I was 22. I failed the first time but managed to pass the second time just after New Years.

At the moment, I'm not sure how things will be once I get a car. As you know, I have a pretty terrible sense of direction and you can't go up and down a street three or four times, while scratching your head, in a car. I suppose you could, but it would be more dangerous.

Growing up, my parents drove us around the south side of Brisbane, to the east side and all over the coast. This has worsened my directional ability because I was always reading when we went anywhere, I'd look up, notice a landmark and go straight back to reading my book. So I vaguely know where a lot of things are, very vaguely though. I fear this will greatly impact my driving as I'll be assured I know where I'm going when I actually don't. I drove solo recently and panicked because the slip lane to the shops was closed off and had no idea how else to get there, despite going there for the last five years.

Then there is the practical aspect of actually buying a car and maintaining it. Cars are expensive, the car, the mounting fuel costs, registration and insurance. While I stick to a very strict budget between my house bills, mortgage and untouchable emergency fund, the rest of my budget goes towards eating out, which I do a far bit as you can tell. I strongly suspect that by the time I get a car, I'll be put in a self imposed ban of eateries for a few months while I lick my financial gashes.

Then my mum got me a car and I paid off all the additional costs, like stamp duty, insurance, registration, E-Toll toggle, GPS system, new P plates, new oil, new oil filter, got a new key cut and a new electric remote for my garage. Oh god, so poor, so, so poor. Don't expect any new, hip posts for a while, in fact I'll just be here clearing my back log of places to go to and my recipe file.

Ms M for Megababe and Chelle both recommended me this new little cafe. They said they had had breakfast here and really enjoyed it. They also said that they felt I should've been there, which is odd cause they didn't invite me. Maybe they were just feeling like that because we had been going together to random places a fair bit.

Cute little picnic!

The place setting here is really cute, a little box of napkins, salt and pepper grinders as well as a box of retro plastic handled forks, knives and spoons. I really like the design on these.

Defs would buy them

The restaurant itself is quite cute, there is lots of solid wooden furniture. The cafe is very open with a large open window that opens out into the street. There is a very eye catching 3D painting on the wall/ceiling/air conditioner.

Awesome

The only good photo of this has all of us clearly in it

Here is the front counter as seen from the main dining area

The large open air dining area

Their display case

They serve Campos coffee!

Awww

The view from the outside

Perving into the kitchen

The specials

Here is their menu, I was experimenting with a different angle to see if it reduced shininess or glare at all.

Yeah I took some terrible photos

This one isn't bad

The best one

On this visit, I went with my Boyfriend, Jubi and Mandy. You guys haven't really met Mandy before, she's been over in the UK on exchange for her university studies. She came back a year ago but I never saw her cause we had conflicting schedules all the time.

My Boyfriend ordered Phoenix Organic Ginger Beer, this drink is lightly carbonated with a mildly sweet/spicy ginger flavour. He reports that it wasn't amazing and that it was slightly bitter.

Lots of ice!

Mandy ordered the Zippy, a smoothie made out of banana, chai and chilled milk. The chai flavour wasn't particularly noticeable, it seemed to be topped with chai powder. It tasted more like a banana milkshake than anything else.

Impressive looking at least

I got a salted caramel milkshake with a cute purple paper straw served in a thick ceramic cup. The salted caramel flavour was delicious, sweet, buttery and with a good amount of salt to contrast with the sweetness of the caramel. Everyone at the table tried some and they agreed that it was a very good milkshake. I added some salt from the salt shaker at the table to add to the saltiness!

Verrrrry tasty

I stole my Boyfriend's pick of the wagyu beef burger, so he backed off and choose one of the specials of the day, massaman curry with fresh roti and salad. It was delicious, a thick rich curry gravy with peanuts, potatoes and meltingly soft beef, a super hot, fluffy and buttery roti as well as a curried quinoa, cauliflower and coriander salad. I adored his food and I really wish I had ordered that instead.

Delicious!

Jubi ordered the pecan and almond granola with organic yoghurt and berries, she also ended up getting a small pitcher of milk as she prefers her granola wet. Its an absolutely gorgeous little dish and well presented in it's jar. She said she really like the texture of the granola as well as the crunchy flavours of the ingredients.

Pretty

Mandy is a vegetarian and was tossing up between corn cakes and this. This was a roasted pumpkin gnocchi with onion jam, rocket, lemon wedges, a soft cheese, mushrooms and god knows what else I forgot. The gnocchi were soft and pillowy, but didn't taste very much of pumpkin which is good as I hate the stuff. She said she enjoyed the flavours.

Such a random combination of ingredients

Here is my wagyu beef cheeseburger with caramelised onions, serrano ham and cos lettuce. This came with a delicious side of beer battered chips and aioli. The wagyu beef patty was tender and super juicy, I'd have preferred it to have been almost less juicy as my soft bun disintegrated within a few bites of the burger. The caramelised onions were very sweet and that was the predominate flavour in the burger after the beef and cheese. I would've preferred a sour or spicy flavour in there like a good relish, chutney or mustard to round things out. The cos lettuce was an odd choice as the size of the leaves is a pain to eat around, I ended up chomping them off to get around it. It was a very large portion and filled me up alarmingly quickly.

Tasty stuff

Innards shot

Falling apart in my hands ):

Picnic
Atmosphere: 7, airy, bright and with interesting decorations/ furniture/cutlery to catch your eye. I really liked the design of the place.
Service: 6, honestly don't remember anything positive or negative about the service.
Food: 7, everyone liked their food besides me. I would gladly go back to try something else on their menu. Good portions, interesting food combinations and quite cheap prices.