Author: brensfoodadventures

I don’t actually remember what Last weeks entry was called.

Not important, onward.

On Saturday I went to Master Duck and Bento with a friend.

I have wanted to go here since I heard about it a few weeks ago and am definitely going to be going back. It’s a tiny place just at the back of Market Square in Sunnybank. I am not 100% certain it is part of Market Square, but a tiny complex just behind it.

On to the food, and the misconception.

The reason I wanted to go here is that I love duck (for those of you who haven’t already guessed that, maybe you’re are new, maybe I hadn’t made it obvious, who really knows). One column of the menu at this place is duck. Everything except the bits you would usually get. No breasts, no legs, no thighs. Everything else though. Wings, hearts, necks, head (why didn’t I get the head, dammit), feet, giblets, liver, tongue and bones. So basically all the stuff other places throw away.

I probably don’t have to tell you I was very excited.

The misconception came from the name of the section and the dish we had picked. The section of the menu is called Stew section, we got a small mixed stew, and some tongues as they weren’t in the stew.

When I think of stew, I think of stew in a pot with many vegetables and a lot of liquid (broth, gravy, what do you call the liquid in a stew? According to google either broth or gravy). So when we ordered the mixed stew, we were expecting a bowl of broth/gravy with bits of duck parts floating in it and maybe a vegetable or two.

Now the stew part isn’t a lie in this case, the meat had been stewed in a spicy broth and served to us on a plate cold, not in the broth. I loved it. We didn’t get any ducks feet as they were out, but we got the necks and the wings, as well as some honeycomb beef and a couple of things of beef.

I ate all the pieces of neck first, then the pieces of honeycomb beef, and the other bits of beef and finally the wings, the whole time only stopping to eat another tongue…

Maybe I should have put a warning story about offal and tongues…Ha, if you got this far the original title of this was ‘next week will be Z’, now it is  ‘Warning story about offal and tongues’. Back to the track…

I have eaten a lot of duck, and this place has very quickly inserted itself into my number four spot of favourite places for duck. So it goes Bamboo Basket, Detour, Libertine, Master Duck and Bento, and number five is Jackpot. These are all really close together in case of the first three, and I think one weekend I should dedicate to eating duck at these five places again and see how they compare again. Maybe the order will change.

I’m rambling because that was all we ate there. On the way out I bought a container of duck hearts to eat at the friends house we were going to. Unlike the rest of the food we ate, the hearts weren’t spicy. They were really tender though, and I am definitely getting more than these. At the house we were at there is a biggish, very friendly dog who realised very quickly I had something tasty. At first I told her no. She kept looking at me. Everyone who knows me would not be surprised to find I caved and gave the dog two of the hearts, much to her delight.

Ok, so next week is definitely Z. I am still going to Ze Pickle, but whatever time I said last week will hopefully coincide with this weeks. I will be at Ze Pickle by 1pm or a little bit after. I have not booked and am just going to wing it. If you want to turn up I will see you at 1pm or a little bit after.

Eat well.

So I still haven’t done z yet. It’s the last one, but I have been sick or busy over the last couple of weeks.

I have still eaten a lot, just not a z thing yet.

In a fortnight z will be lunch at ze pickle. At least that is the plan so far.

This week I would like to say that I have eaten a lot of good food of late, and some okay stuff.

I want to talk about okay stuff today. I am not saying it is bad, I am saying it was good, but not great.

I had a pizza on the weekend that was okay. It was from a place down the road from my house and, while I would happily go and eat there again, I wouldn’t describe it as great. I think there may have been a few things attributing to this, one of which was how quiet the place was.

The handmade pizza base, the onion jam, the pork sausage and the salami were all good. Even together in a flat cheesy  wedge of food. The more I think about it the more I want it again, but it wasn’t great. It was good though. The place I think is one of the few places I have been to that would benefit from being extremely busy.

There is something about some places, where when it is quiet the energy goes out of the staff and the passion goes out of the food. Not completely, they’re professionals, but just enough that great food becomes good.

I would like to emphasize again, I don’t think this is a bad place, and there was something about the pizza that made me…

I just realised what it was. The pizza and the mozzarella bites I had on Saturday tasted like they had been prepared in advance for a rush that hadn’t hit just yet.

I have been to yum cha when it is quiet, and a few places when they are quiet , and the food has been the same. The we were prepared for a horde and we got a guy, who ate a lot but he is still a guy.

It didn’t taste like it had been prepared in the morning or anything dodgy like that, just early enough that they felt ok with warming it up and serving it.

Ok, next time I go I am going to try and go when it is busy and order the least popular thing. They’ll probably do great then.

I have friends who order things, from chains like McDonalds and Hungry Jacks, with just enough change to the thing on the board that it needs to be made fresh. Though I think a lot of places do that now anyway.

Okay, enough dwelling on that.

I also want to tell you about Sunday at Junk.

Three people, three dishes each equals a fairly decent feast at Junk, in Coorparoo.

Junk’s Scotch eggs, JFK, Gangnam Fries and Peking Duck spring rolls were all amongst the dishes devoured on Sunday.

I recommend Junk in Coorparoo as a place to go with your friends. I am not sure they have much in the way of vegetarian stuff though, or gluten free stuff, but for everyone else the food is good. Sticking with the theme, it was not great but good.

The scotch eggs were my favourite. It has been a long time since I have had scotch eggs.

For those that don’t know, scotch eggs are boiled eggs covered in sausage meat, then bread crumbs, and deep fried. What made these special was the dipping sauce. I could taste a little chili and possibly honey in it, maybe vinegar, but with the eggs it was great.

I know it’s away from the theme, but it was.

Back on theme the peking duck spring rolls, which seem to be popping up in a lot of places, were good. As was the chicken.

As far as a quick meal goes Junk in Coorparoo is pretty good.

I keep saying Junk in Coorparoo because I wasn’t too impressed with Junk in South Bank. It wasn’t bad, but there is a lot of competition for nice food in South Bank, and that particular Junk is not in the running in South Bank.

Sorry Junk in South Bank, but you need to lift your game.

Ok, I am off to make coffee. Eat well and come join me on Saturday the Third of February for lunch at Ze Pickle. I’m not booking, just be there at 12 and we’ll see what happens.

This weekend I had yum cha with a group of friends from work.

We got there at midday and we ate a lot. I possibly ate more than everyone else. I know I ate more chickens feet than anyone else. I also know that I have to remember they are taro rectangles, not turnip.

For some stupid reason I keep thinking of those little rectangles of mashed taro as turnip. I don’t know why, maybe they looked like something on a cooking show that was made of turnip, maybe I misheard the first time. Who really knows why.

The one thing I do know, don’t play the game what will Bren eat. Especially at yum cha, because I will eat the lot. Once it was established that I would eat pretty much anything, the eating began.

I honestly can’t remember everything I ate. Ok that is kind of a lie, let’s change that to can’t be arsed writing about everything I ate.

I shall write about the things I really enjoyed about the whole thing.

Firstly, there were six of us, seven including someone’s baby daughter. This made a huge difference as everyone grabbing a few plates of things meant a much larger variety of food could be had. Secondly, there was a bigger variety to choose from than when I do this stuff alone.

It was amazing, there were bbq pork buns, chickens feet, pork bones and a whole range of dumplings. And what seemed like an endless supply of green tea.

I started with the chickens feet, of course, while we were waiting for the last ones to arrive. My favourite chickens feet were from Garden City yum cha, but these were pretty good too.

The place was pretty busy, which is what you want for a yum cha place, because it means nothing is sitting on the trolleys very long. It was long before our table was filled with small baskets of deliciousness.

The pork bones and the chickens feet were amongst my favourite parts of the meal, but to be honest there wasn’t anything I didn’t like.

The bbq pork steam buns were good. I usually get a couple of these if I am wandering through South Bank, from the Asian street food place near the South Bank markets. The downside though is when you get them fresh it is like someone decided to force a whole bunch of steam into a bun. Even though the bun can be very hot, I still stupidly bite into fresh ones and burn my mouth a little. These were sitting on our table long enough to have cooled to an edible temperature, so the surface of Venus instead of the Sun.

There were a few things I have had before there, that I didn’t know the name of. Still don’t know the name of I should say.

There was a thing that was like a prawn filling on a big piece of mushroom. I asked what it was, and got told it was a prawn filling on a big piece of mushroom. Looks like mushroom, tastes like mushroom, is it… oh a mushroom ok.

Another thing, that i liked, tasted a little like a boiled wonton skin draped over some vegetables and a prawn. This thing is usually about three regular person bites long. When you get it they cut it in three pieces, per piece and you get a plate of small bite sized pieces. I am not sure if there is any etiquette about this, but from now on I shall refer to this portion size as fun size, like the confectionary companies do.

So, for reference, a prawn crepe drape (the wonton skin thing) is fun size, while a chickens foot is two fun sizes long, or if you are lucky, two and a half, and the bbq pork steam bun was three fun size parts in total.

There were a few prawn dumplings and pork dumplings on the table, all fun size. These are pretty much the same in most places. Little steamed packages of pork and prawn, pork or prawn , or even tofu. You can pop them in your mouth in one hit. Well I can, hence fun size.

There were also these deep fried dessert bun/pastry things that were pretty good, and I am going to keep my eye open for them next time at yum cha. They were light and crunchy, coated in sugar and almost as good as a fresh doughnut.

Almost.

Ok, keeping this short tonight, have fun everyone.

One more place to go .

Sweet happy excess.

As this is my blog, X is excess.

The last week, between Christmas and New Years, involved a lot of eating. From cheerios and chips to roast duck and bbq pork. Roast chicken, lamb and ham. Peking Duck crepes, fried chicken and ramen. Pork skewers, beef meatballs and thai sausages. Stuffing cupcakes, cheese tarts and chocolates.

It seems a lot more. I am pretty sure I am missing heaps of things.

Oh I almost forgot.

Welcome to 2018. I am looking forward to eating more, and sharing with you adventure after I hit z. Which may be a week later than expected, maybe 2 weeks later. There are a lot of places I need/want to try.

Let us begin the food part of the entry though with my Christmas day lunch.

I had the day to myself for this, so I sat down in front of youtube with a bowl of cheerios (sometimes referred to as party franks or cocktail franks), with melted cheese and siracha on top. Best crap lunch ever. For some bizarre reason, even after all the things I have eaten, from bees to sea urchins, cheerios are still awesome to me. To eat a whole five hundred grams of them, while exceptionally gluttonous, was delightful. Each cheesy, spicy mouthful was great.

Even with the ever present chorus of “this can’t be good for me” running through my head.

Boxing day brought a bounty of chicken, ham, lamb and salads. Christmas pudding and custard. Fruit, I had an apricot or two, and the best part of all, stuffing cupcakes.

Being that there was no turkey, but my brother in law really wanted stuffing, he made stuffing cupcakes. They were sweet potato and something else, I don’t recall. They were great. He said he wanted to chuck them on the bbq for a couple of seconds to crisp them up but ran out of time. I think everyone had a few anyway.

I also ate about a quarter of the christmas pudding, as it was going to be thrown out if I didn’t. Writing this makes me think I should call this last week The Gluttoning.

On Wednesday I had a Peking Duck beijing crepe. It was pretty good. Somewhere between a kebab and a crepe. It was huge. I spilt the first half a little but the second half vanished too quickly to hit the package. I am definitely getting more of those. The name of the place I got it from currently eludes me, I am pretty sure it was Jian Bing but I can’t find it to confirm. It was right next to the Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tart place.

Speaking of which, we went there Thursday and it was pretty good. The strawberry one was incredible. This was followed by Nene Chicken, one of my favourite fried chicken places, and then ramen.

I should have stuck to something smaller than a bowl of ramen, as  it kind of thwarted my initial plan of spending the day wandering around the city eating. That being said, ramen made on the spot is great and definitely something I want to have become a regular thing. I had the hot one, and while it wasn’t that spicy for me it was nice, and I definitely recommend it.

This was followed by a quick trip to a thai place, for pork skewers, beef meat balls and thai sausage.

The pork skewers were really good. The sauce they came with was great, and I wound up dipping the sausage in that one instead. The sausage was good on its own, though I have a preference for german sausages. The beef meatballs were nice tasting.

I have a problem with the texture though, and not in a ‘not eating that’ way, just in a ‘how did they do it’ way. They were the smoothest meatballs I have ever eaten. Almost like someone made a giant block of very finely minced beef, compressed it so it looked similar to a regular cube of meat and then took a melon baller to it. Even the swiss meatballs are not that finely minced. I was bewildered. I still ate them, they were pretty tasty.

The final thing I would like to mention, as I am in dire need of a shower, is Kings Food, or it may be Kingsfood. It was where we went to dinner Saturday night. I was excited to go because on the menu they a stewed meats plate as an entree and they had duck.

In the menu, the stewed meat plate says it has beef honeycomb, Dried tofu, dried seaweed and pigs ears. You could pick three. I picked the beef honeycomb (which is intestine I think), the pigs ear and the seaweed.

What the menu skipped was that it was cold stewed meat. I like colds pigs ears, don’t get me wrong, but I prefer them warm.

I followed this with roast duck and bbq pork. The duck was actually pretty nice, as was the pork. In a lot of asian places that have duck seem to have a minimum standard of nice. I don’t think I have had bad duck, I have had ok duck, but that was not from an asian restaurant. The best duck I have ever had is between Bamboo Basket and Detour. I am kind of bias towards Detour though.

They have bees on their panna cotta.

I really need to go back there soon.

Ok, once again Happy New Year and thank you for reading my ramblings. After I finish Z I am going to be comparing foods from different places. Such as cheese burgers from different burger places and curry chicken from different japanese places. Hope you enjoy it.

On Saturday I went to Wagaya.

Even though I had received some sad news that morning, I decided I should go anyway. Maybe it would take my mind off things for a little bit.

It didn’t, and I think I should go back to Wagaya and give it a second chance.

I say this because I liked what I ate. I thought the service was ok. I liked the touch screen menus. I was also impressed, in retrospect, how well the staff were aware of the patrons walking around in the layout of the place. I had a good experience, but felt a bit numb about the whole thing, and at the time thought it was the place but now realise it may have been due to the news I had gotten that morning.

It was very sad news, and I’m sorry but that is all you are getting about it here.

After some thought I decided to do the things I had planned on doing anyway, that I could. One of these things was going to Wagaya.

Wagaya is a Japanese restaurant with a karaoke section. The place was laid out in a lot of little booths, I couldn’t see the karaoke part from where I was. I had a booth all to myself.

I was happy to see a touch screen menu, I love these things, and went through four of the sections twice before making a decision. The reason for this was I was looking for miso eggplant, which has become my test in a lot of places. I didn’t find it.

I did find Sea Urchin Chamar Muchi, Crispy Salmon Skin and a Wagaya Parfait.

Sea urchin chamar muchi is pretty much a savoury custard with a little bit of noodles and veges on the bottom and sea urchin on the top. This is the second time I have had sea urchin, but the first time I have had it cooked (I am pretty sure none of you are surprised by this). It was a little smaller than I expected. Going by the picture alone I thought it was a thick soup, with the sea urchin floating on top.

Nope. Savoury custard ahoy. I really enjoyed this. I love sea urchins saltiness and however you would describe the rest of its flavours. Even rolling the flavour around my mind I can’t think of anything else to compare it to. I have been told it is an acquired taste, well I guess I already acquired it. I knew nothing about this dish so it was a beautiful surprise.

I am undecided to whether I prefer raw or cooked sea urchin though. There is a very small difference in flavour.

I followed this with the crispy salmon skin. This dish sounded and felt decadent. Each crunch of the skin made me realise this dish was designed with people like me in mind.

“We still have the skin of the fish left, what should we do with it?”

“Batter it and fry it, someone will eat it.”

Damn straight, it tastes pretty good. I had a couple of pieces before I started dipping them in the soy sauce. Normally I don’t dip things in soy sauce, but this made it better to me. Each crunch was a temptation just to grab the lot and start cramming them into my mouth.

But I didn’t.

I finished and ordered dessert. The Wagaya Parfait. Berries, ice cream, wafers and I think strawberry sauce, not sure on that bit. I love parfaits, especially unhealthy or half healthy ones. This was no different. The ice cream, berries and wafer combined made me smile. My only complaint was it was too short. I hit the bottom pretty quick.

There was nothing unique about this parfait. Nothing made it stand out. It was simple, but delicious.

All up, I enjoyed the meal.

This is why I think I need to go back later, when I am less sad. I realised that the lack of atmosphere I felt could have come from in me.

So, Wagaya, in a little while I shall return. With my appetite and less fog in my mind, and maybe some friends.

Be prepared.

Eat well.

This week was V, so off to Vietnam House.

I walked past Vietnam House at 10:58am, it opens at 11:00am, and there was no movement inside. No one getting ready. No one to be seen.

I was prepared to be doing this about some other V place in some random suburb.

I went to Oxlades, got a new pen and wandered back past.

Much to my surprise the word open was on the door. I walked in and was seated in the corner, table for one.

I sat down and perused the menu, I had decided what I wanted sort of quickly. Yes, there was duck on the menu, and yes I got it.

I didn’t order straight away though. I had enough time to go through the menu twice, and look around the restaurant at the decor twice, before the waiter came up and asked me what I wanted. It seemed that he was initially there to see if I wanted something to drink, but was happy to take my lunch order as well.

I ordered a vietnamese iced coffee, salt and pepper quail and stir fry duck in orange sauce.

When I googled Vietnam House the consensus was you have to wait a while for the food but it is good. This is true.

I waited only a few minutes for the vietnamese iced coffee. This was really good. It comes out layered from creamy white at the very bottom to clear brown at the top. The first sip let me know that one of my favourite liquids was at the bottom, sweetened condensed milk. I loved the taste of this. I mixed it when the drink had gotten a bit below the lip of the cup, and proceeded to sip tiny sips slowly until the appetiser came out.

About twenty minutes later I received my quail dish. The very look of it made my mouth water. I can still taste every bit of this beautiful, little dish. It didn’t look as moist on the outside as it was. I removed the drumstick on one and bit into it with no real expectation. I have had salt and pepper quail a few times, from a lot of different places and I was not expecting this to be any different. Quail, salt, pepper how much different could it be. It was pretty good. It may not be the best quail out there, but it is the best I have had so far. The diced vegetables that were with it were brilliant accompaniments for it. I am pretty sure I only left the bones on the plate.

About thirty minutes after I finished eating this, maybe twenty five, my duck in orange sauce arrived.

Ok, do not let this put you off but I have had better duck.

This is not the point though. This is the second time I have had duck in orange sauce, and I have really enjoyed it both times. From now on I am ordering duck in orange sauce whenever it is a choice on the menu.

This was duck, capsicum, onion and a few other things stir fried in orange sauce with a bow of rice on the side. After I ate all the meat and vegetables, I added the rice to the remaining sauce and ate the remaining sauce up.

As I said before, the internet was right. The food takes a while to get to you , but it is good. It may not be the best food on the planet, but it definitely tastes like the people really care about what they are cooking. I don’t mean other people don’t, I mean this place is worth the wait.

If you have nothing to do one day, head to Vietnam House with some good friends or a good book and settle in.

I don’t think you’ll regret it. Just make sure you don’t have anywhere else to be soon.

Night all. Eat well.

I couldn’t find a U in the valley, but I was also a bit too busy at work to really try.

Instead I had a quietish weekend. I still managed to eat at Four different locations. On a non quiet weekend it can be up to, but not always eight.

Sunny Doll- Friday Night normal dinner

Almost every friday night, since a week or two after it opened, I have been at Sunny Doll for dinner. It has several dishes I love. Takoyaki, which I now reserve for celebrationy type things so as not to upset my GP. Chicken Curry Katsudon, even though I am sure I have had better this one is my favourite, I think the location plays a part in that. Chips, yeah go figure they make really good chips. Nasu Dengaku, Miso Eggplant, which is the one I want to waffle on about.

Miso Eggplant is one of my favourite japanese things to eat. I love it. I have also mastered the art of eating it with chopsticks. Chicken curry used to be the dish that I ordered to compare, but it has become Nasu Dengaku. The reason for this is simple. Sunny Doll makes my favourite one of these. I have had it at a lot of different places, and Sunny Doll’s is my favourite. Some places come close, but never quite hit the mark for me that Sunny Doll’s does.

I am not saying they are better or worse. I am saying my favourite is Sunny Doll’s. Even better, nope, um higher class, nope…more expensive places, yeah that’s it, don’t stand up to it in my eyes. For me Sunny Doll gets the right blend of sweet and salty.

It is awesome.

Even when I do burn my tongue eating it.

Burrito Bar – post show dinner

I went here post improv last Friday with a friend. We ordered the chipotle wings, the second spiciest.

I had asked for the spiciest, but if the second spiciest were anything to go by this wouldn’t have made a difference.

They were hot, but only because they were freshly cooked. Not very spicy, at least not worthy of second from the top spicy as far as I am concerned. I would like to mention, I had been warned about this, and was prepared for it.

All that being said, they were still good wings. They tasted nice.

The chips weren’t bad either.

Shawty’s – Saturday Lunch

I have been going to Shawty’s consistently for a while now. After getting all the way to the nursing home, thank you Al, and finding out my Aunty was in hospital from the staff, thanks mum, I went home not really feeling like going out.

On my way home I noticed Shawty’s was open. Italiano toasted sandwich for lunch.

This was exactly what I needed.

The past couple of weekends I have eaten a lot. To stop somewhere like Shawty’s and have a toasted sandwich and a doppio was genuinely relaxing. This was one of those days when the respite of toasted salami, cheese, tomato and spinach, combined with the sharpness of a doppio, was a welcome break between the real world and the lego mayhem that would ensue later.

This is not my favourite sandwich from there. That is the vegetarian one. I love it, but I didn’t feel like getting haloumi and avocado over everything. I just wanted the toasted salami flavour and the coffee.

I wanted the few minutes where nothing existed except a toasted sandwich and a doppio.

…

…

That someone else made for me.

Junk – Sunday Lunch

Junk has popped up on my Deliveroo list a couple of times. On Sunday I saw one had opened in Coorparoo.

Sweet.

A quick glance of the menu, and a rumble from my stomach and not the clouds, meant that I had found my lunch spot for Sunday.

I ordered the JFC, Junk Fried Chicken, and the Gangnam Fries.

The Gangnam Fries came out first. A plate of chips, covered in nori, spring onions and nacho cheese sauce. They were also covered in Korean chili according to the website. Unless you have to ask for that bit, I didn’t taste the chili part. They were still pretty good though. In the end I had to eat them with chopsticks. It was great.

The JFC was pretty good too. I didn’t find it spicy, but assume from the glaze it may have a little heat to it. It was a bowl of glazed chicken wings. The glaze made it look like they weren’t going to be crisp, but they were. At first I ate a wing, then some chips, a wing then some chips, you get the idea. After about four wings this stopped and I just ate the wings. I picked over the bones as I finished the chips. I don’t like to leave any meat on them if I can avoid it.

Next time I am ordering more.

There will be a next time, mark my words.

Junk I shall return with more appetite.

Good luck to you.

And Good Night and eat well to everyone reading.

I had a plan. a few of my plans go awry, and I’m fine with that. This one went in a direction I didn’t think of  until about 20 minutes before it happened.

Thai wi rat was shut when I went to go there originally. It was closed from the 11th to the 23rd of November for refurbishment. I haven’t been there before, I don’t know what was refurbished and I certainly couldn’t point out what I thought was refurbished.

The interior of this place was ok. It wasn’t fantastic. It wasn’t glossy. It was a place you went to eat. I think that was the appeal of it.

It was setup, successfully, as a place you go to eat. There wasn’t a lot of fancy decorations or anything, just a simple layout. This was surprisingly daunting at first, for a few seconds anyway. You just walk in and sit down, wherever you want. I have been to that many places over the past few years where you wait to be seated that it threw me a little. I sat down and perused the menu.

I have to admit here that I had a different idea of the food I would be getting. There is a place on Beaudesert Rd called Rainbow Thai. I have eaten a lot of good food there, and was expecting the food at Thai Wi Rat to be the same.

Nope.

I started with a Duck Larb. Larb is a meat salad. I have had one before that had more salad than the one on Sunday, and far less meat and chili. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the one I had there. It was a mound of duck mince, a toupee of salad (after much deliberation I have decided that is an adequate description of the amount, or a comb over of salad), 2 slices of orange and a lettuce leaf. I have kept them separate as the toupee of salad consisted of some onion, maybe radish, some green leaves and some chili. It was also gingerly arranged over one side of the mound of mince.

I would like to point out again here, I liked this dish including the appearance.

Thinking there would be more salad under the mince, I was surprised (happily) to find out that this was mostly mince. The duck itself was a bit fatty, but this was balanced out by the chili. The toupee was tasty too, especially with the duck. The duck on the lettuce leaf with some of the orange though, was pretty good. I can see why duck a l’orange is a thing.

I am pretty sure it disappeared quicker than the waiter was expecting. He looked a little surprised and assured me, in a friendly tone not a scared one, that the Pla Dook Yang was on its way.

Pla Dook Yang is pretty much bbq catfish. The plate came out with 2 pieces of catfish, 2 bits of orange and a lettuce leaf.

I ate the orange and the lettuce leaf first, partially for food and partially for the thing to cool down.

I looked at the catfish. It had been gutted, and beheaded. Not deboned. There are so many damn bones in a catfish. I was still finding them in my mouth later. This is not a bad dish though. The meat was nice, when you could get to it, and there was still a surprising amount of it.

It took me a bit longer to eat this than it did the duck larb, mainly due to the amount of bones in it. I wound up carefully peeling the meat back, and trying my hardest to make sure none of the bones came through. Still bones. The only time there were no bones were the crispy fins and tail. Don’t let this deter you though.

Try it at least once.

Especially if you have never had good catfish before.

See you.

Cause T was shut until November the 23rd.

There will be a T at some point before Z. I want to go to Thai wi-rat dammit.

On Saturday there was a B, I love Brat Haus, and an O, thank you to the lovely people who took me to Original Dave’s BBQ.

There are no little titles for this except the following warning;

For any Vegans or Vegetarians reading this, turn away now…

I ate a lot of meat on Saturday.

A lot, so this is going to be a short-ish one.

So Saturday technically started with a C. Cypher Cafe in Sandgate was my first food stop, before visiting my Aunty. It’s a tiny cafe next to Sandgate station, and if you are hungry it’s worth a pop in. I had the breakfast turkish bread and a short black. The coffee was good and the sandwich was good. They were not unique though. There are a number of cafes in Sandgate you could easily stop at and grab breakfast. What made this place semi-unique is that it is aimed at families. This is a good place to stop for five minutes if you have kids and are in Sandgate. It’s comfy, friendly and there is clearly a play area. Even the guy who looked like a regular, I think we can spot our own (being a regular of a different coffee shop), was pretty friendly.

I’m not saying it is worth a day trip, but if you are in Sandgate, drop in. We need to support more places like this.

Brat Haus was next, and the real beginning of the meatapalooza. My favourite thing from Brat Haus is the large plate of sausages. Four wursts cut into pieces with rot kohl/sauerkraut and fried onion (I prefer rot kohl). The plate is huge. The wurst is great, especially covered in curry ketchup. Brat Cave in Woolloongabba lets you pick, Brat Haus might if they weren’t busy but usually doesn’t. You get Cheese Kransky, Kransky, Bratwurst and Chicken Wurst (I think). I didn’t rush, as it was bucketing down outside, and slowly made my way through the whole plate.

I also discovered this comes in a medium size, which I think may be 2 sausages.

The day was topped off by Original Dave’s BBQ in West End.

Original Dave’s has a family feast, which had been preordered by  the bookee. It contained a rack of ribs, beef brisket, pulled pork, a piece of chicken and three sausages. We also got some buffalo suicide wings, some frickles and some loaded fries.

The buffalo suicide wings were good, not the hottest thing I have ever eaten but were well cooked. I am pretty sure they were flame grilled. The frickles, pickle fries, were good too, better than the ones at Johnny Rockets. I did not try the chili loaded fries, but from the sound of it, they were ok.

When the meat fest came out, the first thing I went for was the ribs. I love ribs. I don’t think I can eat them without getting sauce everywhere, and I am completely fine with that. The sauce was ok, but the ribs were good. The meat just slid off the bone. They weren’t too fatty. Good ribs.

The pulled pork was also good, in this case it was the sauce that made it stand out to the other pulled pork I have had. I can’t put my finger on why but the sauce they had went really well with pulled pork.

The beef brisket was the best beef brisket I think I have had. This is mostly due to the other beef briskets I have had being dry and hoping you wouldn’t notice if there was too much sauce. I noticed. This one was not dry. I have not eaten enough beef brisket to know if this is the best in Brisbane, what with me liking beef practically raw, but for now it is in my books.

The chicken, maryland style, was pretty good. I love this way of preparing chicken. My favourite chicken of all though comes from a place in Stones Corner, and it is really good when the staff there are fighting with each other, I don’t know why but it is. I say this, but I will eat almost any chicken from anywhere. Except one place if I can avoid it. Not a fan of KFC.

Finally the sausages. They tasted good, the texture was a bit weird though. Admittedly I had sausages earlier done in my favourite way, so I tried not to be too judgemental of these. They were not wurst, so I was trying no to compare them to it. The texture reminded me of the times I boiled the sausages first before I fried them. If you do it wrong, you get a kind of dry sausage that tends to crumble a bit. Which is what these were like. The taste was good though, apparently one was a little spicy.

After all this, or part of all this as there were four of us, I was a touch full and promptly went home to digest.

To wrap up, next time I am making sure I have more veges than cabbage and potato. Some people don’t mind that, but I like all food.

Eat well everyone, and U will be in 2 weeks. I am sure I will have something to write about next week though.

You may be wondering about the title…I will get to it at some point.

I ate so much this weekend, and it was all pretty good food.

I don’t think I ate anywhere starting with s though.

I think i will cover the title first after all.

Saturday

Saturday I had every intention, up until Saturday, of going to McWhirters finding all the S named places within walking distance and rolling a dice.

What actually happened was that I went to Eckersley’s to get nibs and ink. I left the store and was approached by a man who asked for a dollar so he could by some food. I only had about fifteen cents in change at the time, so I gave him a five dollar note. He was very grateful and we walked and talked for a bit, before he wandered off in a different direction.

I couldn’t be arsed walking into the Valley, so I went to the Winter Garden instead, after my favourite fried chicken place, Nene chicken, turned out to be full. After a couple of laps I settled on going to Hokka Hokka. Hokka Hokka is a fresh noodle bar, with a few different menus available. It has a list of quick stir fry, a list of laksa and soup, a selection of generic chinese food (fried rice, beef in black bean etc) and a bit where you pick your noodles, vegetables, meat etc. I ordered BBQ pork stir fry. I received a ticket with the number 20.

This was when the universe decided that people need to make mistakes in my favour.

This is the serendipitous moment from the title.

A lady, not the one who served me, called out 20. She was holding a BBQ Pork Noodle soup. She called 20 a couple of times but, due to it being soup, I was hesitant. No one else came forward so I showed her my ticket. She smiled, said yes and handed me the large bowl of soup. I found a seat, which happened to be in sight of Hokka Hokka, and thought maybe I had made the mistake with what I had ordered. I had a mouthful of the soup. It was pretty tasty.

Then I saw the lady who took my order waving at me and pointing at the plate of stir fry in front of her. I went to take my soup back, explaining that I had already had a sip. She ordered the cook to make a fresh one for the intended recipient of the soup and told me to keep it, and the stir fry.

Wahoo free seconds.

The universe had decided one plate of food was not enough.

My stomach decided, that one plate of stir fry and three quarters of a bowl of BBQ Pork soup was.

Thank you universe.

Friday

Non serendipity day, but just as good.

On Friday I went to Eat Street in Hamilton.

I have never been to Eat Street before.

It was a collection of shipping crates turned into a series of street food vendors. It was like a condensed version of some of my Saturdays walking around Southbank or the Valley. All different types of food, and a few different product vendors.

We started with Calamari. It was good, I have had better, see Sunday’s entry, but it was still pretty good.

Then we got oysters. I love Oysters, not as much as mussels or scallops though. My friend got oysters kilpatrick and I got Tasmanian Jumbo Oysters. I preferred these, but the oysters kilpatrick were good too.

This was followed with a lot of wandering around, and eventually finding a potato tornado. This is a single potato cut into a spiral strip down the length of a stick and I am pretty sure it is then deep fried. It was pretty tasty, and a lot of fun to eat.

Then death by chocolate cheesecake, with cocoa pops and some other chocolate gravel thing. This was pretty tasty and the man selling it certainly new his cheesecake. Almost. There was a thing that was two lattice squares, dipped in chocolate, with a dollop of cheesecake in the middle. My mum’s are better. Sorry cheesecake guy, but it’s the truth.

Peking duck was next after a brief wander and watching the fire dancer. The peking duck was ok, I have had better. It wasn’t bad, it was just very bland as far as duck goes.

We finished the friday with doughnut fries. These are exactly what you think they should be, fingers of cinnamon doughnut covered, in our case, in marshmallows and nutella. Oh damn it was good, and soooo sweeet.

I got home and almost fell straight asleep. Yay food coma.

Sunday

Sunday was a little sad. It was the last day of my improv class. On the upside, I can now do the Improv Jams on Tuesday nights.

I had lunch at The Lonely Boy cafe. This consisted of a Mal’s Maple Bacon Burger. I love anything Mal makes, so I may be bias in this, but it was awesome. The maple flavour blended perfectly with the gherkins and mayonnaise and egg. And, my mouth is drooling.

Also a lemon curd tart, again awesome.

They shut early though, and some of us wound up at 321 Water Street.

321 Water Street is tucked away in a little nook of water street. Worth the search though.

I had salt and pepper calamari from here. Firstly, it was not rings or strips, but looked like they had cut the squid itself up at the restaurant. The squid was soft, the crumbs were crisp and light and the accompanying salad was awesome. I am coming around to salads that look like they uprooted a weed bed and drizzled oil on it.

Maybe it’s because of the bugs I ate from Thailand.

Eat well all.