Arriva

http://arrivarestaurant.com.au/

Sunday evening we went to see Stephen K Amos at the Powerhouse at New Farm as part of the Brisbane Comedy Festival. We’ve been going to the Comedy festival since it started, its in its third year now and personally I think its awesome! Since we knew we were going to be in the area we booked a dinner at Arriva after the show. We’ve been to Arriva a few times before but not for a couple of years so I was keen to see if it was still as awesome as previous occasions. I was also mildly hungover (shhhh don’t tell anyone), so was really in the mood for eating pizza... in fact I was keen to eat a whole one to myself. 

Arriva has won about a zillion awards for their pizza, in fact they have them proudly displayed on the wall in case you want to see for yourself. I tried to convince L to order a pasta so we could try that as well, but no, he wanted pizza too. 

We ordered a caprese salad to share for $12.50, then I ordered the Perfetta pizza which was tomato based with prosciutto, mozzarella, basil and cracked pepper ($19.00) and L ordered the Puttanesca pizza ($19.50), white base with garlic, chilli, olive oil, tomato, anchovies, 3 types of olives and buffalo mozzarella. Now I have a feeling these were slightly more expensive, like around the $20-$21 mark, but I am getting the prices from their website......

FaB Fish and Burger Grill

L and I are getting closer to actually planning our wedding, so Sunday was spent driving around to a couple of appointments to view different venues.

Around lunchtime, we drove past the Barracks and decided we would find somewhere within to eat. We’d previously eaten at the Chelsea Bistro here, which we enjoyed, however were looking for somewhere different. Parking at the Barracks is free for the first 2 hours which was great, however we discovered it was a bit busier due to the fact there was a Brisbane Roar game down at Suncorp Stadium, so it was a bit difficult to park.

We strolled past FaB Burgers and immediately decided we would eat there. Previous burger experiences have only been at different Grill’d restaurants around Brisbane, so we were keen to try something different. We sat ourselves down in the cute tiled seating area which is outside. 

Mizu

www.mizurestaurant.com.au

We’ve had a bad week with bad news about our lovely doggy, so haven’t been going out to eat much, March is going to be a bit sparse on the blogging side of things. I am a veterinarian and have diagnosed our dog Darcy with a severe heart condition, very sad.

We were both in major need of cheering up and so we decided to head out for dinner to Mizu last night. L wanted to go to our usual Japanese, Bishamon at Spring Hill, but I put the foot down saying I needed somewhere new to blog. Mizu is somewhere that we definitely wanted to try, their menu looks exciting and has some interesting choices. 

When we got there, we were seated straight away but then realised there seemed to be only one waiter for the whole place... yes there was another girl bringing food out but she seemed to only be doing a third of the work the main waiter was. As a result we were seated for half an hour before our food orders were even taken. I was definitely not impressed by this.

Luckily, once we had ordered we didn’t have to wait long for our food.

Drinks wise I ordered an Asahi for $7, and L was very excited to order the Sake Tasting set for $12. Mizu is BYO, however I didn’t have the foresight to bring a bottle of wine, and L really wanted Sake anyway. He received Masumi, Yoshinogawa and Asa biraki, which was his favourite. If you want to know what these are, its best to check out their drinks menu on their website. They have an extensive range of sake, and apparently if you buy a bottle and don’t drink it all they will keep it for you for up to 3 months for you to have on return visits.

Masterchef Magazine: Gnocci with Beetroot Puree and Feta

We like Feta. We like Gnocci. Beetroot is also good. 

So when we saw this recipe in one of the more recent Masterchef Magazines (its in Issue 9 to be more precise), we thought it was a good idea to make it for dinner. 

Making gnocci is annoying and tedious, or at least it has been for us in the past. This time was no exception. Our gnocci always ends up looking like little poos instead of the glorious little pillows they are supposed to be. 

Recipe:

Serves 6 

800g desiree potatoes

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1 egg lightly beaten

225g (1.5 cups) plain flour

2tbs olive oil

50g butter

200g feta (the original recipe says goats curd, but we just had feta instead)

1/3 cup small basil leaves

Beetroot Puree

125g butter, roughly chopped

500g (about 3) beetroots, peeled and roughly chopped

Candied Orange Zest

2 oranges, zest peeled and julienned

110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar

We ended up halving everything as it was just us.

Little Greek Taverna

www.littlegreektaverna.com.au

Last week we were lucky enough to be able to go and see the awesome musical Wicked at QPAC. If anyone is able to go and grab the last remaining tickets to it, DO IT!!! It was hilarious, colourful and all-round brilliantly entertaining. 

Anyway, enough about that and onto our dinner! We wanted to eat somewhere fast, and so went down into West End to eat at the Little Greek Taverna. We have eaten lunch there before and I had some pretty awesome lamb shanks on that occasion. Luckily they were able to squeeze us in... We got there at 6pm and they asked if we could leave by 7pm, fine by us. All of the tables in the place had reserved signs on them, so if you want to eat there, its definitely best to book rather than wing it like we did. 

Little Greek Taverna has a daily specials board which I think most people order from. Not everything on their menu is available every day. This time, everything from the pork section was available, but alas, not my lovely lamb shanks. There was however a Lamb Yiros (lamb served off the spit) and greek salad available ($13.50) which I ordered, leaving L to order the Chargrilled octopus with salad for $15.00.

To start we also ordered a serving of warmed pita bread ($3.00) with roasted eggplant dip ($4.00).