Sake Restaurant

www.sakerestaurant.com.au/brisbane/

Okay so maybe we have been a little late with jumping on the Sake bandwagon, but last week we finally went there. We decided to go in order celebrate our negative-1-year-anniversary. Yes, thats right, we can’t actually remember the date of our anniversary, so seeing as we are getting married in May next year, decided to just start using that. We were actually asked at Sake if we were celebrating any occasion, and when it was awkwardly explained to the waitress, I am 100% sure she thought we were weird. Oh well, onto the review.

 

We actually were so organised we decided what we were ordering when perusing the menu at home on their website. Drinkswise, L ordered a glass of red (no idea which one, and its not that significant for the purposes of the review), whilst I ordered a cocktail (yes, a cocktail on a school night). The cocktail list is full of delicious creations, all using something Japanese, whether it be sake, umeshu (plum wine) or shoshu (a Japanese spirit). I had the Shimpei San, strawberries smashed with sugar and lemon, shaken with shiso leaves, vodka and shochu. It was fruity and tangy and thoroughly delicious. I had to stop myself from drinking it all in 10 seconds flat. 

Jude

www.judecafes.com

I caught up with my sister for lunch on Monday, as she was her on way to uni... haven’t seen her in about a month as she has been stuck inside-living in her pyjamas-majorly frazzled-studying her bum off. 

She wanted somewhere that served breakfast although it was 11.45am, I told her that wasn’t an option as I don’t think there is anywhere in the city that serves all day breakfast on a weekday. We instead headed to Jude at Eagle St Pier. I went to go there with L once, however it was a weekend and they were closed....

Jude is such a cute place with interesting burgers, “Jude balls” (Moroccan lamb balls, thai chicken balls, risotto balls), salads and fish and chips on the menu. There is also a soup of the day, curry of the day and cassoulet of the day. Ordering is at the counter, you can help yourself to drinks from the fridge, and there is a cutlery/napkin station. The location is nice and breezy being on the river (well tucked around behind the coffee club a bit).

Nikumaki Honpo and Papparoti

www.papparoti.com.au

This post incorporates two eateries as we bought food from both of them for our lunch on the weekend. 

I saw a post on Nikumaki Honpo on another blog and decided I just had to try it out, so we drove over to the new Warrigal Square Shopping Centre fortunately not far from our house on Sunday to grab lunch. This shopping complex looks super exciting, as there is a Madtongsan branch there, eeeeep, and also Little Nyonya, which is a branch of the Little Singapore chain (not yet open).

Walking in, we passed by Papparoti, which I was very excited about. I’ve seen Papparoti stores in Sydney and also in Vietnam when we visited, but we hadn’t gotten to try them at all. 

Firstly, Nikumaki Honpo:

This was touted as being the latest and greatest thing in Japan. Basically, nikumaki honpo is a ball of rice, wrapped in marinated pork slices, ovenbaked, and then with mayonnaise on top.

There is the option of plain for $4 each, or with cheese on top for $4.50 each. There were also free condiments of either fresh chilli or coriander on top as well. Of course, L got fresh chilli on his. 

Cha Cha's

L and I used to live on the Gold Coast a few years ago, and we probably ate out at Cha Chas Japanese at Broadbeach once a week. We hadn’t been there in a long time, so when the opportunity arose to eat there with my workmates I was excited. 

We had a large group of about 20 people with a 6pm booking and were told that they needed our table at 8pm. Fortunately, the food came out quickly and we didn’t feel rushed to eat at all. 

Cha Chas had expanded in size since we last ate there, and now accommodates tables in the old cake shop next door as well as an alleyway down beside the two shop areas. 

The place was absolutely packed out for the entire time we were there, if you go you definitely need to book a table, and they do like to turn the tables over, so it is not a good idea to go if you want a leisurely long dinner. It is also extremely loud and the tables are crowded together, and there is a constant stream of people on the footpath outside waiting for a table. 

The menu was still the same as the last time we had gone, so fortunately we were able to order our usuals. The prices however had gone up a couple of dollars, expected to happen over a couple of years of course!

Kathmandu Newa Chh'en

http://www.kathmandunc.com/

L and I didn’t even know that this restaurant existed, until we were invited to a dinner with his uni mates on the weekend. There were about 15 of us that attended, so we were booked into a small function room inside the restaurant. It was a bit of fun as we were sitting on the floor with low tables and we had to remove our shoes before entering the room. (Unfortunately, it didn’t do much for my terrible lower back as the evening went on).

Kathmandu Newa Chh’en serves up Nepalese and Himalayan food, something which we’ve never experienced before. 

We all ordered the very reasonably priced banquet for $25. There is also a vegetarian banquet available if anyone prefers. The banquet consisted of entrees, various main dishes of chicken, fish, vegetarian, goat and beef, and finishes up with Chea, which is Nepalese spiced sweet tea.

Our entrees started with Tibetan bread (sort of a pizza base with tomato chutney and cheese) and garlic bread. Both were pretty nice, most of us preferred the Tibetan bread.