Green Papaya Balinese and Thai

www.greenpapaya.com.au

Green Papaya located on Stanley Street just near the Gabba offers a menu of typical Balinese and Thai dishes with a bit more of a posh dining experience than your usual casual Thai eatery. 

Indoors is quite cosy and romantic, with tablecloth lined tables for two and intimate mood lighting. A great setting for a first date. Not a great setting for taking photos of the food for this blog post unfortunately. 

Our favourite Thai Beer

One thing I did notice about being on Stanley Street and the restaurant being on a corner is you end up being blinded by car lights quite regularly. This is not so romantic.

There are separations of the menu into Balinese and Thai offerings, and also a winter specials menu with such interesting dishes as Pad Kangaroo and Island curry (roast duck or tofu in red curry sauce with tomato, pineapple and lychee). 

We decided to both order from the Balinese menu as we haven't really eaten Balinese food before, even though we expected it to be fairly similar to other South East Asian cuisines.

Ben's Alibi

www.bensalibi.com.au

Ben's Alibi is a newish breakfast and lunch spot in the city. We've spotted it when driving down Turbot street, so I googled it and realised they served Moroccan and Middle eastern influenced food. 

We didn't realise it was just outside the magistrates court until we arrived there for lunch, and then figured out how they got their name... cute. There is seating indoors, and then larger tables outside, however be wary of catching cigarette fumes from people smoking outside the courthouse. Indoors, the tables and floor could be a bit cleaner I thought, particularly for a place thats not that old.

Lunch items include spicy sausages, Moroccan themed salads, pizzas and sandwiches, pies and pastries. Other extras include various dips, bread and sides, or their sharing platters, which is what we decided to opt for. 

Ben's vegetarian tasting platter for two is priced at $20.80 per person, and can be made to include meaty items (pastries) for an extra $4, so not really a cheap lunch. 

Schonell Pizza Caffe

www.schonell.com/pizza-cafe

I used to eat at Schonell Pizza Caffe HEAPS when I was a student (at least once a week). Their pizzas were awesome, excellent bases and only a few ingredients as is usual with good pizzas, and they were cheap. I also got a student discount of course.

Since I left uni which was 6 years ago, I have only eaten there maybe twice. This last occasion was a stop in on the way home from L's touch football game which he plays at UQ (L is a student there). 
Schonell Pizza Caffe is located near the main refectory at UQ at St Lucia, outside the Schonell Theatre which usually plays arthouse type movies. 


The menu rather cutely lists a different type of pizza for each letter of the alphabet. The Caffe is also licensed, with beer and wine. Pizzas for normal people start at $14 and for a student, $12.

I ordered my old favourite, the 'P' pizza (or Pasolini), which is pancetta, roasted potato, rosemary and parmesan. 

Tuckeria

www.tuckeria.com

Although we had decided we were going to get around to try all the different Mexican joints in the Valley (and also other areas... there are now two different places at Southbank for example)... we haven't exactly been quick to get there.

We finally decided on Tuckeria for a lunch visit on a weekday a couple of weeks ago.

Tuckeria has a fastfood outlet appearance, with food available to takeaway or to eat in the courtyard outside. 

We both decided to order burritos. I ordered a steak burrito which comes with mexican rice, a choice of pinto or black beans and tomato salsa (I got medium, but also available mild or hot). Coriander and onion are free of charge to add as extras. Other extras are available at a small cost and include cheese, jalapenos, guacamole, corn and lettuce amongst others. I elected for black beans instead of pinto beans and cheese as an extra. 

L had a burrito mojado, which was a regular burrito topped with melted cheese and two spicy salsas; ranchera and tomatillo, and was $3 extra than a regular burrito. He elected to have a chorizo filling.

Sydney - Iiza

www.iiza.com.au

Saturday night in Sydney was spent going out for dinner and drinks nearish to where my friend S lives.... so after one of the scariest cab rides of my life (and I have been in cabs in Vietnam and Thailand so this is saying something), we arrived outside Iiza Japanese restaurant in Newtown. Trusty Urbanspoon seemed to have good things to say, so I trusted my friends judgement in saying this was a good restaurant.

The restaurant was packed out, and this was only the downstairs area. Apparently there was a whole other level upstairs, which explained why there was always numerous groups coming and going through the restaurant.

We ordered a whole bottle of Umeshu (plum wine $38 per bottle) between us to drink, the first thing I noticed was that it was Kikkoman - same brand as the soy sauce - and that it was rather darkly coloured. The only plum wine I have ever had was a pale yellow colour. It was a lot stronger flavoured than the plum wine I have previously had, but was still pleasantly sweet and easy to drink.

Sydney - Cafe Cre Asion

www.creasionmacaron.com

In Sydney for the weekend, I had hoped to try and make it over to Adriano Zumbo's patisserie for some macarons, however as this was probably not going to be likely, I searched for somewhere else to grab some as a present for L. 

I came across Cafe CreAsion on the NSW Urbanspoon site, it had been reviewed by numerous bloggers and seemed to be the place to go in the CBD for macarons.

My friend and I trudged around the city trying to find it, and finally managed to locate it in this little back street at about 5 o'clock on the Saturday. I hadn't high hopes for actually finding the place open at this time, but to my surprise it was, although all they were selling was macarons, which was okay by me.

Sydney - Charlie & Co Burgers

www.charlieandco.com.au

 

Well I went down to Sydney last weekend to visit a friend, unfortunately L didn’t come with me, and the weekend didn’t end up involving as much food as I would normally like (and if L had have come with me, we would have probably eaten out 8 times a day).

One of the places I did visit was the food court at the top of the new Westfield on Pitt St mall in Sydney city. This food court is absolutely amazeballs in my opinion, and I would love to either a) live in the foodcourt or b) for something like this to appear in Brisbane. Neither option is likely to happen soon though.

Justin North, chef of Becasse, who I remember appearing on Masterchef a few times, has a burger place in the foodcourt called Charlie and Co. You have the option of paying a couple of dollars more for eating in, with table service, or the cheaper option of takeaway, and sitting almost in the restaurant anyway, however having to go collect your food when the buzzer goes off. It’s not really worth paying extra for table service in my opinion, as you still get a plate and proper cutlery, and it’s really almost the same. 

The Norman Hotel

www.normanhotel.com.au

We've eaten at "Brisbanes Worst Vegetarian Restaurant" the Norman plenty of times, but until recently always thought the Breakfast Creek hotel was better. Lets face it, their menus are fairly identical in terms of types of steak, accompaniments and pricing. Our last visit at the Breakfast Creek hotel didn't particularly excite us however, so when friends suggested we go to the Norman, we were interested to see if it could be better. 

In our opinions it definitely was. The Norman partially burnt down a while back, and the last time we visited, part of the eating areas was set up as a plain tacky marquee. Things have definitely improved atmosphere wise since then, and in fact its a much nicer venue than the Breakfast Creek. 

L and I both ordered the large eye fillet steak ($38.90), which came with garden salad, a breadroll and a potato with bacon filling. L's had chilli sauce and mine, pepper sauce. All in all, pretty identical to our last meal at the Breakfast Creek hotel.