Verve Restaurant Bar Cider House

www.vervecafe.com.au

Apparently Verve's actual title is longer than we thought, Verve Restaurant Bar Cider House is certainly a mouthful. Located in the basement of the Metro Arts Centre on Edward Street in the city, its certainly more difficult to find than we thought as well. After a performance at La Boite Theatre on a weeknight, we were looking for somewhere to eat in the city and thought we might try it out. 

They certainly nailed the basement look. Descending a staircase, the restaurant is brick walled and very dark. The place was noisy and we got a student vibe from the patrons. Seating involves plastic orange chairs, but tables are plenty. There is a bar up the very back,  not that we ventured far. 

Verve serves up italian food, and also has a considerable cider list. We aren't sure, but there must not be many bars in Brisbane with such a variety. I ordered my glass of usual sauv blanc, however L decided on a Bulmers pear cider (500ml, $10). Served on ice, it was most refreshing. Other varieties sound quite interesting, including Rekorderlig strawberry and lime, and St Helier pear and blackcurrent and I regret not trying one of these.

Portofino

www.cafeportofino.com.au

Continuing on our Italian theme... we seem to have really eaten a lot of Italian lately... after trying to get a late-notice table at a few other places, we booked a Saturday night dinner at Portofino at New Farm a couple of weekends ago. We've eaten there quite a few times, but haven't been in absolutely ages, so were surprised to find upon rocking up for our booking that the decor had changed, and so had apparently the ownership. We were somewhat dubious, however were willing to see how it compared.

The main highlight of Portofino, which otherwise used to be known as Cafe Portofino, is the large cannot-miss-it display cabinet full of Italian desserts and sweets. So many diners seem to come here just for dessert after eating at other restaurants, which was quite evident on the night.

Dinner menu items otherwise include a variety of pastas, pizzas and Italian mains, all very reasonably priced.

We started with a good old basic bruschetta for $10. Serving size was quite large, there were 3 pieces of crusty bread with a pile of tomato atop. I thought the bread was a bit too crusty and overdone and thought the whole thing was a bit too run-of-the-mill, however L disagreed with me and really liked it.

The Red Hen

www.theredhen.com.au

One Sunday evening I met L after work in West End, and we ventured down to check out the stretch of restaurants located on Hardgrave Road. Amongst these are quite a few Vietnamese places, including Trang which we really want to eat at, the Tibetan Kitchen and the Red Hen which we settled on. 
Even though it was very early, it was oddly empty, there was one other table that was eating when we got there, however they left soon after, leaving us as the restaurants sole patrons! This made me a bit nervous about the food to come, however we were very surprised to be on the recieving end of some extremely delicious good Italian food. Apologies for the darkness of the photos to follow, the restaurant is not well lit.

To start we shared bruschetta done two ways ($10); L had a piece with mushrooms and provolone whilst my piece of bread was covered in crushed chickpeas, tomato, red onion and basil. They were simple flavours and whilst I found mine a little plain, L really liked his which was very cheesy and generous with the mushrooms. 

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. 

La Via

www.lavia.com.au

We visited La Via for a quiet Saturday night dinner.... Quiet because it was freezing cold outside and we were just planning on getting there, eating and getting home again... brrrrr.

Luckily we were seated at the back of the restaurant away from the cold, but as there were outdoor heaters at the front, it wouldn’t have really mattered anyway. 

La Via has a great sounding pizza menu and a short menu of Italian main meals to choose from. All sounded really delicious so it was difficult for us to choose. 

La Via is licensed, so we ordered a glass of wine each, with Pinot Grigio for me. L's was an Australian red wine blend, Sons of Eden GSM, which apparently stands for Grenache, shiraz and mourvedre. You learn something new every day!

Our shared entree was the speck mac and cheese arancini with black truffle aioli. I didn’t really pay that much attention and thought we were just ordering normal arancini with risotto centres, so I was surprised when tiny bits of macaroni exploded from the centre. L thought it was a bit bogan to have mac and cheese, however I really liked it. The truffled aioli was tasty however when put together with the mac and cheese made for a little bit of a gluggy combination in your mouth.

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......

Beccofino

www.beccofino.com.au

Last night we had a pre-Christmas gathering with friends at Beccofino at Newstead. I was very keen to go there once I had learnt that was our venue of choice, as I have heard about their amazing pizzas. I was also so in the mood for pizza, having had a very asian themed week with regards to food, I needed some serious carbs. I had also just had a hugenormous workout at the gym so didn't feel nervous about all the pizza calories.

We ordered a couple of bottles of Catalina Sounds Sauvignon Blanc between the 5 of us ($43 per bottle), then decided we would just order 5 pizzas between us to share. I think it might have been a bit presumptuous to think we would all eat a pizza each (the boys would have no troubles but I was a bit worried about us girls), however we definitely wanted to sample a wide range of their pizzas.

Beccofino have two lists; pizza rosse (with their tomato sauce base) and pizza bianche (no sauce base). They also have a range of entrees, mains and pastas but I didn’t really even get beyond the pizza part of the menu to tell you the truth, as soon as I read the list of pizzas I developed a huge creepy smile on my face in anticipation.

Sydney - Criniti's Ristorante

www.crinitis.com.au

We went for a loooooooong walk on our Sunday evening in Sydney to try and find somewhere to eat, but didn’t really know what sort of food we felt like (I felt like something asian, L felt like Italian). We walked the entire length of Darling Harbour, noted Criniti’s Ristorante with some interest, then walked all the way down to Chinatown before giving up and going all the way back to Criniti’s.

One thing we definitely noted about all of the restaurants in the harbour was the elevated prices. I don’t know if this is a Sydney thing, or if its just because Darling Harbour is quite touristy and you are paying for this and the location/views.

Getting into the restaurant was not without some difficulty however. We walked up the stairs from the harbourside area and then didn’t really know where to go... no one greeted us, there was no obvious ‘wait here and be seated’ sign. Finally we flagged down a waiter and he told us to go to the area at the back of the restaurant to wait to be seated...... this is when we finally noticed that the real entrance to the restaurant is from the Harbourside shopping centre. Duhhhh! I really think that if they are going to have stairs and an entrance from down in the harbour, then they need to address this...

There were a lot of empty but reserved tables that we’d walked past, we were told that there was only one table for two available... whoops we’d underestimated how popular this place was and probably should have booked. We were escorted to our booth and presented with a menu.

Vapiano

http://www.vapiano.com.au/

Vapiano has been reviewed just about to death already but I still plan to add in my 2 cents as this was our first visit.

This restaurant is located in Albert Lane, a very cute extension off Albert St in the city, which contains several interesting and yummy choices for eating and includes one of my favourite shops, The Tea Centre (but that’s another story). 

We headed to Vapiano, keen as mustard, with 2 of our good friends for lunch on a Saturday. Upon entry you are presented with a card each. Instructions were to head to each counter for pasta, pizza or salads as we desired and to swipe the card when ordering. At the end of your meal you head to the front counter to swipe your card again and pay, this is a massive bonus if you have a group of people and need to split the bill. There is also a full bar inside as well in case you fancy an alcoholic beverage.