Thursday 27 October 2011

Funny Funny Res Pub


Funny Funny Res Pub
85 George St Brisbane City
2/5
I know I’ve been hitting up a lot of Korean places recently, but bear with me because there can’t be that many more left and my desire for chilli is surely on the wane.

 Funny Funny occupies the same place as the Lands Office Hotel used to be, on the corner of Mary and George streets, and as the name of the place suggests is a hybrid of pub and restaurant.
The place has, for a restaurant, a great funky setup; the gloss black walls are adorned with stylised white graffiti, contrasted by the pale wooden decor. Feeling almost like an edgier more hip-hop Madtongsan II which is probably its opposite more k-poppy outlet, which could perhaps be attributed to the pub aspect they’re going for. 

Like almost all of the Korean restaurants kicking around now, they have call buttons on the tables. However, an issue with the call buttons at Funny Funny is how loud they are; they make you feel like apologising every time you press one, compounding this is that even with the call buttons the service is slower than at other comparable establishments.

Food wise Funny Funny is alright, but it lacks anything that defines it especially from its competitors except for perhaps a general quality of tasting ever so slightly worse than its rivals. It’s not particularly cheaper than other Korean in Brisbane either and drinks are the same price as anywhere else at $6 each (for Cass or Hite) making it not a particularly appealing place to drink, although it does look like there are domestic Australian beers for cheaper than that. This obviously dampens my disposition in treating it like a pub and while there were a significant number of people there on the day in question, I feel that generally the bar/pub functions of the place are played down in favour of a more restaurant style menu, while unfortunately lacking a particularly strong restaurant aesthetic.

What is notable about the food is the serving size, with our order of Kimchi pancake being the size of a large serving plate, meaning we ended up ordering way too much food for the two of us, we also got “Nakgi Somyun” which was spicy octopus with noodles without realizing that it was also large enough to comfortably feed two people as well as a noodle soup that was a large single serving. In the face of this Everest-sized challenge, we proceeded to call in reinforcements to help finish off the mass of chilli and seafood that was present.

Overall, I think Funny Funny is alright and if you are up that end of town it’s an option, however, the other Korean options in this city are better, are comparatively priced and are probably worth the short walk to get to them.
Funny Funny is open lunch and dinner every day.
Our meals cost around ~$10-~$25 and the beers cost $6 each which at a place like this adds up quickly.

Thanks again to Theo for doing the editing of this review

Funnyfunny Korean Bar & Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Thursday 6 October 2011

Shabuhouse


Shabuhouse
Level 1 70 Mary St Brisbane
2.5/5
Shabuhouse has caught my eye for a while now, but with university obligations and a challenging living situation for the last few months I haven’t had the chance to try it out. I finally got a Friday free and after scrounging up a dining partner, it was the first place on my mind. Its promising premise was something I couldn’t ignore, being the voracious fan of hotpot that I am; always on the lookout for a new hotpot I haven’t eaten a dozen times before.

Shabuhouse has a great design; the heavy use of pine combined with fake potted plants gives it a fresh, clean appearance. The service, like many of the new Asian restaurants in this city, is great. Call bells on the table alert waiters and a particularity was their accommodation in serving outside their published hours (we ordered at around quarter past 3pm and their kitchen closes at 3pm).

As with all reviews, we must move onto the specifics, the Shabu Shabu (Wikipedia has more on Shabu-shabu), which is both disappointing and satisfying at the same time. The hotpots are served individually and surprisingly take very little of the excitement and energy out of the very social activity that hotpot is.
However, the shape of the pots used at Shabuhouse make the activity feel slightly cramped, there’s very little space to reach into the deep pots while trying to avoid being burnt.
Also disappointing was the use of frozen meat. In the scheme of things, being frozen or not makes very little difference, but the presentation of frozen meat makes you question its quality.
Other than those few complaints I could find little to whine about and thought the food was good, with the broth having the expected strong fishy flavour.

I will return to Shabuhouse very soon, partially because the love with illusion of place the decor creates for me, but also because it’s a cheap hotpot without having to go to Spring Hill (Bishamon in spring hill).

Shabuhouse is open Monday to Saturday for Lunch and Dinner.
Our meals cost $12.80 each for shabu shabu with beef. However, this is the lunch price and it is more expensive for dinner
Shabuhouse is BYO with a $2 per person corkage charge
Shabuhouse’s website is at http://www.shabuhouse.com.au

Shabuhouse on Urbanspoon 

Thank-you to Theo for doing the editing. I'm pretty dreadful at editing my own work.