West End Garden

West End Garden

190 Melbourne St South Brisbane

Value: Good

Quality: Good

Atmosphere: Good

View from outside dining area.

I’ve been to West End Garden before and my previous experiences might colour this review with a hint of nostalgia. West End Garden is sort of an institution – almost everyone has been there at least once  –  and the food is quite good. Usually what makes this place a warm memory in your heart is the history of dinners with good friends. This is the sort of place you can compare to your neighbourhood Chinese place growing up, where the food always tasted great until you moved out of home. West End Garden still has that hold over me, although I didn’t eat there until I was 19. I should really get on with the review itself.

West End Garden's major draw card is its outside area, which makes up 90% of the restaurant space. This area which is a tad tacky – it has a little water feature in the corner and is rimmed by fairy light –   but is very adaptable to different table sizes and seems quite conducive to sizable dining groups. This, provided you have the right company, usually results in great conversations and overall a pleasant experience. 

Vietnamese Duck

The staff here hasn’t changed in years; they still wear the “traditional” white dresses, and are still as attentive as they always have been. Really in general this place has changed little in the 4 or so years that have passed since I last went here. I’m pretty sure even the menu is still the same. The food was prompt, and was perfectly timed to coincide with us finishing our entrees. We ordered two dishes and shared them between us. The entree was spicy quail, a favourite of mine, which, though a little dry, carried a lovely flavour with the requisite refreshing spiciness. This was followed by the “Vietnamese Duck” which while it tasted like crispy skin boneless roast duck, came with fresh vegetables and what I’m pretty sure was sweet chilli sauce. The duck itself was cooked exactly right with just the right level of crispiness in the skin and juiciness in the flesh.  The vegetables while masterly cut to look wonderful, were just vegetables of decent quality.

West End Garden is open for lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday and is open only for dinner on Sundays and public holidays. Meals cost $6-$13 for entrees (the Spicy Quail we had cost $9.90)   Mains around $15-$36 with most meals being on the very less expensive end of the spectrum. The Vietnamese Duck we had cost $29.90 but was enough for two people. West End Garden also have many vegetarian options, which tend to be on the cheaper end of the spectrum as well.

Drinks start around the $5 mark for domestic beer and go up to $34 for bottles of wine (our beers which were Tsingtao’s cost $6, other imported beers are the same price. West End Garden is also BYO for wine only with corkage being $2.50 per person.

West End Garden have a Website with all their menus and their drinks list at www.westendgarden.com.au

Himalayan Cafe

Himalayan Café

640 Brunswick St New Farm

Value: Adequate

Quality: Adequate

Atmosphere: Good

I went here for the first review night in ages, and it was a good start to the program again.  Himalayan Café is extraordinarily popular – it appeared to be a full house on a Wednesday. Whether this is a symptom of being in New Farm or that people recognise that they are doing a good job is hard to say, but I would definitely lean towards the latter. The place has done a great job of making itself unique in its design and atmosphere, the bright colours and obvious Tibetan theme makes for a pleasant and interesting environment to eat in. The only complaint I have about the atmosphere is that we were next to the speakers in the restaurant and I could hardly hear my dining companions in conversation. Nonetheless, I am tempted to go back to the restaurant so I can check out the back room there with its apparently traditional Tibetan setup. The service was alright – it was really busy and at times it could be difficult to get someone's attention, – however this was entirely understandable, and the food usually arrived promptly. 

This brings us to the main course of this article, which is, naturally, the food. The best description I can think of the for the food here is that it is a distillation of the subcontinent curry idea. Indian curries frequently become confusing, with many clashing flavours and heavy flavours that can at times make them a difficult meal. The curries served here were far lighter in profile, with some sourness and chilli making up the dominant flavours. Portions were reasonably sized, although if they had been smaller I would have had some hesitation. The entrees were interesting too; if a little confusing (as in how should I consume this?). All the food was of a high quality (at least insofar as I could tell) with the goat dish surprising in its lack of toughness (a difficult trait of goat meat). The other dishes were interesting; however I didn’t eat enough of them to comment on any in particular.

Himalayan Café is open Tuesday to Sunday from 5:30pm to around 9:30-10pm. The main meals range from $15-$30 with entrees being around the $10 mark. Himalayan café is fully BYO. There is also banquet option for groups of six or more.

Himalayan Café does not currently have a website.  

By the way anyone who would like to join me on review nights there will be a Facebook event put up the days beforehand; however there will be issues with numbers which almost screwed us last night.

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

 

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