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.

Taro's Ramen Cafe

Taro’s Ramen Café

363 Adelaide St, Brisbane

Value: Good

Quality: Good

Atmosphere: Good

Uniqueness: Recommended (Its only real competitor that I know of is Ajisen; you can’t compare the ramen at Hanaichi or Kadoya to Taros)

Taro’s Ramen Café has been around for a while now and I’ve been frequenting the place since its opening, but have held off on reviewing it till now. Taro’s has quite a large menu (especially at dinner) but people really go there for one thing, which is Ramen.

When I first ate Taro’s tonkotsu ramen, their house speciality, it was like a magical experience. Each slurp reminding me of the great ramen I’ve had in Japan, the perfect noodle carrying its delicious life affirming broth down my throat and bringing with it the memories of great times had abroad.

This experience remained largely unchanged for a year, but towards the end of last year I noticed; the broth became weaker, the noodles softer and the servings felt smaller than they previously were. In my mind, I brushed aside these critiques as I felt that it was perhaps a side-effect of my growing familiarity with this ramen.

But, on a recent trip to Japan (visiting family) all my uneasiness rose again to the surface, as I had several bowls of ramen that blew my mind. I started to examine in my mind what I felt had changed. The noodles no longer picked up the flavour of the broth like they had and they gave in far too easily. The egg no longer tasted mostly of yolky pork and less of half a hard-boiled egg, and the velvety film of fat on the surface looked moth-eaten and pockmarked. I no longer felt like I needed a post-ramen shower to wash off the massive salt and fat overload that makes a tonkotsu so good. 

The decline in quality is why I have rated it Good instead of Recommended. By Australian standards the ramen is still a good tasty ramen and above the average, but in knowing what it used to be, it has lost its edge. It has become a toned-down, bland version of its former self.

 By way of physical specifications, Taro’s is a café so service is not really an issue. The food is fairly prompt and you can’t help the lunch line at a busy CBD café, although the move to self-serve condiments is a disappointing one that conspicuously coincided with the decline in quality.

The place is pretty barebones, which has a certain charm, but is very utilitarian in its laminex tables and cane wrapped steel frame chairs. The view of the story bridge and down onto river end of Queen Street bumps this up to a Good from an Adequate and the people-watching on Adelaide Street is fine enough if you can stand the traffic noise and fumes.

Taro’s Ramen Café is open for lunch and dinner 7 days a week; with the ramen mains costing around $15 (tonkotsu ramen costs $14.90). The presence of Japanese beers and alcohol is a big plus as many are quite rare in Brisbane. Domestic and light beers start at around $5-6, imported beers are around $7 and the price increases dramatically for particular shochus and sakes (not without reason). They do have sake tasting sets for those who are unfamiliar or want variety.

Taros have a website at http://www.taros.com.au/ which has all the menus and other details.

Cyber City 2012

Hey guys, in preparation for the relaunch and redesign I’m planning in a few months I’ve changed the scoring system. Now a restaurant will get a score in three categories (potentially in four), which will scale across four options in each category: Atrocious, Adequate, Good and Recommended, The four categories are Uniqueness (which will only be recommended or not present) and the three in the article below. Thanks for your patience while I try and get the time to redevelop the blog into more of a guide site for Brisbane in general.

2012 Cyber City

245-247 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley

Value: Good

Quality: Adequate

Atmosphere: Good

The new Cyber City caught me by surprise a couple of months ago. I had thought that it was a more general redevelopment of the whole Cyber City and that scared me – Cyber City 2002 has some good memories for all of us. I was relieved to find out it is still there in all of its unrenovated glory. Cyber City 2012 has moved into the space that used to be the arcade back entrance to the original.

Cyber City 2012 is sort of a mixed use place like its older sister next door. The front is dominated by a large bar that serves cocktails in vases (although most of the drink is mixer, what did you expect?) for a decent price. At the back of the restaurant are the tables with cooktops, and on the right hand side a giant public karaoke room, with a surprisingly easy and decent collection for karaoke in Brisbane. The place has a sort of “disco futurist” look with purple and blue lighting. The restaurant part is dominated by muted tan tones, which probably help keep you from losing your mind to neon while sitting down to eat.

Service is great in this place: it's overstaffed considering how many people patronise it, so waiting for attention is not an issue. The food is average, with several all-you-can-eat menus, plus an a la carte menu, all of which are not very inspiring. The all-you-can-eat skewers menu is an interesting addition to the Brisbane food landscape and is hopefully only the start of such ideas entering the consciousness of Brisbane diners. The place I believe is trying to turn into a table BBQ place, like the many that have succeeded in recent times. I personally believe the place has missed an opportunity to push the skewers into new and interesting territory, with most of the skewers being quite boring and cheap.

Regardless, Cyber City 2012 is a fun and casual place to have food, drink, and maybe a song. I should mention that it costs a small fee ($5 - $10, depending on the day) to do karaoke. I would come back here again if only for the novelty of drinking out of a fish bowl.

Cyber City 2012 is open every day, closing at 11pm on Sunday-Thursday and 2am on Friday and Saturday.  The all you can eat skewers are $20 pp with other all you can eat menus costing up to $40 pp, the a la carte menu goes from $10-$30 per dish with most dishes being on the lower end of the spectrum. There are many drinks available. The novel cocktails we drank are $9.90 each. Their card says they have a website at www.eatnplay.com.au however when I tried to load it, there was nothing.

Thanks To Hugh for doing the Editing on this post. I can't edit myself it just ends up being a bloodbath.

Maru Korean Bbq

Maru Korean BBQ

3/5

157 Elizabeth St Brisbane CBD

I noticed Maru’s appearance a few weeks prior to its actual opening. It’s located where David’s, a Chinese restaurant, was; just up from the Irish club. An addition to the already good downtown Korean scene, my anticipation for this BBQ place was palpable.

Like many of the new Korean places, Maru have done a great job in their fit out. The feel is a fresh, bright minimalism, which for BBQ works really well in accentuating the sociality of the dining.

A combination of light and dark timber fittings is paired against a rather spare, small tree in the centre of the room. My only complaint is probably due to the fact that they’d just opened, but the shelves above the bar were conspicuously bare.

Like almost all the Korean restaurants that have popped up in the last few years, the employment of table call bells ensure service isn’t an issue. Maru gets bonus points for also have what’ve been probably the quickest staff in existence.

Maru has a far shorter BBQ menu than its competitor up the street, but it contains all the important cuts and neither of the plates we ordered, pork jowls and sliced beef, came out frozen which is an obvious positive. The quality of the meat was good and on par with other major BBQ places.

Maru uses electric grill plates and although they take a while to heat up, they have the advantage over charcoal in that they don’t cool down, but they do lose that smell and flavour of charcoal that is as much a part of the experience as the flavour it imparts.

The sides that came out weer all of a good quality, my only complaint could be the lack of size in the lettuce leaves. This wasn’t too much of a negative, more just one of personal preference and could be considered a positive by those who do BBQ differently to me.

Maru is a great addition to the Brisbane food scene, the fact that at least at the moment it’s quieter, probably makes it my most likely eating destination, however I doubt it’ll be like this for long judging by my experience the other night.

Maru is open for dinner most nights

The plates of meat cost $17 each and there are combination plates available that make each portion cheaper

Maru is licensed and has a variety of Korean drinks available including HITE which cost us $4 per bottle. 

Maru currently don’t have a website

Thanks to theo for editing this post.

Ajisen Ramen

Ajisen Ramen

2/414 George St Brisbane

2/5

I was going to a friend’s gig down at tribal theatre on a Friday night and needed to eat something, I have been past this place several times before and thought that I would test it out sometime soon and this particular Friday night happened to be the night I had time and money. This was the second ramen place I had been in recent weeks with my first visit to taros only being a few weeks earlier so the memory of taros brilliant ramen hovered fresh in my memory.

Firstly Ajisen’s appearance is a lot better than taros cafe but then that wouldn’t be hard the only positive aesthetic about taros is the view from the deck eating area with everything else being quite practical and uninteresting. Ajisen ramen’s appearance on the other hand is quite detailed (nowhere near as well as Sono but better than most) the service was nice but because of my presence on the wall and the fact that I was eating by myself, meant that the wait for attention would usually be excessive.

The food was good; however in comparison to taros it was average but then again taros has exceptional ramen. Big differences between the two were that at taros the broth had a strong sweet flavour throughout even when only eating the noodle from chopsticks where at Ajisen the broth was barely present except when drinking it by itself. The noodles at Ajisen were soft and were more like instant noodles than ramen noodles elsewhere, which greatly disappointed me; the only recovering factor of the meal was the fact that I had an imported Kiran can next to my bowl. I wouldn’t return unless I was walking past the place and didn’t have the effort to cross town for taros.

Ajisen Ramen is open from 11:30am to 9pm most days

My meal cost $11.30 and my can of Kiran (500ml) cost $10

Their Website is http://ajisenramen.com.au/