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

Pho Vietnamese

Pho Vietnamese

12 Black Lion St, The Lanes Brighton

1/5

After a few days in Brighton I was taken to lunch by my brother who lives here, this particular time to a place called “Pho” who's main dish is the quintessential Vietnamese dish Pho. Now I know most of my Australian friends have eaten a great Pho purely because I’ve been there with them when we got it and naturally Australia is one of the best places to get Vietnamese in the world. So I headed into this restaurant with probably the expectation that would be impossible to meet, simply due to the fact that a massive population of Vietnamese people and access to warm tropical ingredients do not exist

The dining environmental was slightly disappointing having a bland boring feel lacking any energy and feeling like the kind of restaurant catering to people who don't want to eat Asian food. However the issue with this is the fact that Pho serves the most south east Asian dish possible as its main option, the Pho which with its combination of minty and lemongrass freshness combined with the spiciness of Thai chilli's doesn't suit the palette of those not looking for the south east Asian flavour profile. The only attempts at creating an environment conjusive to authenticity were negative, with the inclusion of wicker seats being nothing more than an uncomfortable inconvenience. The service in the restaurant was quite good, however it was surprising in the fact that everyone involved in the front area staff was European, this I believe has no bearing on the reality of dining its just contrary to all of my experience of eating at Asian restaurants in Australia.

Onto the most disappointing part and the most satisfying part of lunch, the food. Quite simply the problem with the food at Pho was that it lacked the potency that exists in so many Vietnamese dishes i've had in Oz. For starters we had summer rolls that lacked both the massive mintiness that every summer roll ive ever had has had or the underlying meat/seafood or vegetable flavours that make summer rolls more than just mint wrapped in rice paper, this was upsetting for me considering that I had never eaten summer rolls that tasted so bland in comparison. For a main I ordered the steak and brisket Pho which came out with rather nice meat in it but lacked the crazy freshness that every pho I have ever eaten before has, everyone who has ever eaten a pho knows that pho's are meant to taste like that first breath of fresh air after leaving the sauna. A relieving cooling dinner that fills you up without feeling the gluttonous bloating of eating a heavier meal. The Pho I had at Pho lacked that fragrance or feeling and the mint and chilli came out separately from the soup meaning I had to mix them in myself resulting in the unfortunate lack of mintiness absolutely required to make a Pho the achiever of its potential.

However judging a Vietnamese dish in Britain against its counterpart in Australia is a tad unfair as again the UK lacks a large Vietnamese population that Australia has, and while I would say to steer clear of a place that had this level of blandness in their Pho's in Australia I think the lack of competition in Brighton Vietnamese places works to their advantage and the fact that their Pho is passable creates a situation where the simple fact that it is Pho makes me want to go there again.

Pho have a website for their chain at http://www.phocafe.co.uk our starter cost approx 4 pounds and our mains cost around 8 pounds, there are vietnamese beers available for around 3.50.

Huong's

Huong's Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai
83A Vulture St West End
3/5
Huong's is an old favorite of mine, I've been there many times over the years and not once has it disappointed me. So when i organised this weeks dinner i had high expectations for similar quality food to the other times I had been here in the past. (Sorry to anyone expecting Korean, but the place i had planned on going to was closed) And Huong's again failed to disappoint me, with some of the best Vietnamese food i have eaten in the past decade. (I am of the belief that at Huong's the only food worth eating is the Vietnamese. But if you are better informed about the other dishes on the menu please enlighten me.)

Covering the environmental aspects of the dining experience. Huong's has a great vibe to it, being up a narrow set of stairs between a fruit shop and bakery. With the interior adorned with tacky red Chinese lanterns and fairy lights. These decorative aspects invoke both the stereotypes of 1980's Australian Chinese restaurants and in my eyes the restaurant scenes featured in many Hong Kong action films. Just quickly, the service at Huong's was especially prompt, having our requests fulfilled surprisingly quick especially considering we were in an isolated corner of the dining room.

Now onto the most important part of the review, the food. Beginning with entrees we ordered the Spicy Quail, Shrimp and Pork Cold Rolls and Sam Choy Bow. The Quail is standout in this situation being the most perfect Quail i have had anywhere in Brisbane so far. The main reason i thought it was so good was the fact that it was missing the trademark bone dryness that most Quails have in at least half of the meat. That's not even mentioning the slow build spiciness that made the dish so pleasantly interesting. The Cold Rolls are also worth special mention with the serving size being truly massive. On their own the Cold rolls were mildly unpleasant due to the overpowering flavour of mint. But when combined with the sauce they are served with the mint flavour is neutralised providing a pleasant if nothing else experience. The Sam Choy Bow, was nice but otherwise was an unmemorable dish.

Onto the Mains, for mains i had Beef Noodle Salad, my partners had a Beef Pho, and a Seafood Hotpot, i tried all these dishes and apart from the hot pot ( i had just eaten some of the Pho with chilli preventing me from tasting anything else) all were very fragrant and well balanced (again except the chilli added to the Pho by my dining partner). The Beef Noodle Salad had a remarkable fragrance, and flavour that more than anything else was refreshing and revitalising, that is all i can say on the flavour of it. The Pho was great with a wonderful interesting aniseed flavour in the broth that complimented the fresh flavours of the contents, and after the addition of chilli, had a delightful finish of heat following the recession of aniseed on the tongue.
Unfortunately the Hot pot was overpowered by the lingering of aniseed and chilli when i ate it and i was unable to formulate an informed opinion on it, however my dining partner assured me that it was quite good.

Overall Huong's has failed to disappoint on every occasion i have been there, and i will most assuredly be returning there in the future.

Our entrees cost between $5 and $10, with the most expensive entree almost being a meal in itself. Mains cost between $11.50 and $22.50 with two of the mains being on the lower end of the band.
Corkage is $2 a head and Huong's is BYO. There are several Bottle shops within walking distance of Huong's including The Melbourne Hotel bottle barn and the Boundary Hotel bottle shop.
Huongs have a website with a full menu on it at www.huongs.com.au and are open for dinner 7 days a week from 5:00 pm to 10:00pm