Pjs Steaks

PJ's Steaks

2/173 Boundary St, West End

Value: Good

Quality: Good

Atmosphere: Adequate

Uniqueness: Recommended

I don’t tend to go to West End much at the moment, so I noticed PJ's only the other day. I was initially surprised to see a cheesesteak place in Brisbane, but on reflection I was surprised I hadn’t seen one sooner. Brisbane has seen a boom of American diner-style venues in the last couple of years, with Blue Smoke then Carolina Kitchen and now PJ's. Brisbane has got Yankee fever, and while this is definitely not a bad thing (I love American comfort food as much as the next man if not more so), its certainly an interesting phenomenon. Despite the New York Giants banner hanging in the window, PJ's steak house offers one of the more (in)famous of American regional comfort food specialties, the legendary Philadelphia cheesesteak. This, and variations on the same base, are all they offer.

PJ's appears to be run by three or four Americans, and they’re pretty sociable and easygoing, at least as far as I can tell. When it comes to atmosphere, PJ's is nothing special; it's basically a grill inside a hole in the wall. This adds some charm considering what they sell, but it’s mostly utilitarian in the same sense of all casual food joints. The staff make PJ's a pleasant place to be with a positive attitude and a promptness not often seen in casual fast food chains. The fact that they sell beer may help with that, including some American beers that aren’t merely piss-coloured water. Brooklyn Lager is particularly good.

A cheesesteak is almost exactly what it sounds like. It's shredded steak covered in melted cheese (unfortunately not Cheez Whiz) in a long roll. Add some condiments generally, mustard and ketchup( I prefer the term tomato sauce or t-sauce but context allows some  Americanisms) and voilà  you’ve got yourself a monster (in a good way) of a lunch. It's very tasty, but how can melted cheese and steak not be tasty? It must be said that, while delicious, the food here tends to be quite greasy as comfort food tends to be. Regardless of any criticism, PJ's serves a great sandwich that epitomises all that is good about American food, and I recommend you get one soon.

Pj’s Steaks is open 11am-10pm

The Original Cheesesteaks we ordered cost $9.90 and they go up to about $15 Beers start about $6 and go up to $9

They don’t have a website currently however they do have a facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/PJs-Steaks

El Torito

El Torito

146 Boundary St West End

3/5

El Torito has to have the honour of being the only Mexican place in town that isn’t fast food or rubbish; it does well in this regard and is all round a very good place to eat it’s also BYO including beer which is always a fantastic thing. It being the first Thursday in a while that I’ve had money to afford dinner meant that I had to go to dinner, so I called on some reliable friends for a meet at west end. It has been a few years since I last sat down at El Torito, last time I ate there the food was quite nice, but lacked a particular intangible that I can’t quite remember or determine. This time the stars lined up and the meal was fantastic.

The decor of El Torito is bright and energetic, it uses the long narrow space it has for a dining room effectively, it’s not a romantic dim private place it is an exciting, fun place with plenty of noise. The bright warm coloured walls covered in sombreros and pictures of Amerindians gives the place an electric feeling, that the food is bound to be exciting and generous. The service in El Torito is pretty regular, with the only way to be served being essentially demanding it; however they do get kudos from me for letting us stay for almost an hour after everyone else left.

Onto the most important of things, El Torito makes fantastic food; this place isn’t a suburban Tex-Mex place with 14 year olds in the kitchen, it’s a place that makes what tastes, feels and smells like genuine Mexican food (not being entirely melted cheese and oil). Our table had a few entrees and then a main each, the entrees all featured beans, which in hindsight was a genius decision considering they were all fantastic, the Beans Tostada has particularly stuck in my memory due to its great balance. Of the mains I only had the opportunity to try my own, which was a chorizo burrito and a friend’s which was the Tinga Poblana. Both of these dishes displayed an amazing level of balance and a great texture; however the lack of overwhelming defining flavours can make the meal feel boring to those uninterested in the combination of flavours.

 I would recommend El Torito to anyone especially to those who have negative views of Mexican restaurants due to the suburban monsters that ruin an entire cuisine for people.

El Torito is open for dinner most nights

Our entree’s cost $5-$10 and our mains cost ~$20 each.

El Torito is fully BYO with Corkage costing $2 per head

El Torito is Vegetarian Friendly.

Little Greek Taverna

Little Greek Taverna
1 Browning St West End
2.5/5
Little Greek was selected as the first scheduled dinner of the year due to couple of factors, my friend was playing down the road at music kafe and I’d heard good things. So 10 people sat down for dinner at 7:30 on a busy Thursday night, the frenetic pace of the evening and the fact that we had such a large group may go some of the way to forgive the sins I’ll describe later on.
To start on something that much like the decor is so benign and mute, I’ll start on the dining environment. As I just said the dining room felt boring and uninspired, giving the place a feeling of everything being placed purely for practicality, admittedly though we were seated right next to the kitchen and front counter. However I do believe this a massive failure as most other Greek restaurants manage to give some sort of cool energy in their dining rooms.

Onto the most important part, the food! This was the sole redeeming feature of the restaurant, as a table we ordered three Platters of food, two of the “Northern Greek” platters consisting of a Variety of Souvlaki, spicy beef patties called “Beeftekia”, pork sausage called “Seftelyes” and some dips and salads, the other platter being an “Aegean Seafood” set which featured a lot of seafood, but I didn’t get to try due to my presence at the opposite end of the table besides little Greek claims to be a restaurant whose dishes are inspired and drawn from northern Greek cooking which clashes with a predominately seafood platter. Couple of problems with the platter though, at any other Greek restaurant an order of dips would naturally come with Pita bread, not at little Greek and while the dips were incredibly good in my opinion (especially a pink one which I have no idea what it’s made of) the lack of pita in the platter is an irritation at best.

The food is of exceptionally high quality especially considering the price and is up there with the best of Greek I have eaten, however and I can’t believe I am saying this, the complete debacle that was the service (both the front staff and the kitchen staff) was nigh dinner destroying with the dishes coming out seemingly at random, raising concerns at the table that our entire meal had come out or not. Not helping was the wait staff where only one person seemed to know what was going on with our table leading to confusion, and questions about our food were treated with rude dismissal to the point of having to ask for bread for the dips at least three times before we received any. The platters for both ends of the table coming out at completely different times as to create a situation where one end of the table had finished their meal as the others waited for the second half of their meal. This is probably the only time where service has negatively impacted on the dining experience for me. I would recommend going back to this place however I think the optimal number is 4 or 5 people not the 10 we had for this dinner.

The Northern Greek Platter cost $65 each and is intended to feed 4 people, however 6 of us ate two platters and felt slightly underwhelmed. The Aegean Seafood Platter costs $80 and feeds 4.
The individual dish menu ranges from approx $5 to $15 with the appetisers in the $8 or less range. There are a variety of vegetarian options available
Little Greek Taverna has a website at www.littlegreektaverna.com.au with a full menu available.
Little Greek Taverna is BYO with a Corkage charge of $2pp

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

Makanan Indonesia

Makanan Indonesia
59 Hardgrave Rd
0/5
At first glance Makanan Indonesia looks like my kind of place. An old room opening straight onto the road with plastic everything and the wait staff consisting of a single old guy sitting in the corner reading the newspaper, the only thing i like more is a Chinese restaurant that hasn't been changed since 1987. So upon sitting down the wait staff, ask me if I'm dining in. I am, this being a good sign considering that it is 2:30 in the afternoon on a Sunday. Due to the fact that i haven't eaten Indonesian food before (at least not in the non-dried noodle form) I ask the waiter/owner?, what on the menu is distinctly Indonesian, and upon suggestions i order an entree and a main. The Entree was a Bala Bala which is some kind of mixed vegetable patty, and the main was fresh potato crisps with bits of chicken and covered with a sticky sweet sauce.
One Word can describe all the food i ate that day, Oil. I'm pretty sure its because my lack of knowledge resulted in me ordering the two most oily dishes on the menu, but the level of oil in both these dishes made an oil well look dry. The entree came out very promptly, even feeling quick considering i was dining alone. Aside from the oil the Entree was nice enough, and the sauce accompanying it blended well with the flavours in the patty. The main was massive and came with rice and the while i couldn't fully appreciate the flavours of it due to the oil, the sauce seemed to have an interesting flavour, especially when combined with the bits of chicken and some rice to draw the oil away.
While i believe this visit was unfruitful, i believe that i will be visiting this place again to try something else in the hope that i accidentally stumbled across the two most oily dishes on the menu.
Makanan Indonesia is open for lunch and dinner Tuesday to Sunday, BYOB, and is halal.
The entree cost 6.50, the main cost 13.5.


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