One for the Waiters

The Weekend Australian published an extract of an article from The Observer in its magazine yesterday. It was all about waiters. I thought it was pretty funny, in particular this bit:

So try to be kind to your waiter or waitress. Every night, in a hundred different restaurants, some boorish customer is making the most of his only opportunity that day to tell someone else what to do. Appalling. He doesn't understand that news of his unpleasantness will be quickly semaphored around the room to other staff. Perhaps he will never realise that there was a reason why his steak was cold, his ice cream was hot and that tray fell on his head.

You can read the full article here, on The Guardian's website.

Eumundi Food Fest

There seem to be food events popping up everywhere over the next few months, which is great if you ask me. I've just found out that the Eumundi Food Fest is taking place on Sunday 13 July 2008.

I haven't been able to find out too much about exactly what will be happening during the day, other than "a celebration of top quality local food, wine and entertainment -
Demonstrations, talks, celebrity chef cookoff and more" (from eumundi.info). So drop the date into your food diary and I'll post up more information about the day when it's available.

Boireann Wines

I've been keenly following the improvement in Queensland wines over the last 5 years or so, and we usually go out to Stanthorpe at least once a year for a wine tasting trip.

The winery which is setting the standard for Queensland wine is Boireann. Although they only make a very small amount of wine (about 900 cases a year), the quality is excellent. Not only that, but they are finally getting recognition across the country, with both James Halliday and Max Allen glowing about the wines from their 2007 vintage.

The wines on offer in the 2007 vintage are a Shiraz Cabernet, Shiraz, Mouvedre Shiraz, Mouvedre, The Lurnea (a merlot/cabernet blend), Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Nebbiolo and Barbera.

The other thing about these great wines is their price. The 2007 wines are now available, with the most expensive being only $27. You'll need to get in quick though, as the limited production means they won't be available for long. You'll find an order form on their website. It's also worth paying the cellar door a visit next time you're in Stanthorpe (provided they haven't sold out).

Boireann Wines
26 Donnellys Castle Road
The Summit 4377
P - 07 4683 2194
E - boireannwinery@bigpond.com
W - http://www.boireannwinery.com.au/

Gay Bilson

One of Australia's most important and influential chefs, Gay Bilson, is coming to town to speak at the State Library on 24 April 2008. Digressions on Food is presented by the State Library as an opportunity to hear Gay Bilson's thoughts, with canapes and wine to be served afterwards. With her amazing influence on Australian cooking as a chef, restauranteur and author, it's sure to be a great way to spend a Thursday evening.

For more information, have a look at the State Library's website. Tickets are $43, available through qtix.

Gay Bilson - Digressions on Food
Auditorium 1, Level 2,
State Library of Queensland
6pm, Thursday 24 April 2008

Cafe Fuscia

I should start this post by letting you know that when it comes to pizza, as far as I'm concerned, less is more. Give me a thin, crisp base, with a couple of quality toppings and some good mozzarella, and I'm in pizza heaven (especially if there's a bottle of good Italian red on the table).

The zenith of my pizza world was found a couple of years ago in Naples. After wandering around some very dodgy parts of the city, we eventually found Da Michele, one of the most traditional Neapolitan pizzerias. Da Michele has been there for over a 100 years, and only serves two types of pizza - marinara and margherita (click here for a photo). Sure it sounds simple, but I could have stayed there all night, eating their amazing pizza and nattering on to the various strangers from all over the world who share your table, also in search of the ultimate pizza experience.

Luckily I found Da Michele before I my coeliac days, so the taste of its amazing pizza will be forever burnt into my tastebuds. Now I'm limited to a smattering of places that serve gluten free pizza, which brings me to Cafe Fuscia. I've already done a post about Cafe Fuscia, but it also happens to be the closest place that sells gluten free pizza. Not just any gluten free pizza, but good gluten free pizza, which can be very hard to find.

However, Cafe Fuscia's pizza menu isn't really one for traditionalists. The chefs at Da Michele probably wouldn't know where to start when faced with a menu that included Turkish (hommus, feta & roast pumpkin topped with lamb meatballs & a Moroccan sauce on a Turkish pizza base - $17), tandoori (chicken breast, mango chutney, cashews, snow peas & onion, drizzled with a mild tandoori sauce and minted yoghurt - $19) or Bali hai pizza (chicken breast with capsicum, onion, pineapple, spinach, snow peas and roasted cashews topped with satay sauce - $19).

After wading my way through these more modern takes on pizza, I eventually took the plunge with the five star beef (grain fed wagyu beef rump, mushrooms, roasted caramelised eschallots & baby spinach with a cracked pepper béarnaise - $22.90 with a gluten free base). This pizza was apparently crowned Queensland's best meat pizza in 2005, and after a couple of bites I could certainly see its merit.

As much as I'm not usually a fan of this take on pizza, it was pretty good. The beef was tender and tasty, the eschallots lovely and sweet, with the bearnaise as the perfect accompaniment. It was also a good, crunchy gluten free base. It was hard work to finish it off though - this is more like a meal on a pizza.

We also ordered one of the Mediterranean vegetarian pizzas without the olives or capsicum (eggplant, mushrooms, onion, feta & baby spinach - $18). Again this was a great, tasty pizza, with delicious mushrooms and grilled eggplant.

So if you're looking for a modern twist on a pizza, then Cafe Fuscia has twists a plenty. You can either take your pizza home, or bring along your favourite bottle of Chianti and eat in, as the restaurant is BYO. But if you're looking for a great, traditional margherita, whisk yourself off to Da Michele instead.

Cafe Fuscia
Corner of Audrey & Wardell Street
Enoggera 4051
P - 07 3355 9800
W - http://www.fuscia.com.au/

Pho Saigon

Finding ourselves at the Gold Coast for a couple of nights, I was amazed at how many restaurants there are in Broadbeach now. They pretty much cover every cuisine you can think of, and there are even a few BYO places.

Anyway I'd been lucky enough to have a big lunch at Harvey's, so I was really looking for something relatively light and healthy. We'd pretty much checked out most of the places on offer at Broadbeach, before stumbling upon Pho Saigon on Albert Avenue. It's right next door to the always popular Manolas Brothers Delicatessen (or MBD as its known around here).

Pho Saigon only had about 2 tables of diners when we arrived, but we didn't let that put us off, as we were determined to gobble down some tasty Vietnamese. The menu is pretty comprehensive, and also covers a few dishes from around Asia.

For entree, we ordered the Vietnamese hot & sour chicken soup ($5.50) and the vegetarian rice paper rolls ($10). The soup was tasty, but not exactly what I was expecting. There was plenty of tasty, tender chicken, together with a few vegetables and 5 or so chunks of pineapple. It was a good soup, but a bit too sweet for my liking. It really needed a bit more sourness and heat to counteract the sweetness of the pineapple.

The vegetarian rice paper rolls were very fresh, with good quality tofu and were served with a spicy peanut dipping sauce. There were four very good sized rolls, so this was a pretty filling start to the meal. We only just got through the four of them.

For mains, we went with a Vietnamese beef salad ($14.50) and the Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce ($7.90). There are plenty of mains to choose from, with the menu split up into categories of lemongrass & chilli, curry coconut milk & lemongrass, sizzling garlic butter hot plates, sizzling hot plates with satay sauce, ginger shallots with oyster sauce, beef noodle soup, egg/rice noodle soup, laksa, congee, vermicelli, rice dishes, stir fried noodle, salt & pepper, sweet & sour, vegetable and salad. None of the main courses are over $18, so they are all pretty good value.

Again, my main course was not what I was expecting. The beef salad was more like Thai salads I had eaten in the past. It consisted of strips of beef, with plenty of bean sprouts, some cucumber, red onion and a bit of chilli. The salad was served with a fish sauce dressing. It was ok, but left me disappointed - as with my entree, if the flavours had been tweaked a bit, it could have been much better.

Our other main was the Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce. Unfortunately when it came to vegetarian options, the menu was very limited. There were only three dishes listed on the menu under the "Vegetable" section. We asked the waitress if there was anything else, but were told that the three dishes were it. As good as the Chinese broccoli was, it's a bit hard to eat an entire plate of it.

Service was ok on the night we were there. Our bottle of riesling sat on the table for the whole meal, with no coolers in sight. A bit more friendliness and attention to customers would greatly improve the service at Pho Saigon.

Pho Saigon is licenced, with a limited selection of wine. Alternatively it's also BYO wine, with a bottle shop not far away.

Overall, our meals at Pho Saigon were ok. The pricing of the meals though makes Pho Saigon very good value, especially considering you can bring your own wine. If you're staying at the Gold Coast and looking for some good Vietnamese food, I think you'll find The Rice Paddy in Surfers Paradise a definite a step up in flavour.

What does all this mean? Solid Vietnamese food at good prices, with BYO wine.

food bling ratings
Food - OK
Service - OK
Ambience - Casual, with seating inside and out
Value for Money - Good
Wine - Licenced (a limited list) and BYO wine
Vegetarian - Very limited options

Pho Saigon
Shop 17B, Aria
Albert Avenue
Broadbeach 4218
P - 07 5592 3393
F - 07 5592 3340

Caxton Street Seafood Festival

Hanging out for a massive feed of seafood while wandering around listening to live music? Well take yourself along to this year's Caxton Street Seafood Festival, being held on Sunday 4 May 2008.

You can find out all the info about this year's fesitval here. This year, tickets are $15 and you can buy them from Ticketek, to save lining up on the day. $2 from every ticket goes to the Courier Mail Children’s Fund.

JJ Jackson

I've been lucky enough to eat at JJ Jackson's twice in the last week or so. You wouldn't guess it from the name, but JJ Jackson is a Korean restaurant in the city.

If you're fortunate enough to stroll in when the place isn't full (which isn't very often), you'll probably notice is the two video screens pretty much straight away. When we were there today we had Christina Aguilera featured for most of our lunch. I'd rather be watching a video screen than another boring restaurant wall, so its fine with me.

Anyway, we weren't here for Christina, we were here for the great Korean food. JJ Jackson has one of those handy menus which has a picture of most of the meals on it. It's great if you're not entirely sure what the octopus ball might turn out to be. At least you can get some kind of reassurance that it looks ok in the picture.

The menu offers a good selection of Korean food. If you are looking for something fairly safe, there's the Korean style marinated chicken fillet with vegetables on steamed rice ($10) or the beef stir fried udon noodles ($11). But if you're looking for something a bit different, then JJ Jackson is going to oblige. Try the octopus ball ($7), grilled eel with rice and salad ($19), BBQ beef with rice, kimchi, seaweed and flying fish eggs ($15) or the steamed pork hock with special sauce ($28).

Last time we were here for dinner I tried the Korean style marinated beef fillet with vegetables on steamed rice ($10) which was a good, tasty meal. Most of the meals are garnished with what looks like shredded beetroot, but I think its actually coloured vegetable noodles. Today for lunch I went for the Korean style marinated chicken fillet, vegetables and rice cake with spicy sauce on steamed rice ($12). Yes it sounds very similar to the beef fillet I had last time, and yes it tasted pretty similar. But it was a good meal, so I'm not complaining. The rice cakes though made for a contrast in textures, which always adds a little extra to the dish.

In my last few visits we've also ordered the Korean style marinated pork and vegetables with spicy sauce on steamed rice ($12), the vegetarian stir fried sweet potato noodles ($10) and the salt and pepper squid salad ($13.90) all of which quickly disappeared off the plate. The sweet potato noodles in particular were excellent, and not something you come across every day.

Most of the meals are served with kimchi, which I find severely addictive (luckily it only comes out in small dishes).

The best thing about JJ Jackson is the low, low prices. Most of the meals are between $10 and $12, and the servings are very generous. It's the perfect place for a quick lunch or dinner.

If you really want to round out the whole Korean experience, order some of the Korean alcohol. I've had the rice wine a couple of times now, with a tiro mixer, and it makes for a refreshing change.

Service is friendly and efficient. The staff here are more than happy to explain the menu (and the Korean alcohol) to make sure that you have a great meal.

Unless you aren't in a hurry, it's a good idea to book ahead. JJ Jackson can get very busy at both lunch and dinner, so don't expect to walk straight in and grab a table. Also, the meals are very generous. I'd be surprised if you could eat more than one of the meals off the menu, so its not the kind of place where you will spend hours lingering over your meals.

What does all this mean? Tasty, interesting Korean food at excellent prices.

food bling ratings
Food - Good
Service - Good
Ambience - Modern furnishings with music videos in the background
Value for Money - Top Shelf
Vegetarian - Limited

JJ Jackson Restaurant & Bar
Shop 4, 120 Edward Street
Brisbane 4000
P - 07 3210 0007

Kim Thanh

My search for great Vietnamese food most recently took me to Kim Thanh at West End.

The first thing you notice when you step inside Kim Thanh is just how big the room is. It's enormous. The next thing I noticed was the noise. We ate here on a Friday night, and it was very busy. The noise didn't worry me at all, I only mention it because its not the kind of restaurant where you should plan on a romantic dinner for two. On the other hand, if you're going out for a big group dinner, its perfect.

Once you sit down, you'll see that the menu is just as big as the main dining room. There is certainly no shortage of options, covering both Vietnamese and Chinese meals. My quick count of the items on the menu came to just under 200, and that's not including the specials up on the wall. So there's no excuse for not finding something tasty.

Anyway, we were here to eat Vietnamese. The Vietnamese entrees include spring rolls with salad or rice vermicelli ($6.50/$6.90), Vietnamese pancake ($6), deep fried quail ($6), rice paper rolls ($11.50) and a variety of rice noodle salads.

We ordered the bbq pork with rice vermicelli ($8.90) and the deep fried spring rolls with rice vermicelli ($7.90). The bbq pork was of the traditionally deep fried variety, chopped into chunks which were served on top of the salad. It was ok, without being memorable. On the other hand, the spring rolls were very good, filled with tasty vegetables. The salads were served with a fish sauce dressing (which is optional for the vegetarian salad).

There are so many options for main course I won't even try and summarise them all. The Vietnamese section of the menu covers seafood, pork, beef, chicken, duck & vegetables. The dishes which tempted me were the combination seafood steam boat ($38.50), braised scallop with kai-lan ($13.80), chilli prawns in hot pot ($13.80) and the crispy skin chicken, fried kai-lan and special sauce ($10.50).

I ordered the braised prawns with kai-lan ($13.80). This was a pretty generous serving, with clean flavours, so as not to overwhelm the prawns. The crunchy kai-lan was a good match with the stir fried prawns (of which there were plenty). I'd eaten so much of my salad for entree that it was hard work finishing off this main course. I probably enjoyed my main course more than the salad, mainly because I don't come across kai-lan as a star ingredient very often.

We also ordered the mixed vegetables with rice noodles in tom yum soup ($6.90), which was delicious. It was a huge serving, and although it wasn't chock full of vegetables, it was extremely tasty. The tangy, spicy and hot flavours all combined well to make this dish a winner. Even though we were both full by this stage, I kept slurping away at this soup right up until our meals were cleared away.

Service at Kim Thanh is of the efficient, no-fuss variety. We had hardly ordered when our entrees came out, and we had no trouble catching a waiter's attention whenever one was needed. The staff however were very concerned at the start of the night when my wife showed up at the restaurant by herself, offering her the use of the restaurant's phone to find out where her non-existent date was. Apparently they weren't entirely convinced when she explained I was just at the bottleshop buying some wine.

On the basis of this visit, Kim Thanh offers dependable Vietnamese food, with the option of ordering off an enormous Chinese menu as well. It was very popular with big groups on the night we ate there, so be prepared for a bit of noise. Kim Thanh is both licenced and BYO, and there is a bottle shop about 20 metres away, which is pretty handy.

What does all this mean? A big Vietnamese and Chinese restaurant, serving a huge menu of well-priced food, with no-fuss service.

food bling ratings
Food - Good
Service - Good
Ambience - A big, fairly noisy room, with not a lot of decor
Value for Money - Great
Wine - Licenced and BYO
Vegetarian - Great

Kim Thanh
93 Hardgrave Road
West End 4101
P - 07 3844 4954
W - http://kimthanhrestaurant.com.au/kimthanh/

Kitchen Nightmares

Although Food Safari is still my favourite food show on TV at the moment (even if it is repeats), I've been finding Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares pretty entertaining.

When I was living in London we were lucky enough to have dinner at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, his Michelin three starred restaurant. It's still far and away the best food experience I've had anywhere, so he sure knows how to put a restaurant together.

Anyway, Kitchen Nightmares makes for great TV - Gordon is never short of an opinion, and keeps nagging away at the poor chefs and owners until they see the light (ie his ideas). My favourite part of every episode is when the chefs cook their first meal for the great Mr Ramsay. Usually they are completely petrified.

Although it pretty much sticks to the same formula every week, Ramsay's personality carries the show. If you haven't seen an episode, tune in on Channel 9 at 8.30 on Thursday nights. Be warned though, Ramsay swears a lot, but it just adds to the appeal of the show for me. There is also Kitchen Nightmares USA on Tuesday nights at the same time, but I can't stand the American series.

Here's a link to last week's episode, if you haven't seen it before. Plenty of the episodes have been posted on YouTube if you've missed them.