Fish Kitchen, Dutton Park

On Thursday I went to Fish Kitchen in Dutton Park for lunch.  I had never dined there before, but many years ago the place was known as Rocky's Seafood, where I have had fish and chips on a number of occasions.  I don't know if Rocky's changed their name to the Fish Kitchen, or if someone bought Rocky's and then turned it into Fish Kitchen, or precisely what happened.  What I do know is that Rocky's was a traditional fish and chip shop, whereas Fish Kitchen is more of a seafood restaurant that also serves traditional fish and chips.  Anyway, when I got there I ordered my usual fish and chip shop fare:  battered cod, chips, and a potato scallop.  Before my food even arrived I was disappointed.  First, I was not asked if I wanted salt and/or vinegar, and when I sat down, I found not a salt shaker, nor even salt packets, but a poxxy little dish with salt in it.  Furthermore, when I asked for vinegar, I got a little tub with a small amount of vinegar inside.  This was a similar situation to the one I encountered at A Salt and Batter in St Lucia a couple of months ago.  I said it then, and I'll repeat it now.  If you serve chips, you should automatically add salt to them.  The onus is on the person who does not want salt to state this preference when the order is placed.  Failing this, you should ask your customer if they want salt.  Even failing this, you should provide salt shakers or at the very least salt packets to your customers.  A little dish with salt in it makes it very difficult for diners to evenly distribute the salt across their meal.  I swear that if this ever happens to me again, I'm going to start bringing my own salt and vinegar any time I go to get fish and chips.  All of this aside, at least the salt was of the good sea salt variety rather than simple table salt.  The food itself was for the most part quality however.  The chips were nice:  beer battered and a good level of crunchiness.  However, by the time I got to the last few chips, the salt and vinegar had dissolved the batter, rendering it soggy.  I can't recall a time that this has ever happened to me when the chips were otherwise quality.  The potato scallop was possibly the smallest I had encountered, but not insultingly small.  Unfortunately, the potato itself was a little underdone, but when it comes to properly deep fried potato scallops, I am not fussy.  As for the fish, I can't really fault the fish.  The batter was sound, crunchy, and held the fish together during the eating process.  The fish was well cooked and not flaky at all.  Despite the negative comments I have made, this was a genuinely good fish and chip shop style experience that could have been improved by correcting some very basic flaws.

Stellarossa, Toowong

On Tuesday I found myself in Toowong and wanting a light meal.  I wasn't extremely hungry and I thought some sort of rice dish would sate my desire.  I wandered around for a while and found that Stellarossa (an organisation with which I was not familiar) served risotto at what, in my opinion was a competitive price.  I don't think I've ever had risotto from a restaurant or cafe before, but it is a dish that I have prepared and enjoyed a number of times myself.  I ordered the mushroom and prosciutto risotto and was soon impressed.  It is my understanding that risotto is a difficult dish to master, and I believe that Stellarossa did a great job.  The rice was not soggy or gluggy and had really absorbed all of the flavours of the dish.  When I make risotto, the mushroom is just a filler ingredient.  But in Stellarossa's interpretation of the dish, the mushroom flavour really asserts itself.  The prosciutto was of incredibly high quality.  I can't recall a time I have encountered prosciutto this good.  The risotto was topped with Parmesan cheese, whereas when I make risotto, the Parmesan cheese is mixed in with the other ingredients.  I suppose that this is a case of six at one and half a dozen at the other, but it meant that by the time that I got to the last few mouthfuls, I had exhausted my supply of Parmesan, and missed its presence in the last few bites.  Had I been charged more for this dish, I would have felt that the portion was too small, but for its price, I think it was right on the money.  Given that this was my first restaurant risotto experience, I am curious to see if Stellarossa are masters of the dish, or if risotto can be enjoyed to this degree anywhere that serves it.  I guess I'll have to find out.

Gilhooley's, Brisbane City

Two Fridays ago I felt like treating myself so I went to Gilhooley's for steak.  There are a number of steak destinations I could have gone to but Gilhooley's was the easiest to get to.  The first thing that I like about having steak at Gilhooley's is that they are less rigid than some other venues about the side dishes you can have with your steak.  This being the case, I had the rib fillet (rare) with chips, mashed potatoes, and mushroom gravy.  When my meal arrived, the first thing I noticed was that all of the food was piled up on top of each other.  This was unnecessary.  It was not the case that there was so much food that this needed to happen.  Neither was it the case that the plate was too small.  However, this is more of an observation rather than a valid grievance.  Once I separated my food I was a little disappointed to see that there were less chips and mashed potato than I would have liked.  Had I known that the portions of the side dishes were so small, I probably would have ordered a bigger steak.  This is not to say that the portions were excessively small; just not as large as I think they should be from an establishment such as Gilhooley's.  Quantities aside, the quality was there.  The chips were on the thick side and were almost exactly the kind you would expect to accompany a good steak.  The mashed potatoes were also quality.  However, mashed potatoes is such a common household dish in Australia that I am of the opinion that if you are serving them in a restaurant, and in particular a nice restaurant, they had better be something special.  So while the mashed potatoes could have been better, they were certainly better than what I'm used to, and I'm really not that fussy when it comes to just about any preparation of potato.  When I first bit into my steak, I noticed a burnt, charred taste.  However, subsequent bites were free from this flaw.  The rarity of the steak was more or less to my liking, and overall one of the better steaks I've had in recent memory.  The mushroom gravy was low on mushroom and high on gravy.  This was not much of an issue because I ordered the mushroom gravy for its gravy content, not its mushroom content.  The gravy itself was slightly lacking in flavour, but once I added the right amount of salt and pepper, it turned out just fine.  So while I have some minor quibbles, this was a worthwhile celebratory meal.

Punjabi Palace, South Brisbane

Two Fridays ago, I ordered home delivery from the Punjabi Palace, possibly the longest standing Indian Restaurant in my neighbourhood.  The Punjabi Palace is possibly my favourite destination for curry.  This is due to not just the quality of the food, but also of their menu.  Unlike some other Indian restaurants, where I am usually partial to just a minor selection of their menu items, the Punjabi Palace offers several different kinds of high quality curries.  On this occasion, I was sharing with my parents, and was therefore afforded the opportunity to sample three of these curries.  I had chicken vindaloo, chicken Ceylon, and lamb palak, all medium spicy, with naan as an accompaniment.  I like the Indian approach to cuisine:  you take your meat of choice, and cook it in every herb and spice available.  Done correctly, this results in an excellent melange of flavours.  The Punjabi Palace did it correctly.  I will start by describing the bread.  Nine times out of ten, the bread is my favourite part of an Indian curry.  It absorbs the fine flavours of the sauce better than meat, vegetables or rice can.  Punjabi Palace's naan is quite similar to the naan you can get at most Indian restaurants, but this is OK as I rarely have had any negative experiences with this type of bread.  At the Punjabi Palace, and indeed many other Indian restaurants, the naan is almost the size of a dinner plate.  This suits me, because, as I have previously mentioned the bread is the most enjoyable part of a curry.  However, the largeness of the bread does mean that when you factor in the curry and the rice, you are getting a lot of food.  I was a little wary ordering the chicken vindaloo, as my last experience with vindaloo was a fiasco.  However, on this occasion, the vindaloo I received was almost exactly what I wanted.  It wasn't too spicy.  In fact I could have tolerated it to be a little more spicy.  The sauce was all that I wanted from a vindaloo.  The flavours of the tomato and vinegar were present, but not overpowering, and the melange of spices I previously alluded to were right on the money.  The chicken Ceylon is a coconut milk based curry and is quite unlike any other curry I have ever encountered. I suppose it was like a korma, but with coconut milk instead of yoghurt, and perhaps slightly stronger in terms of taste.  The sauce was smooth and creamy, and once again, the balance of flavours was just right.  As for the palak, this is a spinach-based curry, and I'm amazed how tasty the cooks managed to make something as bland as spinach taste so rich and satisfying.  It is worth pointing out that in all three dishes the meat was cooked to a high level of tenderness; the chicken dishes perhaps moreso than the lamb.  Overall, this experience cemented my opinion that the Punjabi Palace is one of the best curry destinations in Brisbane for all the reasons I have stated in this review.

Violetta Espresso, West End Markets, West End

Three Thursdays ago, I found myself in the West End Markets, and peckish.  I did not feel like a full meal, but something relatively simple.  Violetta Espresso fitted the bill.  West End is famous for its cafes.  Violetta Espresso is not one of them.  It is a down-to-earth cafe in a down-to-earth shopping centre; one of many across Brisbane.  So my experience was a down-to-earth one.  I ordered a toasted bacon and egg sandwich.  In my experience, this is something that is almost impossible for any half competent preparer of food to get wrong, and this occasion was no exception.  The bread was standard supermarket white bread, but I wasn't expecting anything more, and sometimes, supermarket white bread is all you need.  Both the bacon and eggs were cooked in a down-to-earth manner, and tasted as such, but again, sometimes this is all you need.  It came with barbecue sauce, which is not my favourite sauce, but I find that it combines well with bacon and eggs.  Other than the fact that this was a down-to-earth experience, the only thing worth remarking on was how the bread was toasted.  It could have been toasted just a little bit longer, as by the time I was taking my last few bites, it became a little soggy due to the barbecue sauce.  However, this was only a minor drawback, and for the most part, I was satisfied with Violetta Espresso's down-to-earth-offering.  As an addendum, I also ordered a pot of tea, but it came with quite possibly the largest cup in which I have ever been served tea.  This made it difficult to get my tea to milk to sugar ratio right, but it worked out fine in the end.

The Melbourne Hotel, South Brisbane

Three Sundays ago, I had accomplished all that I needed to do for the day by around lunch time.  I felt like fish and chips, but the mainstay local fish and chip shop, George's Seafood had recently gone out of business.  I reasoned that if I went to a local pub, such as the Melbourne Hotel, I could get a fish and chip lunch special.  I was right.  On Sundays, the Melbourne Hotel has a lunch special consisting of flathead, chips, salad, and a beer for a very reasonable price.  I was sold.  I ordered this special.  They gave me my beer and I sat down to wait for my meal.  The beer was of the low-carb variety, which I usually avoid, but as it was what came with the meal and was in fact beer, I drank it anyway.  When my meal arrived, I more or less got what I was expecting.  The pieces of flathead were perhaps the thinnest I have ever encountered.  I know that flathead is a thin cut of fish, but these were particularly thin.  However, there were three of them, so it wasn't really a problem.  Thin cuts of fish aside, this was your standard pub fish and chips.  The fish was coated in a crunchy batter; not even close to too soggy.  This suited me fine.  The chips were run-of-the-mill, but I wasn't expecting anything more than that, and even run-of-the-mill chips are fine by me.  The meal came with aioli, which was also standard, but at least it wasn't too "garlicky".  The salad was not worth remarking on because I didn't touch it.  In conclusion, this was the sort of fish and chips one would expect to get from a pub such as the Melbourne Hotel, and if you like pub fish and chips as I do, it was good value for money (as far as Brisbane prices go).

The Shingle Inn, Brisbane Square, Brisbane City

Previously in this blog I have expressed my desire to try a different preparation of eggs Benedict than that offered by The Newsroom Cafe.  The Saturday before last I did just that at The Shingle Inn.  The Shingle Inn is something of an icon in Brisbane.  I'm guessing that this is because they've been around for so long.  There seems to be nothing particularly special about it to me.  It's just one nice cafe of many.  On to the food.  I would describe their eggs Benedict as good, but could be better.  What I got was two slices of toast with ham in between topped with poached eggs and of course Hollandaise sauce. First of all, instead of having nice toast like Turkish bread or bruschetta, it was just regular toast, but at least it wasn't supermarket white bread.  The ham was nice, but I would have liked it to be slightly thicker.  The eggs were on the small side, but poached well.  My main criticism of this dish was that there was not enough Hollandaise sauce.  It was certainly a nice sauce, perhaps a little tangy for my tastes, but then of course Hollandaise sauce is supposed to be tangy.  The lack of sauce caused me to ration it out between mouthfuls.  This meant that I had a few bites of unspectacular dry toast with little to no sauce.  Don't let these criticisms lead you to believe that this was an unpleasant experience.  In fact, the contrary is true, but a little more sauce really would have lifted the dish.

Little Malaysia, West End

The Friday before last I had beef massaman from Little Malaysia.  I have reviewed Little Malaysia in this blog.  I have also reviewed beef massaman in this blog.  But I have never reviewed Little Malaysia's beef massaman.  So here goes.  I would have to say that on aggregate, Little Malaysia's beef massaman is my favourite.  Not all of the elements are perfect, but it's still the best I've encountered.  The only negative to speak of is that it is not spicy.  I'm not sure if an authentic massaman is supposed to be spicy, but I really think that a shot of spice would be a welcome enhancement to the meal.  Other than that, everything about it is great.  First, one has the option of a roti accompaniment.  I would normally prefer a slightly more absorbent bread, but the fact that there is dipping bread at all is a big plus in my books.  The sauce is on the thick side, which I prefer, and although lacking spice, it's not lacking anything else.  The beef and potatoes are cut finely and as a result, very tender.  Finally, the portion is very generous.  The dish does come with rice, but by the time I'm through with the bread and the beef and potatoes, I have no need for rice.  In conclusion, this is a dish that keeps me coming back to Little Malaysia.