Main Course Food Precinct, University of Queensland, St Lucia

On Tuesday I was in a sandwhich type mood when my break from work rolled round.  Owing to my work pattern that day, I could not go to Physiol Eatery & Cafe which serves the ham and cheese sandwhiches that I like.  So I took a gamble on Main Course Food Precinct's selection of sandwhiches.  The only one that held any appeal to me was the egg and lettuce sandwhich.  I had slight reservations as it appeared not to have any mayonnaise, or indeed any type of condiment, but I was determined to have a sandwhich, so I bought it.  I also picked up a hash brown.  I know that hash browns and sandwhiches do not necessarily compliment each other, but such was my hunger that I knew a sandwhich by itself would not be enough.  I'll start with the hash brown.  All hash browns are much the same and this one was no different.  It was oily enough for my tastes.  It had a good, crunchy consistency, and delivered the flavour I have come to expect:  pretty much your average hash brown.  As for the sandwhich, my fears that it might be a bland offering disappeared when I took my first bite.  I tasted the presence of mayonnaise.  In the past I think I have avoided this sandwhich because I thought that there might be too much mayonnaise.  However, what I experienced was a very subtle taste that suited the sandwhich very well.  There was a good egg to salad ratio.  There was neither too much nor too little filling.  But it was really the conservative yet noticeable use of mayonnaise that made this sandwhich very enjoyable.  The egg was not as finely cut as I would have liked, and I would have preferred wholemeal bread to the multi-grain I received that day.  But these are only minor matters and subject to personal preference.  For something as simple as an egg and lettuce sandwhich, I think the  folks at Main Course Food Precinct nailed it; so much so that I went back there again the next day for another one.

Donini's Pizza, West End

The Friday before last I decided to get some pizza from Donini's.  I checked their website and they had an offer of buy two pizzas, get one free.  As I was planning on getting two pizzas anyway, I was effectively getting a free pizza.  The only drawback to this offer was that it only applied to traditional menu pizzas.  The traditional menu pizzas would not necessarily be my first choice, but I thought this offer was too good to pass up.  I ordered one bacon and egg pizza.  I have commented on this pizza before in this blog, and on this occasion, it was much the same.  In addition to this, I ordered one capricciosa, and one BBQ chicken.  The capricciosa was fairly standard:  ham, olives, and mushrooms.  The ham was cut into thin strips, which I liked as it made the ham slightly crispy.  The mushrooms looked overdone, but upon tasting them, they were not.  The olives were good, but for some reason I was expecting a higher standard from Donini's.  While this pizza was certainly satisfying, I felt a little more flavour, perhaps in the way of some pepperoni and/or anchovies would be a good addition to the pizza.  The BBQ chicken was not as good.  It was even more lacking in flavour.  It was basically just chicken, sauce, and parsley.  According to the menu, there should be red onions on this pizza.  Naturally, I ordered the pizza without this topping.  There was nothing wrong with any of the present toppings however.  It was just the case that these toppings alone were slightly lacking.  I feel that a more aromatic herb than parsley would have been appropriate.  Despite this lack in flavour, do not conclude that it was a bad pizza, just not as good as it could have been.  So while this was not the best experience I have had from Donini's, it was very good value.  Certainly better than inferior pizza chains.

Main Course Food Precinct, University of Queensland, St Lucia

For some time I have been aware that the refectories at the University of Queensland have offered breakfast muffins.  However, I have tended to avoid them as I believed that they would be of the "McMuffin" variety.  As a child, my grandmother would take me to McDonald's for breakfast quite regularly and I have fond memories of the McMuffins.  In recent years though, I have found McMuffins to be quite unappealing.  A couple of weeks ago, I observed someone eating a Main Course Food Precinct breakfast muffin and it actually looked pretty good so I made a note to myself to try one one day.  I did just that on Thursday and Friday last week.  On Thursday I had a bacon and egg muffin.  As soon as I felt it in my hand, pleasant memories of breakfast muffins came flooding back to me.  When I sat down to eat it I was pleased with how the muffin itself was cooked.  The egg was a little harder than I would like, but not overly so.  The bacon rasher was small and a little tough.  Overall the muffin was tasty enough and I was satisfied with the experience:  a simple bacon and egg muffin needs not to be anything special.  On Friday, I sampled the sausage and egg muffin.  First of all, I think the term sausage and egg muffin is something of a misnomer.  The meat one gets on a sausage and egg muffin does not match any type of sausage I am familiar with,  I would describe it more as a patty:  whether beef or pork I don't know.  Whatever you call it, I was once again happy with my choice.  The egg on this muffin was even more overdone than on the last, but I've been eating overdone eggs all my life, and I really do not have a serious problem with them.  Of the two muffins, I would say that the sausage (or whatever you want to call it) and egg muffin was better value, owing to the fact that the "sausage" was noticeably larger than the rasher of bacon.  I did feel that the presence of some cheese/and or sauce would not have gone astray.  It was for this reason that Tuesday of this week, I returned to the Main Course Food Precinct ordered similar muffins; this time with cheese.  I asked for some sauce, but apparently Main Course Food Precinct, unlike Physiol Eatery and Cafe, do not give out sauce sachets.  I was satisfied enough with the cheese even though it was clearly very low grade, but I'm yet to taste a cheese that I do not like.  My thoughts on the cheese as they pertained to my enjoyment of the muffins were "I could take it or leave it".  The cheese neither added to, nor detracted from my muffin experience.  Even though they are very humble, I am happy enough with Main Course Food Precinct's breakfast muffins, and am likely to continue ordering them to some extent in the future.  Furthermore, even though I do not hold high hopes, I may even go back to McDonald's if I happen to be near one one morning, and see if my feelings on McMuffins have altered.

Mick O'Malley's Irish Pub, Queen Street Mall, Brisbane City

On Wednesday I was resolved to have something nice for lunch.  Given that I had some errands to run in the city, I found this the logical place for my lunch.  I considered my options and decided upon O'Malley's as my destination as they offered a very appealing looking hamburger.  The first thing I'll say about O'Malley's is that it is a very nice pub in terms of decor and atmosphere.  It looks likes an idealised traditional Irish pub, and I really like the mood lighting.  Anyway, when I got there, the place was very crowded; more crowded than what one would expect for Wednesday lunch.  As I waited in line to place my order, I noticed that they had a number of specials on offer, one of which was a hamburger and drink deal for $12.90.  I was tempted by this, but decided that this burger would not be as good as their $19.90 burger, so I ordered the latter... or so I thought.  After I placed my order, I was only charged the $12.90 and thought to myself that I was lucky that the very meal I had been craving all morning was discounted and included a free drink.  Fortunately, this free drink was a Heineken which is certainly a decent beer, and in fact I would have been happy enough with a pot of XXXX.  Now the burger I thought that I would be getting contained according to the menu contained a home made beef patty, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayonnaise/chipotle dressing.  Naturally, I ordered it without the tomato or onion.  This was not the burger that I got.  First of all, there was no bacon and I could not detect any chipotle.  This lead me to conclude that instead of getting the set menu bacon and cheese burger that I thought I ordered, I got the inferior lunch special instead.  At least I hope this is the case because there is no way that O'Malley's could justify the usual $19.90 price-tag for the burger I had that day.  I'll start with the positives before I move on to my criticisms.  The beef patty itself was of reasonable quality, I'd have liked it to be rarer, but was not necessarily expecting the patty to be that way.  Lots of places that offer burgers bulk out their beef patties with filler ingredients, which I do not appreciate.  The only thing other than beef that appeared to be in this patty was some herbs, which was fine by me.  The bun was also reasonable; soft, large enough to accommodate the fillings, and covered in sesame seeds.  I wouldn't be surprised if O'Malley's got them in bulk from Woolworth's or somewhere similar however.  As mentioned before, there was no bacon and no discernible traces of chipotle.  There was a very small and completely inadequate amount of cheese.  Mayonnaise was the only condiment and again there was not enough of it.  Lack of condiments in burgers seems to be a recurring theme in this blog, and I would have to say that this burger had the least amount of dressing of all the burgers reviewed in this blog thus far.  Furthermore, the mayonnaise did not even compliment the other flavours of the burger, but at least it didn't ruin the taste all together.  The lettuce was of the variety that I do not usually associate with burgers, but that fact is really neither here nor there.  The chips were underwhelming.  Based on their prices, one would think that O'Malley's chips would be of a reasonably high standard, but they were simply average.  I'm not fussy when it comes to chips.  I'll happily eat underdone McCain's oven chips, but I really do appreciate good quality chips, so I was a little disappointed.  Vinegar did help a little though.  So, for a $12.90 burger with a free drink thrown in, this burger was a little disappointing.  If however, the burger I got on that day normally goes for $19.90, with drinks costing extra, Mick O'Malley is, in the words of Michael Caton in The Castle, "dreaming".

Makanan Indonesia, West End

The Friday before last I went to Makanan Indonesia for my usual end of the week meal.  On this occasion I ordered tofu with peanut sauce as an entree and beef rendang for my main.  The tofu itself was fairly standard, perhaps a little watery, but still good.  The peanut sauce had a good consistency and reasonably good flavour.  The main downside was that the sauce had obviously been refrigerated, whereas the tofu had clearly only just been cooked.  I'd have preferred that the sauce was warm, or at least room temperature, and unfortunately, there was not enough of it to accommodate the five or six rather large pieces of tofu.  I have reviewed a couple of beef rendangs before in this blog, and Makanan Indonesia's is probably the weakest.  Don't let that lead you to conclude that it was in anyway bad.  Whereas the other beef rendangs mentioned in this blog were of restaurant quality, I believe that Makanan Indonesia's take on the dish is more like what I might expect Indonesian home cooking to be like, and there's nothing wrong with good home cooking.  The rendang itself was on the dry side, whereas I prefer a saucy beef rendang that I can dip bread in.  On this occasion, I did have some roti to accompany my dish, and despite the lack of sauce there was enough oil for me to soak up with my roti.  I am of the opinion that for some dishes oiliness is not necessarily a bad thing, and that was the case this time.  The flavours of the dish had permeated the oil and I was content enough to dip my roti in that.  The pieces of beef were certainly large, which can sometimes mean that they are under cooked, but this time they were cooked quite well.  There was probably the most onion I have encountered in any beef rendang.  My opinion on onion is quite outspoken.  I think it makes food taste worse, but I can eat it if I have to.  Having said that I have enjoyed many many dishes with the presence of onion.  This is because I don't mind it too much if the onion has almost completely dissolved in the sauce and becomes indistinguishable from the other flavours.  This was for the most part the case on this occasion. However, there was a sprinkling of fried onion on top.  Luckily for me and Makanan Indonesia, they were fried to a crisp, so much so that they mainly added some crunch rather than flavour to the dish.  Overall, for a dry rendang, this was an enjoyable, if far from perfect meal.