Tonight I caught up with Mike, Marie, Matt, Aaron and Suhail for dinner before I head overseas at the Spanish Tapas Bar. I had never been there before, but thought it would prove to be an entertaining evening. Located in the busy Brunswick Central, the Spanish Tapas Bar does not strike you as a very different restaurant from the outside. It, like many of Brunswick Central’s other tenants, have tables both outside and in, but considering Brisbane nights have proved a little chilly recently, we opted for a table inside.

The restaurant does serve several types of mains, but it was more fun and definitely more social to order a variety of different tapas to share. The menu has a great selection of both hot and cold tapas and several platters that reduce the difficult choices you have to make when selecting which tapas to order. Between the six of us, we had a really large variety of tapas including several different croquettes and empanadillas, calimari, sardines, chicken and lamb kebas, fried spanish cheese (Queso Frito), Spicy Potatoes served with Aioli and a traditional spanish potato and chorizo omolete. Listing them all out seems like we really pigged out, but after splitting each dish between the six of us, typically meant about one mouthful of food from each dish.

The food was excellent and there was not one tapas that I did not enjoy. The best dish for me was probably the fried spanish cheese because it had such a strong flavour and I enjoyed its unique texture, combining the gooey insides and the crisp outer shell of the tasty cheese. You are unlikely to walk away from the Spanish Tapas bar completely stuffed unless you order a main (such as the Paella) or plenty more tapas, but you will definitely walk away marvelling at the wide assortment of flavours that you had just consumed.

Details: Spanish Tapas Bar
Found on: 455 Brunswick Street (Brunswick Central)
Contactable via: 3257 3138
Highlights: Great variety of many different tapas that were all very tasty. It was also quite refreshing to have a tasting of Sangria as you were seated. The tapas comes out quite quickly after ordering.
Room for improvement: The restaurant’s ambiance did not feel strongly spanish, and the wait staff’s attentiveness to the table after you have ordered could be improved.

Last night I had dinner at this charismatic cafe nestled at the bottom of a staircase in a rather non-descript building you can find on your way down Edward Street towards the Botanical Gardens. This little gem seems appropriately located right next to the Metro Arts centre, an organisation that supports the (generally younger) up and coming talent of Brisbane’s art community. There are not many tables so booking in advance for a large group is advisable (at least on a Thursday night).

The placement of the tables gives the cafe an appearance of being larger than it really is, but it never feels like the cafe lacks character with the constant chatter from all the tables and the art for sale covering the walls all adding to the atmosphere. The menu is decently priced with filling meals averaging $15 and plenty of non-standard and sumptuous options for vegetarians. Even though the restaurant does not have an open kitchen, the number of flares you hear from the kitchen at least assure you that the food is being cooked as it is ordered.

The herb bread for $2.9 was a bargain that started the meal for the two of us, that was then followed by the Brandy Tortellini (Spinach & Fetta tortellini in a cream, pine nuts, sun-dried tomato & Brandy sauce) which I did not get around to finishing. A great little haunt tucked away in the middle of Brisvegas and highly recommended for when you want to try a cafe with a bit more character a lot less shine.

Details: Verve Cafe
Found on: The Basement of 109 Edward Street
Contactable via: 3221 5691
Highlights: A cosy, busy atmosphere that is hard to find in Brisbane, especially in the city.
Room for improvement: Finding the bathroom is straight forward once you navigate the maze of stairs that confront you.

It had been a while since I caught up with Cherie and Matt so we headed out to have lunch at a place that we new to both of us down in Southport. Nestled at the back of a bunch of shops on the corner of Cotlew St and Bundall Road, the Teppanyaki Cafe is a great way to eat affordable teppanyaki down on the Coast.

Although this cafe is by no means large, they still have a decent number of tables but I still suggest that you book for larger parties, so you do not get disappointed. Lunch was fairly busy and the three of us ended up sitting up near the Teppanyaki grill where you could watch the (non Japanese and rather apathetic) chef prepare the teppan meals, an experience that you normally pay more for at the more spectacular and upmarket Japanese Teppanyaki bars.

Eleven dollars was enough to get us a full teppanyaki set, starting with a traditional Japanese salad, miso soup, then followed by the chicken and vegetable grill and rice, and finally finished off with a scoop of ice-cream. Their lunch menu also offers a wider range of Japanese food including your typical tempura, katsu curry and sushi. Food hot off the teppan grill is guaranteed to be great and we were definitely not disappointed there.

Details: Teppanyaki Cafe
Found on: Shop 8, 201 Ferry Road, Southport
Contactable via: 5591 7155
Highlights: Teppanyaki style Japanese at really affordable prices. The freshness of the food is obvious to all customers.
Room for improvement: You will probably never see the spectacular food throwing chefs you find at the more expensive Japanese restaurants, but for the price it’s still not a bad deal.

Tonight I caught up with Hamish and Kate for dinner at the relatively new Jaz Restaurant and Bar in Toowong. Situated where The Malaysian Experience used to be, Jaz reintroduces the unique stone grilling meals back to Brisbane all inside a fashionably modern setting (Hamish tells me of a place in The Ville near UQ that no longer exists that also served this). The novel stone grilling approach involves providing each diner with a heated stone block that continues to provide enough heat to cook a selected piece of meat throughout the entire meal. Although the stonegrill experience is what most people select when they go to Jaz, their menu still offers enough of a diverse range of meals to satiate any sort of appetite.

I started the meal with their garlic bread and was pleased to bite into the crisp bread pieces and encounter the sufficiently salty and strong flavour of their garlic butter. Soon enough I was cutting up pieces of prime rump to be seared on the stone grill in front of me that continually radiated with extreme heat throughout the meal. Each stone grill meal is accompanied with either roast vegetables or a salad and chips, and the consensus from all parties last night is the recommendation of the salad and chips as we were all surprised by Kate’s roast “vegetables”, consisting of a single roast potato chunk and a few small carrot and pumpkin pieces. Although you can get bigger steaks elsewhere, I was pretty satisfied by the quality and tenderness of the rump. It seems that the restaurant also expects this to be pretty consistent since the only utility they provide for slicing pieces off your meat is a butter knife.

Details: Jaz Restaurant and Bar
Found on: 80 Jephson St, Toowong
Contactable via: 3870 1111
Highlights of the place: Who wouldn’t want an individual sizzling platter where you can slice and sear your own bite sized chunks of meat? The menu seemed to have an affordable yet diverse range of dishes that should appease most people
Room for improvement: Though modern, the atmosphere still seemed a little excessively sterile but may improve as it becomes more popular.

July 2004 saw Brisbane welcome the latest sister restaurant (named the same) of the apparently very popular Mecca Bah, first opened in Melbourne. Its Middle Eastern theme heavily influences all aspects of its new home situated at The Emporium in Fortitude Valley, from its oddly shaped yet vastly fashionable indoor and outdoor eating areas, the intricately decorated plates, bowls and dishes and finally its food and cocktail menu.

Although open for some time (or maybe because of it), this restaurant, that does not take bookings, is still hugely popular, with a living testament being a decent sized queue waiting to be seated through our entire evening there on Saturday night. The menu offers enough variety not to overwhelm, with decently priced main meals ranging from several types of tangines (casserole-like dishes), various middle eastern grill and (stick-style) kebabs both served with couscous as well as a good variety of turkish pizzas. They do offer starters (which we did indulge in) but we skipped their dessert offerings.

Dishes from all sections of the main menu were ordered by all. The Moroccan spice calamari with Turkish bean salad was extremely tender and my swordfish kebab packed full of flavour from its Middle Eastern spices went down a treat with its couscous salad (though not at all very spicy as described on the menu). The tangines were apparently okay, but the most striking dishes of the night had to be the uniquely shaped and great value for money Turkish Pizzas, enjoyed by all those that ordered them but could not be finished by them.

Service was pretty good especially considering the restaurant reached full capacity early on. Our waitress was extremely polite and responded extremely well to a number of our questions.

The Kua Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

I ended up having dinner at the new Wagamama restaurant at the Emporium in the Valley tonight (courtesy of Suz and Al and a very entertaining evening with a friend of their’s, Josh- thanks guys!). I had heard good things about the other members of this chain (mainly centred in Sydney and Melbourne for Australia, but with many other numerous locations around the world), but was sad to leave the Brisbane one with a lot of my expectations shattered. Read more “Wagamama Wa Sugokunai Desu Ne!”