Le Reve - Japanese ingredients and French fusion cooking

http://www.lereve.com.hk

Fusion is a term that's going out of fashion if you listen to some chefs, it's a term that's reluctantly used to describe the blending of cuisines. Others wear the term with pride, looking to purposefully blend cultures, cuisines and ingredients, constantly challenging themselves to come up with something new, something indescribable, something totally delicious.

You might not hear rising Japanese chef Ryogo Ozawa specifically use the term fusion anywhere, but the technically brilliant chef has perfected the art of blending traditional Japanese ingredients with innovative French cooking, a blending that he calls French cuisine, new style.  Having worked at three Michelin starred L'Assiette Champenoise in Reims, Chef Ozawa has created a menu that is both technically brilliant, visually stunning and most importantly, wonderful to consume.

Le Reve has only been open for a few months, but the contemporary French restaurant is the culmination of five friends' vision and dreams.  The five friends were all students in the UK, traveling the continent and consuming all of the delights that Europe has to offer, when the idea of one day opening their own restaurant.

Oh how those boys must feel now that Le Reve is open.

127 Bar and Bistro - another CBD restaurant that just made my favourites list

http://www.bar127.com.au/

I've mentioned many times in my blog that I'm a 'city-slicker', which is a term I don't really like but describes me pretty well.  I live and work in the CBD and love every minute of it.  Working in the CBD with offices in a couple of different locations means that I often walk from one end of the city to the other for meetings.  This has two impacts, it helps keep me fit and slim :) and it means that I often walk the city streets and get to see the subtle and not so subtle changes that happen in Brisbane every day.  My most common route takes me up Charlotte Street, which leads me to the point of this blog.

I'd been watching with interest over the last few years as a new apartment block called the Midtown slowly take shape.  I always pay attention to new apartments, you never know when a beautiful new home becomes available, but also because most buildings going up nowadays have some sort of cafe or restaurant attached.  I walked by 127 Charlotte Street hundreds of times watching and waiting, waiting and watching before something started to take shape.  The space in 127 Charlotte didn't look too big, so I naturally thought that it would be a small cafe, servicing the apartments above.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I received an email inviting me along to the opening of an exciting new bistro in the city and was delighted to see that it was the little spot in Charlotte Street, now called 127 Bar and Bistro.  This post is not about the opening part for 127 Bar and Bistro, although I went along with over a hundred guests to welcome in the opening of Brisbane's latest inner city dining spot and had much fun and frivolity.  MC Sofie Formica did a wonderful job keeping us all entertained, while head chef Travis Crane impressed the crowd with an experimental dessert buffet.  It was a sight to behold and I will sneak in a couple of photos from the party at the end.

BlackBird Bar & Grill - I fell in love with this place!

http://www.blackbirdbrisbane.com.au/

It's not too often that I'm completely blown away by a new dining experience but I really love it when it does happen. There have been a few notable restaurants abut Brisbane that I've checked out shortly after opening and have known, just known that they would be come institutions.  

Black Bird Bar and Grill has only just opened it's doors, but it's already gathering a reputation as one of the most exciting new restaurants in a number of years.  I'd been keeping my ear to the ground and heard quite a bit about the old Rugby Club site over at Eagle Street and in particular the hype surrounding the new venture by the Ghanem Group.  Most of the hype revolved around the plush makeover of the site and the acquisition of star executive chef Jake Nicolson, a two Michelin starred chef who had worked at some of London's best restaurants the Ledbury and the Square, not to mention some time at Spain's elBulli.

I'd also been getting the lowdown from one of my work colleagues, JH, who had already been to Black Bird a number of times and seemed to be quite well acquainted with the team.  JH had been quite lavish in her praise of the menu and Executive chef Jake Nicholson.  In fact, by the time we eventually booked a table, I felt as intimately in tune with the Black Bird menu and offering.

Pop Up Series - Howzat Burger

https://www.facebook.com/HowzatBurger

A funny thing happened during the week, one of Brisbane's best known and well loved chefs tried his hand at something a little different, and pulled off one of the successes of the decade. You could expect Philip Johnson of E'cco fame to be a little gun shy after the unfortunate end to Bistro One Eleven but it seems as if the opposite is true.  After an extremely well crafted social media campaign that was eagerly picked up by foodies and online magazines around town, Howzat Burger was on the tip of almost everyone's lips in Brisbane.

I think everyone understands the concept of a 'Pop-up' - you find a space and for a short period of time, a restaurant or cafe takes over and you have an instant restaurant.  I first saw a little banner for Howzat Burger a couple of weeks ago and was instantly on alert, I love burgers and since my trip to New York, have been on a mission to replicate some of the tastes and flavours of genuine USA burgers.  As the social media campaign picked up and more information was 'set free', I found myself caught up in the hype, so much so that I couldn't help 'like' and 'share' and 'repost' all that I could see.

As the information and details emerged, it became clear that Howzat Burger would only be around for a short time, open on the last two Thursdays and Fridays in January.   Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get along on the first Thursday and could only watch the day unfold on Twitter and Instagram, all the time wishing I was there, enjoying a burger.  I did learn some valuable tips by looking on from the social sphere.  Firstly, the day had been incredibly successful, with over 235 burgers on the first day of trading.  To put that in context, thats over 58 burgers an hour, or just under one burger a minute!  (it would end up being over 600 for both days - even more amazing). Secondly, I had to plan carefully to avoid waiting in a queue for over an hour to get a burger, which many patient and happy campers did on the opening day.

Rogue Bar and Bistro - Another contender for my new favourite restaurant

http://www.roguebistro.com/

It's not too often that I'm completely taken aback and surprised by a new restaurant, but this happened over the weekend when we visited Rogue Bar and Bistro in Newstead.  I really try to keep on top of all the new restaurants as they open around town, but I'm happy to admit that I'd missed Rogue, in fact I'd not heard about it at all.  It wasn't until our usual Saturday night dining buddies (well, TB to be precise) suggested we head over and check it out that it crossed my radar.

Once it was suggested, I hoped on the interwebs to do the obligatory 'look-see' and was pretty interested in what I found, which admittedly was not a lot, but enough to spark an interest.  Rogue Bar and Bistro had actually opened up about ten months ago in semi-industrial Newstead close to some of the new mid-rise apartments but closer to the car yards in the area.  It was a pretty ballsy move by chef and owner Daniel Myers, who had previously worked under The Jetty's Jason Coats.  Newstead is much better known for new development the Gasworks, but Rogue has moved into a less obvious location in a pretty grungy industrial part of the suburb.

We'd arranged to meet our dining buddies at 7pm at the restaurant and it was starting to get dark, so we had a little bit of difficulty spotting Rogue at first.  As we slowly cruised down Austin Street, it was one semi-industrial shed after the other, we almost drove straight past before we spotted a crowd of people just milling about.  I guess it was the juxtaposition of the crowd in an otherwise deathly quiet street that gave it away.

Gerards Bistro - Even at the Best new Restaurant things can go wrong

http://www.gerardsbistro.com.au/

There seems to be an increasing instance of restaurant shopping in Brisbane.  Restaurant shopping is where people book into several restaurants on a busy night, usually a Friday or a Saturday night, then decide on the day which restaurant they will go to.  This usually happens when there is a group of people involved, so the potential loss for restaurants is huge when people don't turn up.  This was such a big problem in Melbourne that many restaurants are moving to a no reservation policy.  Not cool.

We experienced the results of an environment where restaurant shopping happens at one of the better restaurants around town last weekend, Gerard's Bistro.  Restaurants are forced to call people who make reservations for confirmation and if they can't get onto you, the assumption is made that you won't be turning up and your booking is cancelled.  In hip new restaurants like Gerard's, the spot is filled up pretty quickly.  So picture this, we turn up for our 7:30 reservation for TB's birthday dinner, which has been booked months in advance and are told that we don't have a booking.  Pretty disappointing indeed, but  what was worse was that TB was made to look and feel silly with the question asked 'Are you sure you're not confused?'

We had all been to Gerard's many times and were a bit incredulous that this question would be asked, damn you restaurant shoppers, but after some investigation were told that we did have a booking but it was cancelled in the afternoon, after they 'called' TB and she cancelled the booking.  I'm not sure who was called, but the fact that we were all standing around at our allotted booking time should have been an indication otherwise.  I'm not sure who was called but it was not us and we were left with a conundrum, wait at a very busy Gerards for a table to open up or look elsewhere.  Right, look elsewhere in the Valley at 7:30 on a Saturday night, not likely.