The FoodMeUpScotty Top Ten

Top 10 restaurants in Brisbane

I've been writing about food and restaurants in my blog for over two years now and it's been a heck of a ride.  I'm often asked what my favourite restaurants are or for recommendations of places to eat and I always find it difficult to limit my choices, there are just so many great places to eat in our fair city! 

My time as a Brisbane blogger is almost over, I am moving to Hong Kong (I will have already moved if you're reading this after the 10th of January).  I've had quite a bit of time to reflect on Brisbane's restaurants, especially as my time in the city comes to an end and I've decided that I will put together a list of my Top 10 restaurants.  Some you might agree with and others, you probably won't, but it's my list and each of the restaurants on the list is special in its own way.

There are many elements and factors when considering my favourite restaurants, having a top quality chef is part of the story, but equally important are service, diversity of menu and that all important 'X factor'.   A good indicator for me is repeat visits, if I want to go back (and go back often), then all the elements have usually come together and for me, thats what makes a top restaurant.

It's been a painful process and I've had to leave out some amazing restaurants, some that would have easily made a top twenty list, but I have had to limit my choices to ten....   So here it goes, here is my top ten list.  

85 Miskin Street - the Degustation and the friends

http://www.85miskinst.com.au/

There was a moment when time stood still.  It was only for a few seconds, but in those precious moments, the world around me disappeared. 

I’d just read an article, one of my favourite restaurants, run by one of the city’s nicest blokes was shutting down……  How could this be possible, Brent’s was my go-to special occasion spot, a place to spend birthdays and anniversaries!  As I read on, the details became clear, not closing, just changing – a new look and a new feel.  The world swam back into focus and I was able to breath again.

Brent’s became 85 Miskin Street, with head chef Brent Farrell deciding that a change was in order.  No longer a white linen fine dining restaurant, 85 Miskin Street became more than a special occasion place – it transformed into one of my regulars.  Not surprising though, Brent’s been cheffing for about twenty years and in that time, he’s learnt a trick or three.  With a plan to make his well-known restaurant a little more accessible, the risk paid off when Brent was rewarded with a 2015 Brisbane Times Good Food Guide Chefs Hat.

Now, I have to make a confession here.  In the last twelve months, I’ve eaten at 85 Miskin Street so often that Brent and I have become friends.   I’m unashamedly a fan of his cooking and rate a number of his dishes as the best I’ve eaten anywhere in the world.  In fact, three of my all time top ten meals were eaten at Brent’s and 85 Miskin Street! 

As a consequence, I’ve been banging on about the place for so long, some friends finally took the hint and joined me for dinner.  What transpired was a degustation for the ages.

Deer Duck Bistro - the Interstate Chef Series

http://www.deerduckbistro.com.au/

I was having a bit of a Facebook chat with an online buddy one day, just shooting the shit about Brisbane restaurants and the Queensland food scene.  While we were chatting, we were joined by a mutual friend, who just happens to run of of Brisbane's edgier restaurants, Nicholas Cooper from Deer Duck Bistro (see post here).  By way of jumping into the conversation, Nicholas just dumped a list of names and asked us what they all had in common.  Sure, I though, I'll bite.  Jumping on Google, it soon became apparent that all the names on the list were from Chefs and they appeared to all be from Melbourne. My guess back to Nicholas?  That they were all Collingwood supporters.

Of course I was wrong, although it did elicit a bit of a chuckle (in the form of LOL).  The list was of course chefs, well known chefs from interstate, but what Nicholas had in fact given us was a list of chefs that he was inviting up to his Brisbane suburban bistro for guest stints.  It was the early stages of the planning for his "Interstate Celebrity: Chefs Dinner Series" - Friends of the Duck.  At the time I thought it was a great idea.  Well, the Friends of the Duck celebrity chefs dinner kicked off recently and Nicholas invited me along to check out the first one.  Sweet!

Nicholas himself is a talented chef from way back, and along with his very talented head chef Chris Hagen would be kicking off the series with talented Melbourne chef Mathew Macartney.  Mathew has an amazing history that includes working for some incredible Australian chefs, as well as spending time overseas in Fiji, New Zealand and Dubai.  Mathew has also won the title of Australia's best Sous Chef, a title where the prize was a six week appointment in any restaurant in the world.  Choosing (at the time) three michelin starred New York restaurant, Daniel, the gig gave Mathew, in his own words,  'a unique opportunity to immerse myself in a different culture within one of the worlds most awarded restaurants' (see post on Daniel here).

Viale Canova - feeling the love of suburban Italian

http://www.vialecanova.com/

I've been on a bit of an epic journey over the last few years and I am oh-so-close to achieving a bit of a foodie goal.  If you're a regular visitor to my blog, then it's certainly not a surprise to you that I eat out a bit, well, a lot.  It's also not really going to shock you that I've a preference for the finer side of dining (although I'm still a burger fiend).  You might be asking what the 'epic' journey I've been on and I'm about to tell you.

But first, a little background.  In Queensland there are three main ways that a restaurant can be recognised: the Australian Good Food Guide, which awards 'Hats' to the top restaurants;  the Brisbane Times Good Food Guide, which also gives out 'Hats'; finally, there is Gourmet Traveller, which has a national top 100 restaurant list and also awards 'Stars' to top restaurants.  So, I've taken on a mission to visit each and every hatted or starred restaurant in Brisbane and I'm almost there.... 

Viale Canova is a suburban fine diner and it's the second last restaurant on my list.  Living in the city, I find it a little difficult to get out to the suburbs, but given my mission, I 'bit the bullet' and made the drive up Sandgate Road to Clayfield.  I guess it's not really that far away, but with so many awesome restaurants in the CBD, I just find it more convenient to dine locally.  

As you can probably guess by the name, Viale Canova is an Italian diner and with an AGFG, it's an award winning restaurant.  It was opened by a couple of mates in 2004, who'd dreamed of opening a restaurant when they were growing up in Borso Del Grappa, in provincial Italy.  Lorenzo Spezzamonte is the man in the kitchen, using only the freshest of ingredients to bring an authentic taste of 'home' and Massimo Bortolazzo has created an atmosphere that is both intimate and homely at the same time.  The name Viale Canova is a reference to a sculpture by Antonio Vanova, who was born in 1757, not far away from where Lorenzo and Massimo grew up.

Breakfast Series - the HUB Cafe Kitchen

http://hubcafekitchen.com.au/

Ashgrove is not an area that I associate as a foodie hub, in fact, I kind of think of it as the start of the 'burbs and the end of the inner city area.  I'm thinking that I might have to reassess that view!  We were invited along to check out new Ashgrove restaurant the HUB Cafe Kitchen and thought breakfast would be ideal.

We're quite familiar with the Ashgrove, we used to live around the corner in Bardon and a long time ago, I lived in the Gap and drove up Waterworks Road every day to get home.  The HUB was located on Stewart Road, just off Waterworks Road and right by the shopping centre.  It hadn't been that long ago since our last visit to the area, when I dropped SC and her regular dining buddies for their Indian Curry nights, of which I am (thankfully) excused.  Annasamara was right next door to the HUB and when we pulled out the front, we were surprised by the flashy looking new restaurant and even more surprised that that little part of Steward Road had developed into a little foodie hub.

The HUB has pride of place once you turn the corner into Stewart Street and it's pretty hard to miss. The heritage listed corner store style cafe and been completely remodelled and has the feel of yesteryear but a very modern fit out.  As we walked into the restaurant, I was impressed with the very contemporary open style kitchen and bar area inside, and the open feeling of the main dining room, which had massive open doors that let the outside in.  We were greeted by co-owner and head chef John Lambkin, whom was impeccably dressed in his chef whites and a cool green apron that all of his staff were wearing.

Breakfast Series - The Hutch Bistro

http://www.thehutchbistro.com.au/

It's increasingly difficult to find breakfast spots that I haven't tried close to home, so I've been casting my foodie net a little further of late.  It's not that I can't find cafes that I haven't been to before, but it's hard to find a cafe with a menu that appeals.  Some of them are too fancy and some of them don't really have enough options to make it interesting for me, and by interesting, I usually mean chorizo on the menu.

When looking online for a breakfast spot, I usually look for areas that I know or have lived in before, so I went searching for cafes in the half dozen or so suburbs I lived in previously.  We ended up finding a cafe in the Grange, which is one of the northern suburbs SC and I lived in for a whole six weeks!  Long story short, our awesome house at the Grange was sold out from underneath us and we had to find a new place to live - which resulted in finding an even more awesome house in Bardon.

I'd never heard of The Hutch Bistro before, but I was intrigued by the web site, which had proudly displayed a Dimmi badge noting that it was their 'neighbourhood gem' for 2013.  It was enough to entice me to look over the menu, which didn't have a heap of options, but did list chorizo as one of their 'extras'.  It was enough for me, so we jumped in the car and drove north.

Lutece Bistro and Wine Bar - a truffle degustation from the French master

http://lutece.com.au/

There are not too many foods which evoke a pure sense of indulgence, but for centuries, black truffles have been sought out by chefs for their aromatic, earthy and indulgent flavour.  The French Black Truffle grows in the roots of oak or hazel trees, with the edible portion harvested during the winter months, usually by specially trained dogs or even pigs.  Once the exclusive domain of regional France, Australia now has a very successful black truffle season, which has enabled the once almost inaccessible fungus to have become almost mainstream.

I say almost mainstream because at up to $9000 per kilo, the humble truffle is one of the most expensive food substances on the planet.  In previous years, we'd always take the opportunity to add truffle to a meal when offered - which usually meant a supplementation of fifty dollars a person for a few shavings of the 'black gold'.  Even our most recent visit to Vue De Monde was elevated to our most expensive meal ever due to the inflationary impacts of truffle (see post here).

Even though we've always added truffle to a meal, interestingly, we've never taken the next step of attending one of the many truffle dinners that are invariably offered each year in Brisbane.  Well, that was until recently, when we were invited along to check out the Lutece Bistro seven course truffle degustation dinner by renowned French chef Romain Bapst.  Romain hails from Strasbourg in France but has lived in Australia since 1990, where he has worked in some of Australia's finest restaurants before establishing his little French bistro in Bardon.  Most impressively, Romain is the President of Bocuse D'or Australia, which is perhaps the most quintessentially French and prestigious cooking competitions in the world.

Mons Ban Sabai - reminded me of why I love Thai

http://www.monsbansabai.com/

Everyone has their favourite Thai place and usually it's quite local and within short walking distance. Living in the CBD has robbed me of a local Thai restaurant, although, believe it or not Jo Jo's in the CBD has a pretty mean Thai red curry beef that I indulge in from time to time (see post here). But when I think about our time in the 'burbs, we always had a great Thai restaurant within walking distance (although we'd normally drive, but that's another story).

In years gone by, I'd have ranked Thai as my favourite Asian cuisine but for some reason, I stopped eating Thai food, I think I'd just eaten too much of a good thing and went off it.  SC will tell a tale a little bit different, a story where I'd read an article that Thai food was the highest in calories.  Pffft, as if! Anyway, for what ever reason we stopped eating so much Thai food and Japanese became the preferred Asian cuisine (I mean gyoza and sashimi, right?!)

So I was intrigued when I was invited along to an Instagram event at one of Brisbane's best loved Thai restaurants, Mons Ban Sabai in Camp Hill.  Mons Ban Sabai, which is a mouthful of a name, is part of the Venzin Group, which runs a number of Asian inspired restaurants, most notably renowned breakfast spot Paw Paw Cafe (see post here).  I'd never been to Mons Ban Sabai before and a quick look online to see where exactly in Camp Hill I needed to go told me that it was definitely going to be a SatNav job in the car.  

Deer Duck Bistro - New Chef and new styling

http://deerduckbistro.com.au/

I always find it intriguing how a restaurant will survive with the loss of a venerated and successful chef. Will it dive, survive or thrive? Urbane is a great example of not only surviving when a chef leaves, but thriving to whole new levels - think of the chain there - Ryan Squires to Kym Machin to Alejandro Cancino.  All award winning chefs and all able to keep Urbane one of the most relevant and successful restaurants in Australia (currently number 12 on the Gourmet Traveller list of top 100 restaurants and two BT Good Food Guide chefs hats).

One of the edgier restaurants in Brisbane over the last few years has been Milton's Deer Duck Bistro, a suburban bistro with an interesting edge (see post here).  It's unusual to find such an eclectic and interesting restaurant in the 'burbs, but Deer Duck Bistro had managed to find its footing and thrive, all thanks to creative owner Nicholas Cooper and his equally creative head chef Minh Le.  Minh, with huge aspirations of his own, had left Deer Duck to make the big step from chef to owner-chef with his (now) award winning restaurant The Foraging Quail (see post here).

Minh moving on from Deer Duck had left a hole that would be hard to fill, but with change comes opportunity and owner Nicholas Cooper grasped that opportunity by securing new head chef Chris Hagen.  With two and a half years under his belt as sous chef at Urbane, Chris had developed a style learning from some of the best chefs that Brisbane has seen with an aim of taking that learning to produce technically brilliant and highly flavoursome food.

Breakfast Series - Deedot Coffee House

http://www.deedot.com.au/

Who would have thought that visiting a suburban cafe for breakfast would cause such a divide?  Last weekend, we decided to get out of the city and visit The Rare Pear (see post here), but in doing so, exposed a simmering competition.  Located within sight is another Holland Park favourite cafe called Deedot Coffee House, and it seems as if it has as many fans as The Rare Pear.  I needed to get along and check out Deedot to settle the neighbourhood debate, once and for all.

There is a strip mall of shops along Logan Road, which went through one of those council rejuvenations a few years back.  The idea was to pretty up parts of Queensland suburbs with the lure of making them attractive to retailers.  I'm not sure that its effects were immediate, but there is no doubt that a few years later, there seems to be the type of energy in a suburb that brings a couple of cool little cafes to the same strip.

We'd seen how busy Deedot was the previous week and resolved ourselves to an even earlier start to ensure we secured a table without the dreaded long wait for a table.  If we'd thought it was cold on our previous visit to the area, we were assaulted by an even colder morning, not great when you're up so early.  I even had to pull out my leather bomber jacket from storage, just to make sure I'd stay warm.  It's funny how things go, there were hardly any diners when we arrived at Deedot but the Rare Pear just up the street was going gangbusters!  We easily secured a table of our choice and had a look over the menu.

Breakfast Series - The Rare Pear

http://therarepear.com.au/

I've recently struggled to get some inspiration for Sunday morning breakfast.  Every time I look down my list of breakfast spots to try, the list gets shorter and shorter.  I'm not yet ready to start revisiting all of my favourite breakfast spots or even checking out some of my favourite dinner spots, that have awesome breakfasts.  

During the week, one of my FoodMeUpScotty followers had posted some great looking photos on Facebook that started a lively debate about which breakfast spot is better in Holland Park.  Using that, I decided that I'd get out of the city and travel to find out which of the Holland Park cafes was best and after a flip of a coin, commenced our journey to The Rare Pear.

Not getting out of the CBD for breakfast very often, it was no surprise that I'd never heard of The Rare Pear before.  But, as is usually the case, there was a serendipitous moment when I realised that the Holland Park cafe had recently made the UrbanList '50 Meals You Should Have Eaten if You Live in Brisbane | Reader's Choice' (see link here).  

If you will pardon the pun, The Rare Pear is from a pair of cafes, one in Holland Park and the other in the Samford Valley.  The Holland Park Rare Pear has head chef Mathew Bird in control of the kitchen and he's designed a breakfast menu that is quite creative with a range of contemporary and traditional breaky options that looked quite appealing.  Having one of his dishes included in the UrbanList is a big deal and showcases that the menu created is a beauty.

Mario at the Dining Room - it just didn't do it for me

http://www.thediningroom.com.au/

I have a goal to get along to all 45 of the Australian Good Food Guide hatted restaurants in Brisbane this year.  I've done pretty well so far, visiting practically all of them over the last twelve months, with only the hatted restaurants in the suburbs still yet to be visited from my list.  With only five left on the list, each time we head out for dinner, we seriously consider getting to one of these remaining restaurants.  Over the Easter long weekend, I decided it would be time to check another off my list.

We felt like Italian, so that left three restaurants that fit the bill, Bar Alto in New Farm, Viale Canover in Clayfield and Mario at the Dining Room in Hendra, which was the restaurant we decided to visit.  I'd had a buddy from work mention Mario's to me last year and I'd had it in my mind to visit ever since it was mentioned to me.

Hendra is not a part of Brisbane that we spend a whole lot of time but driving down Sandgate Road on the trip out was a little nostalgic for both of us, for different reasons.  SC had spent time out that way to visit her Grandmother when she was still around and I'd spent time in the area well before we'd met, when I first moved to Queensland.  So, with our rudimentary knowledge of the area, we didn't need to use our SatNav to find Mario's and after a relatively short drive, found a park in what seemed just like an ordinary suburban street.

Melbourne Series - Huxtaburger Collingwood

http://www.huxtaburger.com.au/

I'm always on the lookout for a great burger.  With something as simple as a hamburger, you would think that they would be easy to make, but it doesn't work out that way.  I mean, how hard can it be to combine a meat patty with some salad and a bun?  Plenty hard, especially when I try to make a good burger at home!  I've been trying to find the best burger around and recently found a brilliant one in Brisbane (see post here) and a seriously good burger in Perth last year when I was there for Eat Drink Blog 4.  Knowing that Melbourne sees itself as the food mecca of the country, I was sure I'd be able to find a great burger on my Melbourne food safari - but I only had time to fit one burger joint in, so it had to be a good one.

I had pretty much every step of our food safari worked out, except the burger place.  Looking around online and trying to get a handle on where we should have visited was a little more difficult that seeking out a fine dining restaurant.  We'd just been to visit the James Bond exhibition at the Melbourne Museum, which had been super, so we were in the north east of the CBD and Collingwood was nearby.  Feeling pumped from looking at the gadgets and gizmos of Bond, James Bond we decided to go for a walk around from the museum and having never been to Collingwood before, thought that Huxtaburger could be the go.

Breakfast Series - The Corner Store Cafe

http://www.cornerstorecafe.com/

A couple of months ago on one of our infrequent forays into the suburbs, we stumbled across a little cafe as we made our way home.  We didn't have time to stop in and check it out but made a mental note to check it out sometime.  As often happens with a 'mental note', it was soon forgotten and the Corner Store Cafe faded quickly from memory.

Fast forward a few months and we had to again go on a field trip to the suburbs, this time to hit our preferred medical centre at Taringa.  I was there to get a blood tests done and had been fasting from the day before, so we thought that grabbing a breakfast out in the 'burbs would be a good idea (I know, its not really that far away from the CBD).  With not much of an idea of where to eat in the western suburbs, I checked out urbanspoon and quickly spotted a name that was familiar, you guessed it the Corner Store Cafe.  

We thought it might be touch and go to get a table, mainly because our trip to the doctor wouldn't finish until about 9:15am, which would have put us right in the peak hour for breakfast.  Our real hope was that we would have been finished with the early risers crowd and not quite yet hit the brunch crew.  As we wound through the back streets of Toowong from our medical centre, I started to have doubts that SC's usual back street approach to driving through the suburbs would actually get us to out destination.   I needn't have worried as SC's internal GPS had us pulling up out the front of the Corner Cafe with nary a wrong turn.  And when I say pulling up out front, I mean right out front, SC managed to score a street park right in front of the cafe!

Breakfast Series - Flute Fine Food

http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/337/1360653/restaurant/Brisbane/Flute-Fine-Food-Coorparoo

I've been hitting the usual breakfast locations of late, especially in the inner city suburbs, so I though about going a little further afield for breakfast this weekend.  There are a few cafes just a little bit further out of the city that are forging really good reputations and I wondered how some of them would compare.  Part of the trick is to figure out which cafe to visit.  This is where Urbanspoon can come in handy, not to mention reading recent bloggers posts.  So after doing my research I decided it would be the southern suburbs and a little diner called Flute Fine Food.

Coorparoo is not really that far away from the CBD, but it is outside of my normal stomping grounds so it was a bit of an adventure to find Flute Fine Food and with the help of Google Maps, we were soon pulling into the car park.  Flute is in a little strip of shops on Cavendish Road and I was quite surprised to see that the car park was full and most of the tables already taken up at 8am.  We've been getting to some of the most popular breakfast joints in Brisbane at this time and very rarely have the cafes had so many people already eating their breakfast.

Flute Fine Food opens up pretty early on the weekends and had clearly been in the swing of things well before we turned up.  While Coorparoo is not really suburbia, there is just enough of the suburban lifestyle that people get up early on Sunday morning and apparently all head over to Flute for breakfast! While I was parking the car, SC rushed over to get a table and took a seat outside the main dining area which was mostly protected from the elements by huge awning and plastic coverings to keep the wind out.  As I joined her, I was surprised to see the location she had chosen as the wind was quite fresh and SC hates the cold.  Choice made, it was too late to change over as the other tables were filling up fast.

EDB13 Perth Trip - Sayers Sister Northbridge

http://www.sayersfood.com.au/

Phew, it was the morning after the night before and we were feeling in need of a top breakfast to re-energise for our long flight home to Brisbane later in the afternoon.  It was hard to believe that Eat Drink Blog 2013 was over, it had been an amazing 24 hours of meeting so many other passionate foodies at the conference.  

The morning before had started nice and early, especially so as I had arrived early to check out the Perth City Farm, which is an organic growers market and a perfect spot to hold a food bloggers conference.  I wasn't the only early bird and it was soon apparent that some of the other Queensland and Victorian bloggers were going to get an early start too.  I'd made up my mind before the conference that I was going to step outside of my normal shy and introverted nature and meet as many of the other delegates as possible, starting off with meeting all of the male bloggers.  A pretty easy first step because there were only about fifteen or so male bloggers!

As EDB commenced and the day progressed, there were so many interesting and relevant sessions from speakers that were well versed in the world of food blogging, I had so much to learn.  I'd actually met my first goal of meeting the boy bloggers fairly early on in the day, so set about the fun task of meeting the rest of the hundred or so bloggers.  I was going to be the networking king!  The breaks in-between sessions and lunch became my opportunities to walk up to individuals and groups and just start talking and I did just that.  You know what?  As scary as it seems to walk up to people that you don't know, it's actually not so bad, on the whole, everyone is feeling just as apprehensive about meeting new people as me!

EDB13 Perth Trip - Cantina 663

http://www.cantina663.com/

We were in Perth with full bellies from a fantastic lunch from Balthazar (see post here) and we had a few hours to kill before we would be catching up with a handful of Brisbane bloggers for dinner.  We had never been to Perth together before, so we had a really good opportunity to explore the CDB a little bit and being honest do a little comparison with Brisbane. 

The first thing we noticed is that the Perth CBD is long and skinny. I mean really long, the main street seems to go on for ever.  Thinking that we would tackle the long walk back to the hotel, we cut through a cool little arcade that transported us to London, England.  It was no wonder, it was called London Court and is a well known spot in Perth and I could see why, it was so cute with great little shops and a very Edwardian feel.

As we continued to walk around Perth, we noticed quite a few similarities to Brisbane, the climate is hot and people are pretty relaxed.  I mean really relaxed, there were more singlets and shorts wandering around the CBD than I have seen in a long time!  There's also not one mall but two, with one of them reminding me of Rundle Mall in Adelaide and the other a little bit like the Queen Street mall back home.  After a few hours of wandering around and finding where the hipsters live (around the hip and cool King Street), it was time to walk back to the hotel and get read for our visit to Cantina 663.

I'd heard a lot of great things about Cantina 663 and when I did my obligatory tweet to WA bloggers for recommendations, Cantina was one of the handful of restaurants that was almost universally loved.  I had arranged to meet Melissa Loh and Aga from A Matter of Taste at the restaurant but Aga had asked if she could bring another blogger along for the night, which was of course OK.  This was how we met Rachi from Le bon vivant who rounded out the six for dinner with Melissa's SO and SC.

Azafran - a suburban bistro thats worth raving about

http://www.azafran.com.au/

One of the things I love about having a food blog is how often I bump into other food bloggers around town at restaurants and events.  There is a shared love of eating and an understanding of what it takes to keep a blog interesting and enjoyable for others to read.  It's amazing how often I will read someones else's food blog to inspire myself to continue writing, even when its quite draining sometimes.  Over the last six months or so a couple of us that regularly bump into each other have been meeting up to have our own little blogger events with no pressure and just to enjoy each other's company.

For our most recent catch up, we had arranged to hit a little Bistro over at New Farm and we were all excited about catching up with some new members to our little group.  A few days before the big get together we were hit with the sad news that our chosen destination was booked out and would not be able to accommodate our visit.  As luck would have it, we were able to get into our back up destination and as it turned out, it was a stroke of genius.

Our gatherings had been gaining steam since our first outing where just the three of us hit Carolina Kitchen (see post here).  Our aim for our get togethers is to try to find a restaurant around Brisbane that none of us had been to before and our first choice definitely fit the bill.  It's actually quite difficult to find a spot where a group of food bloggers have never been before but our eventual destination pretty much fit the bill, I was the only one who had been there before but I had not been back since moving away from the area almost a decade ago.

Grappino - when bloggers get together II

http://www.grappino.com.au/

One of the best things about food is it's ability to bring people together.  This is true of many cultures around the world, cultures where food is more than just eating, it's a way of life, a way of expressing their core values.  While this can be said of many cultures, one stands out at the epitome of the sharing culture....  Italian cuisine.

Now, it's not my intent to start a debate about this statement but to highlight the embodiment of a culture that brings people together over food.  It was the Italian cuisine that brought together a diverse group of people who all share a passion for food.....  Food bloggers!  In what is fast becoming a monthly ritual, I joined a group of like minded bloggers to share in a meal and have some fun while doing so.

Our first gathering was small, with just three of us getting together to enjoy some Deep Southern American food at Carolina Kitchen (see post here).  We had so much fun and talked so much about it, this time we had a larger gathering of passionate foodies.  Our challenge was to find somewhere that none of us had been before, no easy feat when a group of food bloggers get together.  Miraculously, Grappino is a spot where none of us had been before so we congregated to Paddington on a Friday night to enjoy each others' company, oh, and to sample some Italian food!

Breakfast Series - The Little Larder

http://www.thelittlelarder.com.au/

I love living in the Brisbane CBD and one of my favourite pastimes is to wander around the city and surrounds to see what's going on.  Being in such a central spot, it's easy for SC and I to pick a direction and just go, but invariably in the 'River City' we tend to stick to the suburbs along the river.  Moray Street New Farm has been a favourite of ours to walk down for as long as I can remember, it's such an awesome street with lots of lovely buildings and houses.

In all the years that we have been wandering down Moray Street, we have often marvelled and wondered about a little cafe that was always so packed out.  In a quiet part of New Farm which is almost exclusively houses and apartments is The Little Larder, which over the years has become a local favourite and Brisbane institution.  We thought we would marvel no more and finally get in and check out why it's usually so busy.

On a normal day we would have put on the walking shoes and taken the more personal approach to getting to The Little Larder, it's only a 25 minute walk.  However, with this unusually cold period that Brisbane has been forced to endure, we decided a nice quick (and heated) drive would be the prudent option.  Cruising down Moray Street, we almost overshot the cafe, which is fairly non-descript and much easier to spot when casually walking by on the other side of the street!  Because we overshot the cafe, SC let me out to secure a table while she ably scouted for a park.