http://www.jojos.com.au/
In the 20 plus years I have been living in Queensland there has been one restaurant that has been a constant in my life. It's not a fine dining establishment and it most certainly does not produce the best food in town. If I had to put a number on the number of times I have been to JoJo's since I have been living in Queensland it would easily reach the 400+ number, which is quite amazing when you think about it.
So it was no surprise when we chose to introduce CI's new girlfriend to JoJo's as part of our regular Sunday night dinner before the movies. Amazingly TB had never been to JoJo's before and had to spend most of the night hearing from CI, SC and I about our tales and histories here.
JoJo's was originally set up by Stefan's (of the Stefan's hairdressing empire) sister as a bit of a family venture. Over time it seems to have morphed more into Stefan's place and in particular after it was completely re-modeled a few years back. When riding the escalator up to the entrance of JoJo's you are transformed into white wonderland with marble everywhere. There is an attempt to bring a little bit of hollywood glamour with portraits of famous hollywood movie stars and entertainers. There is also a little bit of whimsy to JoJo's, none more than when you go to the bathrooms. I will say no more about this, you need to get in to see what I mean.
JoJo's approach to dining is a little different with four kitchens serving four different styles of food. The idea is that you decide on the type of food that you want and order at the counter, then food is brought over when ready. There have been improvements over the years though, at one time you could only order one style of food at a counter, so if there were a few of you ordering different styles of food, you needed to go from counter to counter.... pretty poor really! Thankfully, the solved this a few years back and you can now order anything on the menu from any of the counters.
On this night I ordered a Hawaiian pizza from Italian kitchen. Surprisingly JoJo's do amazing pizzas, not the best in town as they claim, but certainly very good. It's one of the few places that cooks pizza in a traditional open wood fire oven. Some purists would say that a Hawaiian pizza is an abomination and in most cases I would agree, however the JoJo's Hawaiian is delicious. What I really like is the traditional roman thin and crispy pizza base and the very aromatic, rich and tasty tomato sauce that is the basis of the pizza. Living in the CBD there is a lack of great pizza joints, but in my opinion JoJo's does a great job producing amazing pizzas. Needless to say I have had many many pizzas here over the years and this one was right up there!
I was the only one of the group to have pizza with the rest of the group all heading for the Asian section for some Thai. SC ordered stir fry egg noodles with chicken, one of her favourites. The egg noodles were pretty nice and cooked well and there was plenty of chicken and fresh vegetables tossed throughout the dish. While you can get more authentic Thai in a specialty Thai restaurant, SC found this to be very acceptable. The serving size was massive too, much more than a small girl like SC could possibly eat, even though she gave it a good try.
CI is gluten intolerant so ordered fried rice with chicken. The great thing about the JoJo's menu is that there is a heap of options for someone who is gluten intolerant. The rice had heaps of chicken and vegetables tossed throughout. Again, this was a significant serving size which CI struggled to get through. The main issue with the rice was that it was a little dry, but overall CI enjoyed the dish.
The main problem with the meals, and this happens way too often here, was that I had almost finished my Pizza before SC's stir fry arrived. It was a further 5 minutes before CI and TB's dishes arrived. It's clear that one of the main benefits of having various styles of food over multiple kitchens is also one of the biggest weaknesses. JoJo's almost never gets the timing right. This is fine when its just two of you ordering from the same section, but becomes frustrating with larger groups eating different styles of food!
I often ask myself what it is that keeps me coming back to JoJo's for more? Well, JoJo's is very centrally located in everyone's favourite meeting spot in the Queen Street Mall. It is just upstairs opposite Hungry Jacks. It's also open pretty much every day of the year (save Christmas Day). There is a wide variety of food on offer at JoJo's ranging from Pizza and Pasta, to Asian and contemporary Australian, so it covers a lot of bases. It's fast and convenient and a great space to while away some time when you don't have much to do.
Most of the food is reasonably priced and more often than not the quality of the food is really good. As far as convenience and value goes, it's hard to go past, compared to some of the other restaurants in the Mall, which are way overpriced. I think most of all there is the comfort of knowing what I am going to get. JoJo's is never going to set the culinary world alight, but it's alway there & sometimes that's all I want!
@FoodMeUpScotty
In the 20 plus years I have been living in Queensland there has been one restaurant that has been a constant in my life. It's not a fine dining establishment and it most certainly does not produce the best food in town. If I had to put a number on the number of times I have been to JoJo's since I have been living in Queensland it would easily reach the 400+ number, which is quite amazing when you think about it.So it was no surprise when we chose to introduce CI's new girlfriend to JoJo's as part of our regular Sunday night dinner before the movies. Amazingly TB had never been to JoJo's before and had to spend most of the night hearing from CI, SC and I about our tales and histories here.
JoJo's was originally set up by Stefan's (of the Stefan's hairdressing empire) sister as a bit of a family venture. Over time it seems to have morphed more into Stefan's place and in particular after it was completely re-modeled a few years back. When riding the escalator up to the entrance of JoJo's you are transformed into white wonderland with marble everywhere. There is an attempt to bring a little bit of hollywood glamour with portraits of famous hollywood movie stars and entertainers. There is also a little bit of whimsy to JoJo's, none more than when you go to the bathrooms. I will say no more about this, you need to get in to see what I mean.
JoJo's approach to dining is a little different with four kitchens serving four different styles of food. The idea is that you decide on the type of food that you want and order at the counter, then food is brought over when ready. There have been improvements over the years though, at one time you could only order one style of food at a counter, so if there were a few of you ordering different styles of food, you needed to go from counter to counter.... pretty poor really! Thankfully, the solved this a few years back and you can now order anything on the menu from any of the counters.On this night I ordered a Hawaiian pizza from Italian kitchen. Surprisingly JoJo's do amazing pizzas, not the best in town as they claim, but certainly very good. It's one of the few places that cooks pizza in a traditional open wood fire oven. Some purists would say that a Hawaiian pizza is an abomination and in most cases I would agree, however the JoJo's Hawaiian is delicious. What I really like is the traditional roman thin and crispy pizza base and the very aromatic, rich and tasty tomato sauce that is the basis of the pizza. Living in the CBD there is a lack of great pizza joints, but in my opinion JoJo's does a great job producing amazing pizzas. Needless to say I have had many many pizzas here over the years and this one was right up there!
I was the only one of the group to have pizza with the rest of the group all heading for the Asian section for some Thai. SC ordered stir fry egg noodles with chicken, one of her favourites. The egg noodles were pretty nice and cooked well and there was plenty of chicken and fresh vegetables tossed throughout the dish. While you can get more authentic Thai in a specialty Thai restaurant, SC found this to be very acceptable. The serving size was massive too, much more than a small girl like SC could possibly eat, even though she gave it a good try.
CI is gluten intolerant so ordered fried rice with chicken. The great thing about the JoJo's menu is that there is a heap of options for someone who is gluten intolerant. The rice had heaps of chicken and vegetables tossed throughout. Again, this was a significant serving size which CI struggled to get through. The main issue with the rice was that it was a little dry, but overall CI enjoyed the dish.
One of the things we have noticed about TB is that she seems to order prawns a lot, so we were not at all surprised when she ordered a yellow curry with prawns. The yellow curry was very well cooked and had that perfect balance of sweetness and heat. There was a lot of potato with the dish, so the balance of prawns to vegetables to potato was a bit off. None the less, TB really enjoyed the dish and ate pretty much everything on the plate save for the prawn tails.
The main problem with the meals, and this happens way too often here, was that I had almost finished my Pizza before SC's stir fry arrived. It was a further 5 minutes before CI and TB's dishes arrived. It's clear that one of the main benefits of having various styles of food over multiple kitchens is also one of the biggest weaknesses. JoJo's almost never gets the timing right. This is fine when its just two of you ordering from the same section, but becomes frustrating with larger groups eating different styles of food!
I often ask myself what it is that keeps me coming back to JoJo's for more? Well, JoJo's is very centrally located in everyone's favourite meeting spot in the Queen Street Mall. It is just upstairs opposite Hungry Jacks. It's also open pretty much every day of the year (save Christmas Day). There is a wide variety of food on offer at JoJo's ranging from Pizza and Pasta, to Asian and contemporary Australian, so it covers a lot of bases. It's fast and convenient and a great space to while away some time when you don't have much to do.
Most of the food is reasonably priced and more often than not the quality of the food is really good. As far as convenience and value goes, it's hard to go past, compared to some of the other restaurants in the Mall, which are way overpriced. I think most of all there is the comfort of knowing what I am going to get. JoJo's is never going to set the culinary world alight, but it's alway there & sometimes that's all I want!
@FoodMeUpScotty
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| Lots of tacky chefs around the place, but somehow they fit the space |
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| Grand Piano with some swing 'singers' |
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| Heres looking at you kid |
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| A little bit of glam on the walls |
Love the decor!
ReplyDeleteIts very kitch :)
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