Mott32 - Modern Chinese with style

http://www.mott32.com

I've recently taken a real shine to char siu, and when I find something I like, I can get a little obsessive about finding more.  You can imagine what that means, right?  Pouring over every menu at every restaurant we visit looking for the Chinese style delicacy.  If you're not familiar with char siu, it's translates literally to 'fork-roast' but is more commonly known as barbequed pork.

Our recent visit to Mott32 was special for a couple of reasons, firstly, it was a surprisingly beautiful and funky restaurant but mainly because I found the most amazing char siu I've had in Hong Kong to date.

But I get ahead of myself...

Mott32 is one of those restaurants where it's recommended you make a reservation, but continuing my run of jagging a table, we managed to score a couple of seats straight after work.  Of course, we had that moment where you get the strange look for asking for a table without a reservation, but one I'm now quite comfortable ignoring.  

We were led down a huge escalator, then a couple of flights of stairs to the bowels of the Standard Chartered building and found ourselves in a dimly lit, but exquisitely appointed restaurant. Designed as a collaboration between Maximal Concepts and Joyce Wang, a designer who was recently awarded the 'Wave of the Future 2014', Mott32 is a stunning space.  Designed centrally around a custom industrial duck oven and special air-drying duck fridge, the dining room in immediately intimate and comfortable.

Nikuya - the Japanese Meat Shop

http://www.nikuya.com.au/

I have to tell you, blink around this town and you're gonna miss a lot. Just when I thought I'd finally checked out all of the restaurants at the Valley hotspot of M&A Lane, a new one opens up to taunt me! We were walking to the Valley last weekend to do some furniture shopping (yep, I bought some cool stuff - see here) and we came across Brisbane's latest Japanese restaurant - Nikuya.  We made a mental note to check it out sometime, but curiosity got the better of us and we made a reservation for later that night.

Now that we're into the warmer months, we're finding ourselves walking around a lot more and even though we'd walked about in the hot sun for most of the day, we took advantage of the lovely evening and wandered into the Valley for dinner.  As we arrived to Nikuya, we got a sense of how big the restaurant was.  Like it's neighbour The Flaming Olive (see post here), Nikuya is a massive space, but unlike it's neighbour, dining is split out over two levels - a more traditional restaurant downstairs and a Japanese BBQ up.

The direct Japanese to English translation for Nikuya is 'butcher' but Owner Patrick Ip uses the more literal translation of 'meat house'.  Some of you might know Patrick Ip's other restaurants Ginga and Bamboo Basket, which are popular dining spots in Brisbane (Ginga seems to be everywhere).  With a name like Meat House, you're going to expect to get some amazing meat and it's something that Nikuya seems pretty proud of.

After arriving, we followed our waitress to the back of the restaurant to a booth that was quite spacious for the two of us.  It seemed like quite a long walk and I was able to check out the interior and decor of the restaurant, which was very modern in appearance.  The dark wood of the tables and chairs were interspersed with circular beach coloured circles that had a bit of a retro feel about them. I also noticed the huge kitchen and bar area - I guess with a space that holds over 200 customers, you're going to need a huge kitchen....

The Mighty Mighty Cue & Brew - a mix of southern style in the big smoke

http://mightymighty.net.au/

Every Saturday morning we walk off to get our weekly groceries from James Street Market.  Yeah, yeah, I know that you're thinking 'sure mate, you eat out every night', but I assure you I do eat at home sometimes and when I do I get my groceries from The Standard over at James Street.  But that's not the point of this post, it's more about the journey I take to get to James Street each Saturday morning.  As part of the walk, we wander down McLachlan Street, which has been dominated for some time by construction work.

It's a funny thing when you watch a construction site go up.  At first there is the big mess that is created, usually as a result of someone digging a dirty big hole in the ground.  Not long after the trucks have carried away all the dirt, more trucks start to turn up with building material and things start to take shape.  At first, things happen so slowly you don't notice much change, but as sure as night follows day (or is it the other way round), you start to notice a building take shape.  I couldn't tell you how many times we wandered down McLachlan Street and speculated about the building.  Sure, we could have gone to the web site, but that would have spoilt the fun of our guessing games.

Then one day, you notice it's looking a little different, maybe even a little finished.  Amazingly, this all happened over what seemed to be about eighteen months and one day, there it was, it was finished.  What started out as a hole in the ground became a fully fledged building.  What was better was what lay beneath the building, a shiny new laneway with restaurants and shops, but mostly restaurants.  M&A laneway was born and it was time to finally check it out.

Something a little different - Meatcart factory tour

http://www.meatcart.com.au/

I'm a big fan of meat, in fact, apart from a few exceptions, I eat meat with just about every meal.  One of the problems with eating out at restaurants all the time and buying my meat products from James Street, is that I don't really see where it all comes from.  It's just the final product that I end up seeing, which is usually a lovely piece of wagyu placed in the centre of a plate.

When the opportunity to get along and do a tour of one of Brisbane's biggest meat production facilities, I jumped.  I didn't hurt that there was going to be a massive BBQ at the end of the tour with a heap of different meats and sausages cooked up for everyone to sample, along with some matching beers for those so inclined.

I really wasn't sure what to expect when I arrived, but the Meatcart production facility looked just like any other semi industrial building over at Eagle Farm.  In fact, the only way I could tell it apart from the other buildings in the street was a huge portable meat van and an equally large BBQ.  Knowing I was in the right place I wandered past the entry gate to check it all out.  As usual, I was pretty early and was one of the first of the guests to arrive.  Undeterred, this gave me an opportunity to have a bit of a sticky beak around the facility and get an early start on some of drinks on offer (for me it was a glass of sparkling water)