Le Garcon Saigon - a taste of Southern Vietnam in Hong Kong

http://legarconsaigon.com/

There is a long history of French domination in Vietnam, including a more than passing influence in the cuisine from the Indochina region. You might not know, but France conquered Vietnam's largest city in 1859 and held sway there until 1945 - where there was quite a bit of global realignment of nation states.

Everything from language to architecture and food were influenced by the French invasion of Vietnam and as a consequence, some incredible food was created by the melding of two nations palates.  Traditional Vietnamese food was most certainly influenced by the French (but then again, this could be said of most countries cuisines) and le Garçon Saigon in Wanchai perhaps epitomises this best.

Le Garçon Saigon is a collaboration between Vietnamese-Australian Chef of Bao La and the boys from Black Sheep Restaurant.  Keeping up their affinity for Australian chefs, le Garçon Saigon has helped deepen the options available to all that live in arguably Hong Kong's fastest growing foodie district.

We'd booked for an early dinner and were surprised that le Garçon Saigon was already half filled by the time we arrived for our 6:30pm reservation, and even more surprised that by 7pm, the place was completely packed.  Hong Kong is a place where dining is done later in the evening, so it was a testament to the concept that it was still drawing so many people many months after opening.

Missy Ho's - Funky in Kennedy Town

http://www.casteloconcepts.com/our-venues/missy-hos

It's interesting where the night takes you!

My original plan for Friday night was to hang with the girl and some mates at a Japanese restaurant in Wanchai, but a bout of food poisoning put paid to those plans (fortunately, not my food poisoning this time!)

The change in plans enabled me to join in with an after work drinks for a colleague who was moving back to the UK after many years in Hong Kong.  It was a sad and joyous occasion saying goodbye and I guess it's pretty normal in a transient town like Honkers.  People come and people go.

It also left me open for dinner, which ended up being a train ride away in a burgeoning dining hub, Kennedy Town.

I'd heard nothing about Missy Ho's, apart from the fact they did two sittings and we'd only been able to book in for the 9pm session - a bit late for this little foodie's dining tastes, but I'd been assured by the group that I was in for a treat.

A short walk from the Kennedy Town MTR, we came across a plain looking building that could have been anything at all but was striking due to it's outrageous poster of that dude from the Hangover movies.  It was first sign that we were about to enter the bizarre night, I mean, you can't take a place too seriously when there is an invitation to 'Have a sick night bitches' - right?

Mercedes Me - Luxury showroom and fine dining restaurant?

https://www.mercedes-benz.com/hk/mercedes-me/store/

As far as luxury brands go, Mercedes is one of the most enduring and well known brands on the planet, especially if you're a car nut.  I've always been more of a Beemer guy and BMW is my luxury car of choice.  But the world of luxury car brands is a competitive beast, and many of the well known brands are looking to expand their base with more accessible entry level cars.  It seems that Mercedes is taking another approach to help their luxury brand become a little more accessible with the introduction of the Mercedes Me concept.

Partnering up with Maximal Concepts in Hong Kong, the crew that run Mott 32 (see post here) and Blue Butcher (see post here), Mercedes Me is one of the first concepts stores that blends a Mercedes showroom with a full restaurant.   Located very conveniently in the Entertainment Building in Central (underneath HMV), the restaurant slash showroom is noticeable with a stylised logo that is both serious and whimsical at the same time...  Oh, and don't forget the flashy Mercedes vehicle that on the night of our visit was the safety car from Formula 1 Grand Prix.

I'd been keen to get into the restaurant for a while, and had been stymied by trying to book in on a Friday and Saturday night, it seemed that Mercedes Me was doing well enough that you couldn't book a decent time on a popular night.  As it turned out, we were able to secure a table as a 'walk in' early on a Sunday night, which suited me just fine.  Not knowing what to expect from a restaurant in a car showroom, I was impressed with the fit out.  I shouldn't have been surprised by the lux fit out that combined a very modern restaurant with a homage to one of the most recognisable car manufacturers on the planet.

Fish & Meat Co - farm to table dining

http://www.fishandmeat.hk/

I don't like to think of myself as your typical Expat living in a foreign city, hitting the Expat spots, drinking away in large groups and generally trying to carve out a little slice of 'home'.  Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that, it's just not my scene.  It's why I try not to spend much time in the typical Aussie and British watering holes and restaurants near Wyndham Street and parts of SoHo.

Drinking aside, I am drawn into all parts of Hong Kong to check out dining spots and I was recently lured back in to what you'd normally think of Expat territory to visit a restaurant that seemed to tick all of my 'must try' boxes.  We'd arranged to meet some fellow Aussie Expats for dinner and after comparing our list of 'not tried' dining spots, found ourselves at Fish and Meat by the Maximal Concept Group.  

If you've been living in Hong Kong for any period of time, it's likely that you've been to at least one of the Maximal Concept Group restaurants.  Running a diverse portfolio of restaurants, including the amazing Mott32 (see post here) and the down and dirty Double D Burgers (see post here), food director Malcolm Wood has a knack of putting together a winning restaurant experience.  Malcolm has teamed up with Head Chef Russell Doctrove, formerly of 3 Michelin Starred restaurants 'The Waterside Inn' and 'Restaurant Gordon Ramsay'.  

We'd arranged to meet at Fish & Meet for a Friday night dinner and as is often the case in Hong Kong, it had been a ridiculously hot and sticky day, so by the time we walked up the hill from Central, we were bathed in sweat.  Thankfully, the air conditioning was blasting inside Fish and Meat, so we made our way to our table and ordered a bottle of cool water while we waited for our dining companions.

Ho Lee Fook - much more than a funny name

http://holeefookhk.tumblr.com/

I'd only been in Hong Kong for a short time, just wandering around, exploring and trying to get my bearings, when I stumbled across a restaurant in trendy Soho's Elgin Street.  I actually did one of those comical double-take moments, you know the one, you catch a glance before your head snaps back to double check you've actually seen what you thought you saw.  Now, maybe it's just because I'm Australian, but when I see a place called Ho Lee Fook, I'm pissing myself laughing....  This is what happened, and then of course, I took some photos to share with my friends on Facebook.

Behind a very funny name is a very serious dude, Chef Jowett Yu, a young chef who's achieved a lot. A native from Taiwan, Yu spent most of his formative years in Canada before moving to Sydney in 2005, where he worked for legendary chef Tetsuya Wakada in arguably Australia's best restaurant of the last decade - Tetsuya's.  Not satisfied with working for one the world's best Asian chefs, Jowett went on to further success with Sydney's Mr. Wong and Ms. G’s - Mr. Wong's picking up the Australian Gourmet Traveller's best new restaurant of 2013.

It took me a couple of months, but I finally found my way back to Ho Lee Fook, this time with the express intent of satisfying my desire for some kick-ass Asian fusion.  We'd tried to make a booking for the restaurant, but as with many in Hong Kong, Ho Lee Fook had a no reservations policy, so it was get along and wait for a table....  Of course, we hate waiting for anything, so, with careful planning, we found ourselves standing at the top of the stairs that led down to the main dining room and scored the last available...  With a promise that we would be out by 8pm.

Penthouse by Harlan Goldstein

http://hongkongin360.com/virtualtours/penthouse/

It was one of those nights that I wanted to go perfectly.... 

My new boss was in town, visiting from London, and we'd arranged to have dinner.  Of course, I was in a new city myself...  Hong Kong being home for just over a week, I didn't really know too much about the dining scene and of course, I wanted to impress my boss!

So, instead of going for something safe, being the foodie that I am, I tracked down on of those pop up kitchens that are popular in Hong Kong at the moment.  If you don't know what they are, well, they're an interesting concept, a chef takes over a location for a while and just opens a kitchen.  Pretty simple and pretty cool.  My only problem was....pretty unprofessional.  About 45 minutes before we were to meet in Causeway Bay for dinner I got an email cancellation!

Now, I'm not going to 'name and shame' this place, but I was pretty unimpressed.  A quick call to try to find out why was pointless - the language barrier made it impossible.

Right, I'm going to admit that there were a few moments of panic.  New boss (from London), new city, 45 minutes before we're all to meet in one of the busiest areas in one of the busiest cities on earth.  What did we do?

Well, we hopped straight into a taxi for a speedy ride to Causeway Bay and then started looking for a restaurant to eat dinner.  Oh, I forgot to mention, it was a Saturday night....

I know what you're probably thinking, 'you dope!'.  Well, I was thinking that myself, but fortune favours the brave and after only my second call, I managed to snag a table for four at 7:30pm.  All we had to do was find the place and with fifteen minutes to spare, we managed to bustle our way to Penthouse by Harlan Goldstein.

Next Door Kitchen and Bar - the South Bank curse strikes again

http://www.nextdoorkitchenbar.com.au/

I've not had a lot of luck when dining over at South Bank and over the last few years have had some pretty mixed experiences.  Ranging from the superb, Stokehouse (see post here) and Aquatine (see post here), to the fairly average and to the really poor, most of our dining experiences in the precinct had not been brilliant. So when we decided to go out with our usual dinner buddies, I was a little bit hesitant when I saw Next Door Kitchen and Bar on the list.  I'd heard mostly good things about the little restaurant in Little Stanley Street, so I thought that I'd take the chance and get in and test it out.

Next Door Kitchen and Bar poses as a 1920's style restaurant and while I could picture it in my mind if I tried really hard, I didn't really get the connection.  Sure, the tables and chairs could have resembled furniture from the '20s, the fit-out of the kitchen and main dining area more closely resembled a contemporary style restaurant with mismatched and stylish black tiles and dark wood panels.  It was a freezing winter's night, so I suspect that the very modern 'mushroom' heaters didn't help with the theme either.

We'd been to Regional Flavours earlier in the day (see post here), which had taken over a large part of Little Stanley Street and Next Door Kitchen had been pretty packed at the time.  It was also really busy when we arrived for our 7:30pm reservation and it looked as if it hadn't let up all day, so I was feeling a little more comfortable that we could be onto another winner at South Bank.  We'd arrived a little earlier than our dining companions as were able to have a look over the menu and get a bit of a feeling on what we'd order.

Bavarian Bier Cafe - so.much.food

http://www.bavarianbiercafe.com/

What an interesting turn of events. I'd been invited along to check out the Bavarian Bier Cafe a while ago and kept putting it off, there just always seemed to be something else on or somewhere else to eat.  I finally made a concerted effort to make a booking for lunch, but I needed to pick the right person to dine with, after all, the Bavarian Bier Cafe was as much about the beer as it was about the food.  I thought long and hard about which of my mates I'd bring along and decided that sometimes lunch buddy and former work buddy C would fit the bill.  After all, we would be doing a beer flight and it would be wasted on me.

Now I'm not saying C is a booze hound, I'd leave that up to him to say, but he does like a drop of the amber fluid and it had been a while since we'd enjoyed a break away from the office for a meal.  It was a freezing cold Friday afternoon in Brisbane, the type of day where the southerly breeze is blowing in and making the city and uncomfortable place to be.  The type of day that would be perfect being in a warm environment and eating some comfort food and sinking a few to boot.  As I made my way to Eagle Street and the Bier Cafe, I had my hands in my pockets and was just trying to keep warm as the cold breeze did its best to strip me of life.

I'd been to the Bavarian Bier Cafe once before with another mate, quite some years ago, and of course am a local, so I knew exactly where I needed to go.  Located just upstairs from Grill'd at the Eagle Street precinct, the Bier Cafe occupies a huge space and is right next to Sake (see post here). There was no way I was waiting outside for C to show up, so I made my way inside and was shown to my table, which had fabulous views of the Story Bridge.  While I was waiting, one of the waiters kept me entertained for a while and we chatted about many things, one of which was the loaded question 'had I been there before?'.  I was quite upfront in noting that I had been, a few years before, and had left pretty disappointed with the meal and the value.  Recovering quickly, he noted that both their food and approach had improved significantly over the years - phew (but I thought I'd know more in an hour or so).

The Flaming Olive - New winter wonderland of a Menu

http://www.flamingolive.com.au/

April this year saw the introduction of a new restaurant to the Brisbane dining scene, one that went largely unnoticed by many, but one that caught my eye. There was a bit of a tale about how I first came across the Flaming Olive, which involves the Courier Mail and McDonalds, two brands that I don't often mix with (see post here).  Always on the lookout for new dining experiences, I booked in and went along to check it out.  Not having super high expectations, I was a little gobsmacked at the quality of the meal and the amazing job Head Chef Wayne Brown had done with the menu.

I was super excited to learn about the Flaming Olive's first major menu change and could hardly refuse Wayne's kind offer to come in and check out the new Winter menu.  Changes of season often mean changes of menu and I was keen to see what it would mean for the Flaming Olive and what wonderful tweaks Wayne would make to the menu.  I'm usually not enamoured with winter menus, which are heavy on the slow cooked meats and root vegetables, so I went in half fearing that I'd not love the changes.

We arrived a little before our 7pm reservation and took a risk on McLachlan street by securing a park 15 minutes before the street opened up for parking.  It was a calculated risk because pretty much every street park was taken and I could hardly resist the vacant spot 'calling my name' right out the front of the M&A Lane, the home of the Flaming Olive (and half a dozen new Valley dining spots).  It was a score!

We were shown to our table, right up the back of the restaurant and next to the kitchen and after a few minutes of perusing the new menu had Wayne come over to say hi and explain a little bit about the menu. Suffering the effects of a lost voice, the ordinarily quietly spoken head chef struggled through letting us know that it was a little different from normal winter menus and he hoped we'd enjoy it.  We had the option of picking some items on the menu that caught our eye or letting Wayne send out a selection of courses in a mini tasting menu (turned out to be more than SC could eat).

Casual Dining - Kwan Brothers

http://www.kwanbros.com.au/

How crazy is the Valley dining scene getting?  It seems like week in and week out, there is a new dining venue opening and they all seem pretty cool. Much has been written about the ever expanding number of American (Gringo) style dining spots, so it's pretty refreshing to write about a different type of opening.

There are plenty of Asian style restaurants in the Valley and Sunnybank, but new openings don't normally garner much attention.  That's where Damien Griffith and his team come into their own.  Not afraid to mix things up, Damien is responsible for Valley hot spots Alfred and Constance, Chester Street Kitchen and Alfredo's Pizza, a trio of very different styles of food.  It's now a quartet with the opening of the very funky Kwan Brothers and I was invited along recently to check it out.

Kwan Brothers is located in Alfred Street right next door to Alfredo's Pizza and is nothing like any Asian style restaurant I've been to before.  Equal parts hawker market from Singapore and night markets of Hong Kong it balances out the funkier and seedier sides of Asia style dining establishments and bars.  The interior is polished cement floors and dark walls with bright red neon signs that are unmistakably Asian in their influence and all add to the feel that you've entered a different world.  An exposed kitchen has the sights, sounds and smells that further contribute to the sense of disappearing into the depths of Singapore, Hong Kong or even Tokyo.

Casual Dining - Moga

http://www.moga.com.au/

I find it incredibly interesting to go back to suburbs where I used to spend so much time and check out new and exciting dining destinations.  The Paddington and Rosalie areas feel so familiar to me, mainly because we used to live in Bardon for years and the area was our 'back yard'.  During the week I was invited back Rosalie to check out Moga, a new Japanese restaurant that I'd never heard of.  In a strange twist of fate, a few short days after my invite to Moga, it was listed by Lizzie Loel in QWeekend as one of her top ten restaurants in Queensland, so my interest was really piqued.  

One thing that I will admit is that I am absolutely terrible with directions and even though I'd lived in the area for years, I still had to look on Google Maps to confirm where to go.  What was embarrassing was that Moga is located on the main street in Rosalie, Baroona Road, and once I'd looked at the map, I felt pretty foolish. After parking outside the Rosalie State School and walking to the restaurant, I was completely blown away that the old Queenslander where I'd once visited my Doctor had been torn down and a modern looking building with restaurants had taken its place.  I guess you can't stop progress, especially in the 'cooler' suburbs in town.

The night was to be an intimate affair with some invited bloggers and journos and I always like to get to these things early so I can pick out the best spot to sit (lighting for my camera).  As usual, I was the first of the guests to arrive, so it gave me an opportunity to have a good look around Moga and catch up with our host for the evening.  The dining area at Moga was quite a bit larger that I'd initially thought when walking up to the restaurant, with a sushi train inside but a really large inside/outside dining area fronting the main street.

Melbourne Series - Coda

http://www.codarestaurant.com.au/

We knew that we'd be on our food safari in Melbourne one one of the worst possible days to book into a restaurant, Valentine's Day.  I'd actually forgotten we would be down for arguably the most romantic day of the year when I went to book into Vue De Monde for dinner, only to be told that it was a special Valentine's Day menu.  I backed out of that pretty quickly and ended up at Vue De Monde on the day before (see post here).  I've a personal view that Valentine's Day is the worst day for seasoned diners to go out for dinner as restaurants are booked out by 'loved-up' couples who want to be treated special.  What was worse was that Valentine's Day fell on a Friday this year, so restaurants would be even more packed than usual.

The plan was to skip the restaurant booking merry-go-round and head for a restaurant that had a no bookings policy and then just wait in the queue to get in.  Mamasita was that restaurant.  I'd heard of some pretty horrendous wait times at Mamasita at the best of times, so we thought we'd get in quickly by hitting the queue at 5:30pm and hopefully be in by 6pm.......  Wrong!  The madness that is Valentine's Day had taken over Mamasita and they'd, for some strange reason, taken bookings for the day, which left only a few tables for walk ins.   Even though we were there early and queued right at the bottom of the stairs, we were told it would be a one hour and thirty minute wait!  Well, we were there and thought we would see it through, but after thirty minutes of waiting with still no movement we decided to 'blow that popsicle stand' and go somewhere else.

You might be thinking that it would be lunacy to look for another dining spot at 6pm on a Friday night in Melbourne that just happened to be Valentine's Day!  Well, believe it or not, we lucked out and got straight into Coda, albeit sitting at the bar, but we were in!

Melbourne Series - Chin Chin

http://www.chinchinrestaurant.com.au/

We were sitting around at home one day thinking about where we could go to eat, which is a pretty normal activity for us.  As we worked through the list of places we felt like visiting, the talk turned to some of the restaurants we hadn't visited in Melbourne yet.  The talk intensified and before I new it, we were at the computer booking some flights down to Melbourne and had mapped out a clear line of attack.  Four days in Melbourne and each and every meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner mapped out for the entirety of our trip.  Sweet plan.

We'd picked an early flight, one that would get us to Tullamarine airport with enough time to get into the CBD for lunch, but not so early that we had to get up at 4am.  I called it our 'goldilocks' flight as it was juuuuuust right!  The big question when going to the airport is do we drive and park short term (hoping that the car is still there) or cab it, with our eventual decision to cab being the smart move.  There are lots of stories about flights being delayed and baggage being lost, but this is not such a story, in fact we arrived in Melbourne right on time with baggage in tow.

After jumping in a cab and taking a seriously different route to our hotel, we deposited our bags in our huge hotel room and hoofed it towards Flinders Lane, one of the coolest streets in Melbourne and our final destination.  I'd been dying (not literally) to get to Chin Chin for a long time.  Not only is Chin Chin one of the most popular restaurants in the country, it's also over a wicked little bar called the GoGo Bar, a place that I had in fact been to a couple of times.  Amazingly it was much easier to get into the GoGo Bar than Chin Chin, with each time I'd visited the bar noting the ridiculously long queues and absolutely pumping vibe at Chin Chin.

Popolo Italian Kitchen and Bar - a great spot to sit and watch the world go by

http://www.popolodining.com/

A friend from Yelp recently asked a twitter question about what was the current 'it' food in Brisbane and with the question came an assortment of responses from the twitter-verse. Predictably most of the responses were for American or Mexican cuisine.  There is no doubt that American is all the rage at the moment with recent openings of the Mighty Mighty (see post here), Papa Jacks and the Southside Diner, but I think there's another contender as well.

Italian cuisine has also had a pretty decent 2103 and while it doesn't seem to have had the same amount of press as American style cooking, there have been some great Italian diners open up, adding the the already flourishing Italian restaurants around Brisbane.  The new M&A Lane seems to be a litmus test for hip new restaurants and amongst the two new American style restaurants is also one of the latest Italian diners, Locanda Osteria and Bar (see post here)

While not the newest kid on the the block, Popolo Italian Kitchen and Bar is one of the newer Italian restaurants in Brisbane and one I had been meaning to get to for some time.  Popolo is located over at the impressive River Quay dining precinct at Southbank and sits amongst some amazing restaurants with the Stokehouse (see post here) and Aquitaine (see post here) a couple of my favourites.

Ole Spanish Restaurant - did my chorizo obsession get the better of me?

http://www.olerestaurant.com.au/

When you feel like something tasty, I mean really full of flavour, it's hard to go past Spanish cuisine.  I have to admit to a bit of an obsession with chorizo, for me it's the king of sausage and the king of flavour.  I'd had a little taste of chorizo with my breakfast (see post here) and found that it had whet my appetite for more, much more.  We wondered where we could go so I could get another hit of that sweet sweet chorizo, it obviously had to be a Spanish restaurant, but where? 

It came to me in a flash, we've walked past one of the larger and more popular Spanish dining spots so often, it had faded into the background a little bit.  Ole Restaurant seems to be the most popular dining spots over at Little Grey Street at Southbank and it seems to be packed at any time of the day or night.  I've thought about going there a lot and when I suggested Ole to SC, she seemed pretty interested and reminded me that she had been there before and had really enjoyed it.  We had a plan, now it was time to execute it.

We would normally walk over to Southbank when heading over for dinner, especially on a weekend but we had a dilemma.   If you've been in Brisbane for the last week or so, you know that there was a massive bushfire over on Stradbroke Island and it had been creating havoc over Brisbane, in fact it had turned the CBD into a smoky haze.  There was no way that we would be over to walk over, especially with SC's asthma already playing up, it was definitely driving weather.

Locanda osteria and bar - simple Italian fare but with strong flavours

http://www.locandabrisbane.com/

A couple of weeks ago we thought we would check out one of the new restaurants over at the recently completed M&A Lane.  There were a couple of options, with three of the six or so planned planned restaurants already open, but as we walked towards the lane, an incredible smell led us towards the Mighty Mighty (see post here).  While we were sitting and mostly enjoying our southern style BBQ, we sat facing our other option and spent the night wondering if we had made the right choice.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and we had a more definitive plan to check out Locanda Osteria and Bar, which as the name suggests is an Italian joint.  It's more than a little interesting that two of the hottest styles of food right now, Italian and Southern BBQ have opened right next door to each other.  In my mind 2103 has been the year of the Italian and American restaurant, with a heap of new dining establishments opening up with a bent in either direction.

They guys that have put Locanda Osteria together certainly know a little bit about what it takes to run a successful Italian restaurant.  Restaurant heavyweights Manny Sakellarakis and Dan Clark have  created arguably Brisbane's best Italian restaurant in 1889 Enoteca at Woolloongabba and have teamed up with Cove Southbank's Adam Barton on this venture.  Combined they have a heap of experience creating successful restaurants and giving people what they really want, top quality nosh.  They've also snared head chef Daniel Jones to man the kitchen, who has worked at some of Brisbane's best Restaurants including Cha Cha Char and Baguette.

Mecca Bah - when it all goes wrong, when do you pull the plug?

http://www.meccabah.net/

You're out at a restaurant and things are not going well.  At what point do you realise that you've made a huge mistake?  At what point do you move past considering storming out and actually storm out?  I was able to contemplate these and many other similar questions recently when we visited the Mecca Bah over at Emporium in the Valley.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  We had had a particularly difficult week at work and were in need of a nice meal to take our minds off our recent long days in the office.  Of course we have our favourite spots that we could have easily visited (Hello Esquire), but being a food blogger, I want to check out new places a lot of the time.  I have a long list of restaurants that I want visit, either for the first time, or go back to because I've not been since starting my blog.

I started down my list which started off with an old favourite of mine, Kingsley's Steak and Crab house, which is just across the street and would have been very easy to get to.  Amazingly, for the second night in a row, there were no tables available until after 8pm.  Scratch that.  Next up was a spot that I had never been to, Byblos over at Hamilton but even more amazingly no one answered their phone and after three attempts, I gave up and moved down my list.

Hatch & Co - Some amazing food in a Brisbane hot spot

http://www.hatchandco.com.au/

Gee, how good is it over at the Gasworks now?  In a very short space of time, the area has exploded with a range of contemporary and exciting restaurant offerings.  It seems like every time I head over, there is a new dining spot to add to my ever increasing list of places to check out.  It's hard to believe that twelve months ago it was still just a construction site and now it's rapidly becoming the first place that many Brisbane dwellers are looking to for a great meal.

With a rash of new openings, I thought it was timely to check out an 'old hand' under the Gasometer, Hatch & Co.  I say 'old hand' with tongue firmly in cheek as it's a relative 'babe in the woods' itself.  I've been keeping an eye on Hatch & Co ever since it first opened a few months back and I was particularly keen to see how the Moubarak clan would handle casual dining.  The Moubarak's are better known for their One Hat restaurant Gerard's Bistro just around the corner in James Street, which has been a favourite of mine for some time (see post here).

The first time I saw Hatch & Co, it seemed a little out of place, it was pretty much the only restaurant open at the Gasworks.  It was weird walking by and seeing a sea of people checking out the diner, with no one else around.  On our visit to Hatch & Co, there was quite a bit more competition around for the dining dollar and when we arrived for our 6:30 reservation, it was still fairly quiet.  I thought to myself that perhaps the addition of half a dozen new eating spots would have a negative impact?  It was a Tuesday night, which can be quite busy for Brisbane diners.

Cheap Eats - Kotobuki

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sushi-Kotobuki/157072508488

For years and years and years we used to get our fish and chips from a little shop in East Brisbane called Fish53, that was before we found out that the Fishmongers Wife was just a few hundred metres down the road.  We used to sit down and eat our fish and chips and wonder about a little Japanese restaurant down the alley next to Fish53.  No matter what time of the day or night we went for fish and chips, this little hole in the wall Japanese restaurant seemed to have queues of people waiting to get in.  Of course we never did anything about checking it out, we were in our fish and chip phase of eating.

Fast forward a few years and my blog dictates that I check out as many new places (to me) as possible and since I've been going through a Japanese phase recently, I thought it would be time to hit Kotobuki in East Brisbane.  Lots of people I know love this little Japanese hot spot, in fact it's one of the most popular eating spots on Urbanspoon.  It never occurred to me that the little hole in the wall Japanese spot next to Fish53 was Kotobuki, that was until I went to my trusty friend Google Maps, then it all fell into place.

We couldn't have picked a worse day to head out for lunch, it was pouring rain and the sky was so overcast and heavy with clouds it seemed like it was early evening, even though it was only 11:30am.  We had a choice, go or not go and my choice was to get out of the apartment for a bit, so we braved the wet conditions and crazy Queensland wet weather drivers and made our way to East Brisbane.  I'd read that parking was a problem around East Brisbane, but now knowing exactly where Kotobuki was, we were confident of scoring a park, and we did, right out front.  The problem was getting out of the car and into the restaurant without getting soaked, the mission was partially successful.

Au Cirque - now also known as 'Cirque by night'

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Au-Cirque/119059328152640

There are so many new restaurants opening in Brisbane you would wonder why an established Brisbane breakfast institution would take the risk of opening up for dinner.  That's exactly what's happened with New Farm favourite Au Cirque, who've recently launched their 'Cirque by Night' dinner menu on Thursday and Friday nights.

I was invited along with a couple of blogger buddies and online publications to check out the new offerings and provide some feedback and thoughts.  Au Cirque is extremely well known as one of Brisbane's best breakfast spots, a reputation that is well deserved and well earned after years of hard work and toil.  I've written about my experiences with breakfast at Cirque and was blown away by the breakfast (see post here), so I was extremely keen to see what they would do with their dinner offering.

As is usually the case, I arrived pretty early for our 6:30 kick off, I really need to get better at my timing my arrival, but I would always prefer to be early somewhere than late.  I sat in my car for a while before deciding to 'bite the bullet' and head into Cirque, my fears of being a 'Nigel no-friends' quickly allayed once I saw our host for the night.  After some quick catching up some of the other guests for the night started to turn up and there was a great mix of known and new people.  It's always fun putting names to faces because most of us are connected through Twitter or Instagram, so I'm continually meeting people in person who I follow.