Pick a Cake - Hamilton

It's been a little while since I've had breakfast out but when our foodie friend Mr J had his birthday celebration, we headed over to Pick a Cake at Hamilton for a catch up. Being located on Park Road, it was inevitably super busy and parking was very difficult. 

 

There were a few seats inside and a few more outside but the store was undoubtedly quite small. Menus were provided with a selection of drinks and desserts. Options were very extensive.

If the menu options didn't give you enough decision paralysis, there were also three display cabinets of cakes, cookies and pastries to choose from. 

As usual, Dr L had an iced chocolate. This was a bit on the petite side but he said it was rich and chocolate-y. There was a notable absence of ice cream but given the price, it was a very reasonable serve.

Spying a Thai Milk Tea Latte on the menu, I opted for it instead of my usual cappuccino. Expecting an intense tea hit, I was surprised that it was very weak. The milk was frothy and the size was good but I would definitely have enjoyed a stronger tea. 

Dr L had two small desserts for brunch as I am not a huge fan of sweet brunches. Both were petite and cute but also inexpensive.

For the particularly indecisive, this was the half half cookie. Comprising of half choc chip cookie and half red velvet cookie, it was a steal for $6 (by commercial standards).  He said it was very decadent and enjoyable with high quality ingredients and a good choc chip to cookie ratio.

Dr L also had a salty egg yolk taro tart. This was warmed up and the salty egg yolk was served runny. It had a generous portion of taro, a flaky pastry base and delicious salty egg yolk. It was definitely a highlight of his meal and inexpensive for what it was. Something to definitely come back for next time we are back.

We didn't order anything on their paper menu but this was their special mango sticky rice. It was really well received and came highly recommended from our foodie friend.

It would hardly be a birthday without birthday cake. We ordered this adorable cake from their chiffon selection. This was outstanding. The three flavours we had, pandan, taro and thai milk tea were fantastic and each cake was infused with respective flavours. My highlight was the pandan cake which was fragrant and fluffy. It was delicious and I would definitely come back for more cake, probably not for brunch but perhaps as an afternoon tea.

Price Range: $15 - $25pp

Taste: 8/10

Value: 8/10

Service: 8/10

Environment: 8/10 

Miss Chilli HotPot - Milton

Hotpot is one of those things that I often eat at home and almost never eat out. My reason for this is largely because I can source what they offer from the asian grocery store myself and have it at home for a faction of the price. Having said that, there are still a few people I know who are madly in love with the idea of enjoying hot pot outside. One such friend was leaving to spend a year away and suggested that we go try out Miss Chilli Hotpot whilst she could still enjoy hot pot in Brisbane. 

We made a reservation for 6.30pm on a Sunday. When we arrived it was almost empty but by the time we left it was full though. 

  

Ordering was done via QR code so we didn't have too much interaction with staff. Prices for items were steep and probably on par with Haidilao. There was a lot of variations, including meat, seafood, veggies, snacks and drinks.

Dipping sauces were available for a cost price of $3 per person. There were a considerable number of options but I went ahead with my usual garlic soy concoction.

We settled on a half an half pot with bone broth on one side and spicy numbing soup on the other. It came out fairly fast and the soup was definitely a significant improvement on powdered soup powder you can get for home hot pots, however the price was fairly steep at $32.80, meaning that the larger the group, the more economical it is.

It didn't take long for the table to become completely filled with food. Even though the table was big, the food we ordered couldn't fit and we had to have a small trolley on the side for everything. 

An odd thing they had on their menu was the braised platter. Typically I don't put braised dishes in my soup but this was an interesting addition with a lot of the cuts being quite bony. It was unique but not something I would order again.

This was the handmade beef balls, it was made with fresh beef mince mixed in with some herbs and veggies. As a cantonese person, I expected the beef balls to have a bit of bounce but this wasn't really the case. For almost $20, that means each ball was almost $2, being fairly expensive although made in house.

Next up were crab sticks. These are essentially storebought and no different to what I can source from the supermarket. For almost $10 it was a significant mark up from cost price.

This was the tender beef, it came marinated. The beef itself was fairly smooth, likely due to velveting processes, however I found the beef to be still a bit tough and chewy once cooked, although the exterior was fairly silky. In comparison, I prefer the sliced beef at The New Hot Pot.

The highlight of our evening was the MB6 wagyu beef. This was one serve for $32.80 which made it fairly pricey. The meat quality was definitely high and superior to my options when cooking at home, given my lack of a meat slicer. Tender and paper thin, it was indeed very delicious.

In terms of mushrooms, we had some enoki and white shimeji. The portions were adequate and they were again fairly fresh, the markup was a bit steep though.

Another dish of meat we had was the beef and lamb combo, priced the same as the marbled beef, it was half sliced lamb and half sliced beef. As you can see, they were paper thin. Although also delicious, the quantity was definitely lacking for the price.

Wanting a selection of offals to try, this was the intestines, aorta and omasum platter. This was quite a highlight for me, offering a taste of everything without portions being too big. I enjoyed all of the offals which were well cleaned and not smelly. Particularly the goose intestines were chewy and soaked up the broth well.

Dr L is a huge fan of quail eggs so we ordered a serve for him. These were fairly standard and he enjoyed it quite a bit.

Also not a standard order for us but we had a serve of their fried rice. This wasn't too expensive and it was executed quite well, the rice was day old and separated into individual grains. There wasn't too much by way of toppings other than egg and spring onion though.

Rounding off with dessert, this was the deep fried rice cake served with black sugar dipping sauce. It was executed a lot better than I had imagined with the mochi being fluffy and chewy by the time I got to it. The outer crust was crunchy without being oily and the sugar syrup wasn't overly sweet. I'd be keen to try this in other specialty dessert stores.

Overall our dinner at Miss Chilli was very expensive, pushing at almost $400 for four people. Although the experience was enjoyable and the food was delicious, I find the value proposition offered here to be fairly weak. As such, unless there was some ongoing promotions that made it of more value, I don't think I'll be back for some time.

Price Range: $90 - $110pp

Taste: 8/10

Value: 2/10

Service: 6/10

Environment: 7/10 

Lemak Kitchen and Bar - Woolloongabba

As the cost of living crisis continues to ravage Australia, more and more medium to high end restaurants are closing down. Now more than ever, it seems that targeting a certain segment of the market matters. Either you aim for high end fine dining or you aim for cheap and cheerful weekday eats. Without a doubt, Lemak has cheap and cheerful down to an artform. I had gone to their East Brisbane restaurant a couple times and really enjoyed the food but it was largely limited to take-away given limited seating. They recently changed this with their gabba opening along the Logan road dining district, creating Lemak Kitchen and Bar.

I had been meaning to go for some time now to check them out, but managed on a weekday night after picking up some friends from the airport. Even though we arrived fairly late at 8pm on a Thursday, the place was still packed and we managed to snag the last table available. 

Although they have branched out to a handful of higher end main sized dishes, they retained their original menu with malaysian classics that I love. As far as I can tell, prices are the same as what they had at East Brisbane.

It didn't take long after ordering for our drinks to arrive. Both Dr L and I had the Teh Tarik, he had cold whilst I had hot. We agreed that it was creamy and frothy but definitely on the lighter side when it came to tea flavours and had nothing on our favourite at Pappa Roti.

Our companion ordered the Lemak Chicken Sandwich Super Combo. For $15 it came with a chicken burger, waffle fries, two sauces an extra drumstick as well as a pick of any drink from the menu. The value proposition was unbeatable and it beats out even the large fast food chains. The food quality was fantastic and they said the chicken was superior to KFC. Waffle fries were freshly fried and well received by all. This meal alone makes for a good reason to come back.

Dr L had the Nasi Goreng with two pieces of fried chicken. Stealing some (half) for myself, the rice was really well fried with adequate wok hei, albeit not too much toppings. The fried chicken was absolutely delicious, crispy and juicy out of the fryer. It had essentially the same taste and texture of the KFC hot and spicy without the spice. Speaking of spice, if that was desired, it was available in spades by way of the sambal on our plate.

Wanting to stick with the classics, I had the Char Kway Teow. This was fantastic with an abundance of fiery wok hei. Toppings were generous as was the serving size. It was delicious in all aspects with the only improvement they could make being the addition of crispy pork rind which would have made it perfect. 

Overall we had an amazing time at Lemak, I am thrilled that they opened so close to home and now offer a dining space. We will definitely be back on nights when I don't want to cook.

Price Range: $15 - $25pp

Taste: 8/10

Value: 9.5/10

Service: 8/10

Environment: 8/10 

Siam Pagoda - Hamilton

Thai food is one of those cuisines that I eat occasionally but am still slowly learning the nuances of. So when we received a gracious invite to try the dishes at Siam Pagoda in Hamilton, we took it as a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the cuisine. Situated along the ever busy Park Road in Hamilton, it was recently relocated from Clayfield. Parking wasn't difficult as there was a parking lot behind the restaurant.

It was very busy on the Friday evening that we went and booking is definitely recommended. The menu was huge and very poppy. It actually reminded me a lot of the menu at New Season Asian which we went to not too long ago. Each dish conveniently came with a picture and we had a hard time deciding what to choose. Service was very friendly but given how busy the restaurant was, it was a tad slow.

Mrs Brisvegustation and Dr L both enjoyed a lemon lime bitters. They came in huge glasses and had ample ice for the very warm evening.

Wanting to save my calories for the food, I had a coke zero and it came equally chilled. 

Our food started coming without too much of a delay, but there were significant time gaps between dishes. First up was the Oyster with garlic, onion and crab egg. I'm fairly sure that it was topped with tobiko rather than crab roe. Either way the oyster was fresh and the flavour profile was definitely something new for us. I really liked the savoury onion and crunch of the eggs. 

 

Moving on to other snacks some fried dishes of crab and prawn rolls and deep fried lotus roots came next. The crab and prawn rolls evidently came right out of the fryer and were crisp and hot whilst very moreish. The Lotus roots were fairly standard although the sweet sauce that it came with was quite a unique accompaniment. I prefer to eat it without sauce.

Baby Brisvegustation ordered a kids meal, and this was the satay chicken rice. For a kid's meal it was fairly substantial. For someone who enjoyed rice as much as he did, he really enjoyed it.

 

Continuing with the smaller dishes, next to arrive was the Silk tofu and Somtum thai soft shell crab. Again the tofu was fresh out of the fryer. Batter was a bit thick but super crispy. One serve was three pieces, just enough for us each to have one. The somtum was very tart and crunchy as expected, extra crunch also provided by the savoury salt and pepper soft shell crab. I only wish there was a bit more to share.

It took a bit of a wait for our bigger dishes to arrive but this was the Crab fried rice. The portion was fairly generous and there was also a significant portion of deshelled crab mixed in with the rice. It was definitely a crowd favourite that evening.

One of Siam Pagoda's signature dishes is the Red Island duck curry. We had it with a serve of coconut rice. Compared to the crab fried rice, the portion of the curry was significantly smaller, largely because it was limited to fitting within the shell of the pineapple. There was a really good amount of duck in the dish though and the curry was sweet and creamy without being spicy at all.

Another dish we had was the Grilled wagyu tiger crying. The photo had it cooked to a rare pink but this came out fairly well done. However since it was sliced thin, it wasn't too chewy or dry, particularly given the salad and sauce. I enjoyed the tanginess of the sauce but it was also a bit sweet for my liking.

It's hard to have thai food without pad thai, so we ordered one with chicken. The portion was decent and it came with the extra crunch of sprouts on top. Like the other dishes, this was a little bit on the sweeter side for my preference but otherwise the dish was very solid with soy umami undertones, soft chewy noodles and a good amount of chicken.

Rounding off the meal was my highlight of the evening, Panang King prawns. One serve came with four prawns but they were absolutely huge and battered with a light tempura batter and coated with the same sweet creamy curry. It went really well with the other rice dishes or alone. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our meal at Siam Pagoda, it was a nice treat for us to venture out of the southside to experience this gastronomical adventure and we appreciate the hospitality. If you want some solid Thai food outside of the bustle of the city, it is well worth a visit.

Espresso and Matcha dined as an invited guest of Siam Pagoda but as always, our opinions are solely our own.

Price Range: $50 - $70pp

Taste: 7.5/10

Value: 6/10

Service: 8/10

Environment:8/10