Bacchus - Southbank

Bacchus at Southbank Rydges is one of those places that I've actually been to quite a few times but never gotten around to blogging about it. I used to frequent it every now and again before covid, but since then, they've had an extended closure and I slowly forgot about it. It was only for noticing them on First Table, that I was prompted to go for a return visit. Being located upstairs on the podium level of Rydges, it isn't particularly eye catching from the ground floor and being a restaurant inside of a hotel isn't usually something that would instil confidence in me.

Although it had been re-opened since 2022, it was my first time visiting since the renovations and there was a significant facelift compared to the previous layout which looked as if it had come straight out of the 1980s.

 

The menu was provided promptly by our very professional waiter. There was an a la carte menu as well as a degustation menu. Having booked a discounted meal via First Table, we had quite a few limitations to what we could order. I was impressed by his polite reminders of the conditions, ensuring that we had no nasty surprises at the end.

Starting off with drinks, Dr L had the White Chocolate Negroni whilst I had the Espresso Martini. My drink was one of the better espresso martinis I've had, with a smooth texture and strong taste. I only wish it was a tad less sweet. Dr L's negroni had but a hint of white chocolate, and was decidedly a lot more fruity.

Given the restaurant was not particularly full when we dined, I was surprised at how long it took for our food to arrive. First to land was the wagyu beef tartare served with brioche, macadamia, egg yolk and chives. I really appreciated their attention to detail in loading up the tartare onto the crispy brioche before serving, thus saving me the effort and mess of doing it myself. The tartare was one of the less seasoned ones I've had, notably lacking in the usual zing of capers. I did however enjoy the freshness of the beef and richness of the egg yolk.

Our other entree was the Pork Belly, served with fermented honey black berry, bok choy and togarashi. The skin of the pork belly had adequate crispiness to it and the portion size was generous enough for each of us to share, which I really appreciated. Bok choy was stir fried well without being overcooked.

Our meal picked up its pace after entrees. We had two mains to share, the first was a 300g Angus Siroin. It came with jus and some mustard. Whilst the beef was cooked to our requested rarity and also didn't have any blood coming from it, it was still surprisingly chewy. On that basis, I was pretty glad that Dr L shared it with me, because it would have been quite a workout for my mouth to finish the entire thing. 

To balance out the steak, we had the pan seared duck breast served with gochujang red orange, charred broccoli and black sesame. It was cooked quite well with a crispy skin and flavoursome meat. Dr L said it was only slightly not as good as the duck served at exhibition.

 

For sides, we had a mixed leaf salad as well as miso hasselback potatoes. The salad was particularly crisp and fresh whilst the potatoes were hot and crisp, a perfect foil to our protein heavy mains.

 

Dining at Bacchus means that dessert definitely cannot be missed, so we ordered two to share. This was the Popcorn, comprising of popcorn mousse, corn custard and salted caramel. It came out like a miniature popcorn bucket and was absolutely adorable. The dessert was on the sweeter side of what I enjoy but we still really liked the caramel and popcorn flavours.

 

Our other dessert, the Apple, was the highlight of our meal. Comprising of honey, cinnamon and blue cheese, it was fashioned like an adorable yellow apple. With a crisp chocolate shell and a fluffy light interior. Again it was on the sweeter side, but we loved the intensity of the delicious apple in the centre, making it a delicious dessert we both loved.

In summary, we had a fantastic time at Bacchus. There were a few things that could be improved given the price point (without a discount), but given the half price food, it was definitely exceptional value for money and I wouldn't hesitate to return.

Price Range: $120 - $140pp (if no discount)

Taste: 8/10

Value: 9/10 (with a discount)

Service: 9/10

Environment: 9/10

Warisan - Fortitude Valley

Buffets are a funny thing. They're super exciting and always a welcome challenge when you're growing up, but once you age past 30, it always becomes a matter for me to calculate out whether it's money's worth, since my stomach capacity just isn't what it used to be. With the continued explosion of all you can eat options in Brisbane, I've been able to sus out value to a certain extent. Seemingly at the $50 mark you can reliably not need to stuff yourself with carbs and eat a protein based meal to get your money's worth. This is why I was not too reluctant to try out Warisan's Sate Sunday buffet $45pp for a promise of unlimited satay skewers.

 

Arriving for Sunday's early session, we were seated inside with the extremely loud music whilst the grill was located outside. The all you can eat was pretty simple, there were four types of satay skewers, tofu, fish ball, chicken and beef. There were also three sides, nasi goreng, stir fried morning glory and what was similar to prawn crackers. 

  The grill was on full blast whilst we were there, with the fire alarm in the building going off during our meal.

The beef satay skewer was the one I was most looking forward to, however it disappointed. With meat that was inconsistent at best and quite chewy at worst, it proved a little difficult to eat. The sauces were also definitely pushing my limits on spice tolerance.

I was not expecting chicken to be the highlight for me, but it was. The texture was consistent and soft. The sauce struck just the right balance with peanut butter without being overwhelmingly so. We definitely had a few more of these.

 

Firm tofu is not something I'm particularly fond of, but for those who enjoy it, they would probably like the tofu skewers. The fish balls were also fairly standard supermarket quality and nothing particularly stand out.

The morning glory was cooked well but not particularly stand out, being more or less the same as you would get at many asian restaurants.

 

I had a bit of the nasi goreng, it was a bit on the wetter side for a fried rice and the topping to rice ratio was not great. The crackers were also fairly standard and nothing to write home about.

It's hard for me to critique the value proposition at Warisan. On one hand, it is good value to get a buffet where you don't need to eat carbs for $45pp. On the other hand, I could only eat 12 skewers and there are places like Satay Boss or Mamak that offer better quality skewers for significantly less than $45. Sitting near the singer also meant that my enjoyment of the meal was heavily impacted by not being able to hear my companions speak without yelling too. Overall, I'd have to say that although I don't regret checking out Warisan, I won't return.

Price Range: $45pp

Taste: 5/10

Value: 7/10

Service: 7/10

Environment: 5/10

Kims Gukbap - Sunnybank Hills

Gukbap is a dish that comes up a great deal in conversation at our home. Not because it is a dish that I often make but it is a key item in a video game that Dr L regularly plays. Given the frequency to which we talk about this dish, it was inevitable that we would find ourselves at Kim's Gukbap in Sunnybank Hills to experience the real deal.

We arrived on a weekday evening to the restaurant at half capacity. There was one waitress looking after the whole shopfront.

Luckily the cutlery was already available on the table as were condiments.

  

Ordering was done by way of QR code on the table. The menu wasn't too long, with a spicy and non spicy variant of gukbap, a few other mains and a handful of other sides.

It didn't take too long for our food to be served.

First up, the side dishes comprised of kimchi, pickled onion and pickled radish. This was fairly standard and tasted quite store-bought. I did enjoy it but it wasn't anything particularly special.

Not wanting to take my chances when I didn't know how spicy the spicy gukbap was, we opted for the original. It came with a lot of pork slices and spring onion in a light broth. I found it to be on the blander side and required a bit of extra soy sauce. It was wholesome with rice mixed in though.

We also had a pork katsu rice. The portion was very impressive and it came with a side of cabbage. However the taste was not as good as it looked. The pork was crispy but the batter was a bit thicker than I would have liked. What I found particularly disappointing was the pork being as close to unseasoned as you could get. It wasn't even salted very much and we relied on the ketchup to supplement taste.  

The highlight of our night was the Pa Jeon, a scallion pancake. This came out freshly fried, crispy and was complimented well with soy sauce. We really liked this dish. Overall we had an alright time at Kim's Gukbap, the food was not too bad but there are definitely better Korean restaurants nearby. 

Price Range: $25 - $35pp

Taste: 6/10

Value: 6.5/10

Service: 7/10

Environment: 7/10 

Go-Jip - Underwood

These days, it feels almost like there's a new KBBQ buffet opening every month. I haven't made a serious count but there's at a handful of openings in the recent past. The most recent one as at the date of writing is Go-Jip, located at Underwood Marketplace. There are questions of what the relationship is, but it is allegedly affiliated with Mooink at Sunnybank which I had gone to once but never returned to. Anyway, perhaps it is very logistically difficult to get a KBBQ buffet started but the opening week was one filled with drama, reminiscent of Seoul Garden. Opening day comprised of a lot of invites to local foodie celebrities who provided complimentary promotion. Once it became open to the public, they commenced business with 50% off food for the first two days. On the first day, they decided to close for technical issues and on the second day there was a significant amount of confusion caused by the previous instruction that the discount was for walk-ins only, but allegedly became for people with bookings only. It caused a great deal of controversy online, which was then further fuelled by negative google reviews and comments on their instagram page which were subsequently deleted. There's probably a lesson to be learned there in how to handle PR disasters.

Anyway, despite the opening drama, my passion for KBBQ ensured that I was still compelled to make a booking and we went a week and a half after opening. With the radio silence on all social media platforms, I was genuinely worried they wouldn't even be operating on the day we attended, luckily this turned out not to be the case. Arriving at 6.25pm for our 6.30pm reservation, the restaurant wasn't full but there were two people still queuing outside. The empty tables weren't being cleared and we were told to wait 10 minutes.

It wasn't until 6.40pm that we were served, we paid ahead at the counter. Prices were $59.90pp as we went on a weeknight. It's an extra 10% on weekends. The time limit was 90 minutes as usual and there was a charge for wastage, although neither were really policed which made it a far more pleasant dining experience. Our group of 6 was also given two tables and therefore two grills, ensuring that we didn't have any bottlenecks throughout our meal.

Whilst my friends were waiting outside, I took the opportunity to scope out the food options so I wouldn't need to waste time once we got a seat. Starting off with their "premium" sushi bar that set themselves apart from the more recent kbbq buffet restaurants. It reminded me a bit of the offerings from Shabu House.

There was a moderate selection of meats. Definitely less than Seoul Garden of Hwaro but more than Yido. I noted a few cuts of meat were straight from the freezer with cuts like the ox tongue still served coated in ice.

Korean sides were plentiful and had all the mainstream offerings.

Seafood and veggies were available to go with BBQ and also hot pot.

Sauces were available but this was also fairly limited compared to places we've been to recently.

There was quite a variety of hot food on offer, mostly rice and noodle dishes, some stews and notably Korean Fried Chicken. I didn't get to try most of them but the KFC was a stand out for me, crispy with a batter that wasn't too thick and a meat that retained its level of juiciness. I wish I had room to enjoy more.

 

Other items on offer include hot pot, which was surprisingly low key and didn't get too much attention. Given the limited time and hot pot ingredients as well as the copious amount of veggies already in the pot, we gave it a miss. 

Desserts included ice cream, a chocolate fountain, fruit, mochi/rice cakes and also a bingsoo machine.

Some fruity drinks were also available along with water. I did try some and found them to be too sweet for my liking so stuck with water for the rest of the evening. 

We started off with the BBQ, with a selection of fresh meats and marinated meats. Some of the wagyu was quite well marbled whilst some weren't. I found the quality to be superior to what we've had at Seoul Garden but worse than Hwaro and Yido. As mentioned above, some of the meat came straight out of the freezer and lacked a meaty taste. I also found quite a few cuts of their wagyu to be very chewy. A highlight for me was their pork jowl, coming out very crispy and crunchy. 

A letdown for me was the lack of service throughout the night. It didn't take long for our grill to become caked with burnt marinades. It did however take a long time for staff to come over and change our grill. For those who have been paying attention, as staff didn't clear tables until customers left, this also lead to a shortage in plates for us to go pick up food, both issues leading to unnecessary delays in our meal when we were on the clock.

We enjoyed a few of the seafood items like the mussels and scallops. These were probably intended for the hotpot but we put them on the BBQ instead. They were fine, not particularly fresh but not unpleasant either. Veggies were the same.

Korean sides weren't as nice as Hwaro or even Yido for that matter, I found them to be quite underwhelming, particularly the kelp salad which generally lacked ingredients other than carrot.

Onto the sushi, the main thing that sets Go-Jip apart from the other KBBQs. Originally, my position would have been that it wasn't worth the extra $10. When we started our meal, the sushi on offer was quite underwhelming. The vast majority of options being cooked, with a few higher value items such as salmon and unagi. Even picking them up we found that some pieces were served on ice cold rice (a serious dealbreaker) whilst some were on room temperature rice. The portion of rice per sushi was also a bit larger than I would have liked, no doubt a ploy to fill you up. The slices of fish were thin too, making them notably worse than what you'd get at say sushi edo.

It was only near the end of our meal when I was hovering over the dessert stations that I noticed some new sushi had been put out. I actually had to do a double take when I saw that they had actually put out chutoro i.e. medium fatty tuna belly, also my favourite cut of tuna. Although the fish slices were still thin and the pieces of rice were still big, the fact they had chutoro on offer made the sushi experience worthwhile for me. Having said that, I wouldn't recommend it on purely this basis as I don't think they would necessarily serve chutoro every night. Perhaps we just got lucky.

Their stand out dessert was bingsoo, it came in a generic milk flavour, we topped it with red bean, condensed milk, wafers and some sneaky chocolate from the fountain. I wasn't expecting it but the bingsoo was sweeter than I would have liked, all the other elements were fine.

Rounding off our meal with a scoop of cookies and cream ice cream again topped with melted chocolate and a couple wafers. The ice cream was basically supermarket tier, as expected but I enjoyed the dessert.

In conclusion, I'd say we had an alright time at Go-Jip. For the current KBBQ leaderboard in Brisbane, I'd rank it above Seoul Garden but below Yido or Hwaro. The overall meat quality isn't what the others offer and for the extra $10, the sushi (generally) wasn't worth it (as I have no confidence there will be chutoro next time I go). Although there wasn't the constant pressure you have in Seoul Garden, the disorganisation made the overall dining experience lacking. It would be another one that I'd probably not go back to unless a friend really wanted to, but I'd persuade them to reconsider.

Price Range: $59.90 - $66.00pp

Taste: 6.5/10

Value: 6/10

Service: 5/10

Environment: 7/10