Love Malatang - Calamvale

We were helping a friend move house a short while ago and opted for a quick dinner before continuing with the packing. We decided to stop at Love Malatang for food because it's my favourite malatang chain in Brisbane and has served consistently good food very quickly. We had to wait briefly for a table because it was so popular, but were seated fairly quickly.

Grabbing a bowl, we set about gathering ingredients, there was a good selection of vegies, meat, noodles and seafood but nothing particularly unique that I hadn't seen before. 

This is the haul I ended up with for Dr L and myself. He didn't want noodles, so he had some enoki instead.

 

The price was fairly standard at $3.80 per 100g, however I believe that their scales are probably more reliable. Our two bowls came to just over $40 and there was a decent amount. When I went to David's hotpot, I paid over $30 alone for far less food, although the price per 100g was the same. Sauces are also available on a DIY basis.

After ordering, we each had a number and waited for our food.

As usual, our sauces comprised of soy, garlic, sesame oil and spring onion, the perfect combination.

Dr L's came with a mild spiciness. All ingredients were largely cooked to perfection, the veggies weren't overdone and retained their crunch, the tofu absorbed a delicious amount of broth and the meat wasn't overcooked. I tried some of his soup and found it to have a good amount of spice without detracting from the enjoyment of the ingredients.

I had mine without any spice, so that I could add it on my own if I wanted it. Again each element was cooked to perfection, I particularly liked the bounce that my potato noodle retained. The tofu puffs were also a highlight for me as were the crunchy veggies. I would only have enjoyed it more if the meat were less fatty, otherwise it was a delicious meal, which is why I love going to love malatang.

Price Range: $3.80/100g, roughly $20 - $30pp

Taste: 8.5/10

Value: 9/10

Service: 8.5/10

Environment: 7/10

Goto - Southport

Readers my know by now, every time I go to the Gold Coast, it is inevitable that I try to hit up my two favourite Japanese restaurants down there, Amimoto and Wagyu Ya. This has often meant that on daytrips, I am unable to fit in much else or try new things because my preferences are so well defined. Well, last weekend I finally made an effort to try something else and we drove down to Goto for a quick weekend lunch, after hearing so many good reviews.

It was lucky we booked ahead, the restaurant was very small and walk ins weren't necessarily able to secure seating. We were most fortunately given seats at the bar, and were able to watch the chefs in action. Menus were provided quickly by the friendly waitress. There was a selection of starters, mains and sushi. Prices were on the higher end of the spectrum.

 

First to arrive were our sushi rolls, the Premium Wagyu Roll and the Crunchy Chicken Roll. Starting with the wagyu roll, it came in six pieces, the wagyu was very very thinly sliced and draped around the roll, which was filled with avocado, cucumber, carrots and snow pea sprouts. I would have preferred the beef to have been a bit more thicker cut so that we could appreciate its flavour and marbling. Otherwise the veggies in the roll were crunchy and fresh. The chicken roll had a bit more protein to it, being filled with fried chicken, avocado and cucumber. 

Our final sushi roll was the Goto House Roll. Inside was some cooked prawn, tamago, cucumber, avocado and topped with fresh salmon, kingfish and tuna. This was the best of the three sushi rolls. The fish was fresh, although it could have been thicker sliced, the fillings were also quite delicious, especially the creamy ripe avocado. I only wish there was more to the dish.

The highlight of our meal was undoubtedly the Premium Kaisen Don. I was told by our waitress that this is far far superior to the standard kaisen don. This was as delicious as it was beautiful, with two cuts to every type of fish, we were able to both try some of everything. Our favourite pieces in the bowl were the chutoro and the rich and fatty salmon belly. The rice was also well done with a smooth exterior and a soft chewy interior. It also came with a delicious steaming hot bowl of miso soup, which went down a treat. Although I don't really rate the sushi rolls at Goto, the Kaisen don made the visit worthwhile. If we come back, next time I'll be trying their Tempura Udon as well, which was extremely popular.

Price Range: $40 - $60pp

Taste: 8/10

Value: 6/10

Service: 8/10

Environment: 7/10

Maru Grillhouse - Brisbane CBD

It seems that the influx of new Korean BBQs in Brisbane still hasn't ceased and I'm not complaining. Recently Maru opened it's third store in the city with their specialised Grill House on Mary St, positioned right next to my long term favourite lunch spot, Kadoya. Recently, I made a booking to have lunch with a coworker and coincidentally, Brisvegustation also had an invitation which we arranged to have dinner on the same day, resulting in my having both of my meals that day at Maru Grill House.

With two levels of dining, I enjoyed my lunch on the ground floor whilst having my dinner on first floor. I love the light wooden aesthetic. Service was friendly. It was easier to get attention of staff downstairs during the lunch rush, but during dinner service, not having a bell on the table to get service made it more difficult, especially upstairs.

 

The menu contained quite a bit of variety, from set meals to bbqs, snacks and drinks.

On my first lunch there, I had the LA Galbi served with cold noodles. It came with some sauces and bottomless sides. The beef ribs were well seasoned and a sweet soy glaze and well caramelised, but I have to say that after taking the bones into account, there wasn't too much meat left. I did really enjoy the noodles though, these were served icy cold in a lightly sweet broth, the noodles were unbelievably chewy and it was useful to have scissors there to help cut it up. Although there wasn't much meat to accompany the noodles, the abundance of unlimited sides made up for this and for the price, it still represents good value for money.

I happened to go to Maru Grillhouse again the week after for another coworker's farewell. Wanting to try something different, I had the beef rib stew. It came served with purple rice. Compared to my earlier lunch, there was a lot more meat in the beef stew. This was soft, tender and wholesome. I really enjoyed the depth of the broth too. The rice was also cooked well and when added into the broth, made for a delicious and filling lunch.

Anyway, back to our dinner with Brisvegustation. I had originally been curious as to whether the ban chan came with set meals only or would still be available a la carte. This question was answered by our waitress when she showed up with the sides while we were still perusing the menu. There was a lot more sides than was available at lunchtime, our favourites were the kelp noodle, kimchi and salad. I also really enjoyed the fact that they had wasabi as a condiment for grilled meats.

It's hardly a KBBQ without drinks, we had two soju and a milkis to share. They had a good variety of flavours for soju, which I liked.

Our meat came out very quickly after and it was a sight to behold.

 The top row from left to right is the marinated rib finger, tri tip and chuck flap. Bottom row from left to right was the pork jowl, oyster blade and tender. The meat quality was amazing. Tender and fresh, each cut was delicious, but of course we had our favourites. Of these six, I have to say I enjoyed the oyster blade the most for its smooth texture and fat that rendered off with the bbq. Pork jowl was of course, crunchy as usual. The tender was the most expensive cut on our table, this was less fatty than the others and thick cut, it was more like a mini steak than thinly sliced for KBBQ, it was however very soft and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

We also ordered a serve of flap meat as part of our first order. It came late but was still delicious. Beautifully marbled it was buttery soft and melted in our mouth. It wasn't as good as the oyster blade but definitely one of the better cuts.

We also had a serve of bulgogi which was on special for that day of the week. Despite having a fairly strong marinade, it was fresh and we could appreciate the taste of fresh meat under the sweet soy sauces. The portion was good to share between the three of us and for $20, represented good value for money.

We also had a serve of steamed egg to share, this was fluffy despite deflating a little bit. The egg was light and souffle-like with a light savoury taste to it, making for a good compliment to the heavy meat we enjoyed. 

Overall, we had a wonderful time at Maru, I am very appreciative of their generosity and for Brisvegustation for bringing us along for his invite, no doubt we will be back later for some more food.

Price Range: $20 - $30pp (lunch) $80 - $120pp (dinner)

Taste: 8.5/10

Value: 7/10

Service: 7/10

Environment: 8/10

Lalaland - Stones Corner

We had another girls night the other week and decided to hit up another place on our list, Lalaland which is a Korean cafe and bar conveniently situated in Stones Corner. I forget why I had added it to the list but it had been there long enough that we decided to bite the bullet and finally try it out.

Arriving on a Saturday evening it was fairly quiet and there was only another table aside from ours. The menu was largely divided into two components, the buffet section and the a la carte section. Although I'm always passionate for fried chicken, we decided it would be safer to we opted for a variety from the a la carte menu instead.

The first to arrive was the beef bibimbap. The portion was fairly large and there was a good amount of toppings, however there wasn't too much beef in the bowl as I would have liked. The taste was fairly homey, albeit light and the veggies were fresh though. 

Although we didn't get the wings buffet, we still craved fried chicken and ordered a serve of boneless chicken, half and half with soy garlic and snow cheese flavour. For a full size serving, it could have been bigger. The batter was fairly thick and crunchy but the chicken wasn't too juicy though, but at least the flavouring was quite good.

We also had a kimchi pancake. Having read some reviews earlier, I was expecting to be disappointed, but it was fairly delicious. It was at least not soggy, but well fried, albeit not as crispy as I would have liked. There was a good amount of spice and a generous amount of kimchi.

The final dish we ordered was the ginseng chicken. I was a little sceptical when we ordered it. It came in a massive clay pot, the chicken was cooked and served whole. There was not any rice in the middle of it, instead it was served on the side. Although wholesome and soupy, it really didn't have too much ginseng flavours to it but it did have a lot of garlic instead. We even picked out what we presumed to be ginseng root to try and extract some flavours from it but that didn't help much. I probably wouldn't be ordering this dish in the future.

Price Range: $20 - $30pp

Taste: 6/10

Value: 7/10

Service: 7/10

Environment: 6/10

Old Monk - Rosalie

Had a friend's birthday dinner a few weeks ago. He was very keen on having Indian food, so his girlfriend booked him into one of his favourite places in town, Old Monk in Rosalie. We were glad to go, having heard so many fantastic reviews of the place.

The dinner was somewhat late and the place wasn't very full, unless you have a very large group, it doesn't seem like you need a reservation. Our long table was set and service was friendly and attentive.

 

The menu was quite extensive, but for large groups, we had the Old Monk Banquet, where everyone was able to order one small plate, one large plate and a side for $45. Depending on what you ordered, this could be notably cheaper than individual pricing.

Staff were amazing when it came to serving, despite a table of 15, each with three courses, they were able to prepare all dishes to arrive roughly at the same time. A lot of our food was shared around, but I will cover what Dr L and I ordered that evening. First up was our serve of Indian Fried Chicken. I wish more people had ordered this dish, because when it got put down, quite a few people had food envy and we were left with one piece each, which goes to show how popular it was. Anyway, the chicken was very flavoursome but not overly spicy. The batter wasn't particularly thick or crispy, but it still had some crunch. We really liked this and would order it again.

Our other small dish was the Hariyali Paneer Tikka, an Indian cottage cheese marinated with coriander, mint along with spices. This was generous in size for a small dish and there were a fair few pieces of cheese. I really enjoyed the chewy, spongey texture of the cheese and the strong hit of herbs and spices.

With such generously sized small dishes, I had high expectations for the large dishes. Sadly, I was left disappointed. After our first course was cleared, second course came fairly quickly. This was the butter chicken. It was without a doubt delicious, with its spicy but creamy tomato base. What definitely could have been better though was the protein content of the dish. As you can see, it was largely comprised of one chicken drumstick, which was fairly small. In fact I would say the portions were fairly akin to the small dishes. This could of course be bulked up with the addition of sides such as rice or roti, but I would definitely have liked more chicken.

Our other large dish was the Lamb Rogan Josh, a Kashmiri style slow cooked lamb with house grounded spices. The flavours were also really well done in this dish, again with some very creamy tomato flavours to the curry, but again there was a severe lack of protein in the bowl. Between the two of us, we only managed one bite size piece of lamb each, which was really not very sufficient. If I had paid for this outside of the course meal, I would be pretty upset to have paid $25 for two small pieces of lamb.

Dr L didn't feel like rice, so our two sides consisted of Butter Naan and Garlic Naan. These were actually huge and were of excellent use mopping up the sauces in our curries. The garlic flavours were notable, especially compared to the butter naan, but it wasn't particularly strong. I did like the textures of the naan, with its flakey layers and elasticity, it was fun ripping it up and dipping it into the curry. Overall we had a good time at Old Monk. Next time we go back we will probably opt for more small dishes and aim for flexibility in ordering, but overall it was a good experience and worth a return visit!

Price Range: $45pp

Taste: 8/10

Value: 6/10

Service: 8/10

Environment: 8/10

Dough Ma - Upper Mt Gravatt

I feel like I have somewhat missed the doughnut hype which happened in the last several years. Most of the openings were American style, but I've long been curious about Dough Ma, at Upper Mt Gravatt, which offers some more Asian style flavours. The only reason why I hadn't gone earlier was because it was a little bit out of the way, but we finally had our opportunity a few weeks ago.

Arriving early afternoon, I was quite pleased to see that they had many flavours still available, although not in high numbers. Prices were very reasonable, with a 6 pack going for $18.

I was actually very close to getting a six pack, but thought that we better not overspend our calorie budget for the day, instead we had two individual doughnuts to go. Each of them was packed in a separate box to ensure the toppings could get home without too much damage.

The Dr had the Oreo Doughnut. This was stuffed with cookies and cream, topped with oreo as well as some biscoff icing. Although it looked exceptionally decadent, I am pleased to report that having tried some, it wasn't overly sweet. It was a very filling dessert, but the doughnut was light and fluffy. 

I went for the matcha doughnut. It was a lot less adorned than the cookies and cream, but no less tasty. The matcha cream was light in tea flavour but also not very sweet, the texture was very rich and decadent though, contrasting with the light and fluffy doughnut. I find this doughnut to have a more bread-like texture more than a doughnut, but it was still quite enjoyable. I really wish I could have tried more flavours. I'll probably come back next time there is a house party (that I'm not hosting) and need to bring a plate, which would provide a good variety to share around.

Price Range: $5 - $15pp 

Taste: 9/10

Value: 8/10

Service: 7/10
Environment: N/A