Cheung's Cakes - Fortitude Valley

Growing up in Brisbane, there definitely wasnt as much choice in Asian food. One of my fondest memories during primary school was my mother buying me bread from Cheung's Cakes in the valley when she went grocery shopping, and giving it to me as an afternoon snack after school. This was all before the uprising of Sunnybank, and Bread Top. You could imagine the fond memories that washed over me when I passed by the other day, and saw it exactly the same as it was over fifteen years ago. With my father's birthday coming up, it was the prefect occasion to order a cake. 

For $15 I purchased a small fruit cake. It looks quite homey and far less commercial compared to those you can purchase at bread top or at the bakeries in Sunnybank, but I found it very familiar and comforting. I was also very impressed with the strong fruity flavours that waffled out of the box the moment I lifted the lid. 

As for the cake itself, I absolutely loved it. I found the texture to be far smoother but lighter than the other asian cakes I've had, and the Cake:Cream:Fruit ratio to be near perfect. The fruit was really fresh and sweet. Its noteworthy that the owner didnt sell me the mango cake because they were not certain they would get ripe sweet mangoes, I found this to be very ethical and refreshing in a commercial context. 

As a reference for my readers, during my chats with the owners, I learned that Cheungs is relocating to McWhirters from the train station at the end of March. I will definitely be purchasing all my birthday cakes from there from now onwards.

Price Range: $15 - $30 for a cake. $2 - $4 for breads

Taste: 8.5/10

Value: 8.5/10

Service: 7/10 (was friendly, but nothing special)

Environment: 5/10 (in a dodgy part of the railway station in the valley)

Cube Seafood Restaurant - Sunnybank

Hidden in the corner of the carpark at Sunnybank Plaza, is the recently refurbished Cube Seafood Restaurant. I'm sure many of my readers will be familiar with 'Lai Lai', the previous store in that spot, which did a buffet that was famous for its fried chicken wings. 

We went on a Monday night to find the restaurant completely packed. We were pretty much the last walk in group. I noted quite a long wait for people at the door. The decor was pretty basic, but I could definitely see an ocean theme running through the restaurant, with their blue wallpaper and fences that you see at docks.

We were relatively promptly seated, but I do note that after deciding what we wanted to order, it took around 15 mins before we could get the waiter's attention to order. Unfortunately this was a common theme throughout the meal, as food came out quite slowly. I guess this was because the restaurant was so packed that day.

The first to arrive, as usual, was the complementary soup. The soup of the night was lotus root soup. I found it to be light and appetizing, whilst not very strong on MSG. I liked it very much.

For entrees, we had spicy jellyfish. I found the portion to be rather generous, especially when other places usually mix in chicken with the jelly fish, this dish was almost purely jellyfish only. I found it to be not as spicy as I would have liked, but still, the jellyfish tasted quite fresh and had a nice texture to it.

Next up came a dozen of garlic and ginger steamed oysters. Personally, I am not a huge fan of shellfish (clams, oysters, pipis etc.) but the general consensus around the table was that it was really overcooked, and could do with a bit more flavour, but the oysters were really big, especially because oysters are prone to shrinking more when cooked, they must have been huge to begin with.

Our rice and mains arrived after that.

Our steamed fish was the next to arrive. Usually speaking, I am not a big fan of steamed fish, but in this instance, I found it to be very fresh. The flesh was firm and tasty.

The next dish was my most anticipated garlic fried pork chops. Taste wise, the dish was fragrant and crispy. It had ample amounts of garlic, but we found the meat to be exceptionally fatty. I would definitely like it a whole lot more if they used skinnier meat.

Without a question, my favourite dish of the night was the tofu. My favourite way of cooking tofu is like you can see in the photo, deep fried, and then covered with sauce. I particularly liked the sauce in this one, because it was made from dried scallops. I found it to be rich and thick, but not overly so. It complemented the rice very well.

The veges for the night were covered in quite a thick layer of beef and sauce. If you're a big fan of vegetables, you may find it underwhelming, but as a self proclaimed carnivore, I found it a big improvement on the regular stir fried veges. The beef had a good tender texture, and I found it quite enjoyable.

   


We finished off the meal with the regular fruits and dessert. The dessert of the day was sweet tofu skin soup.

Despite several hiccups, I did enjoy my meal at the Cube Seafood Restaurant. The food has definitely got the right elements there, and there were a couple of things they could do better in terms of execution, but it definitely has potential. I do also think that the waiters could have been more attentive, or they could have worked to ensure they were better staffed if they knew that it was gonna be a busy day.

Price Range: $25 - $50 per person

Taste: 7/10
Value: 7/10
Service: 5/10
Environment: 7/10

Breakfast Creek Hotel - Breakfast Creek

Last year, a couple of friends and I were in the mood for steak. They wanted to go somewhere rather iconic in Brisbane, and the place that came to mind was the Breakfast Creek Hotel, which I had been to several years ago.

In my opinion, the thing that sets the Breakfast Creek Hotel apart from other places is its its glass steak cabinets. I love the fact that you can go up and see and decide what steak you would like that day (taking into account the thickness and freshness of the steak).

The three of us ordered, and went to find seating. Unfortunately, all seating available that day seemed to be outdoors.

We then went to obtain drinks at the bar. Again, lemon and lime bitters (the usual favourite)

After a rather short wait, our steaks came out. I was particularly impressed with the little individually packed bread rolls on the side. It meant that I was able to take mine away because I could barely finish my meal.

This was the eye fillet with baked potato and garden salad. It was really tasty and they were very generous with the amount of bacon sprinkled on top of the potato.

My other friend ordered the rib fillet, served with chips and coleslaw. From what I hear, she liked it.

As usual, I ordered a T-Bone, rare, with pepper sauce. I also had the garden salad, although I would really have preferred the option of caesar salad instead, and chips.

The steak was cooked rare, just as I like it, but I found the portion of sauce provided to be a bit lacking. I would also have preferred the chips to be better seasoned. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed my meal at the Breakfast Creek Hotel.

Price Range: $25 - $40 per person

Taste: 7/10

Value: 7/10

Service: 5/10 (non existent really)

Environment: 6/10

Park the Truck - Brisbane CBD

Last Friday marked the first Park the Truck event in Brisbane. It was a one day event, and by the looks of things, will be held annually from now on. I didnt get to try many things, but I did manage to take a lot of photos.

I found the opening hours to be very very short, and with the amount of people that went, perhaps it would have been better to be spread over one or two weekends, like the World Food Markets that we went to last year.

We arrived just before 6pm to find a huge amount of people and excessively long lines at every single truck.

Due to the fact that there were only two of us, we settled on ordering one item from Arepa House, and one item from Chip Tease before moving on to the Boundary Road Markets.

After lining up for one hour at each stand, we finally got our food. I found the Reina Papiada at Fiery Deli to be very interesting. We could definitely taste the difference from regular bread (because this was corn bread), but we found the fillings (avocado and chicken) to be rather bland, however the shallots were a really nice touch.

On the other hand we really enjoyed the chips from Chip Tease. The chips were extremely fresh, and crispy on the outside. We particularly impressed with the delicious cheese and gravy on top. I particularly liked how the gravy was enough to reach right down to the bottom of the cone. It definitely sets itself apart from the chips I've had at any other places. I would definitely go again if the opportunity presented itself.

Doughnut Time - Fortitude Valley

Several weeks ago, a super big fan of doughnuts from work mentioned that there was a new place in the valley that sold doughnuts, and that there was quite a hype on social media about it. To be honest, I did not take much note of it at the time, but after seeing it online, I made the call to go as soon as possible. 

Living on the Southside means that I usually hang around Sunnybank and more recently Runcorn rather than Fortitude Valley. Even getting to Alfred Street was quite an issue for me (at one stage I ended up at New Fam...). Anyway, a good 45 minutes into my 1 hour lunch break, I found myself at Alfred Street.

There was a small crowd outside the store at midday on Friday. I shudder to think how long it would be during non working hours.

It is situated in the little gap between Kwan Brothers and Alfredo's Pizzeria (two places which I have wanted to go for a very long time)

There is quite a simple menu stuck to the wall. All the doughnuts sell for $6, which I note are double the cost of the most expensive Krispy Kremes. When I mentioned this to some of my associates, they were quite curious that anyone would spend the cost of a lunch on a doughnut. Anyway, this had me intrigued, so I convinced Doughnut Fanatic to share a mixed box of 6 with me. Luckily for us, I had phoned ahead of time so whilst some of the other people in the queue were unable to get some of the flavours as they had sold out, we had gotten almost all that we had asked for.

It was packed in a regular six pack box like Krispy Kreme. I note the lack of a bag which would have greatly assisted my carrying it all the way back to the CBD.

Between the two of us, we ordered the following:

• Love at first bite (Nutella filled)
• Plant the Seed (Raspberry)
• Original Glazed
• Butternut (Pistachio we think)
• Salted Caramel
• Oreo

Here's a shot of my favourite one, love at first bite. In terms of the doughnuts, I found them to be very distinctive from Krispy Kremes. The general consensus between the people we shared it with was that the texture was very 'bread-y' rather than 'doughnut-y'. The frosting on top was very generous, and had a large variety of flavours, but I found it to be a bit too sweet. Its worth noting that it was not as oily and fried as Krispy Kreme, but in my opinion, my preferred doughnut is still Mister Donut (from Japan). In comparison to Krispy Kreme, my associate the Doughnut Fanatic considered the Doughnuts at Doughnut time to be better, though I personally consider them to be on par with each other. 

Price Range: $6 per doughnut

Taste: 7/10

Value: 6/10

Service: 7/10 (the guy who took my order on the phone was very nice)

Environment: 4/10 (not even seating provided...)