Moo Moo The Wine Bar + Grill

On Wednesday 28th July, a group of 20 Brisbane food bloggers / lovers met at Moo Moo for a truly wonderful 3 course meal with wines!

We were separated into 2 round tables of 10, which were located in side by side rooms. The decor was very bold and quite masculine, perfect fit-out for an elegant steak house, bar and grill. *another dining area, in the adjacent room to ours, I forgot to take pictures of our actual table...

The rooms are dimly lit, but it definitely adds to the overall atmosphere of the restaurant. Apologies for the dark photography! We had individual wait staff and a wine station within the room itself, how convenient! I was expecting one, maybe two glasses of wine with dinner, but they were very generous and we had our glasses topped up regularly throughout the meal.

Moo Moo graciously designed a 3 course set menu for us! Sarah (from I Ate Brisbane) and I excused ourselves to take some pictures of the restaurant before our entrees arrived!Busy busy chef's making out delicious feast!!

Oooh, looky looky! Moo Moo have a wall of glorious hanging Charcuterie, which would be making an appearance in our entree!!
Ah ha! Our tasting plates are being assembled, we rush back to our seats! More wine, and very shortly our entrees were brought out.
Definite highlights of this platter were the pork belly (of course!) as well as the tempura coated zucchini flower, which was stuffed with goats cheese and walnuts.
Onto the mains, I ordered the 300g dry aged sirloin, which was served with potato mash and gorgeous asparagus spears. The wait staff also came around with a variety of condiments for our steak. The "moo moo" was cooked medium rare (more rare than medium) and just to my liking. While not the best steak I've ever eaten, the sirloin did have a great flavour and I really enjoyed it paired with the horseradish and also their seeded mustard.

Unfortunately, my archaic camera ran out of juice before the dessert course! Ever the dessert fiend, this was my favourite of the night! Hot fudge sauce was poured over the luscious chocolate brownie by the wait staff, and the crunchy honeycomb pieces held such a great texture against the smoothness of the rest of the dish.

Such a fun night! After desserts, we all piled into the other room so we could chat with the neighbouring table of 10. The chef came and chatted with us while we ended the night with coffee's and the last of the wines.

The tardiness of this post means that the next Bloggers dinner has arrived, tonight! We are headed to The Gunshop Cafe in West End this evening for what is sure to be another memorable evening!

Oyama, Fortitude Valley

We really love sushi. I mean, it's like serious between us.. Jake, Sushi & I.. total BFF's. So naturally, when his birthday rolled around towards the end of June, his first choice was Sushi Train! However I made the subtle suggestion that *maybe* we should venture somewhere a little different for such an occasion, and he happily obliged. We are so crazy, instead of Sushi train, we went wild and booked into a Japanese restaurant instead. Woahhh, we live on the edge!

We headed over to Oyama on Wickham Terrace on Friday night and were seated in a lovely corner table with a good view of the restaurant. Oyama has 3 sections; a sushi bar with fresh sushi made to order, a Teppanyaki bar (so much fun!) and normal a la carte dining.

We ordered Yakitori as a starter, which is basically chicken peices on skewers. Super prompt service, however I felt slightly uncomfortable as the lovely staff seemed to linger / hover over our table. Almost immediately after we had finished the last skewer, they had whisked away our plates! Prompt service is normally welcome, however this just seemed a little abrupt.

We also both ordered tempura prawns and vegetables, which were absolutely delicious! Lightly battered, sooo crispy and hot! Jake ordered his with rice, and I decided on udon noodle soup. The noodles were perfectly slippery and the soup was perfect with the crispy tempura. We really enjoyed our meal, I just wish it hadn't felt so rushed!!

Afterwards, we headed over to the Mana Bar (aka Nerd Bar FTW!) for birthday cocktails and games! They have really delish cocktails, my fave was definitely the Mana Potion We played guitar hero and some punchy fighty game. Such a fun fun little club, we have been back a couple of times since, it's always a good time! *see random video game in background? weeee, fun!!

Lunch on Q

Recently, through the help of twitter and facebook, I was been lucky enough to come in contact with a group of fellow Brisbane food bloggers. These social networking sites get slammed quite frequently, but I hold nothing but fondness for them, as they provide a wonderful avenue to connect with like minded people and make some new friends.

I met up with a group of 5 other food lovers for lunch at Restaurant Two during Lunch on Q in June. For only $35, we enjoyed a two course meal with wine! Such a glorious treat, as Two is generally out of my price range for lunch.

Main course was either Braised Channel Country Beef Cheeks, Red Vegetable Puree, Mushrooms and Onion Jam or Grilled Jacob’s Well Prawns, Asian Salad and Nam Jim.
I chose the beef cheeks, and boy was I glad I did! I had never tried cheeks before this, and for some obscure reason I had the idea that "cheeks" were referring to a part of the cows bottom, when (shock horror) they are LITERALLY the cows cheeks! Further reading and research later confirmed that I am not the only person to make this mistake... so yay for me I guess.

Anyway, if you ever get the chance to order beef cheeks, DO IT! They were so tender and just fell apart at the touch of the fork.
Heavenly beef products = hallelujah!
It should be noted, that beef cheeks run the risk of being incredibly tough if they aren't cooked slowly at the right temp. An amazing mains, and a testament to the talented chefs at Restaurant Two. The second highlight to this dish was the onion jam, which was thick and caramelised and I loved this flavour paired with the tender beef and juicy mushrooms.

For dessert, we had a choice of Mt Tamborine Rhubarb, Apple and Pear Crumble with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream or a selection of farmhouse Cheeses, Quince Paste and Biscuits. Being the sweet toothed, candy loving gal that I am, I chose the crumble for my second course. This was lovely, the crumble had a great texture and the warm fruits were beautifully offset by the delicate, smooth ice cream. So decadent for a mid-week lunch! I didn't manage to take any pictures of the meals as we were all enjoying the company and conversation... and the delicious food!

I have been so stupidly busy lately with uni, work, life, etc and have completely neglected eyecandycarousel, hence the incredibly belated post. Hmmm, only 10 weeks late... woops!