Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
I had dinner in town on Friday night with a friend - we went to Pane e Vino, where I think the quality of the food isn’t what it once was. We were reflecting later that our continuing to patronise this establishment was probably an artefact of habit more than anything else - back in the mid 90s, it was one of the few places to eat in Brisbane town at a price point between Hungry Jacks and the really posh silver service joints. Now there are bistros all over the place, but we haven’t tried any. So any recommendations of good CBD eateries where you can get a meal and a glass of wine for about thirty bucks are much welcomed!
I was back in town yesterday - going to the QUT Gardens Point library for books for the thesis. When I emerged from the library, the weather had changed from being a beautiful sunny day to cold and grey - and it felt like a storm was building up. By the time I got to the bus stop on Adelaide Street to go home, the sky had gone a very odd shade of yellow - just minutes before the storm hit. Fortunately I had my camera with. It was a doozy of a storm - the bus stop crowd had to move back about half the width of the sidewalk to avoid getting drenched, and heralded the coming of some very cold winds. So we were all rugging up last night!
Before the storm I by *phenomenologist on deviantART
If you’d like to see a larger image of the photos, click on them then click on “full view” once you’re inside the gallery.
Before the storm II by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Before the storm III by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Amazing pics Mark. Thought provoking.
We’re making vege goulasch/goulash (diced potatoes, green beans, brocolli, brussel sprouts, red capsicum, leek, swede, garlic, hungarian paprika, pepper, vege stock, tinned organic tomatoes, Spiral Foods organic pasta sauce, & enuff water to make it soupy)…chuck in straight from the garden some herbs (thyme, oregano), chillies & dill.
Add some garden grown curled parsley to the dumplings (put 2 cups of self-raising flour w/ chopped parsley & dill in blender, mix dry ingredients & then blend in a cup of low fat milk…then as large scoopfuls of doe add them to the gently simmering goulasch for 20 minutes)…stir in some low fat sour cream…& you’ve got a delicious meal.
Off to watch recordings of Battlestar Galactica, SG-1, Heroes & the last Doc Martin to let the brain relax.
Re dining out & quality of food…
A week or so ago, I saw an ABC cooking show - and/or “Grumpy Old Men” re-run - which included negative comments about the current restaurant habit of piling food in a rather slender central stack with a tasteful (metaphoric) arrangement of leaves and a cutsie artistic “drizzle” around the outer edge.
Top Brisbane & Noosa restaurants I loved; but I’m now fairly much confined to an area which, decades ago, my French / Italian cuisine-mad friends and I realised could not top the amateur fare we produced at home. Paying for two what we would spend on a better version of same meal, cooked at home for 8 with a nice cellared drop included, kept us out of local restaurants except when we agreed to sample a newie said to be as good as … (here insert best of Briz / Noosa) - which it never was! Anyway, my “to die for” eat-out fare is excellent French HautC. Or it’s good Asian or provincial Italian; neither given to “stacks”, “drizzle” etc.
So it was we dined at a local “revamped”, “silver service” establishment … well, sort of … without once thinking that I might be about to sample The Stack, The Grass & The Drizzle!
On menu card, the dish sounded great: a tender etc etc meat, served with a vegetable fritter, home made tomato chutney and yoghurt. Ah, thought I; your “fusion” food. But it should work beautifully …
Except, that, by the time the cook turned the meal into an arty-farty “statement” - putting (a) the fritter on the bottom of the stack on the (cold) plate (b) topping it with warm chutney flowing down, pooling on the (cold) plate round the fritter; adding (c) a generous dollop of cold, runny yoghurt which joined the flowing, pooling chutney, laying over it (d) the small thick serve of nicely rare meat, (e) again topping it with chutney, (f) pouring more cold yoghurt fairly lavishly over it, down the sides, pooling on the plate - the warm & hot ingredients cooled!
Naturally (as any cook with half a brain would know) the formerly hot fritter absorbed the cold yoghurt, and the cooling once-warm chutney. The rare meat, doused in cold yoghurt rapidly chilled (as any cook etc etc). The “drizzle” was Worcester sauce; the leaves obviously not meant to be eaten as they were limp (& looked a bit “recycled”).
If the small piece of the fritter not rendered cold mush by the time I got to it was any indication, it started out really interesting. The “home-made” chutney was good. The meat was tender & well cooked - but turning cold as I ate.
If only the whole meal hadn’t been rendered almost inedible by the Bl**dy wanking STACK!!!
I could have bought 3 kg of top, export “BeefCity” T-bones, the yoghurt, made the chutney & the fritter, and fed 8 for the price - but I hope I have more B**ODY sense than stick the lot in a stack on top of a fritter.
Luckily, I wasn’t paying for the meal!
Well P e V was, until my recent departure for all parts RARA, my “other office” but even the coffee’s gone off. If you like, I’ll pass the assessment back to Tony and Gino when next I’m in town. They struggle a bit with keeping good staff but they work hard at keeping standards up.
I’ve spent most of the weekend shortlisting. Bleeeugh.
The reason for the eerie light was that the storm front was very thin, it was all over in 15-20 mins, and it came late in the afternoon. So although you couldn’t see the sun it was projecting light through underneath the clouds.
It’s actually a bit late in the year for storms, but it’s the first rain we’ve had (about 10mm) since we had 5mm about a month ago. So while we are grateful the pattern of dry autumns since 2000 sadly remains.
Please explain… the three light spots that change position and intensity in your three spooky snaps … The light definitely had that end of days / change of mandate of k/heaven / feel to it, perhaps there’s was an extraterrestrial visitation and you pics are evidence. The hail in some suburbs was manufactured just to throw us off their scent, for sure. Be careful there Mark, I’m no
..t sure pleading alien abduction will get you an extension on your theis delivery date, even if it is true.
Haven’t ever tried P e V (too physically close to the part-time “Oirish” nongs of Gilhooleys for my likings), but I’d recommend “Bubbles” in the Albert Street part of the Mall. Had a three-course meal there tonight (soup, barramundi, cheesecake, three cups of coffee and a pot of tea — no wine, as I was driving) for $51.50.
Mark, that storm was a beautiful yellowly-green coming over mt cootha yesterday … i guess about 15 mins before you got it. Being only a Brisbane newcomer, I’ve been to Pane e Vino for lunch date during business days - it’s ok, solid but not spectacular. I’ve had good breakfast and lunch experiences at Salt, in Rosalie, and Spout just down the road from me in Auchenflower was still doing excellent modern Aussie bistro dinner a year ago when I last went.
I do have to say that generally I’ve found that BNE on the whole offers better Asian cuisine than Italian or Mod-Aussie bistro compared to say Sydney or Melbourne.
Apart from the storm and the Friday nights excellent belting of Parra by Easts via the radio (curse channel 9 brisbane) it was all Roman frontiers for me, all weekend.
“I do have to say that generally I’ve found that BNE on the whole offers better Asian cuisine than Italian or Mod-Aussie bistro compared to say Sydney or Melbourne.”
Agree, Tyro. In fact, I can’t eat Vietnamese in Melbourne. Its just no good. I save it for visiting Brisbane.
Otherwise, Melbourne has the substantial culinary edge; and certainly in Italian.
Can’t comment on Sydney. Tend to fly over it!
Birthday shopping on Saturday - two birthdays next friday (middle child and mum). As usual, could not decide what to buy but middle child is an excellent shopper and had brought a catalog along she spied her mum looking at. It threatened to snow all day (that weird, still, portentous air that seems to precede snow in New England) but it didn’t. Finally started about 11:00pm and blanketed everything thickly, although it melted about an hour and a half afterwards. I tried to get some photos but I don’t think they turned out. The house is much cosier this year after much renovating over the summer thankfully.
Sunday - too cold for cycling so slept in. Pottered around the house, watched bad Sylvester Stallone movie on the TV (cliffhanger?). Sunday night fired up newly purchased copy of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” at prompting from the kids as they’ve seen the ads for the new film and were curious. We tried watching “temple of doom” on TV the other night but it was so awful we couldn’t finish it. “Raiders” is so much better. That scene where Indiana shoots the flashy swordsman in the market is still very funny, probably unrepeatable though.
Lefty E, Sydney has the best Vietnamese in Australia IMO. Struggle to find a campfire beef anywhere north of there. If anyone has, please tell.
The weekend was spent away from the coast, down in Sydney.
Netball watching on Sat am- first victory of the current season to the team the second daughter plays in! Yeah!
Saturday afternoon we drove over to Woollahra Oval to watch the mighty Western Harbour Pirates demolish Eastern Suburbs. I appreciate that perhaps not many readers at LP love rugby but the Western Harbour ( used to be plain old Western Suburbs )team has a fantastic backline this year. They are so potent they can score a try from any position on the field.
I recommend any rugby lover tries to see them this season - they are reminiscent of the Galloping Greens of the 80’s.
Sunday morning was spent having a very ordinary breakfast looking over Warriewood beach and the tiny surf.Drove home after that and the drive up the coast didn’t disappoint - the gum trees so majestic against the blue sky.
Good luck to Paul and David in Armidale - hope the cold doesn’t last too long or move too far east!
murph the surf,@12.
Cold isn’t too bad today - might even venture up the corner shop.
A dreadfully cold weekend. Rugged up in several layers of clothes for my brief time at the computer (including my bogan flanelette shirt.)Apart from when I had to get up for an early hot shower - madness, considering the chill in the air, but I’m a person of routine - or to heat up some meat pies or McCain’s meals in the microwave, spent both days rugged up in bed reading.
Saturday, finished reading a new book on Newgate prison. Dipped into an abridged edition of Dampier’s Voyages I bought last Thursday, but spent most of the day reading and note-taking from Merrill Jensen’s The Founding of a Nation. A history of the American Revolution,1763-1776. Is full of the kind of delightfully obscure tit-bits I like using in my writing - eg in 1763 Washington finally got through a statute in the Virginia lower house to control roaming hogs in the streets of Wilmington, Va, but had to disguise it as a water conservation measure.
TV Sat night. Is that Bed of Roses on the ABC a chic flick, or what? Watched the Bill.
Sunday - a repeat of Saturday. Reading Jensen.Watched Insiders. Little bit of time on computer, mostly reading. Sunday, TV, loved the China documentary. Enjoyed the Victorian melodrama. Too tired to watch Sophie Scholl right through on SBS, but whay I saw was brilliant, though I missed the first half hour.
Thanks for the restaurant suggestions! Just to clarify, I’m only asking about the CBD - I know lots of good places to eat in NF, the Valley and West End (and Southbank for that matter), but I’m looking for some decent eateries in town as an alternative to Friday night drinking without eating!
there’s a chinese restaurant at the top of the mall, in lennon’s i think, that does pretty god yum cha at lunch time. it should be open at nighttime i’d imagine.
Mark wrote:
Blasphemy. As the Devil Drink might say: Eating’s Cheating!
Ah the storm on Saturday!… Earlier, took my teen to a ‘jam session’ for youngsters at the Jazz Club in Kangaroo point. First, we listened and watched how it’s done by a bass guitarist and percussionist duo who were there to help out the kids. It was great, and I reluctantly slunk out after so my kid (a newbie) could jam without my cramping his style - but the taste of jazz had put me in a marvellous mood for mooching about Kangaroo point… although I had things to read, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the sights in the sunshine - the climbers high on the Story bridge, canoeists below on the river, families on the grass etc… everything seemed to glisten in a brilliant, still afternoon. Back at the Jazz club later, went to pick up, but the newbies had been welcomed to stay on, so got to see my kid playing along in what seemed to be the magical shared bravery of spontaneous music, encouraged by these seasoned musos. That amazing light before the storm was on the river, which can be seen from the windows of the club, creating a beautiful atmosphere as the performance was finishing.We drove home through rain and lightning & it did feel good to be alive.