The Polish Place

Hello!
I visited The Polish Place a little while ago but I love it so much I thought I should share it with you all. Also since we've been having lots of beautiful weather, now would be the best time to go. It's up in Mount Tambourine, 333 Main Western Rd Tamborine Mountain, only 5 minutes away from the Gallery Walk.

The first thing you see is the breathtakingly beautiful view, that's why it's worth going on a sunny, blue sky day. There's heaps of outdoor seating so you can enjoy the scenery with some cute little visitors like lorikeets or the occasional kookaburra. Even if it's raining, inside is very cosy with some cute Polish decorations. The staff are all very friendly and all dressed in their beautiful traditional Polish costume.

I've made a video of my dining experience there so please watch and enjoy.

The food was all very tasty but my favourite would have to be the Polish Hot Chocolate. It was pretty much like a hot chocolate pudding and you had to eat it with a spoon. Perfect for a cold day. There's so much other stuff on the menu that I'd love to go back and try.

Even if you don't have time to sit down and have a meal there, this place is perfect for even an afternoon coffee to just relax and take in the scenery.

Happy Eating!
Joanne

Restaurant Two

Hello!
It was one of my closest friend's birthday recently, so we decided to celebrate it by fine dining at Restaurant Two at 2 Edward Street, Brisbane.

The atmosphere in the restaurant is very classy yet relaxed. I love the interior decor, it is very simple and clean with little touches that gives it some extra character. My cousin and I arrived early and instead of having to wait awkwardly by ourselves at the table, we were able to relax on the beautiful chairs in the entrance while the others arrived. The waiters were all extremely friendly and looked after us very well, even bringing us water while we waited for our friends.

After a long day at work I couldn't wait to tuck into all the yummy food on the menu! I started off with the Seared Hervey Bay Scallops which were cooked to perfection. The onion rings were also extremely crispy and the smoked tomatoes added an interesting flavour to the dish. This would have been my favourite dish of the night.

For mains, I had the Beef with Paris Marsh and Mushrooms. I chose the beef to be cooked medium well because I don't like mine too bloody, although I found it a bit too tough, probably should pick medium in the future. I still really enjoyed the main, the beef was really nice and I loved the mash and the mushrooms which tied the whole dish together. The mash was so smooth!

Then came the dessert, I couldn't decide which one to pick but in the end I went with the Passionfruit souffle with Passionfruit ice cream. Unfortunately I wasn't as excited about this as I thought I would be. The souffle tasted a bit too eggy and the ice cream was a bit more icy than creamy. It also looked a bit plain, like something was missing on the plate. However, the souffle was cooked very well and it had risen beautifully. 

We also ordered some cocktails, I had the Amaretto Ruby Sours which was very nice, didn't taste too alcoholic so it's great for light drinkers like me.

Restaurant Two would be another place I'd be happy to return to one day and I can't wait to try more dishes on their menu!

Happy Eating!
Joanne :)

Regional Food Festival

Hello!!
Last weekend, 21-22 July, was the Regional Food Festival at Southbank. As we all know how much I love food, I couldn't say no to it! Besides it was free. As the name suggests, there were heaps of local produces such as: fruits, vegetables, meats, cheese, olives, oils, chutney, chocolate, wines, dips, sauces...so much stuff! And we got to sample quite a few of them which is always the best part haha! So here are some of the things I got to try.

We got to munch on some juicy carrots, they were really sweet. Normally I don't like eating raw carrots, but this I loved. I thought about going back to get some more haha!

There were some sausages and some garlic and rosemary potatoes which were cooked to perfection.

 

Can't say no to some German sausages with sauerkraut.

There was also a seafood stand, where you get a couple of pieces of fried fish for about $5.

The Pauls Milk stand were giving out flavoured milk for a coin donation. They had Malt/Chocolate, Banana and Ice Coffee. They were very yum, might be a bit sweet for some people but you can always add more milk to them. I hope they sell them in supermarkets...I should go check that out.

 

This was interesting, they had some wheelbarrows with lots of herbs in them. The T-licious stand were giving out cups and what you do is pick the herbs you like and brew your own tea by adding some hot water. I picked lots of lemon myrtle, peppermint, apple mint, lemon sage, lemongrass and some other stuff. It tasted pretty good. Although I'm not sure if that's what gave me a bit of a stomach ache later...

The last thing I tried was some Mammino Homemade Ice Cream. We got Jaffa and Macadamia. I love this flavour combination! You can either pull them out of the cup and eat it on a stick or dig in with a couple of spoons. They have heaps of other delicious flavours.

I also saw Tregan and Jules from this year's Masterchef. Apparently Amina was there too but I didn't get to see her :(

At the end of the day I was pretty happy and satisfied with the food festival. It was kind of like the Good Food and Wine show but outdoors and free. So next year when it comes around again, I definitely recommend you to try it!

If you went this year, what your favourite thing that you sampled or bought?

Happy eating!
Joanne :)

San Churro Brisbane

Hello!

I had no idea there was going to be a San Churro opening in Southbank until I saw one of my friends post a picture of it on their Instagram. I was so super excited!! I love churros and I've never tried San Churro in other states before. So another friend and I made a date to try it out ASAP! We had no idea where it was but it's not hard to find, it's right next to the Southbank Cinemas.

As we were going on a Saturday, we thought it'd be really packed, there was a bit of a line but it moved pretty quickly. What I liked about San Churro compared to Max Brenner is that it's all table service which is great. No having to stand in line for ages just to order and then pray that you find a table before your order comes.

We ordered the Churros for Two and a Spanish Hot Chocolate each, I had the Mint Magnifico and my friend had the Avellana, the hazelnut one.

 

The Churros for Two came out first, you get about six churros with two pots of either milk, dark or white chocolate or caramel, we chose milk and dark. We also had them sprinkled with cinnamon sugar but you also get the choice of icing sugar. I found the churros a bit too crunchy for my liking and as they got colder, they became even harder. I always thought churros were suppose to be more donutty in texture? Aren't they the Spanish version of donuts? But it was still pretty tasty and I liked them with the dark chocolate.

My mint Spanish hot chocolate was yum! Very thick and creamy and so filling! Perfect on a cold night. I'd love to try out all their other flavours as well, such as the orange one.

I love this quote on their napkins!

Overall I enjoyed experience at San Churro, unfortunately I was slightly disappointed by the churros but that won't stop me from going back in the future!

Hope you enjoy it just as much, if not more!

Joanne :)

Brent's: My First Degustation Experience

Wow I seem to be having a lot of firsts lately hehe! The other day my beautiful friend Joanna introduced me to the wonderful world of degustation! I've always been a bit hesitant in trying degustations because I thought I'd never be able to finish them or else I'd be super bloated! Surprisingly, I finished practically every delicious dish and didn't feel like I was in a food coma afterwards. We ate for 3.5 hours!!

 

We started off with two appetizers, the Amuse Bouche and Wild mushroom cappuccino with truffle oil and prosciutto crumbs. I absolutely loved the wild mushroom cappuccino, it's essentially a mushroom soup but it was so delicious and great on a cold night. I only wish it came in a bigger cup!

Then came the entrees, the Crumbed & fried goats cheese, beetroot & sorbet, candied pecan & charcoal lavosh and Red claw yabby, citrus cured salmon, cucumber, melon & mandarin jam. Both were delicious, the beetroot sorbet would help cut through the richness of the goats cheese. The yabby was a bit small but I guess that's all you can expect for an entree.

We had a bit of a refresher which was Chartreuse marshmallow, compressed apple, cucumber snow & milk wafer so it would cleanse the palette. Ok, I admit, I didn't like this, the flavours and textures were all just a bit weird for me but it was refreshing.

Mains were Crispy confit duck, butternut pumpkin, lemon curd & liquorice wafer and Slow cooked beef cheek, paris mash, sautéed mushroom, prosciutto & garlic croutons. I loved both of these but if I were to pick one, it'll have to be the duck. It was just so crispy and the lemon curd went perfectly with it. The beef cheeks were so soft that it would pretty much just melt apart, although the dish as a whole was a bit too salty, it would have been nice if there wasn't so much salt in the mash because the flavours of the beef were already quite strong.

 

We then had a Cheese course of the day which was then followed by dessert which was Coffee & fennel seed ice cream with chocolate mud cake and ganche. Unfortunately, the cheese of the day was blue cheese which neither of us are a big fan of. I had a few nibbles on the blue cheese and it wasn't too bad, not the worst of the blue cheeses I've tried. The dessert was was nice, the flavours of the ice cream were interesting, although I didn't like the ganche so much, it tasted like it was burnt.

The atmosphere inside Brent's was very relaxed but it still had the fine dining feel to it. It wasn't one of those places where you felt like you had to whisper to the person next to you and act extremely proper. The staff were all very friendly, polite and informative about the food which I think was great otherwise I wouldn't have a clue as to what I was eating. Brent's is another restaurant I would be happy to return to!

Overall, I enjoyed my first degustation experience and would definitely love to do it all again! So if you know of any good places to try, please leave a comment below.

Thank you!!

Joanne :)

Masterchef Challenge: Eight Textured Chocolate Cake

Hello Everyone!!

So I'm a big fan of Masterchef, also because I had a bit of a crush on Gary for a while hehe!

On this current season of Masterchef Australia, one of the Pressure Test Challenges was for the contestants to replicated Peter Gilmore's Eight Textured Chocolate Cake. My good friend Angel asked if I wanted to try making this dish with another friend, Jenny, so I thought why not!

We got a list of ingredients and equipment together and gave ourselves plenty of time to put this cake together. The contestants on the show were only given 3 hours. Between the 3 of us, we thought we'd try to aim for that time, but 4.5 hours later we finally finish assembling this cake! Boy was it a marathon!! I think I've had enough of melting chocolate over a double boiling for a while. You may notice that our cake is a normal cake size and not the cute little ones that it should normally be, we didn't have the correct size cutters so we did what we could.

Here's a picture of a lot of the processes we kept repeating...I think I got to around texture 4 and was hoping we had nearly finished, to only be told that we were only half way...nooooo!

This is us assembling the cake, first goes the cake base, then the mousse, dacquoise, ganche and milk chocolate praline.

Unfortunately, we had to leave out one of the textures, the chocolate caramel cream. As we were whipping the double cream into the mixture, it started to split. We decided it was better to leave it out. (I think that also happened to one of the contestants on the show, she still put it in but got eliminated) Instead we decided to use a bit more chocolate mousse and sprinkle it with some left over hazelnut and almond praline.

The final layer, the tempered chocolate goes on top, and here we are with our finished cake. Now for the final texture to be poured on top for the special effect!

Success!!

Would I call this cake a complete success? I wouldn't say it was completely, but it definitely tasted good! Would I try to make this dish again? No, I'd rather fly down to Sydney and eat it at Quay.

If I were to try this again, the equipment we'd definitely try to have next time would be a palette knife to ensure that the layers would be smoother and thinner. Also, tempering chocolate without a thermometer doesn't work (duh!) but hey we did what we could and it still looks pretty!

Very happy with our finished product!

We finish the night off with some much craved for savoury foods, also inspired by one of the latest episodes on Masterchef, some antipasto!

 Ahh if only Jamie Oliver could cook for me! But this was pretty delicious!!

Thank you Jenny for letting us borrow your beautiful home!! I hope we didn't make too much of a mess.

If you do want to attempt this recipe here's the link for it: http://www.masterchef.com.au/recipes/eighttexture-chocolate-cake.htm
Good luck and let me know how it goes! If you have tried it already, how did it turn out for you?

Joanne :)

My First Post

Hello everyone!!

Hmm what should I write for my first post? Well let me begin by saying thank you for coming here to visit me :) Also a big thank you to all my friends and family for being supportive of me with my new projects and most of all, thank you for putting up with me!!

So I've decided to start up a blog as well, along with my YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/yenfaceitinerary.  As much as I loved going out and filming all my culinary adventures, sometimes I would forget my camera or just want to have a nice chilled out meal with my friends. However, I'd still like to share my experiences with you, so this is where I'll be posting about some of the other stuff I get up to. Don't worry I'll still be making my videos, they're so much fun to do!!! So please visit my channel when you get the chance to as well!! Also, please let me know of any other places I should try! There's so many amazing places out there that I'm yet to explore!!

Enjoy!!