Lock n' Load - West End

Went to the Girl Geek dinner last night, a group of awesome women who meet up to celebrate, network and encourage geekiness, as well as have some social time.  I'll blog more about that on Sleepydumpling's Big Adventure later.

The dinner was held at Lock n Load bistro at West End, right on Boundary Street.  Google Map here!

What a little gem of a bistro.  Tucked away amongst the shops (as most cafe's and bistros are in West End), Lock n Load has great food, friendly staff, well priced and is a fantastic venue.  They have the restaurant downstairs (which had a live jazz trio playing), a garden out the back and then a lovely room upstairs which seats about 30 people, and has a wide screen plasma on the wall perfect for talks and presentations.

The dinner last night had a set menu, with Turkish bread for starters for all, then several choices for mains, and also salad and shoestring fries served to the table for all.  I had crispy skinned barramundi with chorizo, potatoes and olives.  YUM-O.  The barra was beautifully fresh, cooked to perfection (the seasoning on that crispy skin was divine) and the olives and chorizos really offset the mild flavours of the fish and potato.

I really liked the feel of the place too.  Relaxed and friendly, and looks like it's been built into an old Queenslander house.  The staff were really helpful, the wine was good (and well priced) and the room upstairs a perfect venue for lots of discussion.

I'll certainly go back there.

Tales of Twestival

This is a bit of a late post, but better late than never right?

As per my last post, I went to Brisbane Twestival last Thursday night.  It was held at Metro Arts in Edward Street and was a great night.

I went along with friends and we started the evening with a meal at Wagamama, and then wandered down to Edward Street.  On arrival at Metro Arts we handed our Twestival tickets over to receive our programme, a lollipop, a cute little Twestival badge and a $20 Telstra phone away card.  Bonus!

My friends and I went down to Verve, the fantastic restaurant in the basement of the Metro Arts building.  Now I tell you, if you're in Brisbane, and have never been to Verve, do something about that and go ASAP.  Not only is it a great location with heaps of atmosphere, but the food is AMAZING, well priced and plentiful, and they have fantastic fun, relaxed service.  The whole crew there are heaps of fun and very friendly.  I can highly recommend the blue cheese risotto (I have seen people literally lick their plates) and they have the BEST sticky date pudding I have ever tasted.

We popped down there for a drink before the festivities (or should I say twestivities) started, and I had a rather delicious Sista T cocktail.  Behold!

Anyhoo, after a rapidly mind numbing cocktail, we popped upstairs to the studio for the main programme.  On the way in we popped into the Lolly Shop stall and bought a few of the cute badges they had there.  I quite fell in love with this one, I think you can see why...

They had some fabbo acts on, from local DJ Collapsicon, modern Middle Eastern dancer Moniq, and the AS Theatre who presented an excerpt from their upcoming play "Lazarus Won't Get Out of Bed."  I'm definitely going to see that one.

It's not too late to help with raising money through Twestival for Charity: Water.  Either follow my links  here to the Twestival website, or you can buy the Twestival T-shirt here.

I only wish I could have stayed until the end of the programme, but I was knackered after a rather intense day at work.  Oh well, next year!

Brisbane Twestival

I just bought my tickets to go to Brisbane Twestival next week.  

Twestival is an event organised by the Twitter community across the world for each of their cities, to be held on February 12, which will raise money for Charity:Water.  

Each Twestival is different, but the point is to bring the Twitter community of each city together for an evening of fun to help a good cause.

Brisbane Twestival will be held at Metro Arts in Edward Street on Thursday night, and is will have bands, theatre, art auctions, stalls, raffles and goodies for people to enjoy.  There is also a Facebook event if you want to have a look there.

I'm really looking forward to going along.

For those of you who don't know about or use Twitter, it's a form of microblogging, where you post up to 140 characters per "tweet" or update.  I love Twitter, and tweeting as it is called, has brought me so much cool stuff in my life.  Lots of famous people tweet, the most prolific of which would be Stephen Fry (@StephenFry).  If you want to have a look at my Twitter account, I am @sleepydumpling.