Hear the Mighty Lions Roar!

Went to an AWESOME game of football last night.  The Brisbane Lions played the Sydney Swans at the Gabba here in Brisbane, and thanks to a generous friend, I got to go along and see the game live.

We managed to get into the stadium before it started raining, but by the time we got seated it was absolutely bucketing down.  We were lucky and had seats up in the nosebleed section, which is all undercover.  But I have to say, I don't think there is actually a bad seat in the Gabba, everywhere gives a good clear view of the field.  It's only really the weather that makes some areas less desirable, and last night was one of those nights.

It was a ripper of a game too, with the Lions smashing the Swans for the first time in 5 years, 100 to 67.  The Lions played a brilliant game, despite the inclement weather, and I had a fantastic time.

One of the things I really like about Brisbane Lions games is the fact that they promote a family friendly atmosphere.  Even for the night games, they encourage people to bring their families, and that all ages are welcome to the games.  There are licensed areas for those who would like to drink alcohol, but there are also PLENTY of alcohol free areas too for those who don't wish to be around the booze.  Which really encourages it to be about more than a piss up over football.  I like that.

I can heartily recommend going to a game of Aussie Rules at the Gabba, even if you're not a big fan of football, because it is so much fun you will be a fan before long.

The Willow - Moorooka

Today I had planned to go to lunch at an Italian restaurant over at Tarragindi, but when we got their they had closed, so instead my friends suggested The Willow over at Moorooka.  It's the pub on Beaudesert Road, at the bottom end of the shops.

They have a lovely big "beergarden" area, not really a beergarden but an outdoor kind of deck that is a restaurant.  Huge, spacious and cool once all the doors and windows are open, it's a nice area to sit for a Sunday lunch.  I ordered the steak sandwich.  It was HUGE!  Good tender steak (and not a scrawny thin bit either), bacon, egg, cheese, beetroot, onions, tomato and lettuce, served with battered chips and a side salad.  The side salad was a tad bland but there was so much of the chips and steak sandwich I couldn't eat everything so I didn't bother about it.

After a couple of hours sitting and talking with friends we decided to have coffee and dessert, so I ordered one of their two dessert choices (they could use a couple more choices really), which was chocolate mud cake with berry coulis and ice cream.  Absolutely divine.  The mud cake wasn't too sickly but was still fudgy, it was good quality vanilla ice-cream, and the berry coulis was made with real berries.  Really scrumptious, and they do a fairly good coffee too.

All in all, a pretty good find in the suburbs.

City Hall as the Light Fades

I really wanted to share this beautiful photo with you all.  It was taken by one of the local Tweeters, @iCharlotte and I really liked it, so I asked her if I could share it here on I ♥ BrisVegas.

Doesn't it have an awesome kind of twilight feel to it?  (I'm not talking about the sparkly Vampires people!)

I love City Hall.  I also love King George Square.  I only wish they hadn't put those ugly 50's style buildings in it that lead down to the new bus station.  It used to be a fantastic open space, there for all to enjoy, but the bus station buildings just chop it up and hide the square.  It's a shame.

Thanks again to Charlotte for this one, if you're interested in seeing more of Charlotte's stuff, she has a Tumblr account HERE.

Full of Cakey Goodness

I figured since I have tried the goods from TWO of Brisbane's cupcake boutiques this weekend, that I had better tell you about them.

Thanks to the Brisbane Twitter group, BTUB, I enjoyed cupcakes in New Farm park with some of my fellow Brisbane tweeters.  @shique purchased our cupcakes from two different cupcake boutiques, Poppy Cakes in Fortitude Valley and the Cupcake Parlour at West End.

The Poppy Cakes ones were very good - nice moist cake, sweet icing, cute presentation.  I was really excited to see that they have red velvet cupcakes, as red velvet cake is one of my favourite things in the whole world.  So of course I had to try one of those.  Take a look:

Cute huh?  Want a close up?  Ok, here you go:

My only criticism is that they weren't authentic red velvet cupcakes simply because the icing was plain vanilla icing.  Red velvet cake just isn't red velvet cake without vanilla cream cheese icing.  It's just not the real thing.  But they were still tasty anyway.

The Cupcake Parlour cakes though... what magnificence!  Not only were they totally scrumptious, but every single one was a little work of cupcakey art.  Check 'em out:

Gorgeous aren't they?  Each one totally individually flavoured with it's own style of decoration.  That green one on the bottom right with the pale purple flower?  It was apple.  This is the one that I had:

I also thought this one was extra pretty:

That little rose is just exquisite.
I will say though, eating two cupcakes was no easy feat.  Both types were incredibly sweet (without being sickly) so it was a pretty huge sugar rush afterwards, and then a crash a bit later.  I had to go home and find something savoury for dinner to counter all that sugar!
I'll definitely be buying cupcakes from The Cupcake Parlour again, that's for sure.

Jan Power's Farmers Markets

I finally got a chance to really go and peruse the Jan Power's Farmers Markets in Reddacliff Place, at the top of the Queen Street Mall.  They've been on since the beginning of this month, but I have been on holidays, so I hadn't had the chance to go and really take a look yet.

Running on Wednesdays from 11am to 6pm, the markets have everything from fresh fruit and veges, meat, bread, flowers, cheese and other dairy products, smallgoods and some hand crafted goods.  From what I could see, most of it was very well priced too.

As it was lunch time, I started out with a cheese kransky from the German sausage stand (slapped into a crusty breadroll with sauerkraut and mustard) to munch on while I had a look around.  I picked up a gorgeous ciabatta from the German bread maker (and a cinnamon stick for afternoon tea), some diced pork from one of the butchers, and fresh fruit and veg from some of the produce sellers.  I also popped back down at afternoon tea time to pick up some fragrant roses from the stall out on the William Street end, absolutely gorgeous roses for $8 a bunch.  I think that may become a regular weekly treat for me.

I'm really glad that they've moved to regular weekly markets right in the CBD.  It means I can get fresh, good quality produce at a reasonable price every week, without having to haul myself out to any of the suburban markets on the weekend.

Do check them out!

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!