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.

What Brisbane Needs: Part Two

I live over near the new State Tennis Centre at Tennyson.  In fact, I live within about 5 minutes walking distance.  And of course, the Brisbane International was on this past week.

You can only imagine what the traffic, public transport and parking were like.  Let alone the litter, broken bottles and noise.

I live near a church.  They had to put chains up across their driveways so that people didn't park in their car park, as they would need it for their services through the week.

Parking is now restricted in our area.  The first we residents found out about this was a notice in our mail the day before the deadline to object.  My building has limited parking, and now even less because tenants can't park on the street.  There were cars parked EVERYWHERE.  Dangerously everwhere - we had them right up to our driveway so that their wheels were touching the sides of the driveway, on both sides.  Anyone leaving our driveway couldn't see a thing.  On one occasion, either side of the driveway was parked a MASSIVE 4WD without a spot of dust on it.  Another example of people buying these big cars and not using them for their intended purpose.

There is broken glass all over the neighbourhood.  The already dodgy spots on the roads around the neighbourhood were lethal over this weekend.  I saw at the train station one day at least 200 people standing on the platforms looking hot and pissed off.

Don't get me wrong, I think the State Tennis Centre is awesome.  It looks great, is a world class facility and I am really  looking forward to being able to walk to events there.

However, how about some more planning into the infrastructure and the livability of the residents in the area?  How about repairing the disgusting state of Citytrain's service to this area?  Or adding some more buses instead?  Making parking reasonable and keeping the tennis centre parking out of the residential areas.  Allowing the residents to live safely and comfortably when big events are on.

Like everything else that happens in this city, infrastructure is neglected around it.  Come on Queensland Government and Brisbane City Council, isn't it about time you learned from past mistakes?