The song is ..well annoyingly catchy but Fridays are AWESOME. I can't explain it, there's something about Fridays, no it's not the weekend because I work on Saturdays. Or maybe it's Fridays used to be date night? (prior hubby days)
Fridays mean eating out, Fridays mean that rush when I walk out of work and Friday night dinners are always a treat.
Last Friday--thanks to me leaving work later due to obligatory work drinks ( I really just went for a free can of coke zero--not kidding) hubby met me in Fortitude Valley. Instead of the usual 'what do you want for dinner' discussion where we (I) narrow choices progressively while we are stuck in traffic he simply said 'western or asian?' to which I replied 'western'.
That is the process by which we arrived at Gerards Bistro. Both of us have been here before but on different occasions with different groups of people--i.e. we never came together.
Gerards Bisto is in James St New Farm-- way to hip and cool for us (me thinks). It popped up a few years ago and for awhile I thought it wouldn't make it in Brisbane--but alas its proof that 'exotic' can survive with the right packaging.
My memory of the last dining experience was --hunger. I last ate at Gerards with a group of girl friends-- and for some weird reason everyone hushed up when it came to ordering except with the chorus of 'I'm not that hungry'. I didn't want to be the only one who was 'absolutely starving' so I settled to join in the chorus of 'I'm not that hungry'. So my last experience really was a tease--half of a delicious scallop is NOT better than no scallop at all.
Hubby dined last with a group of friends who were half drunk before they got there---so naturally 'not that hungry'. Hubby liked the food--maybe that's why he wanted us to go there tonight where we are both (sadly) familiar enough with each other to admit we are 'absolutely starving'.
Menu has changed since the last time but atmosphere, decor has not. Staff professional albeit not the warm and fuzzy type. We were seated promptly at 6pm and offered all the usual and necessary explanations of 'share plates, specials, drinks menu, water (tap or sparkling)'
Menu remains spice and very true to its google description of 'Dishes from Africa, Europe and the Middle East in a chic dining room with a 3D timber wall.'
We ordered 3 small plates and 2 large plates -- we actually ordered 1 large plate to start but at the recommendation of our waitress we added a vegetable dish (subtle upsetting? maybe not, maybe we looked REALLY hungry). But we're glad we ordered that extra plate, otherwise we will never seem to be able to fill our stomachs at this joint.
Our small plates: quail eggs, tuna and octopus were yum. Each one you could taste the use of spices and the presentation was modern, clean without being too clinical. Favourite plating was the quail eggs--isn't it cute its little eggs in a nest of twigs/onion
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| soft boiled quail eggs, sweet onion, dukkah |
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Yellowfin tuna, smoked bone marrow, pickled artichoke, tendon I'll be honest--I couldn't find the marrow, artichoke or tendon |
Octopus --always a favourite with hubby and myself, loved the tenderness with the (hopefully intentional) charred bit of tentacle. Green strawberries? whatever it works.
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coal-grilled octopus, green strawberry, chilli, butter, almond and smoke
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Our big plates came out and they were at least (marginally) bigger than our small plates. Cauliflower and pomegranate was what we added at the suggestion of the waitress--to be fair--i secretly wanted to try that one. Definitely a worthwhile addition--spicy roasty cauliflower and sweet slight acidic pomegranate.
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Fried cauliflower, tahini, ras el hanout, smoked almond and pomegranate
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Suckling pig, fossilized pear, Jerusalem artichoke, and walnuts
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The suckling pig I'm surprised hubby ordered. Since he had a nasty experience with suckling pig in Hong Kong a few years ago (not the restaurant or the pig's fault, rather a dodgy taxi driver and poor ventilation in hotel room) he pretty much flinches at the mention of suckling pig. Best thing on the plate hubby reckons, is the fossilised jerusalem artichoke which I guess is what a potato chip would be if it was an artichoke?
We finished up our meal by 7:30pm, plenty of time before our 8pm deadline. I can't help notice though that despite ordering 5 plates we were still not overly content. Maybe it's the food's fault that it was so flavourful we wanted more, but it could also be that the servings were small, especially for 'bistro' which also made it seem pricier.
Gerards Bistro was definitely worth returning to but in the future we may just have to keep in mind it's probably not the place to go if we wanted to be greedy.
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