where we eat

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Al

After much encouragement from Kitty, some regular readers and friends, I have decided to let Juiced Pixels live a bit longer.

I thought I would resurrect it by writing about our current places we regularly eat. Our criteria is pretty straightforward: fresh, reasonably priced simple yet tasty food with no fuss.

1) Makanan Indonesia @ West End: a authentic Indonesian restaurant located in the strip of restaurants in Hardgrave Road. I love the Satay Set, and Kitty loves the Nasi Goreng and Fish pieces.

2) My Thai Kitchen in Milton: this is the more casual sister outlet of the popular My Thai Restaurant. Fast, fresh Thai food with excellent flavours. We usually get takeaway as they only have a few tables with paper plates.

3) Guzman Y Gomez in the Valley: it’s become our Sunday afternoon tradition to go to GYG in the Emporium for fresh tasting Mexican food. I usually have a steak burrito, Junior Pixels has a ‘little guy burrito’ of his own, and Kitty usually has a vegetarian Nachos. Yum!

4) Swamp Dog @ South Brisbane: just down the road recently opened a new fish n chips store with a difference. They only sell sustainably sourced seafood, and offer free homemade lemonade. We usually go for whatever fish is fresh and tasty, with an Asian salad.

5) Brown Dog Cafe @ The Gabba: Not where you’d expect to find a great breakfast, but we often frequent here on weekends for brekkie. Despite being located directly opposite a brothel, it’s a great little place for scrambled eggs on toast and tea. Kitty loves the pineapple and mint frappes.

salmon and veg

Posted on May 2, 2010 by Al

Tonight’s dinner was salmon and veg. I baked the salmon in foil with fresh corriander and lime. The veg was fresh kai-lan (from our new favourite Asian grocery at West End), green beans and brocolli, all stir-fried with a little bit of light soy, kecap manis and lime juice. Served with jasmine tea on the balcony, it was yum yum.

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my new favourite pizza place in brisbane

Posted on November 5, 2008 by Al

We noticed that Oliver & Co. in SW1 at South Brisbane (used to be called Fresh on Melbourne) are now doing wood fired pizzas for lunch and dinner, Tues to Sat til 9pm.

We’ve been twice now and they’re really good, thin homemade crust and simple ingredients. My favourite is the salami, onion and rocket. Kit’s fave is the mushroom. The best thing is that they’re only a tenner for a large. Bargain.

melbourne in three days – food

Posted on March 12, 2008 by Al

Kit and I spent the weekend in Melbourne. One of my favourite things about Melbourne is the food. The variety and quality is hard to beat.

Supper Inn was really tasty and popular on Friday night, they were turning away the crowds as usual. We had salt & pepper king prawns, stir fried kai-lan with garlic (yum) and steamed rice. It was simple Cantonese food, but so fresh and full of flavour. The menu is comprehensive with lots of specialties including crispy pigeon, which we avoided.

Liagon street was as good as usual. We tried Trotters on Saturday night. Nice, but not as good as Tiamos for Sunday lunch. Tiamo’s does really good simple pastas. Tiamo’s sister restaurant, Tiamo 2, is currently closed due to renovations but due to reopen soon.

Flinders street station is amazingly busy. This busyness supports specialist food places, including one that predominantly sells fries. Chips is a better description, fat ones. Handcut and served in either cardboard cones or boxes. Your choice of sauce and less than five bucks.

Brunswick Street Fitzroy, like a lot of the city, was grotty. We still found a great modern Vietnamese place for lunch called Red Rice. Apparently they do red rice, we saw it being delivered to another table. The food was great, not your typical Vietnamese. We had two appetizers each, plus a large serve of Asian salad greens with a Vietnamese dressing.

The only thing I dislike about food in Melbourne is the acceptance of smoking in outdoor eating areas. The weather was beautiful, we would have loved to eat outside except that we didn’t want someone’s dirty cigarette ruining our meal.

barbara’s asian infused chicken drumsticks

Posted on October 22, 2007 by Al

I initially made this recipe a few weeks back as finger food for a drinks night. I enjoyed the flavours so much I have made it another two times since. Thanks for the recipe Barbara!

Ingredients

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 tablespoon of honey
1 tablespoon of hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons of soy sauce (light soy is good)
1 tablespoon of fresh tomato sauce
2 cloves of Australian garlic (minced/smashed)
1 or 2 small pieces of fresh ginger (minced)
1/2 cup chicken stock(or water)
12 chicken drumsticks (preferably free range/organic) – can use chicken wings

Instructions

Mix together all ingredients except the chicken to form a marinade. Pour this marinade over the chicken and stir to coat. Leave this to marinate for a short while (5-30 mins, longer if you have time).

Chicken Pre Cook

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Put chicken and marinade into a baking dish, stirring to cover it with sauce. Bake it for approximately 50 minutes. Increase the heat to 220 degrees to evapourate the liquid and the chicken becomes dark and shiny. This may only take 10 minutes so keep an eye on it.

Chicken Post Cook

Serve with a nice salad, some corn or whatever else you like.

blog action day part one – shop locally

Posted on October 15, 2007 by Al

Today is Blog Action Day so I plan on providing some of the small things that contribute to reducing my impact on the environment.

I try to do as much of my fresh food shopping as I can at my local farmer’s market. These are held at the Powerhouse in New Farm on the second and fourth Saturday of each month.

The reasons I do all my fresh food shopping at the local farmers markets are:

The supply chain is shortened. If food travels a shorter distance, less carbon dioxide is created during its transportation.
The food I buy does not use fancy plastic packaging (I use green bags), nor does it require long term retail refrigeration.
The food I buy is so fresh that it lasts a full two weeks in my fridge. This means less food is wasted.
Because the food lasts two weeks, I only need to do my shopping once every two weeks. This means I travel less frequently to the shops.
Most of the market vendors I shop at do not have plastic bags so this encourages people to use environmental bags.
The food tastes more intense and is better for my body.

Take the example of garlic:

Chinese Garlic

Exhibit A

Grown in bulk in China.
Unknown growing conditions.
Has traveled 8000+ kilometers before it hits your belly.
No idea how long it has been in transportation.
White in colour, artificial tasting.
Costs $0.99

Australian Purple Garlic

Exhibit B

Locally grown in Australia by an Australian farmer.
Organically grown, no chemicals.
Has traveled less than 100 kilometers for you to eat it.
Beautiful purple in colour, fresh and flavoursome.
Costs $3

You decide.

minimiam (miniature people interacting with oversized pieces of food and fruit)

Posted on February 8, 2007 by Al

I love the minimiam site. It’s basically some excellent macro photography of miniature people interacting with oversized pieces of food and fruit. Each time i look at one i can’t help but make up a story, or at least some dialog about what is going on. I also really love how each scene starts as a close up, and that the second image reveals the full context.

I find that the site has some major navigation usability issues, so i have posted some of my favourite photos here to be easily enjoyed: