A Brisbane icon disappoints and for the first time in my life I didn't enjoy a cocktail!!

Whilst many people were lucky enough to be enjoying a break over the festive season I had to work. Now on the upside I got to do something special that I wouldn't normally get to do on an average working week, have lunch with the husband and Chloe.

So I was pretty excited about my visit and we decided to head to Jojo's in the Queen Street Mall.

Miss Chloe took a serious interest in menu:

And in the end I ordered the Pad Thai, which is my JoJo's staple. To husbands disappointment they no longer served his favorite Thai Chicken so he ordered a steak. I then made a sneak to the bar and ordered a drink.

Now this is where is all goes down hill... 10 minutes later and Clint's steak was on the table...but no cocktail and no pad thai.

Now there is a reason why the steak came out so quick. See the receipt which shows the order and a picture of the steak and you can clearly see what the issue is. Luckily he isn't phased by a bit of mooing and enjoyed what was a nice tasting steak.

So another 10 minutes passes and my hour lunch is ticking away, just as I'm about to follow up on the drinks and the food out comes my drink and wow am I oohing and ahhing.

My excitement lasted until my first sip., when I tasted what could only be described a straight red and green vodka, nothing like the description on menu which was "Midori, vanilla Galliano, Belvedere vodka, a splash of cherry juice, sugar syrup and sour mix go into this cocktail bursting in flavor!". It was so bad that it was undrinkable and I ended up getting some lemonade to mix it with it so I could get it down.

Shortly after....and when I mean shortly I mean 25 minutes after I ordered my meal  it came out. Other than the delay there was nothing wrong with my meal and it was delicious. I was only disappointed that I had to scoff it down.

Now i'm sure I will be back, its Jojo's its one of those places that you always end up coming back too, next time I just hope its better.

Simple Scrumptious American Food...without a passport

I don’t know if you have noticed but a whole lot of American places seem to be popping up all over town along with a couple of food vans, one of our favorites is The Smoke BBQ at New Farm, but it was Sunday afternoon and we were just looking for something simple.

My husband had managed to stumble across the The Carolina Kitchen while googling American food and we were pretty interested as it was quiet close to home, about 5 minutes away at Coorparoo.  It was a bit of a late lunch just after 2pm and it seemed that we were lucky we got there when we did as the place seemed to fill up after we ordered.

Now the reviews on the usual review sites were mixed, but I decided that some people had unreasonable expectations….for example one reviewer went there as a special dinner and therefore I can see why it was a disappointment.

The example I will give is you can go to a great seafood restaurant or a little seaside fish and chip shop and have great seafood…but its all about the atmosphere. This place isn’t somewhere for your anniversary dinner or you may not make the next one bit it does have some pretty cool theming and plenty of outdoor seating.

So we ordered a chilli dog each, a serve of buffalo wings and some New York Fries.

 

Now who would have thought a hot dog could be so good, it was so full of flavor, topped with chilli bit then a great freshness from the coleslaw. All for the bargain prince of $5.95.

 

The wings were a different version than what I had previously tried, they ones had been “crumbed” or “coated” and then dipped in the sauce. I tried my first wing early into before I was full from the hot dog so I think I enjoyed the wings more than my husband and “uncle ads”.

 

We were pretty stuffed by the time the New York fries came out, topped with chilli, cheese and sour  cream they were very “moreish” and even though we were full they were polished off pretty quick.

So scores all around were solid 8/10 , a great place to try some authentic American style food without breaking the budget.