You don't win friends with salad

Another day, another lunch rant. Once again forgetting to bring my lunch, I was forced to venture out into the wastelands of south bris for something to munch on. Again, restricted to a 30 minute window, I couldn't make it down to west end markets for a trusty chicken kebab.

So, what will it be today? Another overpriced foccacia? A potentially salmonella-ridden chicken sandwich from a not to be named dodgy local cafe? A chikko roll from the paul's canteen?? No, no - a salad from Oliver and Co, some deli come providore come cafe thing down and across the road from my office.

I opt for the 'medium' sized salad which gives me the option of 3 different salads from the soggy selection of about 6 salads on display. I thought to myself "what looks most edible??" it was a tough call, but I eventually decided on the mushroom pasta salad, and the green bean and roasted cherry tomato salad. Said salads set me back a whopping $8.90 which seemed a bit rich for the size, compared to design your own salad sort of places in the city.

But I digress. I took my salad back to my office and proceeded to wolf it down. The mushroom pasta salad was actually really delicious! The only slight was the addition of very gritty black cloud ear fungus. Do not want in pasta salad thanks. Save that one for a stirfry or something, thanks Oliver. The swiss brown, button, and enoki mushrooms were all good though. And the pasta was nice and al dente. The dressing was quite zingy and fresh. Yep, that mushroom pasta salad went all right!





The green bean salad was a bit of a different story. Drenched in oil and soggy tomato gizzards, it was not a pleasure on the tastebuds at all. After 1 mouthful, I had a gross oily coating throughout my mouth. I don't know what the story was, but when I eat salad, I like to at least -pretend- it is healthy. 3 litres of cacky oil and a few beans and soggy tomatoes does not meet this criteria. Do not recommend this salad.

Did I think this lunch was delicious? I give it 5 out of 10, because the pasta salad was pretty good but the beans SUCKED, and I usually love beans.

Do I think this lunch represents good value for money? Nuh. It's pretty typical for south brisbane, but it's still a bit of a rip.

Will I get lunch from Oliver and Co again? Maybe, if I'm really hungry and feeling cashed up. I'm actually keen to try their yoghurt which I've heard is pretty good, but yoghurt is more of a breakfast time food.

Oliver and Co
108 Melbourne St
South Brisbane

Zen, and the art of finding an affordable lunch in South Brisbane.

Until I couple of months ago I was a city girl. I loved working smack bang in the middle of the cbd because I could always get something cheap and delicious for lunch, aka I never had to make lunch. In July, I moved offices to South Brisbane... and not even a good part of South Brisbane, I am in the middle of nowhere, it's a good 15-20 minute walk to southbank! I have been bringing my lunch to work, which is ok, because it's usually leftovers and I'm a pretty rad cook (high self esteem, isn't it), but sometimes I forget to bring it, or don't make enough for left overs, or can't be bothered making a sandwich or salad to take. I hate frozen meals, so I have to venture out and find something to eat, and this is usually punishing on the wallet.

On Thursday I forgot my lunch, and had a strict 30 minute timeframe to fit it into, so had to venture not far from work to get something (or get a packet of 2 minute noodles from the vending machine, but they only had the 99% fat free ones, yeurgh). I decided to hit up Raw Space Cafe which is only about a 5 minute walk from my office. After perusing their display cabinet of overpriced sandwiches and limp looking salads I decided on a Chicken Turkish, toasted. $8.50! Seemed like a bit of a jip compared to the awesome sandwich place near my old office where I could get basically the fanciest sandwich every for $5. Anyhoo, I was given this blue buzzer which started beeping, flashing, and vibrating madly after the 12 minutes it took to toast my fricking sandwich, and it was already made up, so I don't know why it took so long.

After what seemed like an eternity (but as mentioned above was only in fact 12 minutes) it was ready to go! I grabbed it and hot footed it back to my office to scarf it down in 8 minutes.



Ooooh brown paper bag, totally worth the exxy price.



The filling included some actually really tasty chicken, baby spinach, some kind of melty cheese, and some tomato-y pesto-y tapenade-y stuff. It was a really tasty sandwich, but it wasn't very big and I was still hungry after I woofed it down so quickly. I think I probably would have been satisfied if it was 2 bites bigger. I like to measure my food in bites.

So, at $8.50, bit of a rip off I reckon. Not that I should be complaining because it's certainly not the biggest lunch ripoff scam around my woods! Friday's lunch was an even bigger jip, but that's a whole other blog post.

I also occasionally get a coffee from here, and it's passable. Except for the time they gave me soy milk (WTF???) and for that I punished them by not buying coffee there for 3 weeks. I'm sure they were very concerned.

Raw Space Cafe
99 Melbourne Street
South Brisbane
www.rawspace.org
(it's also a gallery)

Pinxto Tapas Train

I always struggle deciding what to order at restaurants, and usually as soon as my meal arrives I feel remorse. That's why I love tapas, so many options, and I get to EAT THEM ALL!

Pinxtos at New Farm is awesome for tapas. They have a frikkin TRAIN of tapas, that's how awesome they are. Like sushi train, but tapas, which are like a million times better than sushi (despite living in japan, I've never really felt the sushi love, weird huh). So, my awesome friend Jayde is up visiting from Melbourne, and Pinxto have 2-4-1 tapas on tuesdays, so I booked us a seat on the train!

I was running late, because I got sidetracked looking at heavily discounted Poetic License shoes in DJ's (btw do I want a pair of black velvet heels with a cute metallic snakeskin heel?? y/n?) so when I arrived, my mate was already seated and knocking back sangria by the carafe, and smashing a bowl of mixed olives. I then commenced smashing sangrias and olives also. In the next 10 mins or so, we worked our way through skewers of manchego cheese, jamon serrano and quince paste, bread topped with tomato and chickpea puree and pickled garlic, tortilla, and a few other things I can't even remember but it was all awesome.

Then we started ordering hot delights from the menu, our waitress could see the hunger in our eyes and kept the food and service (and sangria) coming like our true savior. We worked our way through 2 plates each of croquettas, patatas bravas, calamares, scallops, chorizo and caramalised onion, prawns wrapped in jamon, and spinach and mushroom empanadas. ZOMG between us we ended up smashing about 16 plates of tapas, a litre of sangria, and the total bill was only about 60 bucks! ILU 2-4-1 tuesdays, and ILU Pinxto Spanish Taperia! Although now I can hardly move due to my enormous amount of overeating, but it was so totally worth it.

Check it, this isn't even all our plates!



Totally recommend you give Pinxto a shot, they have good deals on all the time, like $5 dessert nights, and $12 lunch deals which includes a spanish beer! Highly rated by Hungry-Hungry!! DO IT!

Pinxto Spanish Taperia
561 Brunswick St
New Farm
www.pinxto.com