Belvedere Bar n Grill, Portside Wharf, Hamilton, Brisbane

Wanting to dine at a Modern Australian restaurant with views of the river, head over to Portside Wharf and you could find yourself sitting here at Belvedere. An environment perfect for a date, a birthday party or just simply a gathering with a variety of dishes offered on their menu ranging from cold entrees to pasta or if you feel like mixed grill or even seafood or steak, Belvedere's menu will suit any tastebuds. What intrigued me about the restaurant would be first, the glass display in front of the restaurant showing dry aged beef. Although I have always been a regular at Portside dining here and there, I never gave myself the time to try it here and so since we wanted to try somewhere new, we figured that here would be a good choice for a date night.

Continue...

The Deck, The Glen Hotel, Eight Mile Plains, Brisbane

The Glen Hotel is only 15minutes drive from the Brisbane CBD and also having free parking on site is always handy. What you may not know is that this is kind of your typical tavern but then, there's a hotel which is surprisingly 4.5 star accommodation in which I am unsure why there is such a high rated star hotel over in the Southside.. The Glen Hotel has two main dining areas which is one, The Garden Grille Restaurant and Bar which features their newest signature steak and seafood restaurant with an Executive Chef of Cha Cha Char fame and then there is The Deck which features more of your bar, bistro and pub food, basically more of a casual dining and gaming lounge feel. Oh, and if you're only looking to have a drink? Then there is even a bottleshop drive through available on site. You can always see it being crowded every peak hours especially after work, friday nights and on weekends. So don't be surprised if it takes awhile to get a seat or even eat with loud noises around you.

Silly me... I forgot to take a picture of the Specials of the day which I did end up choosing after browsing through their wide variety of food on their menu. This was the 'Double Kangaroo Burger' served with beer battered fries. I, at first did not realise it would be this big as I wasn't sure of what to get at the start. There were just so many delicious options to choose from.

The beer battered fries were fried to perfection, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

The Kangaroo Burger itself was quite big in a way that it was stacked nicely and presented well on a chopping board. It had double kangaroo patty, double cheese, onion rings, rocket and tomato and also a mayo dressing. The cheese just seemed like your typical cheddar cheese slices you get from your local supermarket. Having the onion rings there gave the burger a crunch as well as having the simple salad. However, the double kangaroo patty was great but they were both just quite thick in size so it can be a bit troublesome when you do want to grab it with two hands and take a big whole bite.

Nicely cut in half showing each of the elements in the Kangaroo burger.

'Chicken Cheese Schnitzel' ($13) was a golden crumbed chicken breast schnitzel topped with melted mozarella cheese served with beer battered fries and salad. If you would like to add a topper then you can do so too. The portion is quite big and the chicken schnitzel was golden crumbed and I have to say that for the price, it was definitely worth it.

The side salad was fresh with a mixture of mixed leaves, red onion, tomato and cucumber with a light salad dressing. The beer battered fries was fried well and fried food is always great with fries/chips. The golden crumb was crumbed well thinly with the right amount of salt as well as the melted mozarella cheese gave the schnitzel the extra punch. It is nice to see that a full chicken breast meat has been used instead of sometimes being more of a thick crumb than the meat itself.

Springbrook Cafe and Bar, Springbrook, Queensland

The Springbrook Cafe and Bar is located in Springbrook at the Springbrook General Store and Cafe. A humble setting but the general store has your grocery essentials if you need to grab some things as well as a cafe offering your a variety of burgers, mixed deep fried food as well as fish and chips an so on. Oh, and did I mention they also have a bar? If you aren't sure of where to go and grab a bite to eat while you visit Springbrook National Park, then have a try here especially if you like burgers and fried food.

'Mountains Best Burger' ($15) is the whole deal if you love your burgers and want the whole shaa-zang in one bite. All burgers are served with chips too which is great. Home made beef patty, lettuce, tomato, beetroot, carrot, cheese, onion, egg, bacon and pineapple on a toasted buttered bun.. Really? All of that? Yes! Though it was too big for me to hold and even take a bite out of it fully, I did manage to take a number of bites to be able to get all of the elements in.

The chips were fried nicely and was not too oily nor salty which is just perfect. As for the burger, it was quite tall I have to say and it does get messy while eating. But remember that delicious food will always leave you messy and with sauce on your lips so don't worry too much. The buttered bun was toasted lightly and having the butter on the bun didn't seem to have much of an effect on the burger since it had a lot going on already.

As you can see, even the burger on the plate seems already a heavy little thang but imagine how will you be able to pick it up nicely and try and bite it without having those elements spill out. Remember to pair it with a nice cold beer on the side to give you the whole meal deal.

The home made patty was juicy and quite thick and by combining your typical bacon, egg and various salads such as lettuce, tomato, beetroot and carrot, you kind of feel healthy in a way eating a burger that has a salad in it but then, yes... it does have bacon and cheese. But who can say no to bacon and cheese? You can see the amount of carrots, onion and so on carefully placed into the burger. Even your local burger store may not be as neat in preparing and serving burgers on your table.

'Steak Burger' ($12.50) is a simple but yet delicious burger alternative to have if you like a meat fillet more rather than a meat patty in your buns. Steak, lettuce, tomato, onion, bacon and cheese on a toasted buttered bun served with chips. Although it is smaller in size than the previous burger, but it has the same size bun so it's just the fillings that's different. The toasted burger bun allowed the burger to have a slight crispyness allowing you to have that slight crunch when you bite through it.

When eating a burger, remember to squeeze it with two hands and if you are planning on sharing, just grab a steak knife and cut it in half right through the middle. What seemed to be missing may have been bbq sauce for some reason, although I love mayonnaise and it was a nice dressing for the steak burger but I feel that by having mayo, it does take the steak burger down a level being a subtle burger.

Cove Bar & Dining, River Quay, South Brisbane

Cove Bar and Dining lies among South Bank's river quay with the views of the Brisbane river right in front of you while you dine. Having a laid back dining in an elegant surrounding, this restaurant offers dishes from breakfast to having a romantic riverside dinner or even for gatherings or parties. What highlights the restaurant would have to be its view of the river.

A new app has launched in November offering members a bottle of award winning wine when dining at participating restaurants and this new app is called 'Free Wines'. The participating restaurants rangers from local restaurants to hatted restaurants which suits everyone who simply love to eat. Did I mention that this was available Australia wide? So whether you are in New South Wales or Queensland, South Australia or Victoria, there will be participating restaurants available. Last of all, the best thing about this app is that it is free.. Yes, I am not kidding. It costs nothing to download nor do you have to buy it to be able to experience it. Imagine dining at a restaurant whilst being able to be treated to a complimentary bottle of vino of red or white of your choice.

After having clicked on the restaurant, we would then choose our wine out of two choices, Clairault Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot or First Creek Chardonnay, in which we chose the red wine to have. It took a while for the waitress to bring the wine over to the table but it didn't really bother us as we were enjoying the view while sipping on water.

Clairault Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot, Margaret River, Western Australia (5 Star rated winery) consists of perfumes of cedar and blackcurrant with hints of clove and tobacco leaf lead to a savoury, dry, long palate with gentle tannins.

To start off our meal, 'Salt n Pepper Squid' ($19.5) consists of marinated baby squid, deep fried with saffron salt and pepper served with a passionfruit sweet chilli sauce. What intrigued us at first when it arrived was how bright yellow the batter or crumb was in which I thought that they may have tried something different by maybe using tumeric but in terms of the squid meat, it was very thick and chewy which was delicious and juicy. It is always quite upsetting when you buy Salt and Pepper squid and find that most of it would be the crumb or the batter but only thin meat in the middle. The passionfruit sweet chilli was quite interesting in a way but I didn't find it anything wow.

Another starter we decided to share is 'Tum Yum Mushrooms Arancini' ($15.5) which I thought was quite different combining tom yum and mushrooms together as an Arancini. Deep fried risotto balls with their 2014 chilli cook off award winning chilli paste, mushrooms and fresh herbs served with roasted garlic aioli.

The chilli paste allowed the Arancini balls to be slightly spicier than I thought but not too much, the risotto was cooked nicely and with the combination of the mushrooms, it made this starter to not feel as heavy as it should be with the usual arancini you would eat. Do be careful when you take a bite of it as it can get very hot in the middle. The mushrooms seemed to have been diced thinly allowing it to somehow get absorbed into the risotto not allowing its individual taste and chewiness to shine amongst the other elements.

However, one downside would be that there wasn't enough garlic aioli for all the arancini balls. Although it was placed underneath the balls, it might have been a better idea to put it in a small saucer on the side or just put more sauce. The micro herbs was very cute and gave the whole dish a nice elegant touch. As you can see from the photo below, you are able to see that it has been created nicely with a thin layer of crumb and the risotto and filling inside.

'Twice Cooked Crispy Pork Belly' ($34) was one of the mains that caught my eye as it said it was a Twice cooked crispy pork belly served with apple and parsnip puree, roasted root vegetables with house made jus. I've tried twice cooked crispy pork belly before and was one of the best and so far, no other restaurants have beaten that succulent, juicy taste. So, I wondered if this would blow me away..

The crispy skin was crackling but made it hard to cut through the meat along with the skin, resulting in having to cut the meat first then forcefully try to knife through the skin but if not, then it would resort to biting it. The pork belly meat was juicy and mixed in well with the jus. The various vegetables was a delight with a mixture of potato and sweet potato and so on.

What I enjoyed other than the roughly thick cut vegetables was the apple and parsnip puree which I thought was quite interesting as it did not have an overpowering sweetness from the apple as it was well balanced. Unfortunately, the twice cooked crispy pork belly was yum, but still did not blow me away to make it my no. 1 twice cooked pork belly.

'100 Day Grain Fed Rib Fillet' ($34) weighed 300g which was quite big in size served with rosemary roasted stew potatoes, honey carrot puree and garlic buttered kale with red wine jus. Presented beautifully, it was interesting how you are able to see the outlining of the jus and the puree and how they were able to not fully get mixed up together. The brightness of the carrot puree allowed the dish to have a hint of bright colour.

The rib fillet was cooked well however there were quite a bit of fats around it which we ended up leaving it aside but the steak was complemented with the stew potatoes and also the puree. I found that what made this dish quite unique was not the potatoes nor was it the kale, but the honey carrot puree.

Imagine having to dine at a restaurant and even by ordering only two mains let's say and a bottle of wine.. just imagine how much that would've cost in total. By having to be able to order a free wine to accompany your meal with your loved ones, it's not how much money you save that matters, but it shows how there are people out there who do care about the diners and their experiences, allowing them to not only enjoy but also being able to try and taste various wines which would allow us to buy one of our own next time. So, I do suggest you all download this superb app and try it while you can.

*mynameisFood. dined as a guest at Cove Bar and Dining to experience using the Free Wine App provided by Zenith Wine Agencies, however, all opinions and reviews are my own.

Beach House Bar & Grill, Westfield Chermside, Chermside, Brisbane

The Beach House has always been one of the go to places when you're in the CBD and wanting a simple but casual dining place to have a beer or pub food while listening to live music. Although it could get loud at times especially on friday nights, it would always be quite packed. Now that they've opened at Westfield Chermside, it allows people living around the area to try and dine the same or even a better experience.

A new feel, much more modern but still keeping its casual ambience when compared to the city restaurant. Beach House has always been a more of a self service restaurant meaning that there is no table service. You order at the counter, get given a buzzer then when the buzzer vibrates, you would have to pick up your own food at the counter. Usually this can get confusing when there are similar or the same food on the counter meaning that they may be other diners' food and not yours. It is sometimes hard though to get the attention of the waiters because even if they were not as busy, let's say walking around or standing around the bar as they seem to be nowhere near and the person at the counter would be busy taking orders. It is quite hard when you don't get any advice on which were your meals or her or his meals so you would just have to go with your feeling and hope that the food you're taking off the table is yours.

Lunch specials of $9.90 dishes offers a few various choices you may choose. This was their 'Rump & chips and salad' with any sauce of your choice. The fries were beer battered which was crispy and fried well, the salad is just a simple garden salad with a mixture of greens, shredded carrots, tomato and cucumber. The salad looked fresh but was bland due to the lack of sauce.

The steak was cooked well to our liking, the pepper sauce however though was not as strong as I thought it would be, there were bits of peppercorn but they were just very light in terms of texture but overall, it is a pub meal and it wasn't too bad.

'Chicken Parmigiana & chips and salad' seemed to have been done in a rush or so as the plate was kind of all over the place when we were picking it up from the counter. Again, beer battered fries and garden salad was the same as above however there was more sauce on the salad than before.

As for the chicken itself, I was quite dissapointed.. It was very small as you can see in portion, it seemed like the biggest chip would be its size. A slab of cheese and ham on top along with a tomato based sauce or napoli sauce as it may be, did not make it any better. The tomato sauce based didn't seem to have much seasoning whilst some of the chicken breast seemed to have some burnt areas along the edges.

As you can see, the chicken breast was very thin and although the crumb was thin, the whole dish just didn't do it for me overall.

I quite enjoyed the interior of the restaurant, it has been designed well giving it a homey but also beach side feeling with bits of pieces of the things you could find at the side of the beach and also the artificial greens in the pots just gave the whole wall a bright new light and a nice view while eating.