Eating tapas at Ole Restaurant can be as light or as filling as you want, with a long list of tapas and more substantial plates (raciones). The atmosphere is casual, relaxed dining and the staff are very friendly and helpful with the menu, not to mention the food being delicious. Here’s what we had:

• chickpea fritters with hot sauce (bolitas de garbanzo)
• crispy spiced potatoes (patatas bravas)
• beef cheeks braised in pedro ximenez, green pea and radish salad (mejillas de carne)
• tomato, rocket, walnut and manchego (ensalada de tomate y manchego)
• Spanish cold set custard with warm toffee and blood orange (crema catalana)

The beef cheeks were the stand out dish of our selection—the meat was soft, melt-in-the-mouth and oh so rich, and the pea and radish salad was a good fresh palate cleanser so you could keep going back for more of that dark, decadent goodness. The crunchy patatas bravas were also brilliant for soaking up the pedro ximenez sauce leftover on the plate. Yes, it was that good! They weren’t lying about the hot sauce for the chickpea fritters (thankfully there’s sangria) but everything we ordered was delightful.

Will we be going back? Yes, definitely. We simply have to try the Spanish classic—paella—and there were three types on the menu. There were also many more appealing tapas and raciones to sample so at the very least we’ll have to make a second trip.

Esquire has a unique approach to the menu. Rather than offer any al a carte options, it simply has degustation—you can choose between the short menu (6–9 courses) or long menu (9–15 courses). Each day the menu changes to use the best produce available so you can never be quite sure what you’re going to be served.

Esquire’s degustation-only menu is not necessarily going to appeal to everyone, there’s something quite adventurous about it—unusual textures and striking flavour combinations that some may find challenging. But those willing foodies should have faith in the talent of chefs Ryan Squires and Ben Devlin, they put forward sublime plates of food.

On the night we dined, we opted for the long menu ($150 per person) and were treated to:

• Kim chi
• Air dried beef
• ‘BBQ’ kettle chips
• Truffle and ham
• Scampi nigiri
• Ike jime coral trout with avocado and perilla
• Squid with bisque and cauliflower
• Corned beef with quark and cavalo nero
• Itchi bai with almond and apple
• Deckle of beef with yoghurt and parsley
• Popcorn with chocolate, berries, hazelnut and coconut and cocoa rocks
• Campari with orange, curds and whey
• Strawberries, tea and cake

As each dish was brought to the table the produce and processes used to prepare it was explained to us…and the final product was flawless—like art on a plate that tasted absolutely amazing. We thoroughly enjoyed eating at Esquire—each dish served to us seeming better than the last, made up of lots of little elements all complementing one another perfectly.

It was a leisurely dinner, accompanied by beautiful wines chosen for us by the sommelier. You would expect the bill to make your heart skip a beat, but really, for the quality and care taken with the food, wine and service, it was quite reasonable. Something we would happily go back for.

The key to tackling a food festival, and managing to sample plenty of dishes, is to sit down and plan everything you want to try before wandering around and becoming overwhelmed with the selections—your eyes are always bigger than your stomach so it’s good to prioritise. After thorough and careful assessment, we began.

Our first dish was Ortiga‘s chicken and lemon croquettas. These had a rich, creamy filling, cut with a hit of zingy lemon, and a delightfully crunchy deep-fried breadcrumb shell. The ultimate comfort food, and still being a bit crisp in the late morning, it made for a good start.

In search of wine, we happened upon the next on our food tasting list—Moda, which was serving a tapas plate of marinated Hervey Bay scallop with lemongrass and grapefruit; Gold Coast prawn ceviche with orange and vanilla; and piquilla pepper and fish salad. The chef, Javier Codina, is quite simply a genius. His food is so enticingly full of flavour. It sounds simple but has a complexity that leaves you wanting more and more.

After a quick sip of 2011 Stonier Chardonnay, it was off to Brents for crispy confit duck with eureka lemon and liquorice. Delicious! The duck was so soft it just melted in your mouth and the liquorice crisp was a brilliant textural change that held its flavour in the mouth and cut through the richness of the duck. Loved it!

Next stop 1889 Enoteca. We’ve tried to visit this popular restaurant three times (always booked out), so it was great to finally try their food. On the menu, potato gnocchi with pork and fennel sausage, black truffle tapenade and, parmesan cream. Great dish, you could really pick out the aniseed flavour of the fennel in the pork sausage and the gnocchi was light and fluffy, but I fear the sauce was just too rich for such a hot day. About half way through this dish we were full, but assisted to the finish by a glass of 2010 Stefano Lubiana Primavera Chardonnay.

In dire need of something lighter and fresh, it was off to Armstrongs for crisp fried Toowoomba range pork cheek, caramelised onions and apple puree. OK, so that doesn’t sound lighter, but it came with a refreshing salad of lettuce and apple with a vinaigrette. The pork was like one of Nana’s slow-cooked Sunday roasts—soft, salty and wonderfully intense. There’s no room for the health conscious at a food festival, you just have to embrace it.

The last of the savoury dishes was Aria Brisbane‘s daube of Darling Downs beef pie with Paris mash and a glass of 2010 St Hallett Faith Shiraz. Talk about died and gone to foodie heaven…buttery pastry around a thick meaty filling, topped off with creamy mashed potato, it really doesn’t get any better.

I have to admit, we both needed to sit and relax (with a glass of 2010 Wirra Wirra Catapult Shiraz) for quite some time before even considering dessert, of which there were plenty on offer. In summary:

• Custard tart with fresh local Red Hill raspberries from Confit
• Macaroons (caramel, chocolate and strawberry) from Boucher French Bistro—light and luscious
• Meringue with mascarpone cream, Babinda banana and salted butterscotch sauce, also from Boucher French Bistro—game over, this dessert was amazing!
• Chocolate sour cream cup cake with real Red Hill raspberry butter cream, again from Boucher French Bistro—gorgeous and just the right amount of sweetness.

You could not ask for a better day, venue and setup for the Delectable Food Bowl, it was perfect. A great showcase not only of Brisbane’s favourites, but of well known local restaurants and cafes as well. The organisers had arranged plenty of tables and chairs, and the chosen area in Botanic Gardens offered both shaded and sunny grassed areas for lounging around. And with three stages for live music, visitors to the festival could experience a different vibe from each of the three different precincts.

The only down side—massive queues for “delectable dollars” (I’m sure some people waited for well over 30 minutes to purchase the only currency accepted at the festival) and then currency sellers ran low later in the afternoon. This would certainly have affected sales at the food and drink outlets, but it did seem to sort itself out after the mad lunch-time rush.

All in all I think the event was a success…and judging by the crowd, an event that Brisbane-based foodies have been crying out for. Looking forward to 2013!

We spent several very enjoyable hours checking out wines, cheeses, dips, smallgoods, coffee—you name it, it was there for the sampling. The show merchandise was very clever too. Upon entry, if you wanted to sample wine, you had to buy a glass. We bought the wine glasses with neck straps—an excellent idea for keeping the hands free for picking up food samples and carrying purchases. After about an hour we’d bought so much that we then had to buy a trolley so we could wheel our purchases around instead of lugging them. If only they had cooler bags…

Going on Friday instead of over the weekend also meant that the crowds weren’t too bad and we never had to wait too long to be served.

A couple of downsides though…

Firstly the convention centre in Brisbane lacks any kind of style, which detracts from the overall atmosphere of the event. It’s rather soulless and very much likely wandering around a huge tin shed.

The second issue was that while there were ample food stalls to sample, the eating area serving lunch was expensive. Whatever happened to the gourmet sandwich or pizza, or what about a meze platter? We’re not particularly interested in paying $20+ a plate for lunch just because some ex-MasterChef contestant developed the dish…a real chef, maybe…

Overall, it is certainly a great way to try lots of different wines without having to commit to buying a whole bottle. I just think that the Brisbane Good Food and Wine Festival lacked the breezy vibe of Taste of Sydney (which we’ve just booked to attend again in 2012). Mind you, they are quite different events—the Sydney one focuses on restaurants serving samples from their menus, whereas this one focuses on food and wine producers showing off their wares.

There’s something very enticing about this place. The atmosphere is always warm and welcoming, the dining area is intimate (think fresh flowers on every table and soft lighting), and the staff are friendly—it feels very much like going over to a friend’s place for dinner. And that would be a friend who really knows how to cook! Dinner at the Gunshop Café is consistently good—better than good, excellent in fact—particularly for the very reasonable prices and generous portions. As much as I’d like to, I find it hard to have three courses here because I can’t bear to leave anything on the plate—it’s simply too delicious—and I just can’t fit it all in.

Last Friday night we decided it was time to pay the Gunshop Café another visit. While the website recommends making a booking on Friday and Saturday nights, we turned up just after 8:00pm and were lucky enough to be seated right away. Having said that, our pop-in approach has meant we’ve missed out on other occasions.

Now, what to order, it’s always a dilemma. While the menu is not huge, usually offering five different options per course, everything sounds amazing. The focus is on fresh seasonal produce that’s locally available. The flavour combinations are innovative and there’s always an appealing vegetarian option.

After much deliberation, here’s what we chose:

Entrée

• Scallops with quail eggs—the fat, juicy scallops were gorgeous with the yolk dripping over them like a rich sauce
• Tempura battered zucchini flowers stuffed with spanner crab and roast tomatoes—sweet soft crab meat and tomatoes with crunchy zucchini

Main

• Eye fillet with white bean puree—delightfully tender meat lightened by the creamy bean mash
• Quail with gnocchi—melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi with delicate, nutty meat.

All superb and accompanied by a very good wine list!

The Gunshop Café is a favourite because we always leave feeling that we’ve eaten well and had an enjoyable night. Over the years, we’ve taken many friends there and have never been disappointed. I’m continually looking forward to next time…may it come around again very soon.

Recently we caught up with friends for dinner at Simpatico. Quite simply, this place is brilliant. Despite a small hiccup with our table not being reserved, that was sorted at once and the food and service throughout the evening was faultless.

It’s not immediately obvious from reading the menu that the dishes are designed to share but the staff were very helpful and quickly explained how it works, making recommendations on what the stand out dishes were and how many we should order for the number of people dining.

There were four of us, so we ordered six delectable dishes:

• tart of caramelised red onion and goat’s cheese
• seared scallops w crab, sweet corn, baby basil and hazelnut dressing
• witlof, pear, gorgonzola and walnut salad
• beetroot cured salmon w granny smith and goat curd
• slow roasted pork belly w green papaya and nam jim (Thai salad dressing that’s hot, sour, salty and sweet)
• sautéed prawns w dill and galangal dressing, pickled carrot.

Of these, the pork belly was definitely the favourite. It had been cooked to perfection: sticky, savoury pork that you barely need to chew, it literally melted in the mouth. The crackling was incredible, giving great crunch that beautifully complemented the softness of the meat. And the green papaya salad was slightly sweet and tangy, which broke the richness of the dish. Delicious! It was so rich, though, I’m glad it was only tapas…

Everything else was wonderful too. The flavours and textures were just superb. The produce was really fresh and the way each dish was served highlighted that. There was no place to hide in fancy sauces, just pure taste from premium ingredients. It meant that at the end of the meal we felt like we’d eaten well and healthily, without being too weighted down by fat and carbohydrate.

I look forward to going back sometime soon to try some of the other dishes on the menu.

We started with bread (with oil and balsamic) and chips with aioli. The chips were definitely the high point of the meal. They were fantastic! I love a good fry and these were golden and super crunchy with beautiful creamy aioli. The bread, however, was nothing special, nor was the oil and balsamic. And the rest of the meal, blah…

I had steak with Béarnaise sauce served with a potato bake for my main course. The steak was gristly in places and chewy in others. It was also unevenly cooked. I ordered medium-rare, and when it came out one end of it was overcooked and the other end rare. One very fatty bit of the steak was covered with Béarnaise sauce to disguise it. This is a pet hate of mine. There’s no excuse for using poor ingredients and trying to serve them up as something that they’re not.

The potato bake was also unevenly cooked, some bits being hard, others soggy and the top brown. The Béarnaise sauce tasted good but was starting to split.

For dessert I opted for a French classic, crème brûlée. The sugar crust had a slight burnt flavour to it, which is far from ideal. The custard underneath was not the right consistency. It was slightly overcooked and starting to curdle. Even though it tasted OK, the texture was not good.

Overall, I have never been so disappointed in a meal. Sure, I understand that restaurants can have off nights but, for me, this ranks as one of the worst meals ever.

Sipping a glass of wine and enjoying the atmosphere, for us this is really about winding down after the working week and chilling out to the sounds of cool jazz.

When we’ve had our fill of the live music it’s time to fill our bellies, and we wander down Melbourne Street to the wonderful tapas and wine range at Era (South Brisbane).

Era has been around since late 2006. Before that the owners ran another great Brisbane restaurant, Circa.

The tapas selection is mouth-watering. Our favourites: lamb pastilla with minted yoghurt, goat cheese and pancetta parcel with fig, goujons of flathead with tartare sauce, manchego cheese and herb croquettes, and tomato tart with rocket and parmesan. Plus, there are plenty of others to choose from and the menu changes regularly.

The balance in each dish is perfect. Take, for example, the lamb pastilla. It is savoury with just a hint of sweet; the filling is soft but the filo pastry on the outside is golden with a bit of crunch; and the lamb has beautiful spices complemented by the cool, creamy minted yoghurt.

All of these delights are beautifully presented in reasonable portions on a platter to share. And it feels positively decadent tucking in to such wonderful food with a good bottle of white or red wine.