Brews at Bitter Suite

On Wednesday night, in a bid to enjoy Brisbane despite the seemingly endless downpour, we headed out to try Bitter Suite, a local pub with style in the heart of New Farm.

Bitter Suite is housed is a red brick building on the corner of Welsby and Lamington Streets in New Farm. Heading in from the rain, the glow of the lights and the full tables looked incredibly inviting.

 

Inside, Bitter Suite is an enjoyable mid point between warm English gastro-pub and the personality-laden inside-outside bars that are popping up all over Brisbane

We shared a few plates; duck pancakes (the house specialty), bread with oils and a dish of olives. All were very tasty, though we could easily have devoured another couple of serves of the pancakes. The weeknight special beer'n'burger for $20 was very tempting. If we'd spotted the pig'n'beer special of slow roasted suckling pig, chips and a 3/4 pint for $20 we definitely would have gone for that.

Even on a rainy Wednesday night, there was a steady stream of people come to enjoy the good food and excellent selection of beers. I even think there were a few people there on dates.

Bitter Suite is well worth a visit. Nice atmosphere, good food and beer and the bar staff were friendly and helpful. An all over pleasant pub in which to spend an evening.

Bitter Suite have regular Beer Baron gatherings, if you want to educate your taste buds and will be welcoming all comers for St Patricks Day.

The joy of Aunty Ji

I wanted to share this with you all. I go to Bollywood dance classes once a week for the exercise but also because it's terrific fun. This week surpassed all previous weeks, however, because of the song we're dancing to. Aunty Ji is apparently a huge hit in India and once you listen to it, you'll know why. It's a bizarre Bollywood rock'n'roll track that makes you twitch and want to move.

The message is pretty simple too. He wants Aunty Ji (a familiar yet respectful term for a women of your parent's age) to get up and dance!

Alcoholic volcanos and layers of leis

A couple of weekends ago I threw a birthday party with two of my favourite people and fellow February-babies Caz and Kirst.

 Kirst in Gorman and me in Kitten d'Amour.

We’ve thrown joint birthday shindigs for a few years now. First at Alloneword, then at Limes and this year’s venue of choice: Alfred and Constance.  All three of us have had some good times there, so with the considerations of a Tiki bar, Queenslander decks, good food and a very helpful events coordinator, it was a pretty easy choice to make.

 

Bar drinks and decoration

 
Waking up on the day or your birthday party, if you’re looking forward to it, is a little like a second birthday. It felt like by special day all over again, but this time on a Saturday so I got to sleep in!

The party started early and our friends faithfully turned up right on the button to help us celebrate. There were beers, mojitos and bottles of wine to wash down platters of devils on horseback and bowls of thick salty chips.

Celebration time!

Over the night I got to catch up with so many old friends I now seem to see only at our annual bash. A triple birthday is one hell of an excuse to get people together. In amongst all the updates, we managed to down some Zombies (only one each), Jamaican Divorces and Kava Bowls.

 
Pina Coladas and Kava Bowls.

Cocktail appreciation time.

There were some great parts: everyone went nuts on the cocktails and the oddly 90s music. Being outdoors significantly lowered the temperature on what was one of Brisbane’s only clear Saturday nights this year. The bar staff were charming, the food as good as expected.

 

  

Downsides were that we had been lead to believe we’d have a small roped off area for a few hours which would then be opened up. But when we arrived, there was a rowdy blow-up doll-toting hen’s night in process on our little deck and they were not to be moved. Also, the place seemed to be much busier than any other time I’ve been to Alfred and Constance. Good for them, but it bums me out when I can’t reach a bar laden with pina coladas.

 

 

Nevertheless, a great time was had by all, and I would recommend Alfred and Constance for functions or for just a nice, relaxed evening out.  There’s something just so right about the combination of wooden deck, novelty cocktails  and fake turf carpet that really makes a night out. 

Thank you to all my wonderful friends who helped make my night!

 

My first Street Food Australia lunch

Today marked the first day a Street Food Australia bike hit the streets of Brisbane and I jumped at the opportunity to support the organisation by scoffing down a plate of fresh, delicious dumplings.

 The menu.

Broadcasting on Twitter that they would be serving steamed dumplings from their bike on William Street opposite the Casino, I trudged over the bridge into the CBD to grab some before they all disappeared.  Two guys – Billerwell and Lucus - were manning the bicycle under the shade of a tent. I treated myself to 8 dumplings for $10 (or you could get 4 for $6); four pork, chives and ginger and four chicken, pongu mushroom and 5 spice. Splashed with some soy and a little black pepper chilli sauce, they were fresh hot and tasty. A perfect lunch.

 Lucus serving out my lunch (above) and Billerwell enjoying his own (below).

SFA will be in the same spot, on William Street opposite the casino by the Victoria Bridge, at lunchtime on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday this week and presumably for weeks to come. In time, they will be joined by more bikes selling international cuisine that is cheap and tasty and even better, supporting an excellent cause. If you work in the CBD I strongly advise you head along and give them a try. 

 I could eat this every day.

Movie review: Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina is one of those impossible-to-film books. As a piece of 700-page intense literature, the themes are too intense, the characters too verbose, the scene changes dramatic and the characters and plot lines too long and intertwined to be made comprehensible in just 2 hours. (Read what I thought of Anna Karenina in this blog post)

Fortunately, the makers of the latest film version have not even tried to fit the book into a film. What they have done instead is slice the narrative down to every individual dramatic event and leave nothing else. They have cut out all unnecessary words, themes, segways, diversions and focussed entirely on three love stories and the life and ‘lot’ of aristocratic women in late 19^th century Russia.

Furthermore, rather than create extravagant sets for the drawing rooms and streets of St Petersburg, all of the action that takes place in an old, disused theatre. It is clear that this is a not a faithful Anna Karenina but the tale of Anna Karenina. The sets slide and glide and the characters wander freely through the rigging and across the stage, moving from office to restaurant to ice rink.  Difficult to accept at first, it works so beautifully as a device to speed the story along and also to make it clear to the audience how false and misleading is the life of a socialite. Constantin Levin, played by Domhnall Gleeson, is the most real and grounded of all the main characters so he alone is allowed to venture off the stage sets and out into the Russian landscape.

 The film benefits from a cast of bit-characters played by actors such as Ruth Wilson and Shirley Henderson.

Anna Karenina the novel is about so much more than the title character, but in the film, her tragic love story with Vronsky is the key plot and almost every moment in the book is played out in full tear-jerking-glad-its-not-me detail.

 Keira Knightley and Aaron Taylor-Johnson making all the wrong decisions.

Yay for scarves!

B is a big fan of scarves. Woolly winter scarves, floaty summery scarves, the occasional bandanna, you name it. She's excellent at acccessorising with them.

So, when I found this Scarf Knot Master List, complete with instructions and some really gorgeous photos, I couldn't help but think B would probably be interested...

(x.)

Five for Friday

First big announcement, one of my favourite people has made a return to blogging! Another Brisbane local girl, she and her own blog partner talk about 20-something life, bars, beauty, fashion and fun on Adventures In Colour.

Do we need a new punctuation mark?

It's not often that I genuinely lust after an H&M collection, though I do desperately wish we had the chain here in Australia, but this collection, I WANT!

I adore discovering new, accessible food blogs and here is Tales of a Truffle Pig. Sure, the writer is based out of Sydney but she posts about food and eating all over the country and even from Brisbane, I can enjoy her opinions on beer and recipes for zucchini and bacon slice!

Jennifer Lawrence is tied with Emma Stone and Meryl Streep as the person I want most to play me in a movie about my life. So this week I was thrilled to not only discover a new sarcastic gifs tumblr, but one that went nuts with Jennifer Lawrence gifs post-oscars. She's known for being rad in interviews, so there is an internet-library of potential material.