Molly Adventures Part 1 (Brisbane)

I hope you guys are all ready for a lot of long posts about an adventure that I had recently. At the beginning of this month my friend Molly came to visit, all the way from Seattle! She stayed for two weeks, and we had many adventures in Brisbane and Melbourne. Most of them food!

Molly arrived in the morning after an all night flight, so we had to plan some gentle activities to keep her going before an early night. After taking her home to drop off her bags and meet Dim Sim, we went out in search of food. We went to a little cafe called Frankee & Co, which is not too far away from my place. It has been on my to visit list for ages, so I was excited to try it out finally. Their juice of the day was Watermelon, Mint, & Lime, which sounded amazing so we both got it.



For food, I got The Vegan Bowl (Shiitake mushrooms, toasted mixed nuts, broccolini, eggplant, baby corn, roasted pumpkin, tofu, baby spinach & beetroot & ginger glaze), which was light and lovely. Though I could have done with a grain component to it. Molly got the Vegan Lasagne (layered vegetables, cashew nut cheese, salad greens & house made pesto), which she said was nice. Though the layers were all vegetables - no pasta! Carb it up Frankee!





Afterwards we went out to Daisy Hill to look for some local wildlife. They do have a Koala centre there with koalas in captivity, but that is not our jam. Unfortunately we didn't see any wild koalas (one day!), but we did meet a nice wallaby. Plus we also saw another wallaby on the way there.



We spent the afternoon getting properly settled at home, and Molly gifted me with an incredible array of goodies. I had sent a wish list of things that I love from the US, thinking she would get a couple of things, but she got almost all of it... in multiples!! So generous of her. This isn't even all of it! Plus all of the chocolate is from the Food Empowerment Project approved list! (A note, ClifBars do not use FEP approved chocolate, so you can see I only have the PB flavour of it.)





We went out for an early dinner in West End. Molly loves Japanese food as much as I do, so we went to MisoHapi (previous visits can be seen here) to eat all of the food! Sushi and ramen, hurrah! We got quite a few things, including the mandatory inari. But also we tried the Green Roll, which had avocado and cucumber inside and seaweed salad on top. I love seaweed salad! We also had some classic avocado rolls, of course, and the Tofu Nigiri that I really liked last time. To complete our snack course, we got some spring rolls and a Garden Roll, which had cucumber and carrot inside and avocado on top.







Of course we also had to get some bowls of ramen! Molly wanted the Shoyu version, so I got the Miso one again so that she could try a bit of it. The miso one was great, as previous, but I think I might like the shoyu one even more... I am shocked! Next time I go I will get a whole bowl of the shoyu one to myself to try so I can make a final decision.



And what better welcome to Brisbane than with an I Should Coco Ice Cream ? Being a Saturday, they were at the Boundary St markets. Molly got the Berry Merry, my favourite off the regular menu. I got the Chocolate Mango special, chunks of fresh mango with chocolate syrup, in my usual cone. I made a huge mess, a chunk of mango promptly fell off (but I caught it!), but I am committed to my cones no matter the cost. It was delicious and had great summery flavours.



The next morning, after Molly got a good sleep, we went out for brunch at Grown, a relatively new vegan cafe in West End that I was yet to get to. We started with drinks. I had a very pretty beetroot latte (though, like so many beetroot lattes, it was all about the colour and only a very faint flavour), and Molly had the spicy chai.



Molly was tempted by the sweeter side of the menu, and went with the Brioche French Toast (with seasonal berries, pepper ice cream, and caramel sauce). I tried a bite and it was good but so sweet! Molly enjoyed it, but thought it was a bit sweet to get through the whole thing that early in the morning.



We both ordered a side of hashbrowns, so Molly had some savoury as well to balance it out! The hashbrowns are large, hot and delicious! I ended up also choosing the Scrambled Tofu (with sautéed asian mushrooms and sesame cheese on multigrain sourdough) and a side of avocado. The scramble was made with silken tofu, which is not my texture preference, but it had lovely flavours and was great with the sesame cheese toast and avocado, so all around I would recommend this.



Afterwards we went to South Bank, which is a pretty iconic Brisbane experience. We went to GOMA, the QLD Museum, and the State Library, all of which always have free exhibits available to see. At GOMA, we were pleasantly surprised to find a Yayoi Kusama exhibit was open, and had a lovely time exploring some of her art.







Stay tuned for many more posts to come!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



It is lovely to see how brave and confident Dim Sim is around visitors these days! Doesn't even need any adjustment time, she is ready to accept your love!