Eating Out: Plant Vibes (Van Gogh Alive edition)

On Monday, Mum and I went to see the Van Gogh Alive exhibit and then went and tried a new to me vegan place for lunch afterwards! I know you are all here for the food (and the cats), so let's start with lunch! The place we went was Plant Vibes Cafe. They are in a place where I was not sure about getting parking, so as we were near there for the exhibit, I figured that if I couldn't find a park we could just go home and it would just have been a small detour out of our way. Luckily I got a park right out the front!

I got the Hibiscus Passionfruit Lemon Myrtle Iced Tea to drink, which was very refreshing!



Mum got the Cheese and Bacon Croissant Special, which was a toasted croissant filled with cheese sauce and bacon bits. I tried a bit and it was delicious, like fondue!



We shared a bowl of chips with aioli. I would like to respectfully request that we phase out shoestring fries, they just aren't as satisfying as a big chunky chip!



And I ordered the Breakfast Croissant, which was a croissant with cheesy tofu scramble, mushrooms, avocado, a potato chive cake, and tomato relish. I also got some Hollandaise sauce on the side. This was nice, but huge! I ended up just pulling it to bits, pouring the sauce all over it, and then eating it with a knife and fork in little bits.



They also have a lovely bakery cabinet at the counter full of goodies, so we got some to take home. Mum got a Loaded Cookie, and I got a Custard and Apple Croissant. It was delicious, such a good combination to put with a croissant!



Now for the arty stuff. That morning we had gone to the Van Gogh Alive exhibit. I had seen some of my friends in Vancouver posting about it when it was there, and I was really excited that it was coming to Brisbane. It was a really beautiful and unique experience. Here are some photos.













Of course, being an immersive experience, photos just cannot do it justice. But if you ever get a chance to go, I highly recommend it!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



After lunch, we came home and I watched the Doctor Who episode Vincent and The Doctor, which is very beautiful and very sad. Then I was really fighting off the urge to have a nap. I ended up giving into it, and having a little nap with Abby on the bed.

Eating Out: Grassfed, Rebel Donuts (Lego edition)

Welcome back! This post is a direct follow on from my previous one, so check that out if you haven't already. There will be food at the end of this post, I promise!

I met up with Amy at the Queensland Museum so we could go to their After Dark session of their Lego Brickman Wonders of the World exhibit. At least once during the run of an exhibition, the museum will put on an after dark, which means those who go get access to the whole museum (and the special exhibit) one evening. And the best part? NO CHILDREN ALLOWED! Yes! They also have a bar and a DJ and some talks and some other stuff on. A highlight of any visit to, or walk past, the museum of course is the whales in the Whale Mall!



The exhibit was reconstructions of world famous buildings and monuments made out of, you guessed it, Lego!



There were also a couple of recreations of famous artworks in Lego, like the Mona Lisa.



We soon learned that the real fun was the quirky little details you could see when you really looked closely. For example, this is a very wonderful and detailed Lego recreation of St Basil's Catherdral in Moscow...



But, look closer... and who do you see popping out of a sewer?? Why, could that be... Michelangelo the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?? It is! Cowabunga, my hero in a half shell friend!



After that, we spent a lot of time really trying to view every single minute detail in case of finding something else funny and/or cool. This included Pepe Le Pew hanging out with a mime under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris...



And the Hunchback of Notre Dame...



Plus this guy looking super excited to see this cat! I can't remember what this was from.



There were loads of others, but I won't bore you with them. But it really made the exhibit a whole lot more fun looking for these little quirky additions. The opposite of quirky was this very nice Lego version of Michelangelo's David. Rendered in all his... uh... glory...



No trip to the museum is complete with out a visit to my good friend the Muttaburrasaurus. Amy took a photo of us together! You can't really see, but my t-shirt says 'I Just Want Dinosaurs and Emotional Stability'... one out of two here! (The shirt is from Sugar and Sloth, and if you don't already know about them, you should.)



On our way out, we saw this Lego scultpure being made of 'Cooper'. Cooper is the name given to the fossil of the largest dinosaur ever found in Australia! Formally named Australotitan cooperensis, this dino was a GIANT sauropod (that's a four-legged long neck). This recreation of what Cooper might have looked like was being made by someone who had competed in the Lego Masters TV show.



After we finished up, it was time for dinner. See, I told you that food was coming! We went to Grassfed (see previous visits here). I got the Hawaiian Burger (Veef Pattie, vCheese, vBacon (subbed for vPepperoni), lettuce, tomato, and aioli. And Amy got the Chick'n Burger (lemon dressed schnitzel, lettuce, turmeric kraut, sriracha aioli) with vBacon added. We also got a side of potato gems and some drinks (ginger beer for her, strawberry hibiscus kombucha for me).





Afterwards I dropped Amy home and then went for a great big sleep. One thing I didn't mention on my previous post was that while I was in West End I did a very quick peek through Harris Farms, a new grocery shop that just opened there, and it had a heap of fun things. I am hoping to go back there soon to do a proper look and shop. But they do also have a little doughnut shop in there called Rebel Donuts that has a few vegan flavours, and I got a cinnamon doughnut. I was too full to eat it on the Friday, but I did enjoy it the following day.



I hope you enjoyed these last two posts! I know they are not strictle food related, but it is fun to share some fun times I have. Also I love using this blog as a digital memory scrapbook for myself!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Amy has two cats! I showed the you magnificent Neil in the last post. And this is the lovely Kitty Curie!

Eating Out: The FAT Carrot, Botanical Lab (GOMA, Entwined edition)

Hi friends. This is the first part of a two-part post I will be doing based on a nice time I had. It was the day after my wallet being stolen, so it was nice to have some fun! Last Friday I had a big afternoon and evening planned after I finished work at 1pm. I was meeting my friend Amy in the evening at the museum so we could go to our Lego After Dark night that had been postponed due to lockdown a few weeks earlier. I decided rather than drive all the way home and then back and few hours later, I would just go get some food and also see a few other exhibits. Make the most of an afternoon in the area.

First things first, some lunch! I drove into West End and decided to try out a vegan banh mi at The FAT Carrot. I'd walked past this place a lot, but never actually eaten there. From the outside, it looks like a juice and smoothie bar. And it is, but it also has a great Vietnamese menu with a lot of vegan options. I got the vegan crispy chicken banh mi, which was wonderful.



Afterwards, I stopped in at Botanical Lab to try out some of their flavours of vegan soft serve. This is not a completely vegan place, but it has a lot of vegan options including bubble tea, soft serve sundaes, and some other treats. Just ask if you are not sure. I have been there once before. I wanted to try their two vegan soft serve flavours, which at the moment are taro and cherry blossom. I got them in a sundae with strawberry jelly and brown sugar syrup. This was HUGE! And so ice cold! I was running a bit later than I thought to get to the art gallery, so I was trying to eat this quickly, which wasn't very easy. The cherry blossom soft serve was a lovely flavour, but I think it overpowered the taro. Next time I am goign to get taro alone in a cone so I can really experience it.



I headed over to GOMA to see their European Masterpieces from the Met exhibit. Apparently the Met in NY is doing renovations, so they sent a bunch of their paintings to Brisbane. As you do. This was a pleasant exhibit, though to be honest most of it was not the style of painting that I am super into. But I could appreciate the artistry. But a couple caught my eye, including this portrait of the Comtesse de la Chatre, which was painted by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun, one of the few female painters of the time.



And this, The Young Bather, by Gustave Courbet.



I also really liked the way the exhibit was set up. They had some very fancy arch and mirror tricks so that part of it seemed like you were in a very ornate hallway. And in the middle they had a place set up like an open French courtyard that included some still life displays you could sketch, and also they would occasionally have live models for drawing classes. They also had some of the paintings rendered into a 3-D technology so that vision impaired people could experience them, which was cool and something I have not seen before.

Of course I was also drawn to a few other pieces, that ended up being the most obvious ones. I guess I am basic. But I still enjoyed seeing Dancers in Pink and Green (by Edgar Degas), The Flowering Orchard (by Vincent van Gogh), and Water Lilies (by Claude Monet).







After this I popped into the State Library of Queensland to have a look at their Entwined: Plants and People exhibit, a lovely collecting looking at the relationship between plants and people through art, photography, and cultural pieces. It was an incredibly serene place to be. Here are just a few of my favourites.









Thanks for hanging on to the end of this post! Check back next time for part two, which will involve Lego and burgers!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Given that I was about to meet up with Amy for the evening, I had to share a photo of one of her cats. This is Neil, the most handsomest black boy!

Eating Out: Grassfed (and Sea Monsters at the Museum)

The QLD Museum had an exhibition running for several months about prehistoric sea monsters, aka marine reptiles, and I was so keen to go. But it started last year when COVID was still getting under control here. Finally, I bought tickets to an After Dark session to go to with a friend (no kids allowed!), but then the day before another COVID cluster kicked off and we cancelled. Time was running out to see it, so I went one day on a weekday that I had off.

Of course, I had to get some lunch to fuel myself! And I took a short walk from the museum to Grassfed for a burger and a shake (see my previous Grassfed posts here). I was super keen to try their current special, the Teriyaki Tempehtation Burger. It had teriyaki galzed tempeh (the tempeh from local tempeh maker Totally Tempeh) with rainbow slaw, fried lotus root, coriander, and wasabi mayo. It was absolutely delicious!

I also got a shake. Normally I am all about the strawberry shake they make, strawberry being the best flavour in general. But this time I got another one of their specials, the Biscoff Shake. Biscoff Sauce, Biscoff Spread, Biscoff Cookies! With their amazing I Should Coco softserve, soy milk, soy whipped cream, and a cherry. This was a super sweet treat, but a lot of fun. The crunchiness of the cookies was nice in it as well.



OK, let's get back to the museum! No trip to the Queensland Museum is complete without a viewing of the humpbacks and saying hello to the Muttuburrasaurus.





But the main event was the Sea Monsters exhibit! They have these fun magazine covers you can pose in, though as I was on my own I just took a photo with no one in it.



So, confession time... the idea of these giant marine reptiles gives me the creeps. I would not want to be close to them. Or any large current marine animal, to be honest. Sure, I might watch a whale from a distance, I love whales, but if I was in the water I would not want to be near anything that big! So I did have involuntary shudders as I walked through this, but I was still love them because they are cool! Just FYI, these are not dinosaurs! Marine reptiles are a different class of animals. Just like flying reptiles like Pteranodons are not dinosaurs either. Anyway, speaking of large marine reptiles...


The exhibit was broken into four sections, chronologically arranged based on when these giants swam the seas. First up, the Ichthyosaurs. Look at that cheeky face! With some big snappy jaws.



Behold some fossilised poo! AKA early turds, hee.



The Plesiosaurs are like the longnecks of the marine reptile world.



This is a cast of Penny The Plesiosaur, the most complete plesiosaur found in Australia, which was found in Queensland. My state has been the site of discovery of a lot of cool prehistoric animal fossils.



If you are familiar with the Jurassic World franchise, you will know the Mosasaur! When I first saw this cast, I was surprised because I was expecting it to be much bigger. But within each of the types of marine reptiles, there are individual species. This one here is the Prognathadon.



The type of Mosasaur they had in Jurrasic World was the Tylosaurus, otherwise known as the T-Rex of the sea. They were up to 15 meters long! Of course Jurassic World would choose the biggest, fiercest mosasaur type to genetically engineer.



The final section was about Turtles, which are marine reptiles that span both ancient and current times. This was a nice, calming way to end after all those giant chompers that came before! Though turtles could still get pretty big in times past! Look at this chonky's skull.



I'm really glad I got a chance to see it before it ended, because I love this sort of thing! In the last few years, I have really rediscovered my inner dino and pals nerd, and it makes me happy!

On my way back to the car, I passed by the Brisbane sign in Southbank. Normally, this sign has people crawling all over it or taking photos in front of it, but miraculously there was no one near it on this random Wednesday early afternoon, so I snapped a quick photo.



I know there wasn't much food in this post, but if you read this far (or even just scrolled to look at the photos) I hoped you enjoyed it! Please let me know what non-food things you love to geek out about.