Hogs Breath Cafe
SURPRISE!! Michelle and Luke took me out to lunch at Hogs Breath for my 32nd birthday (Luke paid), and as we pulled into the car park we saw a couple of friends from church arriving (Mark, Catherine and Chloe) - no coincidence, as they were there to have lunch with us (along with Ray and Kelly from next door and Sols and Cath too).
What a way to celebrate too, as let's face it, Hogs Breath do some pretty amazing steaks...
Ambience
HBC have their very definite own style of things... from collections of number plates, to mannequins dressed as whoever (in our case, we had Marylin standing over a permanetly blowing grate/fan), plus the obligatory papier mache HBC pink hog doing something.
I have to mention the plastic light up palm tree. Each section of the trunk was a different colour, and the leaves were essentially a mass of lights. It doesn't even fall into the kitsch category - it's just plain ugly (I am glad I had my back to it). It kinda looked like this, but not just one colour - ALL colours. There were also plasmas everywhere playing a mix of the cricket (Aus v Sth Africa) and 80's film clips.
No real view to speak of, but then you really go to HBC for the food and the social opportunity.
Food
Mmm... steak. HBC specialise in slow cooking their steaks (by slow, I mean 18 hours slow) and it makes for an amazing treat each time. I've never had a bad steak at HBC ever. We (Michelle and I) did try the new finger food combo from the new menu - salt & pepper calamari, crumbed chicken tenderloins, vege spring rolls and some meat skewers. Quite nice, although a bit over-priced. Michelle had the Chicken Caesar for main, and I had the steak/calamari combo with a Caesar side. Most people had a steak (and so they should).
The Caesar was pretty disappointing... no cos lettuce, only iceberg (although cos was listed in the ingredients in the menu), heaps of bacon (not so bad, but in the context of the salad you can have too much of a good thing), and Michelle had hardly any dressing whilst mine was swimming in it. There was no obvious cheese (probably masked by the dressing on mine), and the crutons has drowned long before my meal made it to the table. I forgot to ask Michelle what the chicken was like in it, but I think it was OK.
Dessert was a shared Mississippi mud cake (yummy) - standard two spoon deal.
Drinks included water, Carona, Dark & Stormy, LLBs, and an Apple juice.
Service
Not so bad, although considering there was hardly anyone in the place we just about had to tackle a staff member to serve us. Like most places they kept all mains until the entrees were cleared - but they were slow on the uptake on that. I clearly ordered fries for main, and got mashed potato instead. This was fixed, however it doesn't hurt to pay attention when taking orders. When it came to paying the bill (I personally HATE places that won't let you pay the bill separately - it's just laziness), we had to hunt a staff member down to give us the bill. No tip here today.
End Result
Ambience - 1.5/5
Would have been higher if not for the plastic palm tree.
Food - 3.5/5
I really like their steaks, but for mine, the Caesar salad really let them down (twice, for different reasons for Michelle and I).
Service - 1/5
Pay attention - you're in a service buisness. I don't care how interesting your conversation is with your workmates is...
Overall - 6/15
Great steak... I guess everything else comes depending where you are. For example, the Whitsundays and Mooloolaba HBC's are great places to go (at least when I last went there)... Perhaps because I'pilly is still young, they are still learning.
Hogs Breath Cafe
Everywhere in Australia, but we were at:
104 Coonan St, Indooroopilly
(07) 3378 5533
