Chiangmai Thai is an institution on the Gold Coast and is my vote for the best Thai on the Gold Coast.

We visited the restaurant at Broadbeach and if you’re visiting the Gold Coast, it’s on the Gold Coast highway and is lit up purple with lots of tiki lanterns lit outside. This restaurant has a great ambience and they’ve gone to a lot of effort to decorate it including heavy, wooden Thai furniture, elephant statues, Thai paintings and wood carvings to ensuring their female staff are dressed in colourful Thai costumes.

This is a beautiful restaurant for a relaxed dinner or romantic, intimate setting and you can sit inside or outside amongst the garden. Service is alwasys quick and professional as they have plenty of wait staff on. The food is always beautifully presented and reasonably priced. Mains are around $16 for meat dishes and in the low $20 range for seafood.

There are other restaurants in Surfers and Nobby’s Beach. To write your own review on the Broadbeach restaurant click here.

Seafood Tom Yum soup - this spicy soup is made extra tasty fresh vegetables

The chicken Tom Yam soup has a coconut base (I may have the name wrong)

Coconut prawns and chicken satay sticks for entree

The lamb yellow curry

Technorati Tags: chiangmai thai, restaurant review, nobby’s beach, surfers paradise, broadbeach, gold coast, thai restaurant

We used to come here regularly for breakfast and had never tried the lunches there so we visited a few weeks ago.

I wasn’t as impressed with my lunch as I was with their breakfast (I love their bircher museli.) I also felt the prices were quite pricey. My BLT was $14.50 and my partners fish and chips was $19.50. I don’t mind paying those prices for a restaurant but as it’s a cafe amongst a food market hall (albeit an upmarket food hall), I felt they were pushing it.

My roll was soft and sweet but I personally prefer something with a bit of crunch. My partners fish was ok but he felt it lacked a bit of oompf. Below are some pics we took.

The seating options are at a large, square communal table or long bench inside or you can sit at tables out in the market hall however it can get quite loud and echo’y.

I think I may stick to their breakfasts in the future which I think are better value for money.

To post your own review on Spendelove Bistro and Bar click here.

Inside Spendelove Bistro and Bar - The square communal table

Spendelove’s menu

My BLT which was $14.50

The fish and chips which was $19.50. Well presented but my partner felt it lacked flavouring.

Inside the Food Hall at the Ferry Road Markets. You can choose to sit here if you’re dining at Spendelove

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Just thought I’d share some beautiful coffee art pictures that came through as an email today. It’s amazing what a barista can do with a toothpick and a bit of talent!

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A couple of weeks ago we decided to go to Zen chinese restaurant for my partners birthday.

Zen is located on the ground level of the casino tucked around a corner (past the Atrium bar) and it’s one of the best (or the best) restaurant in the casino. It’s a fine dining Chinese restaurant catering to the high rollers and brings a bit of class to the casino which underwent a massive refurbishment about a year ago.

Being a fine dining restaurant means the meals come with a high price tag so is it worth it?

We all had soups for starters - wonton and hot and sour soup. Both were around $9 each. I ordered a wonton soup and it was delicious - the dumplings hand made with a rich, dark broth.

For mains we ordered fillet beef with scallops and vegetables and macadamia nuts $33.50, eggplant with chilli and mince approx $18, chinese broccoli and oyster sauce approx $18 and special fried rice with hidden treasures approx $14.

Everyone loved the beef and scallops dish as the beef was tender and the scallops large. I was grateful that they removed the roe because I hate that part. The macadamia nuts also made it an extra classy dish.

The eggplant with chilli and mince was also wonderful and our friends had never tried this dish and they were impressed although they commented that it’s an oily dish. The oil is needed though to add flavour so I can’t criticise them on this point.

The chinese broccoli in my opinion was overpriced given that it’s only steamed with an oyster sauce over the top but the fried rice was faultless. The hidden treasures by the way are slices of Chinese sausage.

We went back to Zen a few weeks later to try out their $18.50 per person yum cha but were disappointed. It’s a set menu and they don’t bring around the trolleys. The set menu is generous but I prefer to choose what I want to eat and the whole fun of yum cha is choosing items off the trolleys.

Below are some pictures of our dinner meals. To write your own review click here!

Wonton Soup which was around $9

Hot and Sour Soup

At the front: Beef and scallops with macadamia nuts and vegetables $33.50, eggplant with chilli and mince approx $18. In the back: Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce approx $18 and fried rice with ‘hidden treasures’ approx $14

Technorati Tags: zen chinese restaurant, jupiters casino, casino gold coast, chinese restaurant, restaurant review, gold coast restaurants