HQ Cafe, Kedron-Wavell Services Club, Chermside, Brisbane

May 02, 2015

My my.. I don't remember the last time I stepped foot in Kedron-Wavell, but I'm glad I did when the restaurants in Chermside mall was getting a bit dry and wanted to go past Chermside are for lunch but as we drove near the Kedron-Wavell, I thought, why not have a peek and maybe they may serve up good food. Though, I have to admit, I was in the moment of missing pub food.. Good ol' pub food.. and was I surprised by its renovated interior and restaurants too. Though many of you may say it is crowded with older adults, but there were many having lunch breaks from the office, short meetings, or just your casual dressed young adults as well..

I do have to say, I quite liked the use of blue and green atmosphere with hanging plants in their Alfresco dining deck.

Want to relax on the sofa and not on the plastic chairs? Well, they've got you covered.

As we looked through the menu, they have a wider variety of dishes ranging from pasta to pizzas, stir fries or snacks, even just for coffee or cakes, they have it all here. Somehow reminds me of pub food, but let's hope this can serve the food better than the tavern nearby. They do have 2 different prices for all food which are Members and Non-Members prices, the Members prices are slightly cheaper than the Non-Members. You could even sign up before you order to get the Members prices, but we couldn't be bothered since it wasn't a place we would be going every so often.

'1824 Rump Steak' ($16.9) was a 200g Prime MSA Rump served with green salad & chips OR fried range eggs & chips OR steamed vegetables & mash plus your choice of sauces of either pepper, mushroom, gravy or Dianne. I have to say that when it arrived on our table, plating was normal, but sometimes you just know when the food will be good as it arrives, whilst sometimes you just think of it as meh.. But yes, I did have a feeling that it would be quite delicious this one.

Usually with steaks, I don't order Rump or T-Bones, well I used to order Rump or Eye fillet, but not anymore. Now, everywhere I go, you will always see me with an Eye fillet, its portion is just perfect for me. So when we saw that there was a Rump of 180g, we went for it.

Chips, fried well with new oil which you can usually taste it and see from its colour and it was really crispy which I enjoyed. The nice simple salad was fresh and had a mixture of red onions, shredded carrots, cherry tomatoes and a bit of sauce on top of it which was a lovely touch since usually, when you order food that has a side salad, it usually doesn't have any sauce. No, I'm not talking when you order Caesar or such, just when it states Simple or Fresh salad..

Now, to the main part of the dish, the meat, the beef, the steak. As you can see the picture above and below are the same except that mum had put pepper on the steak on the one below, just right after I got a clear shot of the before the steak being peppered up. It was rather a nice piece of rump I have to say, though quite small being 180g, it was enough for us. We ordered a Medium Well and it turned out the way it should be which was perfect. There was bits of fat around the side but that didn't bother me much, just simply knived it off and left it there. The pepper sauce was not as strong as what I hoped it would be, but the peppercorns gave it a nice touch

Second dish we ordered, was the 'Carnivore Pizza' (Small N/M: $15.9) which had meatballs, salami, bacon, pepperoni, ham, BBQ sauce & buffalo mozarella. An interesting thing that I found was that them using Buffalo Mozarella in a Meatlovers pizza. I would use Buffalo Mozarella in a Margharita or a Pesto Funghi, just a simple pizza. So I was quite enthusiastic in how the pizzas would be.

Firstly, I did find the Small size to be more than what I thought it would be and I thought to myself, will we be able to finish it all? Seeing the big chunks of meatballs on top of the pizza, you could see bits of salami as well (and they didn't tell me that it was a tad spicy) but that's okay. However, I could not find any bacon or ham and I wondered where it may have been or they might have forgotten it? or even put them on but only a teeny bit?

Good dough, chewy but not too thick nor too thin either with its crust. The buffalo mozarella accompanied this meaty pizza well and overall, it was rather a good pizza. I may say it can even be better than a few of the pizzas I have eaten in restaurants before too. Oh, and I did find the ham and the bacon afterall. After taking the first bite or two, you could taste the bacon and ham, a very smart and cheeky thing to do which I don't see very often, or actually, I hardly see pizzas being made this way. So, the bacon and ham seemed like a surprise after every bite since you would look on top of your pizza without it but within it, under all that cheese, before the bottom dough, the ham and bacon are tucked in between. Very interesting..

I have to say, I don't mind coming back here for another casual afternoon and trying out their other dishes.. Some of them sounded real yum by their descriptions on the menu.