• Having grown up in Brisbane, I remember the days when the main strip of West End was easily the go-to place for a good coffee and creative meal. Well, things have changed a bit since my early 20s (despite that being just a few years ago… obviously… *cough*).

These days, you need to meander off busy Boundary road to find such a café, but once you know where to look, you’ll be seeing West End again with new eyes. 

Tucked away on Browning Street is Duo Bar and Restaurant, which is exactly the type of innovative and trendy café you’re looking for when you visit West End.

But does the food actually taste as good as the menu suggests? Let’s take a look. 

Healthy eating in the Winter months can be a bit of a challenge. A salad certainly isn’t the first thing you think of when you’re wearing thermal leggings and a puffy jacket. 

This is where a big bowl of warming, healthy pho fits the bill nicely. While on the hunt for a big bowl of this nutritious deliciousness, I stumbled upon Brisbane’s newest Vietnamese restaurant located in Woolloongabba.

Than Nuong translates to ‘charcoal’, and char-grilled meat has cold-weather-eating all over it. 
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So is it possible to eat delicious warming Winter food and not break the diet? Let’s find out. 

Moorooka may be the go-to suburb to buy a second-hand car, but it’s also becoming the place to find quality brunches thanks to a burgeoning café scene in the winding streets behind the “magic mile”.

One such café to have popped up is Todd and Pup. As the cute name suggests, dogs are welcome here. So are Todds.

This family friendly café also extends its bear hug to kids, so is already a winner in the minds of local families. 
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For those of us though on the other side of town who aren’t in the market for a new SUV, is it worth the drive to this café? Let’s find out. 

With the current move towards healthy eating comes its natural successor: healthy drinking.

I don't mean browny-green smoothies and quinoa chia water; I'm talking about fun drinking. The alcoholic kind.

Esprit De Figues is the first fig liqueur to hit the Australian market, and in just a few months it has proven popular among cocktail aficionados nationwide.

I say it's health-conscious because of all the liqueurs out there, Esprit De Figues has one of the lowest levels of sugar. This provides the double benefits of allowing the natural flavours of handpicked Violette de Bordeaux figs to shine, as well as being kind to your insulin levels. 

In keeping its sugar levels down, is this drink something you'd still like to sip on during a night out? Let's find out.  

Life in general is a little bit harder with a newborn. Doing the groceries is harder. Cooking is harder. Loosing weight- pfft, don't even talk to me about that. 

So I was pretty stoked to be able to try the latest offering from the guys at Aussie Farmers Direct- their home delivered WW Freshbox which comes complete with recipes from Weight Watchers. Given that my brain space is currently filled with nap schedules and feeding times, not having to think about what to cook for dinner is an absolute god-send right now. 

It's also great to not feel guilty for running out of food at home and serving up a dinner of chips (guilty as charged). 

So how does the WW Freshbox stack up? Let's find out.

A little birdy told me some news yesterday- there's a new cake delivery service in Brisbane that creates some amazingly good cakes and delivers them to your door for cheep cheep.

Little Bridy Cakes bakes out of a kitchen in West End and delivers all over Brisbane for a flat fee of $10. That means you can get cake to you door for less than a Trente Extra Shot Java Chip Soy Frappaccuino at Starbucks. 

Don't drink at Starbucks. Order cake instead.

But is the actual cake worth writing home about? Let's pick up a dainty little fork and find out.

One reason I love pottering around at food markets on the weekend is to see what new, tasty concoctions have been created by clever local gourmets.

Sadly I don’t always make it to the markets though, particularly in winter when it’s a toss-up between a warm bed or an early morning forage in the elements.

This is where a brand new foodie service comes in.

FlavourCrate is the brainchild of Masterchef contestant Ben Macdonald, who has been working with Australian producers to collect a bunch of gourmet treats which can then be delivered to your door.

What kid of flavours do you get in a crate? Let’s find out.

In a rare Tour De France-inspired moment on Sunday morning, my friend and I hopped on our bikes and peddled around Southbank, West End and Dutton Park. It's basically the same as Fougères, Mûr-de-Bretagne and Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.

Given that it has been 10 years since I last did any such peddling, we grew pretty hungry pretty quickly. 

We stopped off at West End's Atomica cafe, which again I hadn't been to for years but I remember eating some good noms there in the past.

How has it stood the test of time? Let's find out.

Any place that advertises beer and dumplings is already a winner in my mind. Harajuku Gyoza not only combines these two delicacies, but has some awesome gyoza logic on its website:

"You are like a hungry salaryman in a Japanese izakaya. You are thirsty and your appetite is big like Godzilla. So try grilled gyoza."

Like Godzilla, we swung on down to try the brand new Harajuku Gyoza in Brisbane's South Bank. How did it fare with our monster appetites? Let's find out.