Jaz Bar (Restaurant & Wine Bar)

Address: Data #3 Centre, 80 Jephson St, Toowong (Brisbane) QLD
Phone: 07 3870 1111
www.jazbar.com.au

• Healthy Stonegrill cooking where meals are served on superheated volcanic stones
• Live jazz music every Wed, Fri & Sat nights

This is a fun, exciting experience which I first heard about on a documentary on Canada. They had a similar sort of thing, with fresh lobster tail, without oil, sauce or condiments being cooked on a pre-heated stone and being allowed to cook in all its natural juices.

When I saw this in an advertisement in Brisbane - I jumped at the chance to go and try it - it sure saved me the flight to Vancouver!

Everything is well-priced as well - these huge main was around $30-$40, served with salad and chips.

I ordered the Surf & Turf (pictured below) - comes with steak, calamari (which looked semi-cooked) and prawns. There was also the mushroom sauce but that was a tad on the watery side so give that a miss.

The waitress advised that we cut the meat up into smaller pieces, and turn once cooked on one side and moving it off the stone once fully cooked to preference. It's a good idea and leaves you in total control of your meat! I suggest that you keep a good watch because I let mine sit for a little longer than I would have liked - the amazing thing about these volcanic stones is while it sizzles slowly, it never burns!

I always find that the best tasting dishes, especially meat, is when the meat is left in its natural state, with all its juices and flavour. Jaz has clearly made choice cuts for this particular purpose, because for the first time, I could actually taste beef, and not oil or other substitutory marinates.

Below: Swordfish fillet - this was quite nice as well, cooked in its own natural juices and the fish cooked very quickly. The sauce it was served with didn't bring out the best in the fish, I recommend a tartare sauce if they will accomodate such a request.

The mocktails there are MEAN! (in a good way)

Featured below is the berry mocktail (don't be deceived, the glass is layered, the drink itself is one colour), a combination of berries and cranberry juice - amazing!!!

This particular mocktail was a lychee & watermelon combinatin which was also sort of sour (grapefruit)? I thoroughly enjoyed this one because of my eccentric tastes for the tangy & sour (pictured below).

For the grande finale and ULTIMATE FOODGASM:

Chocolate Gateaux - a "decadent chocolate & almong gateaux topped with chocolate ganache & served with chantilly cream". The texture is melt-in-your mouth, and an added bonus is that (I think) it is gluten free. The slices don't actually come out that big, so to avoid fighting order one each! As you can see below, it is served with a berry coulis topping and icing sugar. Pure bliss...

YOU CAN'T LEAVE WITHOUT EATING THIS CAKE!

:)

Update: I really enjoyed this restaurant the first time I came, and hyped it up much more in my mind than it was worth. Maybe they changed the menu, or maybe it was cheapo Tuesdays and I was expecting way too much.

The service here is always courteous and friendly, try to avoid the jazz nights and being seated 2 seats from the band if you are trying to have a nice date.

On $25 Tuesdays, you get an entrée & main from the Tuesday menu, which is really not bad value.

I had the thai fish cakes which were a partially uncooked-dough version with some fish flavoured bits inside it I’m sure. Do not attempt to eat without sweet chilli sauce or you will suffer the wrath of a sickening blandness.


My co-eater ordered some sort of antipasto platter which looked fairly ordinary – I could have done a similar job at Woolworths with $5.


The mains were raw meat cooked on a heated volcanic rock. A great novelty & healthy way to digest your meat, but also can be quite frustrating and dangerous if you don’t do it properly.

I was greedy and ordered the bush spiced chicken with a steak of eye fillet (served with chips & salad) . My bush chicken “tender” cooked, but the steak was too thick so I had to divide it up and cook it in stages.


Jaz Bar really have trouble complimenting their sauces. They put a dill sauce with chicken (dill sauce should be banned except in prisoner cuisine where they are there to ingest suffering) and mustard with steak. It didn’t make any gastronomical sense at all. Although it does make you appreciate the meat for all it’s fresh/unfresh and bloody goodness.

The previously decadent chocolate cake lacked lustre, perhaps it was not warmed up enough but just tasted very average – just like any old mudcake.

We also ordered these mocktails which were more like a concoction of fruit slushies from the servo, only with more rough ice chunks which required time to melt before it was enjoyable.