Featuring: Mama Taco, Mario’s, Ngon…

BACK in the day, a trip along West End’s Hardgrave Road offered up a variety of old-fashioned blocks of flats, houses with grapevines and veg-laden front yards and a sprinkling of second-hand bookstores and thrift shops. The landmark of the road was the Rialto Theatre, a lovely old corner structure built in the 1920’s.
A couple of traditional Vietnamese restaurants came along in the ‘60’s offering rudimentary dining rooms and menus as long as your arm were also popular. These venues dabbled in various Asian cuisines as well as their own and were family run often with three generations working together on any given day.
The good news is that the two main players, Trang’s and Quan Thanh are still there. The menus are still vast and wide ranging, they’re still family-run and they still offer the same value for money that they always did.
The difference is the neighbours, and the neighbourhood, now some of the highest priced inner-city housing in Brisbane. A few doors up from Trangs and part of the theatre is Mama Taco, a highly anticipated Mexican bolthole, delivered by the creators of Holloway and Luigi’s (both now defunct), also in West End.
Three colourful bottles of chilli sauce are deposited on our polished wood banquette table along with the offer of still or sparkling water. “Think of them as stop lights,” says our waiter. “The green (Merkin chilli) is go – not too spicy, you can enjoy plenty of it. The orange (Bhuta) is a little spicier and the red (habaneros) speaks for itself!”
All three are fresh and vibrant and packed with heat and flavour, but when the tacos arrive – the first one is a king prawn with watermelon relish and raspberries, queso fresco and salsa verde – they are so packed with flavour, charriness from the plancha, piquancy from the marinades that the sauces, as tempting as they are, are hardly necessary. The charcoal beef with blueberry and coriander is equally delicious and this one handles the fiery Bhuta sauce nicely.
Raw yellowtail kingfish arrives in an earthy bowl amid a heady blend of coconut, onion & lime as well as a mix of both habanero and merkin chilli.
The sides are well worth indulging in – crunchy tostadas served with guacamole, mole madre, eggplant, pico de gallo and sauce roja are all delicious, especially when served together.
The cocktail list leaves nothing to the tequila and mezcal lovers’ imagination. It begins with a not so classic margherita and ends with a mezcal negroni with campari and grapefruit bitters.
Brisbane has been lacking good Mexican and Mama Taco is well and truly filling that gap. Mama Taco, 4/59 Hardgrave Road, West End. No Phone. Visit www.mamataco.com.au.
There’s no such shortage of good Italian these days however, but the same team at Mama Taco also runs Mario’s just a few doors down.

Simple decor with olive green velvet bar stools, a red feature wall and polished wood gabled ceiling, the pocket-sized venue oozes charm and an easy warmth.
The bar is stocked with a plethora of Italian and Australian wines bolstered by a reserve list of big-end-of-town barolo’s and barbaresco’s – there’s also 50 Grappas and 50 Ameros to choose from as you sample the experimental dishes chef Raffaele Percichetti creates on a nightly basis.
Several dishes have already become firm favourites and regulars are dictating that they cannot be removed from the menu. And who would remove lobster lasagna, funghi calzone fritto, and scampi crudo with buffalo milk stracciatella dusted with freeze dried raspberry from the menu?
There’s a second room that can be hired for functions and a couple of black velvet armchairs that sit on the footpath, the perfect spot for an aperitivo after the rigours of the day.
Over at Paddington it’s a second venue also for the owners of Ngon, a modern Vietnamese bistro housed in a pretty, original shop on Given Terrace. The menu is a compilation of typically fresh flavours of Vietnam divided into small and large plates.
Recently owner Tuan Nguyen and his team launched Given Kitchen and Bar up the road in another quaint shop front. The long narrow room features a banquette running down the right-hand side with dark wood tables simply adorned with ceramic vases of various colours. The menu for breakfast and lunch is strikingly different to that of dinner and that is because there are two different chefs at the helm day and night. Chef Daniel Real injects funky fusion vibes into his morning creations – think bubble tea panna cotta with chocolate granola, karaage chicken benny with sriracha hollandaise and sauteed kale or hangover fried rice with a pork sausage and a fried egg.
At night the sophistication and finesse ramp up under the direction of chef, Wilhelm Gee with dishes like whole squid, green chilli sauce and garlic salt, wagyu rump with Vietnamese chimichurri, charcoal BBQ chicken with lime and chilli and a deliciously seared duck breast with red curry and fried shallots. Given Kitchen and Bar, 257a Given Terrace Paddington. Phone (07) 2103 5534.