Brisbane's best cultural hot spots revealed
KNOW where to go to find fresh lotus root or where Brisbane's best pizza is served? Ours is a city full of cultural hot spots.
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WEST End has changed a lot but its Greek flavour has held fast.
Since Mediterranean immigrants began settling in Queensland in the 1920s, followed by a larger surge of post World War II immigration, the inner-city suburb has served as Brisbane's Hellenic heart.
Though new bars, cafes and high-density developments have popped up in recent years, the Greek influence is still keenly felt, most notably during the annual Paniyiri Festival in Musgrave Park.
As restaurants serving food from around the world continue to emerge in all corners of the city, general manager of the suburb's Greek Club, Andrew Tambakis, said the fact most Greek establishments were still concentrated in West End was proof of strong cultural ties to the suburb.
"I think firstly it's because West End was just known as the Greek area and secondly, if you're going to open a Greek restaurant, you need a really good Greek chef and they are hard to come by," he said.
"It's simple food using products that were not expensive at the time, so using a lot of vegetarian products and olive oil. But you have to do it properly.
"It's really using the products that were around, that they had on their farms, and of course the only meat they could get at the time was either goat or lamb."
Mr Tambakis said although some original locals had moved to larger blocks in outer suburbs such as Bridgman Downs and Carindale, West End remained the community's heart.
"We have our church, our respite centre, our childcare centre, so we've got all these facilities based around the Greek Club," he said.
"We as a Greek community do have a lot of property in this area, so we're not going to shift."
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Fortitude Valley may have Chinatown Mall, but Sunnybank, about 16km south of the city, is the unofficial home of all things Chinese in the Sunshine State.
Sure, you can get barbecue pork, dumplings and bok choy in the Valley, but what about purple yams, ducks tongues and buckets of fresh jellyfish?
Yuens' supermarket at Market Square, in the centre of town, stocks all of the above, with a hidden fish market holding tanks of oversizes crabs and pools of live fish.
Manager Peter Low said Chinese shoppers flock to the store for hard-to-find fresh lotus roots, sticks of sugar cane and traditional sweet breads with red bean fillings.
Nancy Trang, who works next door at Burlington Barbecue Restaurant, only shops in Sunnybank for her groceries, and said parking issues in the Valley drove many businesses to the south side.
"It's easier to park here; the food is very good value and you can find lots of ingredients, like fresh taro or Asian herbs, that you can't buy anywhere else," she said.
It's hard to walk past the window of Taste Gallery restaurant without being mesmerised as chefs deftly hand-craft yum-cha classics such as fluffy roast pork buns, dumplings and chive and egg pancakes.
A wide alley next to the butcher in Market Square acts as an unofficial community noticeboard, advertising house-share ads, jobs and goods for sale in Cantonese and Mandarin, while the newsagent offers money exchange and interpretative services.
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Once the thriving Italian hub of Queensland, New Farm is one of the city's most multicultural suburbs, but retains plenty of Roman flavour.
The Casa Italia Community Centre has been home to the Brisbane branch of the Dante Alighieri society since 1952, offering language classes and monthly cultural events. Every weekend, the centre becomes a no-frills Italian restaurant, serving up traditional pork scaloppine, pizzas and carafes of Chianti to locals.
Alessandro Sorbello, producer of Brisbane Italian Week, said food provedores like the New Farm Deli, which stocks mountains of imported olives, cheese and cured meats, and Angelo's Pasta in Doggett St, had cemented the suburb's reputation as Brisbane's Little Italy.
"Historically, in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, New Farm was a central hub for the Italian community," Mr Sorbello said, adding that Aspley and Carseldine also have concentrated populations of Italians, as the community branched out in search of larger plots of land.
"New Farm has changed, but it's definitely still a hub."
Around the corner, Beccofino is known equally for its lengthy queues and perfect pizza, while Dell'Ugo, Re Del Gelato and Giardinetto Italian Restaurant have all become well-respected culinary fixtures on Brunswick St.
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ONCE known for little more than its "magic mile" of car dealerships, Moorooka has fast become one of Brisbane's most dynamic cultural melting pots.
Over the past decade, the once down-at-the-heel suburb to the south of the CBD has been transformed by a wave of immigration from Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, broader Africa and beyond.
While many of the refugees first housed in the area have moved on to other parts of the city, the stunning array of specialist businesses lining the Beaudesert Rd shopping precinct is testament to the changed face of Moorooka. From trinket shops and restaurants, to furniture retailers and hair salons, life in the suburb has taken a decidedly exotic twist.
Having operated her specialist African grocers in a small lane off Beaudesert Rd for about two years, Aster Benebry said the suburb had developed its own personality.
"Before it was too quiet but now, over the past five years, there is more happening," said the businesswoman, who settled in Moorooka after leaving Ethiopia nine years ago.
Aynalem Areda also moved to Australia from Ethiopia nine years ago and has run a specialist hair and beauty product shop for more than six years on Beaudesert Rd.
She said though her array of exotic products might confuse the everyday Woolies customer, her business nevertheless generated plenty of interest.
"It's not only Africans, we get a lot of different people coming in," she said.
"Business is quite good and it's growing. There are a lot of different people in the community who come by."
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FROM just a handful of students in the 1970s, Brisbane's Vietnamese-Australian population now well exceeds 10,000.
While many descendants of the pioneering immigrants who first arrived in the capital have dispersed through the city, state and country, the south-western suburbs of Darra and Inala remain a spiritual home for much of the southeast Queensland community.
An outer suburb on the way to Ipswich may seem an unlikely spot to settle for somebody fleeing the aftermath of the Vietnam War. But president of the Queensland branch of the Vietnamese Community in Australia, Dr Cuong Bui, said it was a logical choice for many new arrivals who spent their first weeks months in Queensland at a hostel in nearby Wacol.
"After that they all moved out of Wacol in to Darra or Inala and that's why the number of Vietnamese people is quite high there," he said.
"Then after that, people, after their children grew up, they would often move somewhere else but the first generation of Vietnamese people, as they're getting a bit older, they still need to see each other, buy the food and get together, so that is why they prefer to stay there."
With more than 50 specialty businesses, including restaurants, butchers, fish shops and jewellers, still based across the suburbs, Dr Bui said the community was going as strong as ever.
He added despite a proliferation of Vietnamese restaurants and other Asian cuisine across the city, a trip to Darra remained a popular culinary outing.
"The very first Vietnamese Restaurant was in Indooroopilly Shopping Centre in the 1970s but after that we got quite a few in the Darra, Inala area and now the number is growing because people enjoy the food there quite a lot," he said.
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