It doesn't matter how much chrome and wood you use to try and renovate a pub, it'll still be a pub…read more The Newmarket Hotel would be better off embracing its existence as a typical, suburban Aussie pub instead of trying to be something it's not. It's okay for a pub to be a bit grimy and dingy, in fact, it only makes them seem more authentic. The renovations on the Newmarket Hotel are aiming for contemporary sophistication but the pokies, smell of stale beer, and TVs showing sports give it away. This puts the Newmarket Hotel in the position of no longer being a traditional pub, but not cutting it as anything else either. The food is still pub food, the drinks are still pub drinks, but the place has lost its gritty soul which is what attracts a lot of people to pubs in the first place. Sure, the space looks big, and spacious, and modern, but it feels to manufactured and sterile for a pub. If you're after a nice meal in a classy venue, despite its efforts the Newmarket Hotel won't fulfill your needs. And if you feel like a traditional night at the pub, the Newmarket Hotel can no longer provide that either. Some things are best kept as they were, and the Newmarket Hotel is one of them.

The Newmarket Hotel used to be scary, dingy, and full of old men and cigarette smoke. When I saw…read moreit had had a serious facelift I thought I should pop in and test it out. There is a LOT of space here now, with a new restaurant area out the back that has plenty of glass and an open kitchen. Serious money has been spent on this renovation and even though pokies are evident it feels like a comfortable place for a drink or a bite to eat. Lunch specials are a draw card, with most lunch items under $17, however dinner is a bit pricer with $30+ steaks and other mains averaging out at $25. My problem is that it's just not that good. The menu looks great, the pub looks great, but the food is a pretty serious let down. My husband couldn't get a medium rare steak after sending back the first blue one (second one was well done) and I had a duck salad that was pretty crap to be honest. The management needs to really look at their kitchen staff and consider investing a bit of money into getting and keeping good chefs, as a pub that can't cook a steak to order is not winning any favours. It's a real disconnect to visit an establishment that throws oodles of money at the renovation but skimps on the food. It's like opening a beautifully gift wrapped present only to find tea towels. Sure, they're serviceable, but who the hell wants to unwrap something exciting to get something mundane?

I joined a group of 7 for dinner at Broncos Leagues Club today it was fantastic! The cheeseburgers…read morewere a huge hit with my group. Although they also have amazing steaks! Highly recommend for a great dinner with TVs for watching sports.

I had my first legal drink at the Broncos Leagues Club. My friends and I decided to have a laugh…read moreand go hunt down some buff footy tail at Alfie's Bar. (The hunt didn't go down so well). I returned 9 years later to have lunch with my parents. Although I'm not a footy fan, I quite enjoyed myself. When you walk in, you can turn right into the pokies room and lose yourself in a wash of rainbow, neon machines begging to take your dollars, one by one. Beyond the pokies is the Halfway Cafe, where you'll find a fine pub lunch. My mother and I are suckers for buffet, so we went downstairs and got the smorgasboard ($20 each excluding drinks). The buffet stations are huge. It's the standard soup- salad- vegetables- carved meat- pasta options with some surprising added extras. The cheese kransky is delicious, the spring rolls are more-ish if nothing else, and the grilled octopus salad is succulent and juicy. There is also quite a large assortment of asian cuisine including honey king prawns and sweet and sour pork. The only inconvenience is having to go to the bar and pay for your drinks separately.You've got a wealth of tables to choose from- booths, or window seats, so you can watch the Broncos train while you dine. While you're there, go have a gander at all the old jerseys and trophies. My favourite area is the wall just outside of Alfie's Bar that has old photos of big beefy footballers who were snapped while getting tackled, and getting their junk yoinked up to their armpits. There's some corkers in there, let me tell you. Even if you're not into footy, Broncos Leagues Club isn't a bad place to have a beer or to have a sit down meal. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

We took a nice walk across the river to eat dinner here. Everyone was friendly and welcoming. We…read moreordered at the bar and they delivered the food to us when it was ready. I got the chicken parm. Instead of giving me french fries, they threw a little extra salad on my plate, which I appreciated. The chicken parm was delicious, although didn't have the spaghetti tomato sauce I'm used to in the states. My husband had fish and chips and was happy with his choice. We sat out on the patio as it was a lovely evening.

Well, this appears to be another one of those pubs that you seem to find everywhere. I should…read moreactually say it is one of those pubs that is a franchise, so there are quite a few (at least as I could tell) Pig and Whistles in Brisbane. This is the South Brisbane one, and it certainly was pretty crowded when I passed through. Then again, it was one of those days when pubs do tend to get pretty crowded at night, so I guess there was that as well. Still, I really wasn't all that impressed, especially since there are much better ones around.

Extremely loud,…read more Lousy expensive food, Limited variety of over priced tap beer, Poor service

Things have definitely improved at The Sporting Globe We…read morehad two very lacklustre dinners soon after they opened and never bothered going back. But our dinner tonight was delicious. Post COVID-19 shutdown meant a short wait in line while they checked people in and explained that all ordering is done in the app. But we could then choose our table and settle in to check the menu on the app. We both chose a glass of Pepperjack Shiraz and the 280g Black Angus Rump. Both steaks were perfectly cooked medium rare and the steak cut chips super crunchy. Update Aug 2020: We've now had 3 delicious steak dinners and have already booked in for next Tuesday (half price steak anyone?!)

My husband ordered the carbonara with gnocchi for his meal and was disappointed, saying it had very…read morelittle flavor. I ordered the crumbled calamari dinner. I wanted to substitute the french fries for vegetables of some kind, but they wouldn't let me. She said for a $2 charge I could get some seasonal veggies. I did that, but didn't realize that meant I didn't get the salad. Disappointing, but at least the veggies were barely cooked, just the way I like them. I got a huge mound of breaded calamari which was tasty. The garlic aioli as a dip was also very good. The fries remained uneaten. Overall, the ambiance was nice, with some music playing and basketball games on TV. I don't know as we'd come back, but it was ok.

This place was just ok. Had a hard time finding it - poor signage from the direction I was…read morecoming... had a burger and it was pretty average. Beer was good... and well priced...

This pub really isn't all that particularly great, which is a shame because it is actually the…read morefirst pub that I visited in Brisbane's west end. Okay, it is rather large, but it appears to have come about due to apartments being put up everywhere, so basically it takes the place on the ground floor. However, I still found this place rather bland and am unlikely to visit it again.

The Melbourne Hotel is one of those places which tries to be all things to many and pulls it off…read morepretty well. Just off the main drag of West End's Boundary St, it has more of a corporate, white (& sometimes blue) collared vibe than the more bohemian bars on the main strip. Physically it's a massive space with pool tables, cavernous booth seating and a stack of flat screen TVs for watching the game on (someone once told me the place is a tax write-off for WOW Sight & Sound, but in West End people son't always let the truth get in the way of a good story...). In addition to being a solid pub where you can get a cold beer or cocktail if you're feeling refined, they also boast a respectable modern Australian menu. The emphasis on quality food is evidenced by the quote emblazoned on their signage (and I'm paraphrasing) "One of life's true pleasures is that we sit down to eat three times a day". Not being one to be able to resist a call to action rationalised by a quotation, I recently went on a Tuesday with a couple of friends to take advantage of their $15 steak special. It was quite busy but the service was impressive, with a waitress showing us to a table promptly and being generally quite helpful. She recommended the 'Confit garlic & buffalo mozzarella bread' for starters, citing its popularity. I enjoyed the 'confit garlic' part of it (they used whole cloves which become deliciously mushy with slow-roasting) but overall thought it could have benefited from a sauce of some kind, perhaps a pizza sugo. My chosen steak was a hefty 300g rib fillet -- definitely good value for the $15 -- and I was happy with their approximation of 'rare', with there being a noticible core of pink flesh in the centre of the cut. The presentation was very good too, with a balsamic reduction drizzled in orbit around the centrepiece. My only gripe with that though is that it interfered with the taste of my chosen 'pepper jus' sauce, causing a discordant clash of flavours. But it was a minor issue; overall, I left satisfied and happy with paying about half the price as you would for such a serious steak at most fine dining establishments.

I will start with the positives. The food was excellent. What you expect from a good quality pub…read moremenu. We had not eaten at the HP for quite some time, and were quite impressed with the quality of the food. The chef/s did a great job. Now the negatives. I decided to book because we wanted to get in early so as to be home early. I booked a table for 6pm. When we arrived the place was almost full. But that was ok because I had booked. We stood in the middle of the bistro waiting to be directed to our table, but there was nobody around. A young waiter eventually came to us and I told him we had a booked for 3. He eventually found our booking, but the table had been taken by somebody else. We eventually were shoved into the very far corner, which did have a reserve sign on it, so we must have got someone else's reserved table. We then ordered our meals and a round of drinks through the app. It took so long to get our drinks, so we went to the bar and got them ourselves. The food took almost a hour to arrive. There were not enough staff. Not enough waiters. Not enough bar staff. Not enough kitchen staff. The whole idea of booking was to get in early and get home early. I visited the HP about a month of so ago with a group of workmates. We sat in the bistro bar area. The bar service was extremely slow that night also. There was one lady whose English was very poor and a young lad who said it was his first night. Patrons were waiting a long time that night and were getting quite agitated. That night I put it down to teething problems with the new reno. But a month and a half later ... and staff issues are still apparent.

Part of the Graziers steakhouse chain of pub venues. What makes this one stand out is the quality…read moreof the chefs they hire, they really are perfectionists with personalized touches to the meals. Can't go past their steaks always cooked to your requested level of done-ness.

This place is perfect if you want to quietly snazzy up your pool skills for the next time you're…read morechallenged to a game by your mates. Q Masters is hidden behind Suncorp Stadium. Blink, and you'll miss it. There's nothing flash about the place, but it serves the purpose it was built for. You'll meet some characters here. There's some blokes who will tell you how you're doing it wrong, there's the guys who will watch you from their own game and scoff at how badly you're lining things up, and occasionally, you'll get someone who wants to help you and teach you a thing or two about playing angles. Some people who come here really know what they're doing with a pool cue, I tell you what. It's a thing of beauty to behold someone smashing three balls into three different sockets on the one hit. Pool table hire is $11.20 per hour before 5pm. It goes up to $16 per hour at night. Snooker tables are a bit more pricey- $13 per hour during the day, to $18 at night. One thing you should know is that these guys will only charge for the time you use. Play for half an hour, cut the hourly rate in half. Yes! The best day to come down is on a Sunday- you play for half price if you're a member.

Whenever I lean over a pool table and line up my cue, I get this thrilling sense of empowerment…read moreshoot up my arm. Moments later, I take the shot and miss and the feeling is gone but it was good while it lasted. The only other time I get this feeling is when I imagine myself loading a cross bow to dust vampires and as Brisbane's kind of short on archery ranges, I inevitably find myself going back to Q-masters. This place isn't slick nor is it aspiring to be but it's a practical pool hall with plenty of pool tables and about six billiard ones as well. You can order basic pizzas, burgers, chips and beers if you get peckish but there's no formal dining area. All food and drinks are consumed on benches around the pool tables. For serious players, you can join a team and play competitively. The inter-club competition run on Monday to Wednesday nights and there are different levels from beginner to expert. I personally would like to see the expert level players play in tuxedos, drawing back the good ole days when billiard was a gentlemen's sport.

Such a cosy little bar! Service was friendly and accommodating. Great selection of beers, ciders,…read moreIPAs, cocktails and wine. The menu is pretty modest but delicious. The large ploughman board is perfect for four with a small array for bread, meat, cheeses and pickled vegetables. The vibe is chilled and relaxing. I'll definitely be back!

Famstastic grilled cheese with ham and sauerkraut and mustard on the side. Delicious beer, small,…read moreeasy going space, and quick friendly staff.