Casa Chow — Restaurant in Brisbane City

For context; I took my partner for a date here on a Thursday night. Neither of us are drinking alcohol, so I can't comment on the quality of the drinks - it may be a better time after a few drinks.

The portion sizes were small considering the asking price. Some dishes felt fairly priced - the oysters, empanadas, and ceviche stand out in my mind. I thought the flavours of the Peruvian dishes were great, but we did not particularly enjoy the quality or portion size of the Chinese dishes. As someone who is obsessed with a good Wonton, the scallop and prawn wontons were a disappointing trio with a strange textured filling (for $23).

I'm reading here that people liked the harmony of flavours between the cuisines - personally, I found they were in competition with each other. This is probably because of my biggest complaint;

The food came out very quickly - almost all at the same time.

The dishes I liked the most were coincidentally the dishes that were served to us first - hot and crispy empanada, ceviche flavours playing off each other nicely. As the table very quickly became overwhelmed by plates, our date night turned into a logistics puzzle of rearranging plates and finding space to operate.

By the time we got around to enjoying the skewers, they were cold - which made me feel like I wasn't getting an accurate experience. Most (if not all) of the dishes start to lost quality of taste as they sit out on the table waiting to be eaten. There is clearly a lot of sophisticated flavours in these dishes, and while I love citrus - lime in particular - this became the overwhelming note of the meal since it lingers on your palette and we were eating 7 dishes simultaneously.

Considering we were out on a date and not drinking, the meal was over and we were leaving the carpark less than an hour after we arrived.

P.S. I see some people saying the chairs are uncomfortable. I will agree with this, the bench seats have a very hard bottom and I commented that it was making me sore on the night. The fitout was lovely however, and the design of the intimate bench seats was great. It's just those bench cushions that feel...

Overall was not a bad experience, but definitely overally priced per dish considering it is a menu designed for sharing. Pros: Ambience Front desk waitress was friendly and accommodating Food was well seasoned and everything was cooked well and the flavours were yum. Ingredients were treated well and nothing was overdone. It was also nice to see a peruvian inspired menu.

Cons: Really slow service and we had one quite impatient waitress who gave no real insight into the menu- maybe understaffed? No one cleared our plates, so we had a pretty big stack beside us by the end of our meal. Lucky the other group sharing our table had left or it would have spilt over to them. Didn't love the sweet potato puree with the tuna ceviche - texturally needed more crunch... Octopus skewer was yum and a great portion size but the mayo was underwhelming with the potato. It brought the overall dish down. Mushroom skewer was delicious but small compared to the Octopus. 1 bao bun per portion is not enough and too expensive to want to order one per person. Increase the price a little and at least give 2! The seating was really uncomfortable. I don't think I saw a single table where I thought that would be good place to sit for a few hours and drink and eat - all the chairs/stools are tiny and then there small love to accompany top tables which are never nice to from as they are too squashed for 2 ppl and too big for one. Also so awkward to push in or out...

It's a good joint with great potential but service, seating & portion sizes need revisiting to make this...

3 stars only due to staff (if staff would have been bad, would have been a ZERO star) Staff (and especially the bartender) did a great job. The bartender was running between everything and between other tables and bar work. Doing drinks and serving and more. He drops his work at the bar to great us (while manager is being a DJ and the other don’t know where). And for that 3 stars (give the bar tender a prize)

But the food was disappointing. If you come from Latin America expecting to have that known Latin / Asian fusion (in Peru we call it Chifa) you are going to be disappointed.

Was so expecting to have a taste of home and have some true Peruvian dishes but they totally failed. Leche de Tigre is much more than lime and coriander. Fried rice, like any shopping mall and the beef noodles were just horrible (had a 2nd bite as after the first could not believe it was that bad and we left that dish to rot). Nothing but nothing to do with Peru and general taste was bad for for such an expensive lunch.

Such a disappointment this place.

And while I understand this place is trying to put out a bar with good music atmosphere. Mr. Manager should spend more time managing and helping the staff, improving service and improving the food (he gave us a few recommendation and was passionate about the food so he can do it ). Focus more on the food then trying to be a DJ

While writing this review the system asks me which dishes I had. 2 of the ones I wanted they no longer serve but still appear...