Kwan Brothers

Every time I come here, the food just keeps getting better and better. Everything is cooked well and a really good selection. It is not the sort of place for an intimate conversation but a great place to come for drinks, food and late night eats.

I went here for a friend’s birthday. We had the big table near the kitchen area. At first impression, I thought «wow ok this place is RED.» That’s on account of the lighting casting a red hue throughout the space. Decorations were interesting. It’s got an oriental feel to it all but I was confused about whether or not it was supposed to be Chinese, Japanese or Korean. But anyhow, the room felt pretty good, the staff, which come to think of it, consisted of only girls manning the tables, were a little snobby at times. They seemed stressed or nervous and just didn’t exude a warm personality. One or two seemed to talk louder and slower at us for some reason. Yes thanks, I understand what you’re saying perfectly well. But whatever, so long as the job’s done then what else can u ask for right? How about a little appreciation for people who go to ur restaurant? A smile would be nice :)
Anyways, we ordered the «pork bao bao yippie yo yippie yay» and damn they were good. Great filling and an even better bun.
As for mains, well ok, I get the appeal of «community» shared meals but heck, I didn’t like it when the waitress gave us a lecture about how the meals won’t be coming out in one go because that’s what shared meals are supposed to be, they’re banquet style she said. Which confused me. If it was shared meals they’re promoting then why would I want meals to come out one by one & wait around for the next one after finishing the other. Maybe just me, I don’t know?
So we got the famous pork belly with pickled watermelon salad (omg heaven!!!) & Peking duck noodles (couldn’t actually remember where the duck was lol). A friend had the lamb ribs in sweet and sour sauce (not ur usual sweet n sour, this is Kwan’s version and it isn’t bad but the lamb smelled a little). Another friend had the barramundi and seemed to like it too.
Dessert was the «too bao to handle, too cold to hold,» which was three mini deep fried bao filled with three different ice creams; toasted sesame, pandan and palm sugar and ginger. Also a winner!
I was pretty impressed with the food, though the negatives were the slightly below-​average & unfriendly service and the dishes were a little over priced.

Delicious Karate kid kitsch!
This place is great!
Having come back to Brisbane after a while away it’s great to see so many funky new bars & restaurants popping up. FINALLY!
I came for dinner with a friend at around 7:30pm on Saturday night & it was really easy for us to get a table straight away.
The service was great too — no shortage of waitstaff who wanted to take our order & the food (once we finally decided what to have) came out quickly.
We had the morning glory salad, the kafir lime chicken salad (absolutely divine) & the lamb cutlets.
It was all super delicious & washed down with a solid drinks menu to the tunes of 1998’s top 40 — super fun.
The vibe is cool, relaxed & fun — but could probably be enhanced a little more to really make it zing.
Only downside of the whole night is that I did find a long black hair in one of our salads — hhmmmm.

Amazing!!! Devine flavours and delicious menu. Chicken salad was so perfectly balanced with lime and mint and cashews.
Rice served in a half pineapple, chicken skewers and the cocktails… Can’t forget the cocktails!!!

I had an expensive cocktail here that tasted like icy water. It was awful and I wanted my money back. The poor service with a forgotten drinks order and the bartender walking over and telling us to take our drinks from the bar rather than bring them to us didn’t help either.
The food was impressive although it looks somewhat quirky reading it from the menu. The portions are small and not very good value for money. This goes for most of the stuff at A&C, Alfredos and Chester St Bakery so I wasn’t all that surprised — but people go to restaurants to eat, not nibble.
The music and disco ball atmosphere though was weird and not an inviting vibe. I felt like I was in a strip club or that I should be trying to pick someone up. You can’t talk, so what else is there to do?

I wanted to show my GC daughter an interesting place in Brissy and I think I chose well. Good steins of Lashes, succulent snapper, innovative sliders with Asian fusion cuisine. Very enjoyable albeit a bit pricy. Will be back.

Kwan Brothers makes me feel old. It’s like a night club, but instead of shaking your sexy bod, you sit down, eat expensive meat on sticks and shout at your dinner companions because it’s so damned loud. We came here because we were showing some guests from rural QLD what the big’olé city was like — it seemed bit rowdy but I’d had enough wine in the apartment before hand to not protest.
However, my food was pretty good. I had what I remember being the only vegetarian item on the menu — silken fried tofu. It was good, though as the only vegetarian in a table of 5 people — at a place that mostly does share plates, it kinda sucked to see my buddies eating off each other’s plates and not really being able to be as fast and loose with our friendships and willingness to share food.

It’s got a good vibe most definitely and a cool disco ball happening and long wooden tables. I went here with a bunch of amazing girls and we basically told the waitress to bring us out a bunch of the small plates. We had drinks food and dessert and it cost us all $ 25 each plus drinks which for what prices were individually was amazing value.
They have some cool cocktails and custom mocktails too. The lamb ribs were so nice, I enjoyed the salt and pepper squid melting in my mouth. Ding ding ding. It’s a bit loud but it is a new cool place to head to when you’re after a late night meal.

Being a huge fan of Alfred & Constance and Asian food, I was really looking forward to Kwan Brothers. I’ve been there twice now, and I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it.
Sure, the interior layout and design is funky, edgy and interesting. Some of the food (like the «bao» — both the pork and the chicken) is absolutely delicious, while others like the duck spring rolls and calamari are quite average, and all of it comes in very small portions, with very big price tags. The cocktails are nice, but again in small portions for big prices.
I personally think that for a restaurant, they play their music too loud, we struggled to hold any sort of conversation between ourselves because we just couldn’t hear each other without shouting.
Some of the staff members (I recognize them from Alfred & Constance and Chester St — one blonde waitress in particular) are fantastic, others are really not that friendly or helpful.
It’s always packed, always popular, so there must be some sort of appeal, but sadly, I just don’t get it.

Great food, fun atmosphere, quick as service.
Good was amazing, we had 4 plates to share. Ribs, chicken bao bao sliders, fried cauliflower (think sweet n sour pork, but cauliflower), and a beef salad. Could have done five, but opted for desert instead at A&C.
Food service was quick as, granted it was a Thursday, but still.
It is pretty exy though, $ 12.90 avg dish
Highly recommend it, and can’t wait to go back!

Part of the burgeoning Damian Griffiths empire, Kwan Brothers sits alongside Alfredo’s and Alfred & Constance in Alfred St, in an old Noodle Factory. Stepping into Kwan Brothers is like stepping inside Hong Kong Garden. A pastiche of clashing Asian themes that’s a sensory overload. Walls clad with headlines from newspapers and illustrations from movie posters, red lighting, disco balls, neon signs, all to a pop soundtrack. Plates are a mismatch of tongue in cheek re-​productions of 1970′s ‘Chinese Restaurant’ patterns and the waiters wear t-​shirts printed with images & instructions from chopstick packets of yesteryear. It’s like a Bruce Lee movie crashed into an opium den. There’s a lot going on but you can’t help drinking it all in.
The ever popular shared plate format is on offer with a long menu giving a nod to many Asian countries. From the Asian Street Eats section, we shared a selection of Bao (which are the steamed buns made so popular by Momofuko) including the new Soft Shell Crab Bao (2 for $ 9.90), Fried Chicken Wings (replacing Kwan Brothers Chicken), new menu item Korean Fried Cauliflower, Beef Short Ribs and Shaking Beef Salad. The Bao buns were not as fluffy or warm as they should have been but the fillings were full of flavour and the delicate soft shell crab was hot and crunchy. The chicken wings (4 for $ 14.90) were also good, marinated and cooked a first time, then given a crisp spicy coating and cooked again. You really can’t go wrong with chicken wings. Ancient wisdom in a crunchy treat. I’d recommend them to enjoy with one of the huge range of cocktails that have been given an Asian tweak with ingredients such as chilli, lemongrass, lychee and pickled ginger.
The Korean Fried Cauliflower ($ 12.90) was an absolute winner. Looking for all the world like a plate of popcorn chicken, it was in fact nuggets of cauliflower that had been dipped in a batter and baked or fried then coated in a sticky, spicy glaze. Delish! This would make any vegetarian and even this carnivore very happy and was one of the best dishes of the night. From the large plates we enjoyed the Crispy Pork Belly ($ 25.90) served with pickled watermelon and sweet ginger. The pork had a similar texture to the Filipino dish Lechon Kawali, where pork belly is boiled and then later cubed and fried. The lightly pickled watermelon was the perfect foil to cut through the rich pork pieces and whilst I would have hoped for a more balanced pork to watermelon ratio, the watermelon itself was so refreshing and unusual that we continued to pick at it all evening, pairing it with other dishes.
Kwan Brothers had one more surprise for us. If you walk past the kitchen and head towards the toilets, you’ll see a massive door to an industrial freezer. Slide the door back and you’ll find The Hidden Bar, a cosy little back bar that’s perfect for a quiet drink or a nightcap. With dim lights and a luxe fit out, it’s like being in your own private bar. It was chilly when we visited because the aircon was turned down. Why? Because they were hand cutting blocks of ice to make mega ice cubes. Of course they were. Ice is purchased in large rods and then hand cut, first with a chisel and then with a knife, to make ice cubes large enough to only require one per glass. Large cubes mean less surface contact and melt into your expensive cocktail. The large cubes even have a name: The Japanese Cut. Very in keeping with the theme. Once the cubes are cut, the temperature is turned up and the bar is set to receive you and your Crazy 88 crew.
Though Kwan’s has only been open a few weeks, they have already tweaked the menu, removing some dishes and adding new ones based on customer feedback. There’s been some criticism of the pricing and value for money of some dishes and this has been listened to with some prices reduced and other dishes altered or increased in size to give better value. Kwan Brothers is keen to please. Kwan Brothers is a fun night out. You probably wouldn’t go on a first date there but it’s a great place to hang out with friends and sample a little bit of this and that. The cookie has spoken. Hai!

If you like spice — you MUST try the Missionary’s Damnation. I have tried many spicy cocktails in my time, and I get weary now because usually the heat keeps building and then you can’t enjoy your food. Not with this one! Since it’s a semi frozen cocktail it actually cools off a bit. Absolutely love it.
Highlight — pork bao bao. Get it.
Surprisingly good — salt & pepper squid, typically I’d expect an Italian/​Greek restaurant to kill it on the squid… but dang Kwan!
I’ve tried several other items on the menu, but they didn’t standout to me — just being honest. There are still a few more I’ll have to get around to trying eventually and see if they call for honorable mention: P

Just the cocktails… just the cocktails… why would I say just the cocktails? Food wise, is extremely over priced. I don’t see myself coming back if there is nothing special going on at Kwan Brothers (event’s, promotion etc.) Worst of all, the staff wasn’t even friendly. Two hands in the pocket, not even a smile, ask me to grab the menus on my own and take which ever sits/​table I like… Why would I pay for an extremely expensive meal with such attitude? Cocktails were good, price average. I would give 2 star but, interior layout is pretty good, so that is where the 3^rd star is coming from. Otherwise, meh… why should I come back? For Cocktails? Nah, there is many other places around Brisbane that serve great cocktail and GREAT SERVICE!!!

If you’re in the market for a loud, fun and delicious night out, then Kwan Bros is for you. But I emphasise the ‘loud’.
We headed to Kwan Bros for dinner over the long weekend as a group of eight. It’s probably not the best place for larger groups, as the tables are large and with the music loud it’s a bit hard to have a proper conversation (yes I recognise I’m sounding a bit old right now!)
What was great was the food — tasty calamari and we enjoyed the green chicken curry, though there were a few sweaty brows from the spice! The standout by far was the beef short ribs dish — awesome.
Kwan Bros is a bit more pricey than other cheap eats Asian offerings in the valley, but certainly has wow factor and is a good place to start an epic valley night time adventure.

Last night I was invited to Kwan Brothers for dinner and amongst a small group with were able to try many of the items on the menu. It’s that kind of place — pick a few dishes and get friendly with your table mates. It’s all about sharing. It’s the ultimate portion control!
What was equally impressive was the steady flow of diners. On a Tuesday night. In Brisbane. Times are a changing. But back to the food.
It’s Asian with so many inter-​cultural twists and turns. If it’s tradition you’re seeking, Kwan Brothers may not be for you. My favourites were the pork belly and watermelon salad (I can’t get the ginger dressing off my mind), the lamb ribs, Beatle leaf grilled beef and the greens bowl for their simplicity. And for the name alone my next visit has to feature the ‘Mama Kwan eggs of Judgement.‘
For the spice lovers there’s a Jungle Curry that our table declared was not as hot as the Tiger Face Warning on the menu suggested. The flavours on all dishes are fresh, crisp and simple. There’s nothing over complicated about it and it works.
We all know dessert is a separate stomach, but choose wisely. Sure the sticky date pudding is good (Jocelyn Hancock is their patron chef so the sweets are bringing their best to the table), as is the crème brûlée, but why waste valuable stomach space on dishes you can get anywhere. Instead go with the ice cream sandwiches with flavours like ginger, black sesame and (my favourite) the pandan.
If you had to pass on anything I’d say you could leave the duck spring rolls and the salmon tartare (although it does look pretty).
The cocktail list is full of fancy tricks and is a list of drinks for show. That said, we also discovered the bartenders make a
mean old fashioned, so don’t be afraid to ask for your drink of choice if any of the preconceived masterpieces don’t tickle your fancy.
As I sat on one of the longer tables (there’s a few bar style seats but otherwise it’s communal dining all the way) I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Monkey Magic, a K-​Pop boy band and Japanese samurai walk into this place. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke but really Kwan brothers is the beginning of yet another winning venue for the Damien Griffiths empire.
Challenge: find the secret bar!