Grill'd Wintergarden

D and I love Grill'd.  For me, it's hard to get a good burger with my food intolerances and for D, he just likes the variety and quality of Grill'd burgers.

Grill'd pride themselves on making healthy burgers from fresh quality ingredients.  They also have detailed nutrition information on the website plus a great cheat sheet showing vegan and gluten free options.

Despite all our Grill'd love, we've never been to Grill'd Wintergarden so when we were invited to check out their Ping Pong After Hours we jumped at the chance.  Well, I did.  D was playing indoor soccer that night so I took my mother instead.

Sorry D.

Grill'd Wintergarden have a fantastic array of events to enjoy along with your healthy burgers.  I had no idea so much went on up there!  

On a Thursday night, however, the entire back area is cleared out in favour of two ping pong tables and a DJ.  Although the tables were empty, the DJ was playing some great, upbeat tunes and there was a great vibe.

The rules of Grill'd ping pong are simple:

However, since no one should play ping pong on an empty stomach, we thought we should eat something first.  Mum and I decided to order two burgers neither of us had tried before and have half each.

Big Queenslander with no cheese on a gluten free bun.  Grill'd gluten free buns are really good.  I honestly don't remember what real bread tastes like, but I think this comes pretty close.

Baabaa with no cheese on a gluten free bun with chips and herbed mayo.

I love that Grill'd beef burgers have a really meaty taste.  They are full of flavour and when you add the relish and the herbed mayo, it's a big, saucy, messy, finger-licking experience.  It's a lot of fun and tasty too.

I haven't had a lamb burger from Grill'd before, simply because most of them come with tzatziki.  The Baabaa is served with avocado which is a nice touch.  I've never had a bad burger from Grill'd.  For those gluten free people, please note that they use the same toaster for all the buns so there is a chance of cross-contamination.

After dinner, it was time for ping pong.

Awesomely, Grill'd staff pour buckets of ping pong balls all over the floor so it doesn't matter how bad you are - if you lose your ball you don't have to chase it, just pick up another one!

We were quite early on this particular Thursday so we were lucky enough to have a table to ourselves for our visit.  Mum is quite a keen ping pong player but was a little rusty and I'm just plain terrible so it was quite embarrassing for a while. Towards the end we did manage to get the hang of it and get some rallies going although not enough to warrant keeping score.

It was great fun with good music and we had to tear ourselves away when it was time to go.  

It's a really good idea from the guys at Grill'd.  We'll definitely go back.

Grill'd 

Level 1, Wintergarden
171-209 Queen Street Mall
Brisbane
Ph: 3003 1500
http://www.grilld.com.au/

Note: Mum and I visited Grill'd as a guest of Grill'd and P4 Group