Sono, Queen St

Like most Asian cultures Filipinos traditionally serve noodles during birthdays to symbolise long life. This comes in the form of pancit in all its variations.

But because this year is a milestone celebration for my dear wife cooking pancit just would not cut it. We wanted something extraordinary and intimate. Yes, you read it right, an intimate dinner with our family (including the kids), friends and friends’ kids.

A Chinese banquet, although special, seems too busy and not intimate enough. Then there are the Thai, Vietnamese, Singaporean and Korean restaurants that we know of in Brisbane. They all lack that X factor we’re after fitting the momentous occasion.

And then there’s Sono more specifically Sono at Queen St. Situated right in the heart of Brisbane’s CBD it truly is a tranquil gourmet escape for city folks.

Sono offers various types of seating. There are Japanese booths, a sushi bar, as well as western style of seating. And for boutique parties like ours the restaurant also has traditional Japanese private rooms. But because we only booked on the day we missed out on having our own private dining room (note to self: book early).

The restaurant has got quite an extensive menu. They boast to have the highest quality hand made sushi in Brisbane.

For starters we had their appetizer platter composed of fresh oysters with ponzu sauce, simmered pork belly with sweet soy, soft shell crab with shiso sauce, crab croquette and edamame. The kids had tuna sushi.

And because we’re after some noodle component in our dinner we went for Sono’s Wagyu Sukiyaki. There’s a shabu-shabu version of it if you’re not too keen on the sweet soy. The kids had tempura udon, chicken karaage and more sushi.

All the dishes were very good as expected. Their sukiyaki servings were plentiful. We had enough leftovers for a couple more adults.

I would like to commend the restaurant’s staff for their high quality of service. Kids are not a big part of their regular clientele but we were accommodated without much fuss. A high chair for my toddler and a special table for the kids away from the steaming hot sukiyaki pots were effortlessly set up by smart and beautiful looking kimono clad staff.

But what made that night a lot more special was the company of true friends who indeed rejoiced with us. Thank you Patrick and Pilar, I almost ruined the surprise but anyway,… And thank you Lyndon and Carla (and Aaron, and Ayden and Anthony) for joining us, enduring the 12+ hour drive to Brisbane on a wet and stormy weekend.