For anyone who’s ever worked in hospitality, having a Saturday off feels like a glitch in the matrix. It’s the busiest day of the week and everyone is working! This Saturday however, it was unusually quiet in Cairns, so Laura found herself having a the night off! Naturally, we had to make the most out of this rare treat and enjoy it to the fullest!
We decided to go for a bike ride to NOA, in Edge Hill, a suburb close to the botanical gardens.
Obviously exited for a saturday off session!
We decided to go for a bike ride to NOA, in Edge Hill, a suburb close to the botanical gardens. It’s become one of our favourite places around Cairns. Just to paint the picture: NOA is this fun restaurant / tapas bar with some amazing cocktails, an easy-going wine menu and some of the more crafty Australian beers (at least for Queensland standards).
Their happy hour is from 4-6 with 10 dollar tapas, 10 dollar cocktails, 8 dollar wines and 6 dollar draft beers, so of course we sat there from 4-6:30 finishing our last cocktail!
One of the main reasons we loved this place so much when we went there last time, was the freakshake special they had. Of course, the first thing we asked was”Do you guys still do the freakshakes?” The waiter had to go ask, which is never a good sign, and came back with a “Sorry, we don’t”. A little disappointed, but not all was lost! We decided to have a late tapas lunch and splurge on some cocktails instead. Did we mention how rare it is to have a saturday off?
Cocktails are life!
For us, gin is life and life is best enjoyed with gin. We chose two gin based cocktails to start off with! Always in for some adventure, we love to try new things. Even better if it’s anything gin related because we have quite some tasting experience with that already. Back at home we had at least two different gins and two different tonics, at any given time. One of the cocktails was sweet with passionfruit and the other one had a bitter and sour tone to it. Luckily we each had our favorite!
Tapas all around!
Tapas are our favourite way to eat out. Ordering and sharing a couple of different dishes means getting to try a little bit for everything! Noa’s catchphrase Eat Drink Share sounds perfect to foodies like us. We started off with some duck shanks, which were juicy and incredibly yummy, and a beef carpaccio with truffle powder and shaved parmesan.
The duck shanks and beef carpaccio!
This second one was the absolute best, as you’ll see from the picture! Of course this didn’t satisfy us just yet! For round two we went for the Serrano bruschetta and the squid ink steamed pork bun. We love squid ink, it gives a subtle taste to anything, but the pork belly was a bit fatty unfortunately. The bruschetta on the other hand was just perfect. Joachim thinks dishes without meat are boring, so the Serrano ham made it a lot more interesting!
Bruschetta with Jamon Serrano and a squid ink pork bun!
What about dessert?
Since we couldn’t get a freakshake, we needed something else to satisfy our sweet tooth! Being from Europe, Joachim loves his coffee! So to combine tasty to necessary, yes coffee is necessary sometimes, he opted for a salted caramel espresso martini! Melbourne’s best gift to mankind, just joking of course! Laura tried the new Australian hype, the Frose, which is a frozen rose combines with raspberry, strawberry and Cointreau! A perfect finish for an amazing meal!
Our dessert! Our two more sweet cocktails ^^ And they put a light on the table to make it more romantic!
We really wanted to share this gem with you! It’s a really chill place to hang out whether you are in for an afternoon session or dinner with a group of friends! The atmosphere is very welcoming and relaxed. The waiting staff is amazing and although it was busy as hell, which we found weird since our restaurant wasn’t, they still made time to stop at our table for a casual chat or to see how everything was going! It’s especially nice to go after a long walk in the botanical gardens!
