KEY POINTS:
It was the little grunts, the giggle, some small cracking sounds and the unmistakable rustle of plastic that got me. I just had to look.
As rude as it was to stare at the woman behind me, I put on my "looking for the waiter" expression, mentally apologised to my absent mother for my bad table manners, and gleaned all I needed to know with the classic three-second-look.
And it was worth it.
She was wearing a white, plastic bib. Closely resembling a bin-liner, it completely covered her clothes, with a hole in it for her head.
She was grasping a complicated utensil and extracting the flesh from a pincer-fisted, bluish-grey shelled arm of a Queensland mud crab on a huge plate in front of her.
Her husband had long finished his main course and alternated between sitting quietly as she ate, and wandering outside, holding their toddler who grew more fractious with its mother's every chomp.
And it's no wonder she didn't want to waste any. Crab takes quite a nip out of the budget at A$89 ($100) for a mud crab and A$69 for the Great Alaskan (depending on size and weight).
I'm glad I had my surreptitious peek, as a Melbourne friend told me just before we headed for a week in Queensland, crustacean cuisine is "classic Brisbane".
Crabs and moreton bay bugs were famous there, and I "really should eat some", she suggested. I managed to resist this suggestion.
The idea of wearing a plastic bib seemed quite inappropriate in the rather lovely Kingsleys Restaurant on Eagle Street Pier.
But I did do my best to sample anything else classic Brisbane, which is why we joined thousands of others enjoying the restaurants which line this stretch of the Brisbane River with their backs to the towering office buildings.
By day, it's busy with joggers, cyclists, power walkers and slow strollers, offering no chance to shop for anything other than food and drink.
By night, the river is as busy as the Seine in Paris, the waters reflecting the lights of two huge paddle steamer restaurants and the city's fleet of cats and small ferries.
It's all part of a mission to discover why my travel agent swears Brisbane is under-rated by New Zealanders as a holiday destination.
My Melburnian friend agreed. "You mean you're actually staying right in Bris-Vegas for four nights? I thought all you Kiwis just flew in there and took off to the Gold Coast or Noosa."
Well, yes, Noosa was on our itinerary, but four nights in Brisbane should be enough to see what it has to offer, yes?
"Well, no, probably not," she responded.
"There's a lot worth seeing. You won't do it all in four days."
So why "Bris-Vegas?" I had to ask, knowing that for three years she had commuted to work by ferry in Brisbane.
"Hmm, It just is! It's our Aussie sense of humour - from the days when Brisbane was definitely one of the most boring capital cities after dark. I give Bris-Vegas a hard time, but I love it there, really."
I headed first for Brisbane's Story Bridge - described as "a must" - which would also lead me to Kangaroo Point.
Smaller than Auckland's Harbour Bridge, it's still vertigo-inducing, and if you want more height there's a bridge climb experience which includes sunset and sunrise climbs.
Kangaroo Point is a high-density residential area with apartments jostling for a water view. It's also where you'll find the famous Story Bridge Hotel, home to the legendary Cockroach Races on Australia Day (January 26). The hotel is built around the massive pylons of the bridge above and has been owned by the same family since the 1960s.
From here extensive walkways lead on to The Cliffs, an adventure-seekers' playground, where you can abseil in full view of the tourist hotels and office towers just across the river.
There are literally hundreds of kilometres of paved tracks leading from one attraction to the next in and around Brisbane.
Walking is nice - it's not a hilly city - but hiring a bicycle allows you to see more and go further in less time.
Tony Silvester owns Valet Cycle Hire and Tours and will deliver your bicycle to your hotel or you can pick one out at the Alice St entrance to the City Botanic Gardens. Scooting on and off the river ferries with your bicycle is even part of cycling itineraries.
With a stable of bicycles to fit the whole family, including trailer bikes and baby-seats, Tony sends you off with a mini map of ferry routes, cycle paths and various colour-coded journeys that ensure you'll see plenty of the best sights.
He can also email these to you on request before you arrive.
For culture-cravers, Brisbane's South Bank has stunning venues and home bases for the Queensland Ballet, three symphony orchestras and its opera company, a state-of-the-art library, the New Gallery of Modern Art and there's "old" art gallery for pre-1971 artworks. All offer children's programmes.
We spent a couple of hours in the Queensland Museum's zoo, discovering creatures we'd never heard of, let alone seen before. It's free and will fascinate the whole family.
More than 700 animal specimens are on display and, surprisingly, not everything in this part of the museum is dead.
Past the impressive buildings at South Bank are the beautiful South Bank parklands, covering 17ha of tropical gardens, lawns, pathways and an award-winning arbour made from curling tendrils of steel, swathed in bougainvillea. From here, you can wander down to the beach without leaving the city. Streets Beach has sand, palm trees and a real surf lifesaving team. But it's actually an enormous swimming pool. It was built on the river bank with truckloads of silky sand brought in from the bay. A special filter system keeps the sand from disappearing and the fresh water (enough to fill five Olympic-size pools) is reticulated every six hours.
"Brisbane is an ideal place to base yourself when you come to Queensland because you're in the heart of all the facilities a city has to offer, yet there's a total tropical island experience just 35km away," says the CEO of Brisbane Marketing, David Regan.
"Out at Moreton Island, you can hand-feed wild dolphins, go whale-watching, dive or snorkel. You can get there by boat in less than an hour, and at the end of the day, you can come back to the city and head off in another direction the next day."
Sitting in the middle of the pedestrian-only Queen St Mall is Brisbane Marketing's Information Centre visited by between 1700 and 1900 daily.
Here you can find out how to get to Fortitude Valley's funky designer clothing shops, the unlimited ways to get around with a A$5.25 day ticket, or about day trips to Great Barrier Reef or the increasingly popular North Stradbroke Island, a huge drawcard for time-poor international travellers.
Within five minutes of listening to a staff member at the info centre outline what there was to offer I knew four days in the city was not long enough.
Guilty as charged.
I am another Kiwi who under-rated Bris-Vegas. We've already booked to go back for a whole week this winter.
* Victoria Bartle travelled to and stayed in Brisbane courtesy of Flight Centre, New Zealand and Wotif.com.
Checklist
Getting There
Air New Zealand has three services a day Auckland to Brisbane. On-line fares start from $32
Further Information
To plan a great trip to Brisbane have a look at www.experiencebrisbane.com, www.cyclebrisbane.com, www.visitsouthbank.com, www.flightcentre.co.nz and www.wotif.com.
