Perth

Waldecks makes food?! – Lunch at Lakeview Cafe, Kingsley

by Sab on April 27, 2012

My mind was a little blown when I found out there was a place that served food in Waldecks. I had been told that the chicken burger had a ridiculous amount of bacon in it, so T and I went to grab lunch at Lakeview Cafe inside Waldecks off Wanneroo Road, Kingsley. After surveying the many tasty options, I decided to order the chicken burger, which came with 2 tenderloins, lashings of bacon, fresh lettuce, cucumber, caramelised onion, beetroot and tomato. These are possibly the best burgers I’ve ever had, although I may have been biased as I was ravenous by the time we got there.

Chicken burger with bacon, beetroot, onion and lettuce from Lakeview Cafe

For those of you who are food hipsters, there’s not too much in the way of novel or gourmet food at this place, however it was good, decent food and portion sizes were more than adequate!

Chicken burger with bacon, beetroot, onion and lettuce from Lakeview Cafe

T ordered the beef burger which was good too, but I suspect he was jealous of my chicken burger. There’s something about those juicy, warm tenderloins that made the chicken burger super-delicious.

Our burgers from Lakeview Cafe, Waldecks

Here’s the view from the cafe, not quite a lake view, but pretty and serene nonetheless with lots of plant life!

The view from the cafe - Lakeview Cafe Kingsley

I’ve got to try breakfast at this place. Did I mention they also had giant bowls of wedges?

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Dinner at Phong Vinh – Northbridge Vietnamese

by Sab on March 28, 2012

As most of my friends know, I’m currently obsessed with Vietnamese food. On recommendation from a Vietnamese person, I visited Phong Vinh on William St, Northbridge. My friend was running late, so I sat in the restaurant for 20 minutes waiting which the staff did not seem to mind. The service was friendly and when we finally got to order, the food and drinks came very quickly.

We started with the stuffed chicken wings (one each) which were nice and crispy on the outside. They were $8, which seemed pricey but there was a decent amount of meat and other things in there so I didn’t mind the cost once I had consumed them, they were surprisingly filling. I’m getting hungry thinking about them now.

Stuffed chicken wings from Phong Vinh

As a main, I ordered the Raw Beef Hofan soup, which I had no complaints with flavour-wise. The only thing that bothered me was the beef in the soup which was full of tough sinewy bits, which made it very difficult to eat :( I liked the soup otherwise, there was lots of bean sprouts, mint etc so if I ate there again, I would try a different dish.

Raw Beef Hofan Soup from Phong Vinh

My friend ordered the dry egg noodle with crispy chicken, which she ate most of and she took the rest away to eat for lunch the next day.

Egg noodle with crispy chicken from Phong Vinh

We both ordered drinks that I didn’t take photos of because they arrived last and I was too hungry. I ordered the young coconut juice, which always tastes the same wherever I go – it tastes like the canned stuff you can buy from chinese supermarkets ;) My friend had a jackfruit shake and she seemed to enjoy that!

What is your favourite place for Vietnamese food and what’s your favourite dish there? :)

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Playing with my food… angles

by Sab on December 7, 2011

I’m liking this top-down angle of food lately. Often with food photos, there’s no context required, I just want to capture the food itself. In this case, katsu chicken from Yuki Japanese Restaurant in Willeton.

Here’s the only other photo I took that evening that I like:

Prefer the top-down angle as it captures more detail in the delicious fried coating. It’s rather awkward to take top-down photographs in restaurants though, because you need to be vertically over the food…

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Dinner at ToTo Vietnamese – Victoria Park

by Sab on November 29, 2011

The restaurant was pleasantly quiet around 6:30pm on a Saturday evening. After we placed our order, the food came astonishingly fast. We ordered sizzling beef and lemon chicken with steamed rice to share between two people. I usually order Pho and/or rice paper rolls at a Vietnamese restaurant, but unfortunately I had already had a brothy soup for lunch that day and couldn’t bear the thought of more soup.

The sizzling beef was tender and served on a hot plate, slathered in tasty sauce and came with water chestnuts, baby corn, onion and celery (forming the vegetable component of the meal). The lemon chicken had a crispy coating with a thin-consistency sweet sauce that was not too overpowering.

I ordered the lychee drink with crushed ice but was not as impressed with it as the syrup was not easy to drink and was likely diluted canned lychee syrup. However, there was a whole host of colourful drinks to choose from on the menu, I would be keen to try something else next time.

Just a short post today, busy with other things unfortunately. I keep finding great resources online but I do not have time to try them :( There’s a cosplay photoshoot in the works…

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Morning tea at Koko Black – Claremont

by Sab on November 21, 2011

Koko Black sent me a voucher to try out the Spring Spoil for Two, so I invited Suz along for some free food. I tried to make sure that the free element did not influence the opinions expressed here. I’ve already reviewed Koko Black recently, so I’ll save the general comments and cut to the food.

The spring spoil at Koko Black seemed to have a tropical fruit theme: “Coconut and lime cake, passionfruit jelly, chocolate mousse, mango sorbet and two chocolates — passionfruit and caramelised coconut”. We ordered the spring spoil “to share” which is the spring spoil with two hot or iced chocolates. We opted for iced chocolates.

The iced chocolates were generously sized, had a sweet flavour and creamy fullness to them. We had chocolate icecream in the drink due to a temporary midweek shortage of flavours, the girl serving us offered the choice of vanilla icecream if we wanted to wait 15 minutes. However, since she had already poured the drinks with chocolate icecream in them, we were accepted them as is.

Unfortunately after I had ingested a third of the drink, I was starting to feel that it was excessively creamy, however I dislike highly creamy things in general. There is definitely something unusual about Koko Black chocolate that also comes through in the iced chocolates and all other Koko Black chocolate products I have tasted – they do not taste strongly of chocolate, which is somewhat puzzling.

Onto the spring spoil itself! The mango sorbet had impact; strong tart, sweet and fruity flavour, providing a powerful counterbalance to the creamy hot chocolate and chocolate mousse. The chocolate mousse was smooth (the same as the winter spoil) and I enjoyed the crushed salted caramel, I would love to eat the salted caramel as a standalone snack.

The passionfruit jelly looked like a large jube lolly with its sugar-encrusted appearance, however its texture revealed that it was definitely a jelly. It yielded satisfyingly to my teeth, slid easily into my mouth and emanated a strong, tart, passionfruit flavour before it melted away. I loved this, the jelly was my favourite part of the spring spoil.

The two chocolates were passionfruit and caramelised coconut. They were forgettable, however I did recall that I enjoyed them more than the winter spoil chocolates. Lastly, I’ll mention the coconut and lime cake, which was moist and floury rather than light and fluffy. There was not a lot of flavour to it and I feel it did not flow well with the rest of the plate.

The service was quite good; we had sporadic water refills and one staff member in particular was especially welcoming. After our meal, we sat around chatting and received a taster of chocolate orange sandpipers which both Suz and I enjoyed. I’m not sure if receiving free samples is usual for Koko Black, but for general shoppers, there are free samples available behind the counter – you just need to be brave enough to ask for them ;)

Overall, Koko black’s chocolate continues to mystify me in terms of (lack of) flavour, however the fruit flavours on offer in the spring spoil were very tart and intense, which I enjoyed.

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Breakfast at Greenhouse – Perth City

by Sab on November 19, 2011

Every corner of Greenhouse matched with their sustainable concept; from the untreated, sturdy wooden chairs to the recycled brown glass bottle my orange juice was served in. This also gave the place a real sense of indie trendiness, although the crowd on that weekday morning seemed to be full of business people, which made sense because Greenhouse’s location was so close to all the offices on St Georges Tce.

The service was great, when we arrived at 9am the staff were very attentive and friendly and they came a few times during the meal to refill our water glasses. When it came to ordering, I asked the waitress what was good on the menu. She proceeded to genuinely recommend almost everything on the menu, which was little help but somewhat reassuring, so I ordered the toasted oat muesli, berries and yoghurt. I usually never order muesli at restaurants because it is such a simple dish, but my stomach was ready for some light healthy food after a couple weeks of eating out.

Muesli is never a very exciting dish, but taking that into consideration, this was the best muesli I’ve ever had. The yoghurt is fluffed which was very novel and gave it a light, almost frothy texture. The strawberries were nice and the blueberries were exceptional; large, round, firm and fresh. Muesli mix itself was great, with the toasting and high ratio of seed to oat, it had a great crunchy texture.

Alina’s wild mushroom, slow cooked eggs, grilled polenta looked like a tiny ecosystem on a plate. She found it intriguing at first, especially the gelatinous texture of the slow cooked eggs. She said that it tasted good, but felt that there was a lack of crunch to counterbalance the soft textures in the dish, which eventually became displeasing. The polenta cakes were crunchy on the outside but were soft on the inside.

Wild mushroom, slow cooked eggs, grilled polenta

Alina and I both would have liked to have chosen other things from the menu, but the staff were friendly and the ambience was great with natural finishes to the interiors. I would be curious to go again – the crab congee looked really good and I was on the verge of ordering it!

Check it out: http://www.greenhouseperth.com/

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Lunch at Cantina 663 – Mt Lawley

by Sab on November 17, 2011

I wasn’t quite ready to post this, but then around midnight last night I was in a tired state and accidentally published my draft version that only had brief notes in it with the photos, so if you see a weird description on the urbanspoon page, that’s why!

I’d been curious about Cantina 663 for ages and finally got to visit on Monday at lunchtime this week. I loved the interiors at Cantina, it felt familiar and comfortable with lots of brown tones and wooden surfaces. I arrived there just after opening at 12pm to find the place slowly filling but still fairly spacious and chose a seat near the window.

To start off with, we both ordered the apple juice which was amazing. It was freshly made, had an interesting cloudiness to it at the bottom and the addition of a crisp piece of apple was fantastic, which I ate at the end of my meal – as dessert.

For lunch, I ordered salad, grilled skirt steak, date, avocado, crispy fried onion and yoghurt which was very generously portioned. The combination of ingredients seemed a little odd to me but I thought I’d give it a chance. The steak was my favourite part of the meal, the texture was deliciously tender.

The fried onion was great at first, very crunchy, however there was a lot of it and it was very strong in comparison with some of the other flavours in the dish. I wasn’t too sure about the dates into the dish, but these comments are just my personal preference, the guy waiting on our table mentioned whilst I was ordering that the grilled skirt steak had been a very popular dish lately.

Aimee ordered the bruschetta, roast cauliflower, almonds and buffalo mozzarella. She said she enjoyed it but had some trouble finishing the cauliflower.

The best thing about my lunch experience was the service; it was unexpectedly fantastic, I don’t think I’ve had service like this at a restaurant ever before. We had a bright, cheerful guy named Danny waiting on our table (I hope I remembered that right). He came by very frequently to check we had enough water, refill our glasses and provide a little friendly chit chat.

After lunch, I was faced with a decision to order dessert. I was sorely tempted to order the “vanilla olive oil parfait; strawberry, pistachio” but unfortunately was too full. I would probably go back and try other things on the menu, the offerings are very unique and I like that they try to use local and organic produce as much as possible. Looking at the breakfast menu, I would be curious to try this place out for breakfast sometime.

Check it out: http://www.cantina663.com/

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Guilty pleasure – Chicken Rice

by Sab on November 16, 2011

Favourite asian takeaway of the moment: Boneless chicken rice from Hawker’s Food at Broadway Fair, Nedlands. There was a choice between leg or breast meat. The tender chicken came drowned in sauce, topped with fresh coriander and slices of cucumber, hidden beneath the meat.

It came with a generously packed circular container of chicken rice which I emptied into the chicken container to soak up all the deliciously salty sauce. There’s also chilli usually, however I do not like to add chilli to my food so there’s none depicted here.

Chicken Rice II

Everything about this meal was delicious except the chicken skins, which are easy to remove. I’ve eaten this dish many times and it has never given me any weird gastrointestinal symptoms afterwards which is more than I can say about a lot of other asian takeaway places!

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Breakfast at Milk and Honey – Northbridge

by Sab on November 13, 2011

I like Milk and Honey because it’s fairly relaxed, not too busy and there’s something really fresh about the food. I’d been to Milk and Honey for brunch with Lee and really liked it. James street is not the most scenic place to be on a Sunday morning, especially facing the dodgy stores opposite but that did not bother me. There’s lots of parking available and the streets are blissfully empty, a ghost town compared with 8 hours prior.

Tom and I ordered fresh juices, which we both liked. You can choose 3 fruits from a list that they have out the front of the store.

For breakfast, Tom ordered the “Healthy Breakfast” with a side of bacon which probably made it less healthy ;)

I ordered the pancakes which came with bananas, strawberries, strawberry compote, maple syrup and double cream. It was SO good. The texture of the pancakes were ideal for me – some pancakes are more floury and others are more towards crepes (feel free to enlighten me on the terminology). These ones weren’t floury at all, which I really liked!

I loved the generous amount of fresh fruit that I got with the pancakes! It made me feel like I could have been eating a healthy meal :D

I suspected that Tom enjoyed his meal too, here’s a shot of the decimated plate:

I actually really wanted pancakes this morning, and as we were trying to choose a place to eat, I wasn’t sure where to go. I am not a big fan of Pancakes Carillon / Northbridge and there weren’t others close by, it was a bit of luck that we randomly decided to go to Milk and Honey and there was a pancake option I really liked available!

Anyone have recommendations on places to go for Pancakes in Perth?