It Just Has To Be Delicious

Archive for May, 2020

Island Market, Trigg

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Island Market is the new restaurant right on the beach at Trigg. Situated in the building that used to be Kailis fish cafe, and Trigg Island Cafe before that, it has had a makeover inside. Pastel colours, trees and a lofty airy feel, it still has the great view over the ocean – ideal for romantic sunset dinners.

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The menu is a tapas style sharing affair with a modern Australian and
Mediterranean/middle Eastern vibe. We chose to start with pita bread and dips. The pitas are freshly made every day and arrived in a quirky pizza style cardboard box. We chose labneh and feta dip and baba ghanoush.

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The dips were very moreish, the labneh had a nice garlic hit and the baba ghanoush was smoky with a nice depth of flavour and a sprinkling of sumac and olive oil. We also chose the crudo of kingfish, nicely presented with piquant tomato, peppers, olives, cucumbers, slivers of red onion and a sherry vinaigrette.

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Next came a small portion of fish and chips – supremely fresh snapper, and served with lemon and aioli:

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Even though we were getting full, we tucked into the next two dishes of fried cauliflower with hummus, pomegranate and molasses, and chicken wings, adobo and pickles.

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The cauliflower was delicious and the wings had a smoky flavour. They came with some quirky dehydrated hand towels. You pop the little discs in the water and they grow and rehydrate before your eyes:

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We really were too full for dessert but couldn’t resist the liquorice ice cream with dulce de leche and bitter chocolate crumble. I love liquorice ice cream and this version was very well made and packed with flavour.

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A very good meal with a beautiful view and nice wines on the menu. Will I be going back to Island Market? Certainly yes, but I don’t think we’ll order quite as much this time – the portions were quite filling.

Visit Date – September 2017

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La Veen, Perth CBD

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I had heard that La Veen did great coffee, and today we were in the centre of town so decided to have lunch there. It is on the corner of Wellington and King Street, quite a spacious cafe.

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We were quickly seated and decided to order coffees first – a flat white and an iced latte. They serve Five Senses coffee here and the house blend is delicious. Five Senses is the brand of coffee that we have delivered to home, so we know that it’s the best in Perth.

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Both coffees were smooth and rich with a lovely caramel finish. For lunch I chose the pulled pork burger with chips. This was a little disappointing – the pork was quite sweet, so I had to eat it with the chips to add a bit of blandness to the strong sweet flavour. I would have liked more slaw, and the bun was also quite sweet.

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My companion chose the Boston beans with a poached egg. The beans were nicely cooked and tomatoey, but a little sweet, the cheese was a perfect amount and the egg was nicely poached. The potato skins were a nice touch, although it was quite a small portion for the price.

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When we left, I had a look at the cake cabinet which seemed quite appealing.

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So will I be going back to La Veen ? Not for lunch, but definitely for coffee and cake if I am in the area. I think there are better food outlets in the city.

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Visit Date – November 2017

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Coffee shop review, Restaurant review

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Mount Street Breakfast Bar, Perth CBD

Mount Street is next door to King’s Park, a pretty leafy area of Perth, and it’s a very steep street. Luckily we visited on a Saturday when parking was free, but midweek the parking will set you back $4+ per hour.

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We ordered coffee while we perused the menu. The coffee was nice but quite rich and slightly bitter, suggesting a South American blend.

The menu is a mish mash of breakfast and lunch items but everything is very appealing. I had a shortlist of 5 things but ended up choosing the prawns with scrambled egg, garlic shoots, prosciutto and baguette. This was lovely but quite bold flavours and probably more of a lunch dish than a breakfast dish.

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My partner chose the crushed avocado, with roasted paprika pepper, goat’s feta, rocket, soft boiled egg and multigrain. This was a nice combination of textures and flavours and he thoroughly enjoyed the meal.

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Other menu items on my shortlist included:

  • pumpkin, potato hash, labneh dukka ball, crispy bacon, poached egg on rye bread
  • pan-fried yucca & spinach gnocchi with walnuts, shitake mushrooms, sage and egg yolk in a spicy, creamy peruvian sauce
  • french toast, caramelised banana, strawberries, crispy bacon, maple syrup
  • omelette: spinach, sweet onion& herbs, topped with sun blushed tomatoes, feta and pinenuts with pecorino tomato dip and turkish breadDefinitely a venue to return to with inventive dishes galore.

Visit Date – June 2018

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Mouthful Duck, Ellenbrook

Mouthful Duck is a modern Asian restaurant in the town centre of Ellenbrook with a big open kitchen and friendly wait staff. The menu offers fresh lemon iced tea, which is lovely and refreshing.

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Perusing the menu, there are quite a lot of tasty sounding options. Lots of sharing options to start, dumplings, buns, roast meats, and larger plates like pork belly, fillet of beef in black bean sauce, tamarind duck curry and seafood tempura. We chose one of my favourite starters – prawn toasts. They didn’t disappoint, nice thick bread with a generous serving of prawn on top and a sweet soy dip.

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Next came DIY duck pancakes with tender sliced roast duck, apple, spring onions, plum sauce and hoisin. This was an interesting take on Peking duck with apple
instead of cucumber, and I loved each mouthful.

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For mains we chose crispy skinned barramundi with kailan, rice on a bed of egg
white and ginger. The barra was very fresh and nicely cooked and the kailan were in a delicious oyster/soy sauce.

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We also had some mee goreng with prawn, chicken, egg and vegetables in a spicy sambal sauce. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture before we had eaten half of it, but it was presented very nicely and tasted lovely – quite spicy – with a very generous helping of prawns and chicken.

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Mouthful Duck is a nice experience – the menu is slightly quirky and everything was certainly very tasty. It’s a little on the expensive side, but well worth it for the quality ingredients and generous portions.

Visit Date – June 2018

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P’tite Ardoise Bistro, Perth CBD

I have been intending to eat at P’tite Ardoise for a while now – it always scores highly on Urbanspoon/Zomato, so I was delighted to finally get a booking (booking is not easy – they only seem to answer the phone in the afternoons).
I arrived early for my booking and was surprised to find the restaurant already very busy. The tables are very close together, so they pack quite a few people in. It has a quirky ambience, is a little old-fashioned, and the waiters are all French, speaking fluent Franglais to the diners “Bonsoir, can I get you a drink?”. On first view of the menu, I wasn’t impressed, just three choices of starter, main and dessert, until I discovered the ‘menu du jour’ on the other side. I had been looking at the ‘classics’ menu.
The waitress brought lovely fresh bread in a basket – baguettes, olive bread, bread with grains, and I loved that they served it with a trio of butter, olive oil and tapenade. I cannot eat much dairy and I prefer olive oil to butter with my bread.

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I chose the rillettes de tours to start – similar to a rustic pate, but not as smooth as pate – pork belly with sauternes jelly and crispy bread. The bread was so crispy that it was extremely hard, and made my hard palate sore trying to crunch through it. The dish was served with an apple chutney, a raspberry jelly and some dill pickles. The pork was extremely tasty, but the overly hard bread was a let down – I would have loved some softer toast, then it would have been perfect.

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My companion chose the scallops and Merguez sausage with celeriac puree and calvados jus. He thoroughly enjoyed the dish and it looked fabulous.

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Other choices of starter included pumpkin soup, terrine of the day, and thinly sliced peppered beef with prawns and celeriac remoulade. It did occur to me that this would not be a great restaurant choice for the vegetarian diner.
For the main I chose snapper with manjimup truffle and potato macaire and port jus.

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The snapper was lovely – perfectly cooked, but I didn’t really enjoy the potato macaire, it was quite dry in texture and I didn’t really detect the truffle flavour. We were also served a dish of vegetables which were nicely cooked but fairly plain.

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My companion chose slow-cooked beef cheek with mashed potato, bacon, mushroom and red wine jus. He really enjoyed it and said that it was perfect winter food.

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Other choices of main included casserole of the day, lamb shank and ratatouille crepes. The portion sizes were quite huge and we didn’t feel that we had room for a dessert. If we had opted for dessert, we could have chosen from floating islands, chestnut meringue, plum clafoutis, trio of mini desserts or assorted truffles and nougat. All of them sound lovely but after two huge courses and two rounds of bread, we were finished. So would I rush back to P’tite Ardoise ? The food was definitely tasty, I think my companion chose better dishes than me, the service was a little haphazard, and the tables felt cramped. The whole restaurant was quite noisy and lively and is a fun place to be, however, I don’t
think it quite lived up to the hype. It was very good, but didn’t blow my mind.

Visit Date – July 2013

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Mon Taste of Japan, Leederville

Mon is a cosy Japanese cafe in Newcastle Street just off the main strip. It always seems busy and we decided to give Mon a try.
The first thing we noticed was that the staff were not particularly welcoming or attentive, probably because they were busy, rushing back and forth between the kitchen constantly. The menu looked good though and there were plenty of specials like chicken and prawn gyoza, mackerel don with ginger and soy flavoured rice, tuna karaage, triple chicken don. It all sounded really good and authentic.
We chose the gyoza to share, I chose the mackerel special and my partner chose the chicken katsu curry. We also opted for some miso soup. After waiting for quite a while, it became clear that all of the food would be arriving as it was cooked. Usually the wait staff ask if you want some of it as a first course, but this didn’t seem to be an option. Our miso came first, mine was okay, a nice flavour but tasted a bit grainy and had a lot of residue at the bottom of the bowl.

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My partner then received his chicken katsu curry, which he quite enjoyed. He did say that it wasn’t amazing, but an okay katsu.

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There was a bit of a wait before my mackerel dish arrived and it came up with the gyoza.

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The gyoza were nice and succulent with a good dipping sauce. The bowl was a bit small to dip them, but they were good gyoza and we enjoyed them.
The mackerel was little different. When it arrived the waitress said to be careful because the claypot was very hot. It was. It was searingly hot, and a bit unstable on the wooden base, so it kept shifting and despite my best efforts, I did keep burning my hands on the bowl almost every time I dipped the spoon in. The other aspect of the extremely hot dish was that it made the rice incredibly dry and a lot of the rice stuck to the pot. The mackerel was good and succulent, but not very ‘saucy’, so it really was a fairly dry dish, and with the constant awkwardness of trying not to burn my hands, it wasn’t easy to eat.
So will I try Mon again – probably not. It was authentic, but not outstanding food, the service was lacklustre, and my dish was the stuff that health and safety nightmares are made of. I dread to think what might have happened if it was served to a child or somebody with poor coordination. There’s a lot of competition in Leederville and if Mon continue with that level of service, they won’t last.

Visit Date – January 2019

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Moments, Joondalup

Moments cafe is on Davidson Terrace in Joondalup, an area that is a little hub of eateries outside of the main shopping centre area. Nestled in between an Indian cafe and a Chinese restaurant, not far from Dome and the newly opened Paper Avenue, it has quite a lot of competition. Moments is quite popular and always busy.
The menu is huge and consists of all day breakfast, toasties, sandwiches, gourmet sandwiches, burgers, wraps, cakes, various options in the chilled cabinet and some hot options like noodles and Asian fare in ready to go takeaway containers. We chose to dine in and our food was cooked fresh. Everything is lovingly prepared and ‘no frills’ style. The drinks menu is equally enormous, and I ordered a chilled soy chai.

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My partner ordered a pot of tea which arrived on quirky spotty crockery. The whole cafe is filled with quirky posters and ornaments and they have a thing about moustaches.

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I fancied a bacon and egg muffin, which was very nice, and they asked if I wanted HP sauce (of course I do – I’m of English heritage), which was a nice touch. This was tasty with good quality ingredients and certainly made a nice light lunch.

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My partner chose a cheese, tomato and chicken toastie. Again simple and nicely made with a good amount of filling and very tasty too.

Moments is a sweet little cafe and certainly worth a visit. Strangely it’s not open on Saturdays, but it is open every other day, and definitely a local favourite.

Last Visit Date – April 2018

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Coffee shop review, Restaurant review

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Miss Chow’s, Whitfords

Miss Chow’s is one of a group of new restaurants that have opened in the last 12 months at Whitfords shopping centre. They all seem quite popular with the locals, and we decided to try Miss Chow’s for Sunday lunch after a morning visit to the cinema.
It’s a large open area for dining and we chose to eat inside, although it was a bit chilly with the aggressive air con and fans running.
We didn’t want to order a huge amount, just some dumplings and ribs.
I chose a fresh iced lemon tea to drink. This was lovely, and I could taste the tea as well as the lemon. It had just the right amount of sweetness.

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We ordered three lots of dumplings. No dipping sauce was provided other than with the fried dumplings. There was soy sauce on the table but no small dishes to put the soy into for dipping. The siu mai prawn and pork dumplings – four in a portion. These are very traditional Chinese dumplings served with almost every dim sum meal. they were very tasty and enjoyable. Sorry about the photo, we ate two of them before I remembered to take a photo.

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We also chose the traditional partner of siu mai – har gow which are crytsal prawn dumplings. Again a portion of four, but they tasted quite bland, the flavour of the prawn did not come through.

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The pan fried dumplings were pork and vegetable (like our favourite War Tip), and served with a sweet chilli oil type sauce, but it didn’t have any real heat to it. The flavour was okay, but not as nice as the previous dim sum restaurants that I have visited.

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The best item that we ordered were the caramelised spare ribs. Served with black vinegar caramel, pineapple, bell peppers and fresh mint, they were succulent and fell off the bone. I wasn’t too keen on the large mint leaves – they could have been shredded. After a while the ribs felt a little too sweet, but generally they tasted quite good.

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So would I go back to Miss Chow’s ? Maybe for the ribs or to try something else from the menu, but not for the dumplings. I have had better dumplings in Northbridge and won’t settle for bland ones.

Visit Date – March 2018

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Matilda Bay Restaurant and Bar, Crawley

Matilda Bay Restaurant is right on the Swan River. It’s a popular area for families with many people jogging, walking dogs and picnicking in the vicinity. The view from the restaurant is lovely – yachts and ducks, with King’s Park and Mounts Bay Road as a backdrop.

The thing that immediately struck me was that the service was haphazard. The waitress showed us to our table, only to decide that it wasn’t as expected, and ushered us to an alternative table. We then waited for 20 minutes before being offered a drink. I chose a mocktail (I chose the only one that was compatible with my food intolerances), and my companion chose a mocktail too, explaining that we would not be drinking alcohol. The drinks were nice and well-presented, but the waiter insisted on trying to sell us some wine despite our earlier conversation about not drinking alcohol.

Cranberry and Elderflower mocktail:
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When the bread arrived, it was accompanied by butter, which I cannot eat, so I asked for some olive oil instead. Two waiters told me that the olive oil was on it’s way, but it didn’t arrive until I reminded them again, and 20 minutes later, my bread was cold.
The starters, however, were very good.

I had kingfish sashimi with squid noodle salad:

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My only minor criticism was that there was a bit much of the squid noodle salad. The wasabi was lovely and hot, and the kingfish very fresh.
My companion chose prawns in a chick pea crust with a tomato salad and a spicy aioli:

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The prawns could have been a bit larger, but overall it was a very pleasant dish. For main course I chose a trio of seafood – prawns, marron and crayfish:

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My companion chose a steak – black Angus rump:

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Both main courses were overcooked to some degree. The steak should have been medium rare, but it was more like medium to well done.
The seafood was varied – the prawns were perfect, the marron was nice but not amazing, and the crayfish was overcooked. Such a shame because the cray should have been the star of the dish, and it was a real disappointment.
Matilda Bay need to step up their game if they want my custom again. I am so glad that we had an Entertainment Book Card which gave us 25% discount. I would not have been happy to spend $200 on this meal. The service could be much better, and the chefs need to pay a bit more attention – cooking seafood and steak is not difficult.

Visit Date – December 2012

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Little Cultures, Subiaco

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Little Cultures is a healthy superfood and dessert bar on Rokeby Road in the heart of Subiaco. If you are on a dairy free or paleo diet, there are plenty of options to choose from, and there is seating inside and on the pavement.
The menu consists of yoghurt bowls and smoothie bowls with all of the health freak ingredients like acai, goji berries and raw cacao. You can also order a smoothie to drink or for dessert a Hong Kong/Macao style egg waffle puff. The waffle puffs are a hexagon of bumpy puffy batter, dressed with all kinds of goodies like banana, strawberry and caramel.
You can also have the waffle puff folded into a cup and filled with ‘yolato’ or other goodies. Yolato is yoghurt gelato. I chose the strawberry fields waffle with coco yolato, nutella and whipped cream.

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My partner chose the popcorn cookie party – with cookie crumbs, caramel and chocolate sauce, vanilla ice cream, and caramel popcorn.

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Both were nice, I loved the eggy waffle, it was more interesting than a regular waffle. The yolato didn’t blow me a way, but the rest of the ingredients were good quality. After a while, I found the whole thing a bit sickly and it would have been nice to have a half serve. I would like to return to try some of the other offerings like the superfood bowls.

Visit Date – April 2018

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Coffee shop review, Restaurant review, Store review, Vegan/Vegetarian

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