Truly Scrumptious

Blackbird, East Perth

I hadn’t heard of Blackbird before, but decided to give it a try and take advantage of a 50% discount offer – I was quite impressed with the Urbanspoon rating so thought it would be above average.
We went on a Sunday lunchtime, and the restaurant is in a lovely setting right on the river just behind Royal Street.

The interior of the restaurant was casual and cosy, and the waitresses were cheery and welcoming. I liked that the drinks list offered some mocktails, and decided to opt for a nojito, an alcohol free mojito, which was very good.

The menu options were fairly limited (4 choices for each course) but all sounded
appetising. We chose to have some bread, and the waitress was very helpful in allowing me to have olive oil with balsamic vinegar rather than the usual Parisian butter. The bread was fresh and crusty – good quality. We decided to share a tasting plate starter.

This consisted of a slice of beef with blue cheese on bread, tomato and mushroom crostini, polenta with a capsicum sauce, and an arancini ball with pumpkin puree. They were all tasty and good quality – very enjoyable.
For main course I chose the fish of the day which was snapper in a light batter with chips, tartare sauce and a fennel and orange salad:

The chips were excellent, crispy and tasty, the salad was also very good and complemented the fish well. The snapper was good quality and fresh.
My companion chose beef medallions with sugar snap peas, roast potatoes, pumpkin
puree, balsamic onions and mushroom duxelle:

The beef was cooked perfectly, all of the elements worked well and the textures
complemented each other well. For dessert I chose chocolate pudding with cherries and coffee ice cream:

It was a huge portion of chocolate pudding and quite rich, but very very good. I would have liked another scoop of ice cream – it was home made and had a really rich coffee flavour. My companion chose chocolate truffles and coffee.

So will I go back to Blackbird ? Yes I thoroughly enjoyed the meal and felt pleasantly full afterwards. It is a nice environment, good quality food and friendly service. The only thing that let them down slightly was serving a chipped plate, but I think that the food made up for that faux pas.
Visit Date – July 2013

We haven’t been to Blackbird for quite a few years and decided to go on a Saturday night to try their Chef’s Choice menu. Quite good value at $50 per head for 3 starters, 2 mains and a dessert.
The restaurant is right on the river at East Perth, a beautiful and chilled setting with seating inside and outside. It’s quite intimate and as evening falls, it really comes into it’s own with candle lighting around the windows and on the tables.

Our waitress was very friendly and helpful and seemed quite enthusiastic that we had chosen the chef’s choice menu. We ordered drinks and snacked on a small bowl of warm popcorn, seasoned with their homemade salt mixture. We chose a chardonnay from South Australia.

The first starter was prosciutto et croutes, a small piece of crispy bread with apple, prosciutto and goats cheese, drizzled with a little truffle oil. It was nice, and just a small mouthful to get us started.

After this came a plate of vegetable croquettes with some capsicum and thyme
mayonnaise. They were quite filling, mainly consisting of pumpkin, and we enjoyed eating them.

The next starter was a bowl of garlic and butter clams, probably something that we would not usually order. The clams were fresh although some of the shells were closed which seemed a bit of a waste, and the sauce was nice. We mopped up the sauce with some bread, but it would have been nice to have more bread to do this.

The first of the mains was a ravioli of rocket and parmesan with blue cheese cream and spinach. This was the best dish of the night, the sauce really brought the pasta to life and I would have been very happy to have this as an a la carte dish.

The second main was sous vide chicken with orange jus, Israeli couscous, corn, spinach and chorizo. The Israeli couscous are quite large pearls of couscous. I expected the chicken to be more orange-flavoured, considering that it had been cooked with the orange and that the jus was made with the meat juices and orange. It hadn’t really intensified that much and I would have liked it to penetrate the whole piece of chicken.

Finally, the dessert was served. A small piece of brownie, a small panna cotta, and a caramel ice cream. Each element was nice, but not outstanding. I think that the portions could have been slightly bigger.

We had a nice meal in a beautiful setting, and it was certainly good value for $50 each. I left feeling that they could do so much better though. Everything was nice, but nothing out of the ordinary, and if this menu is showcasing the main menu, then it didn’t wow me. It wasn’t bad either, everything was perfectly edible, but I didn’t feel that I need to rush back to try other items on the menu. The setting is amazing though, it’s a great place for an intimate date.
Visit Date – Mar 2018

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