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Posts tagged ‘Perth CBD’

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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Garum, The Westin, Perth CBD

Garum is the place that everybody is talking about in Perth. Celebrated Aussie Italian chef Guy Grossi, famous for his cook books, appearances on Masterchef, and fine Melbourne osterias, has opened this Roman restaurant in Perth at the Westin.

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Everything is faithfully Roman, including the wine list where the wines are listed in order of colour. We chose a ‘yellow’ wine to start – a Flametree chardonnay from Denmark, WA. This was a fine chardonnay with pear and melon notes and lovely subtle oak backdrop – the sommelier here knows their chardonnay.

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The menu contained entrees, pasta dishes (which could serve as entrees or light mains) and mains with lamb, veal, fish, steak and an interesting lucanian sausage dish for two. Bread was served with moretum – a herb ricotta spread with oil. This was a nice change from the usual butter or whipped butter.

For starters I was very tempted by the crudo, but decided to go for octopus, because I don’t usually order octopus. There’s a reason for this – when poorly prepared it can be very chewy and unpleasant, but I suspected that Guy wouldn’t let me down and wow did he deliver. The octopus was served Gaeta style (Gaeta is a coastal city just south of Rome) with crispy sourdough, olives, capers and tomato. Every mouthful was a joy to eat and the octopus was tender, meaty and delicious.

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My partner chose one of the pastas to start – the bucatini with pancetta, tomato and chilli. The pasta was al dente and well made with a rich spicy sauce, not too hot, served with some shreds of parmesan, and described by my partner as ‘a really good bowl of pasta’.

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For the main course I decided to go with the fish of the day – swordfish, served with crab, celery, ginger, spinach and coriander. The fish was beautifully cooked, with a buttery sauce and a charred lemon, and there was plenty of crab and prawn accompanying the mild ginger/celery dressing.

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My partner chose the Arkady lamb with parsley, capers, anchovy and radicchio. The lamb was delicious, nicely seasoned with a fresh herby sauce. The radicchio was quite a strong flavour and another vegetable might have been more enjoyable.

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We also chose a cauliflower salad to go with our meals. This was an absolute gem. Charred and served with raisins and grains, the cauliflower was perfectly cooked complete with its leaves – not mushy, but not hard either, and finished off with blobs of a labne style dressing. I could have eaten this whole plate as my meal.

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We didn’t have room for dessert, so will have to go back to review them. Garum delivered a beautiful meal, great wine, and a very full tummy. It was a bit loud and noisy as the evening went on, the location is Hibernian hall, a wonderful historic Perth venue, but also large and a place where sound carries. The wait staff were helpful and professional, and we had a great evening. Glad to see Guy Grossi bringing his talent to Perth.

Since the original visit, we did come back and found that Garum was not so great, Starter portions were really small, and I chose porchetta which was excessively fatty, and I didn’t want to eat it. It was a shame because we were celebrating an anniversary, and the meal was expensive and not up to the mark.

Last Visit Date – November 2019

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Petition Kitchen, Perth CBD

Petition Kitchen is housed within the impressive State Buildings in the Perth CBD and is part of a trio of Petition establishments, the others being the wine bar and the beer corner. The restaurant is long and dimly lit with an open kitchen area, with a variety of regular tables and ‘perching’ tables. I was quite glad that we got a regular table as I can find the higher tables quite uncomfortable.

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We were offered bread and olives to start, which we accepted. The bread arrived with some whipped butter, but the olives did not materialise throughout the whole meal.

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I think that Petition probably have more of a passion for their alcohol rather than food. The wine list seemed quite impressive, and I fancied a glass of my favourite Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, but couldn’t find one in the ‘by the glass’ section. There was a quite interesting ‘cloudy sav’ from WA, and I originally chose that, but the waitress indicated that it was really cloudy and quite sour, so I changed my order to a South Australian Riesling which was very nice, and if I hadn’t driven, I would have been happy to drink a whole bottle.
The menu is made up of sharing plates from small plates like kingfish and croquettes to more substantial dishes like lamb shoulder and steak. It was very dim in the restaurant and impossible to read the menu without my trusty phone torch.
We decided to go for three dishes to start with, and order a fourth if necessary. First we chose the raw Geraldton kingfish with sweet ginger and creme fraiche which was excellent, good quality fish, and clean crisp flavours – a very nice dish.

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Then came the foie gras and chicken liver parfait with aged balsamic and grilled bread. My main gripe with dishes like this is that you never get enough bread. The waitress did say that we could order more bread if we wanted (and we did), but why not just provide enough bread in the first place. I love parfait and was expecting this dish to be the star of the meal, but it was really quite average. The texture of the parfait was a bit softer than expected, but the vinegar pearls were a nice touch and added a bit of piquancy.

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The third dish was charred cauliflower mornay with chive, smoked brioche and salted egg. This was not a great dish. It arrived as a whole chunk of cauli with the sauce underneath and it was undercooked, so we had carve it up to share it out. I love eggs but I didn’t really detect the salted egg flavour, and at the end of it all, I felt that I make better cauliflower dishes at home. It was frankly disappointing.

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We decided to go for a fourth dish and chose the pigs head croquettes with red harissa and aioli. They were nice and crispy, the harissa had a heavy spice kick and the aioli provided a good contrast to the heat. The filling was very soft and altogether the flavours matched quite nicely.

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Although the wait staff were nice, I felt that they seemed very rushed, just plonking dishes on the table with no real explanation and rushing off again. I also felt that our meal was hurried along, something that often happens when we are not indulging in alcohol – I feel that restaurants are happy for clientele to linger when they are spending money on wine and spirits, but when they realise that you are there for a relatively non-alcoholic meal, they seem to want to get rid of you as soon as you’ve eaten, and this is the impression that I got at Petition Kitchen.
I wasn’t wowed by the dessert menu, warm artichoke custard just seemed a bit pretentious for the sake of it, and the only thing that appealed to me was the fig clafoutis with spiced walnut ice cream. We decided to give it a miss.

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All in all, Petition was okay, but I wasn’t wowed by it, and it didn’t deliver the fine dining experience that I had imagined. If you love your wine and want to try a range of wines with some nice food to chomp on while drinking, then it is probably the perfect venue, but as a foodie I found it fairly average and I won’t rush back.

Visit Date – April 2018

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Red Opium, Perth CBD

This restaurant is not right on Hay Street, it is just slightly in Hill Street, and you would probably walk past it if you didn’t know it was there. Inside it is buzzing, the colour scheme is black and red with simple clean lines and pictures of opium smoking characters on the wall. It is not licensed so you can bring your own wine.

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The menu is set out into sections where you can have smaller tapas style plates or large main course size plates. There are also some set meals, but we chose to have 6 tapas style plates and a salad.
The first dish to arrive was Kataifi King Prawns. King prawns wrapped in a shredded pastry with a tamarind and chilli jam dip. These were really delicious, cooked perfectly and the dip went really well with the prawns.

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Next up was spring rolls. These were thin and long, nice but nothing spectacular.

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Then came the star dish of the evening – spicy scallops – seared sashimi grade
scallops with tamarind and chilli. I could have eaten a whole plate of these, they were so good.

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The som tum with soft shell crab was really really nice, spicy, and quite lip tingling. The soft shell crabs were crispy and a nice contrast to the soft salad which was jam packed with papaya shreds, chilli, peanuts, onion and tomato.

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Tod Man was minced fish with thai chilli paste, herbs and minced prawns, served with a salsa.

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The salmon ceviche was really refreshing with caviar, onions, chillies, truffle oil and lemon.

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The satay was lovely, served with authentic rice cakes, cucumber relish and satay sauce.

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For dessert we chose mango with sticky rice which was thoroughly delicious.

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The food at Red Opium was really high quality, well presented, very tasty, cheffy, authentic and served by friendly staff. You couldn’t ask for more from a restaurant and I will certainly be returning.

Update – Unfortunately our second visit wasn’t as good, we found the food quite lacklustre and disappointing.

Last Visit Date – October 2017

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Long Chim, Perth CBD

Long Chim Perth Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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This is not a restaurant for the faint hearted. Owned by Aussie Thaiophile chef David Thompson, it is a fun place to go – loud, brash and unashamedly like a street style cafe. The food is authentic in looks, flavour and spice – it is HOT, you know, Silom Road hot, so if you can’t take spicy food, then maybe this is not the best choice for you.
On the Saturday night that we visited, the crowd of diners were mainly groups of young ladies, meeting up for dinner before a night out at the clubs. There is a lively bar area, and it’s okay to meet up just for drinks if you don’t want to eat here. The waitress was really friendly and explained the menu to us, starters at the top, noodles in the middle, and family style sharing dishes around the edges. There is no real uniform here, so it’s a bit difficult to tell the wait staff from everybody else, but all of the staff are lovely once you work out who’s who.
We chose to go for traditional dishes and selected fish cakes to share for a starter.

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They were plentiful, nice small-ish irregular shapes with a lovely dressing of chilli, onion, thai basil, lime and sweet fish sauce dressing. All the elements of sweet, sour, fragrant and hot that you expect from an authentic Thai dish. It did leave a tingle on my tongue though – I am used to hot food, but I couldn’t help thinking that there would be many of my friends who would find it challenging to finish the dish.

One of our mains was thai green curry. Again, very authentic, I remembered the same flavours from a cafe along the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok, very tasty, but also very hot again. Even without eating the whole chillies on top, there was a strong spicy warmth in every mouthful.

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Jasmine rice was plentiful and slightly sticky – just like you get in Thailand.

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We also chose crunchy pork – which was not hot at all. It came with a lovely sweet dipping sauce (no picture), and most pieces were delicious with the soft roast pork and the crunchy crackling. However, I did find some pieces overly fatty and I couldn’t eat the fatty part. It was nice to have this dish as a relief from the spiciness of the rest.

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We also chose a glass noodle salad. Lovely slippery thin glass noodles topped with ground pork, squid, prawns, dried shrimp, onions, coriander and herbs, and of course…. a plentiful supply of chilli.

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Everything that we ate at Long Chim was authentic, delicious, and fragrant – definitely the place to come if you are hankering after that real Bangkok flavour with the real Bangkok spice. I loved it, but some will find it challenging and may need to ask for the chillies to be toned down a bit. It wasn’t cheap at approx $130 with just two soft drinks, but it was delightful. I loved the atmosphere, and will be making a return visit.

Visit Date – June 2017

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The Mint Asian Cafe, Perth CBD

The Mint Asian Cafe Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

The Mint is a canteen style Asian cafe on Hay next to Perth Mint on the corner of Hill Street. On a rainy day I was given a lovely welcome and I perused the menu for something warming.
Tempted by pretty much all of the options – laksa, fried rice, gyoza, salt and pepper prawn etc. I eventually settled for a fried chicken kway teow.

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It was really nicely cooked with the charred wok flavour running through, and a perfect mix of chicken, onion, egg, beansprouts and greens. I loved it and was quite happy with the $11 lunch price tag.

The Mint is a Hay Street winner. They are also happy to cook veggie versions of most dishes – veggie pad thai is a particular favourite.

Vegetarian pad thai:
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Salt and pepper chicken:
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Last visit – November 2019

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Restaurant review, Vegan/Vegetarian

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Uma, Pan Pacific, Perth CBD

Bar Uma Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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At the Lobby Level of Perth’s Pan Pacific Hotel sits Uma, a Peruvian restaurant and bar, and we chose to dine in the restaurant – it was somewhere that we had wanted to try for some time.

We were met by Eric, a charismatic sommelier who we know from Co-Op Dining, and he recognised us which was nice. Charming as ever, he seated us, chatted for a while and suggested a Pisco Sour to start which was absolutely cracking. The citrus burst and the hint of warming brandy-style backdrop was a mouthful of pleasure, complete with three drops of bitters on top.

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Next, a Peruvian waitress explained the dishes to us and suggested, two small plates, a larger plate and some vegetables. We already knew that we wanted to try the ceviche, so we chose the ceviche Peruano, which was kingfish with leche de tigre (the citrus marinade), charred sweetcorn and caramelised sweet potato. This was delightfully good, and the star of the menu.

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We also chose alpaca croquettes with a fermented chilli sauce. Alpaca is a bit like beef cheek – a rich meat, and the chilli sauce was a great accompaniment.

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We also chose some Yuquitas – cassava potato chips with shaved parmesan and huancaina (queso fresco and chilli) sauce – lovely crispy and addictive.

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For the main dish we chose slow braised lamb shoulder with adobo sauce, heirloom carrots and shallots. We also chose Salpicon de vegetales to go with it, a medley of vegetables on pureed quinoa. Together they made a hearty main with plenty of lamb meat to share, and lots of nice textures and flavours.

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We finished with picarones – sweet potato and pumpkin doughnuts with roasted quinoa ice cream and fruit molasses. A case of vegetable meets dessert, not overly sweet, but with some good unusual flavours.

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We also chose some Alfajor Peruano, corn shortbread with Peruvain caramel. They were like the lightest and shortest melting moments you have ever tasted with sublime gooey caramel – a really good dessert.
We left the restaurant with happy tummies and good memories – it’s a great place to try something different. Elegant and friendly, Uma is a star in the CBD.

Visit Date – August 2020

We recently had their pisco and ceviche flight – a wonderful experience – great cocktail matching to different ceviches:

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High Tea – the Treasury Lounge at the Como, Perth CBD

Treasury Lounge and Bar Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

The Treasury Lounge at the Como Hotel is set in the State Buildings on St George’s Terrace. Steeped in history, the lounge is elegant and sophisticated, and we were seated at a table overlooking the terrace and the Council House.

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Afternoon tea must be booked in advance and can be taken with a glass of Taittinger Brut Reserve champagne, a glass of sparkling Great Southern Australian wine (from Denmark), or alcohol free. All versions include unlimited Mano a Mano coffee, and tea, with a choice of Assam breakfast, Earl Grey, chai, peppermint, oolong, white peony, jasmine pearls or long jing with teas supplied by Jing. Prices range from $55 to $80 per person.
We settled in with some tea – I chose jasmine pearls which arrived in a see through pot, and as the tea brewed the pearls opened up in the most beautiful way.

Assam breakfast tea was clean and nicely flavoured, arriving in a more traditional pot.

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The menu is designed around the best local ingredients, and I chose to suffer my sneezes
and go with a traditional menu rather than choose a non-dairy version. I did ask them to
leave the quail egg off my egg sandwich though as I am severely allergic to quail eggs.
The savouries were perfection. Egg mayonnaise sandwich with caviar (and quail egg if you eat them), made with Baldivis free range eggs; a shark bay prawn roll with wasabi tobiko and kipfler chips; roast chicken, smoked bacon (from Linley Valley pork) and vintage cheddar roulade.

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The quality of the ingredients was clear with strong fresh flavours, and so much care in the presentation. Next came wonderful light scones – one plain and one with sultanas, cream and jam – again a really pleasurable experience.

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The cakes were the crowning glory of the afternoon tea – all very thoughtful creations,
again using local ingredients.

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The Tarte au Citron, using lemons from Gingin, consisted of a hazelnut sable biscuit base
with topped with citrus cream, Swiss meringue and a zingy citrus compote.

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The gold dusted profiterole hid a coffee cremeaux, a dulce de leche and caramelized pecan – beans supplied by WA coffee roasters Mano a Mano.13

The mandarin mousse made with mandarins from Moora, consisted of almond biscuit,
streusel, mandarin toffee, Bavarian chocolate and feather light mandarin mousse.

Every mouthful was delicious and this is certainly one of the best afternoon teas in Perth.
The thought and care that has gone in to each creation is clear – a real Treasury of taste.

Visit Date: July 2019

 

 

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