Tannic Teeth

The Perth Hills Wine Show has been running for a few years now. From the very beginning the wineries have made a spirited effort to improve the quality of their wines, because at times, it has been thought the region has not made wines of any notoriety. This year saw a record number of medals awarded than any previous show. There was a 50% medal award. That may not sound like much but when you consider a large wine show like Sydney or Melbourne, the medal takings are hover below the 40 mark. You could draw two things from it. One the competition is not so great in a wine show like Perth Hills OR the Perth Hills is punching above its weight. I would go for the latter. As the judges brought in this year were a mix of outer regional and national. 5 Gold, 11 Silver and 42 Bronze. Not bad for region not considered to produce super premium wines.

Stand out wines (Gold Medal Winners):

Thumbprint Wines 2009 Rose

Western Range Wines 2006 Julimar Shiraz Viognier

MyattsField Vineyards 2008 Shiraz Mourvedre Viognier

Western Range Wines 2005 Shiraz Mourvedre Viognier

Western Range Wines 2006 Goyamin Pool Cabernt Merlot

Lion Mill Vineyards 2007 Home Block Reserve (Blend)

Western Range Wines 2002 Julimar Liquid Gold Liqueur Muscat

When: Sat 8 & Sun 9 Auguest  11am – 5pm

Where: The Hub Mundaring ( 8 Craig St Mundaring)

Cost: $15

If you don’t know what Pho is by now, I’m sorry, but you have probably lived in a cultural bubble. For those well acquainted with the subtly spiced, simmered beef broth with noodles and DIY mint and bean sprouts, will be well aware it’s messy business. It can also be quite hit-and-miss. Sometimes the serving size is too small with an unfair noodle-veggie ratio. Or the broth just doesn’t have enough oomph. Or it’s ludicrously expensive. That’s the dead giveaway for a shonky Pho. Over $10 and I’d walk in the other direction. Because I know where you can get a killer for $9.

It’s called Pho Huynh and it’s in the central northern suburb of Girrawheen. Though the greater surrounds would make me feel uneasy at night, this place shines like a beacon in the newly named Saigon Business Centre. It’s quite the opposite of every other noodle house I’ve been to: fresh decor (no plastic table coverings here), air con and a plasma TV that blares Vietnamese karaoke all day long (well maybe this is the same). The staff are attentive and family-like. It’s not uncommon to see the proprietor babysitting her (Eurasian) children, and the matriarch wisely staring from the corner. I’m sure she’s analysing my Pho eating style and chopstick etiquette. Whether I’m a sauce adder or dunker, and whether I add all the bean sprouts with judicial use of mint and hoisin. It’s highly personal stuff. Lunch time,  it’s packed. The car park swells with oddly out of place Mercedes and BMWs. Sunday lunch is pretty much like being back in Vietnam, 100 people per metre squared. The litmus test for a good Asian restaurant is how many countrymen dine there. This place passes with flying colours.

The food is better than I had in Vietnam, Pho sure.

Pho Huynh. Vietnamese Rice & Noodle Bar. Shop 1/32 Balgonie Ave Girrawheen WA Open 6 Days 9am-8pm (Closed Wednesdays)

For those of us who have grown up under the southern sun with parents who were immigrants will know what I mean when I say culture clash. There is something perturbing and possibly deeply traumatic about upping sticks and settling down in a foreign country. Especially when English is not the spoken language ‘back home’.

Alice Pung’s account of her parents struggle to adapt to Australian way of life from South East Asia is particularly poignant. Well for me anyways as my parents are from that landmass but further east, that is, Burma. It deals with the expectations put upon the generation of children by their parents to become doctors, lawyers and engineers. The auspiciousness and prestige when they can say their child is a doctor, thus increase the auspiciousness and prestige marrying you off. Say nothing of the arts or farming. For they are the realms of the esoteric and serfdom.

It’s a huge theme and complimentary to that, the questioning of what is means to be ‘Australian’. Flag-wavers love to throw around the word ‘UnAustralian’. What does that mean? Do you discard your (Asian or whatever) culture, and assimilate into Australian society? How far can this envelope be pushed before it becomes something it’s not? Before something breaks?  The word assimilate itself has an undercurrent of a forced existence. Force against force negates itself. Cronulla riots of 2005 was case in point.

An interesting read. Funny at times, plyably frustrating at others, and in my view I’d call it  NuAustralian.

Hands up who suffers from shoddy sinuses? Yep.  Me.

They make your life hell, especially when they get all inflamed and mucousy and force enough pressure you would swear your eye ball would pop out. I hear ya.

Also hear this. Netti Pot.

What the hell is it? It’s a small vessel designed to gently wash sinus of dirt, dust and cellular debris (the said mucus) out of your nasal passages under gravity. Used in Ayurvedic medicine (advocated by Yoga practices) for thousands of years in India. It looks like a tea pot made for your nose.

But before you go running out to retrofit Nana’s tea set it is worth noting that nasal membranes are very sensitive to pH and salt concentration. Thus you need something that is isotonic to that of your body.

The effect? It keeps the nasal mucus flow mobile, reducing post nasal drip. Chronic suffers of post nasal drip notice improvement of smell and taste. I have used this now for 2 years and I swear by it. My job entails me to use my sense of smell and taste so it’s like hitting a daily reset button for my nose. There is no longer a heaviness or compaction over my face.Overall my sinus issues have reduced in severity, duration and sure beats prescription nasal sprays I was using with little effect.

Worth doing? If you are part 90% of Adults who have suffered from sinus disorders in their life I’d strongly advocate the use of this. Part of a twice daily routine. As far as quality of life improvement goes, best discovery thus far.

Here is another small bar that’s proudly Perth. Melbournites, I know you rule the roost for the Small Bar scene, but c’mon you have many more little laneways to play in. We make do with what we have, and if it’s the law chamber of an old Anglo-Dutch building, that suits us just fine.

Andaluz is one of those contemporary tapas bars. Offering a variety of tasty morsels from slow cooked rabbit and chorizo with lentils and pearl barley, to oysters with smoked tomato and Tabasco sorbet. I would still be a purist and order a fino sherry but then again I’d be temped by the international wine list or the menacing shelves of spirits on display.

The bar’s entrance is open and clean. Clever use of mirrors spawn an illusionary space that reflects the plush leather sofas beyond. Dim lighting, shadow streaked corners calling for private chit-chats are the order of the day. Break out your Romance languages and you’ll

feel right at home – though you might want to rely on ‘The Britanica’ on shelf to settle any linguistic disputes. The overall bar is, well, small. Conscientious interior design breaks up what would be a crowded bar into something mediated and tempered.

You would think the basement of a Federation-era building would hardly be the place for a Tapas Bar. But then again, you would be wrong.

Opening Hours

Noon – Midnight Monday to Thursday

Noon – 1am Friday

6pm – 1am Saturday

Basement Level, 21 Howard St, Perth CBD.

Bar hop to Helvetica when your tummy is full.

Few songsmiths are able to lurch feelings so freely as Paddy Mann from Grand Salvo. So freely and with such piercing clarity.

His second fifth album, Soil Creatures, is a low-fi amalgam of plucked harp, meandering piano and sweeping acoustic guitar. The lyrics are almost whispered. It’s delicate as a lacy veil yet conjures up emotive power of the “whimsical. wistful and wanting”. Like threads of dreams chased upon awakening.

Operating out of Melbourne, his album contains ten tracks. It’s spartan and pensive. The track list are simple single words. Simplicity doesn’t belie any loss of power.

I first heard ‘Needles’ on Triple J whilst driving home from work. I couldn’t think straight after paying attention to the lyrics. And they’re not convoluted bamboozling lyrics.

They’re simple. Like the thoughts we have yet never think to express. “The curtains behave like the soul of a wave – the texta explodes so deliciously slow” for example. A touch of gold if you ask me – but then again I am a closet hippy.

Stand out tracks: Needles, Father, Brother and Sea

(You can listen to a few tracks by clicking here)

It would only be natural that when there is a severe weather event people turn their heads up to the sky.

Those forlon clouds bearing down over the small speck of city. It’s kind of intimidating. And so we watch them, hoping trees are the only things bent against their will.

I have always had an interest in what goes on above my head because you can be anywhere in the world and observe something different. Sky watching is an active practice for an idle body.

You observe the coulds which can mean fair weather, clear skies or rain in the next few days. Our ancestors had to use this information to eke a living, and somewhere along the line we turned our heads down and forgot endless display above us.

Look above and learn your clouds. It’s an endless fascinating flick-book.

The below cloud is a Pyrocumulus which happens when a large fire intensely creates an updraft enough to form a cumulonimbus. Though it’s created by fire, the moisture condenses and will fall back as rain sometimes extinguishing the fire that it created. Lightning caused by the electrostatic charges by the particle updraft starts fires over again. Another fascinating circle of energy balanced perfectly by nature.

In the era of silicon chips, where e-mails are the currency of distant dialogue, the humble hand written letter has become a thing of the past. Let’s face it, our world has become and global village spun from fibre optics. Communication is woven into immediacy. We value the instantaneousness that has become a communicative standard. So what becomes of the fate of something that takes days to reach its destination? What becomes for something that doesn’t have spellcheck, grammar check, auto correct and save for later? Things are accelerating. After all it isn’t called snail mail for no reason.

Real letters require effort to execute. And if you’re anything like me and can type much faster than you can hand write it also requires you to slow down your thinking to snail’s pace. You’ll probably have to keep your writing neat too. How many friends would you be able to distinguish by their handwriting alone?

Despite being able to communicate with the family via phone and video link, troops still send mail home.Why? It’s written by the hand that’s reluctantly been on a gun and scrambled for fire cover. There is something intangible about the exchange of ink on paper and by the hand that signs it. Something that strikes a chord in all of us, that unblinking, open wound. The frailty of what it is to be human – and to crave a meaningful exchange.

So now I send real letters as well as emails, tweets, instant messenger and phone texts etcetera.

It may not be as fast.

But I love it.

“Of course, letters by their nature document periods of separation.”

[Fiona Capp, In the Garden, The Montly, June 2009]

It’s one of those uber cool city bars where you’re going to have to stroll down a dark and dingy alleyway to find. Don’t ask me what I was doing down a dark and dingy alleyway to stumble across a small bar but it was worth it. OK I confess I was photographing a fellow small bar Andaluz (review coming soon) and the staff kindly showed me how to get there. The place is named after a font. Helvetica.

If first impressions count, then the entrance of Helvetica insists you have done your research. Or least have someone ‘in the know’ drag you along. It’s another city drinking establishment with a Small Bar license which means it caters to less than 100 people, and tea teetotals after twelve (extended permit for Helvetica pending).

This retro-urbaneqsue setup has an interesting beverage listing with a focus on Whisk(e)y. One may be inclined to call it a quasi-whisk(e)y bar. After all, clients may purchase bottles and have them shelved for storage, and staff will serve you from your (own) bottle every week with no extra cost. Cocktails, wine and beer form the usually holy trinity. There is a simple but good snack menu on offer. Anything more of in the way of culinary offerings is a case of watch this space.

So if the thought of queueing up next to bins and graffiti in your Sunday best on a Saturday night doesn’t dissuade you, give this place a go. The experience makes you appreciate the interior and a fine single malt a whole lot more.

Very cool. I like. I like.

Helvetica. 101 St Georges Tce (at rear and kinda off  Howard St) Perth, CBD.

Opening Hours

Sun, Mon, Tue by reservation

Wed/Thursday 3-12

Friday 12-12 (1am trading permit pending)

Saturday 4-12 (1am trading permit pending)

Sniff around Andaluz and you’ll find it.

So the Dead Arm Shiraz has a bit of a name for itself. If you don’t know the history of the wine, there is a certain fungi (Eutypa lata) that renders part of the vine dead, hence the ‘dead arm’.  Apparently it also makes the quality of grapes on the remaining half of higher quality. Apparently.

Well in all intents and purposes it DOES deliver a good wine. Though one may achieve this though drought stress, canopy management, fruit thinning to achieve a higher quality crop and thus resulting wine.

The instant character fresh from lively decant is a splattered array of blackcurrant and reduced red fruits. Though over time the nose grows a hairy animal belly and locks itself behind something akin to a leather suit case. Hints of succulent berry do poke though, but you’re going to need your beagle with you to find them. Flavourful and giving on the palate with a good punchy long lasting end. There could have been more fruit sweetness but you can’t have everything in one glass. As expected for the price. RRP $60