Tannic Teeth

I admit I don’t usually dine out on Japanese anything past a quick sushi roll on the run.

It’s not that I find the cuisine any less intriguing than others of the Orient, it’s just in Perth a good Japanese restaurant is few and far between. With that said, it’s rarer still find an exceptional Japanese-Fusion restaurant. Perhaps until now.

When Melbourne food blogger Gilbert came to Perth on a recent vacation, we thought it would be a good time to check out this restaurant called ‘Bonsai’. I’d heard mummerings about it through two friends,  both who raved about the complexity and style of the food. So on a crisp Friday night, the three of us ventured.
Bonsai is half lofty half cosy establishment along Roe St in Northbridge. It is apparent from the interior design that the same creative hands also drew up Wolfe Lane. The polished-stainless-steel-meets-exposed-brick-work gives a feeling of rawness, which appears to be a common design trend. Dining in the restaurant section is a dimly lit and also cavernously airy affair. I don’t know whether it’s more romantic or spooky.

Sentiments aside, when it came to the food, it hit all the right pressure-points.

I hazard a guess the style of Bonsai is simialr to izakaya. The european parallel is mezze and tapas, and like many of those dishes, izakaya are designed to share.

Though I didn’t judiciously note the name of every dish, we had, among other things, seaweed salad, sashimi salmon on asparagus, agadashi eggplant and panfried mushrooms. The freshness of the ingredients was stunning; you can’t fake raw salmon and seaweed.

Bonsai had not one dish that fell below expectation in flavour or portion.

The complexity of flavours were in trinities and beyond.  That is, more than two complementary flavours or spices used. They were harmonious, balanced and expertly camouflaged. And from someone that likes to play the ‘guess-the-flavour-component,’ it was a joyfully vexing experience. It shows time and thought has gone through planning the dishes. Bonsai has approached the weaving of food with their brains.

There is a simple and honest wine list for the average punter, and a handful of interesting Sakes. If you’re not enamoured with the wine list, you can BYO for a very resonable price per head. We opted for genmaicha tea for its savoury complexity rather than turn friday-arvo-drinks into friday-night-drinks.

For those who have yet to try this place, it’s one I’d highly recommend.

Fusion is hard to do right — and for the price.

The Bonsai Restaurant and Cafe Lounge
30 Roe Street
Northbridge WA 6003
Perth, AUSTRALIA
+61 8 9227 5756

Restaurant Amusé is in possession of something rare.

If it isn’t the low-lit über-cool interior, or the ocularly observant staff, or the artistry of food and theatre of wine, then it’s a certain je ne sai quois which propels it into the league of top class restaurants — of just a hand-full the exist in Perth.

The fruition of a husband and wife team, Amusé offers dégustations at $120 per head. Wife Carolynne oversees the floor staff in definite direction and classy professionalism, while her knowledge of the food is second only to husband, Hadleigh, who spins the creative yarn from the kitchen. The duet are doing a fine job. Considering the culinary thrill of the eight courses, parting with $120 is worth it. It really establishes the bar for what-to-expect for spending $120 on a meal, let alone dégustation.

I’ve tried to suss out the flow of courses, and they appear to follow the meandering route below.

Snacks

Tea and toast course

Soup course

Crustacean course

Fish course

Game or fowl course

Red meat (or pork) course

Margarita

Dessert one course (fruit, vegetable inspired)

Dessert two course (chocolate inspired)

Petit four with tea and coffee

To labour every course with words of the colours and flavours, would dismally fall short the sheer pleasure it is to partake. Put simply, the food is sublime.

There is an option for matching wines to the seven courses, $60 will give you seven tasting pours. Freedom outside of the tasting pours, the carte des vins is as extensive as light though a glass prism. Exacting thought has gone into the creation of the list, which second year running has Gourmet Traveller Wine List of the Year ‘Three Glass Rating’. It matches the food with cerebral precision and rounds off perfectly an outwardly unassuming East Perth restaurant.

Amusé has advanced towards food (and wine) with the brains of an alchemist and heart of an artist. They’ve already notched themselves as a formidable dining alternative to the usual suspects of Perth. Indeed, we’re all (seriously) amused.

Restaurant Amusé
64 Bronte Street
East Perth WA 6004
(08) 9325 4900

There are few restaurants you can go to along the coast on a swelly Sunday morning in winter and get a decent fast-breaker.

The cafes and restaurants along West Coast Drive in the Northern Suburbs have priceless vistas that curve along the blue horizon.

It is often just the view as a lure, to enjoy a Sunday brunch, that most people frequent these establishments.
Usually the desultory staff (who would otherwise be off chasing a few sets in the surf) are there to greet you, take your order, and deliver your equally desultory food. They would then stare nonchalantly as you let them know your coffee was burnt, and the eggs were still runny. Sound familiar? Perhaps because you have not been to Voyage.

Voyage Kitchen and Delicatessen is one of the best places to eat along West Coast Drive.

It’s next to a conspicuous petrol station of the recently misadventured BP, and you have to look around the back parking lot for a vacancy on any given Sunday. It’s a place that I’ve driven past many times, not even considering to dine there.

The cafe is set into a building complex, so ample natural light can penetrate into the darker interior. There are many tables and chairs — a hotchpotch — long benches, large tables and smaller dining ensembles. The space appears concise and vibrant when it’s packed to the rafters. By all appearances, it’s the quintessential beach-side eatery. The thing that demarcates it from the rest of the dining wannabes  however, is the precision of how it’s managed. We arrived late on a Sunday morning (regretfully didn’t book), but we were promptly tended to, seated on a large share table (with the prospect of snapping up another table when it became free). The staff were bright and attentive, asking if everyone was ready to order, and suggested a coffee to start.

The rest of the scenario panned out like this:

1) we saw a table was free within 5 min of being seated anyway and asked our wait staff.
2) 5 min later we were seated at the said table (wiped), also with an ice bucket and champagne glasses we also had requested (for the Cava we brought), and the coffees delivered.
3) within a comfortable 10 min we had ordered our meals.

A hiccup of the morning, one of us ordered Eggs Benedict ‘well done’. They arrived runny. We sent it back with no fuss from the waiter, and new one arrived soon after.

All things considered, these guys were under the pump. They would have turned the tables over at least twice that busy sunday, so I suppose my point here is to show, a job well done.

I’m not going to write about the food (as a quick search on urbanspoon will confirm how good it is). Best casual brekky thus far. Quality ingredients go a long way.

The Cava also went down a treat, and topped off a boozy Sunday brunch.

Segura Viudas Reserva Heredad [Pedenès, Spain]

Light, floral, citrus with a fine chalk-like structure. Not overtly complex, but some lusciousness of autolysis character just popping though, more evident as the wine warmed up from 10c. The crunchy acidic core compliments most of what is going on over the nose, it’s a style of Cava made according to méthode champenoise, that is approachable from many angles — visually for starters.

Perhaps it’s remiss to mention it here, but the first thing I notice about Zekka — aside from the modern rusted laser-cut signage; aside from the hand-illustrated shop-long mural, and aside from the snazzy fashion on display — is a penisless cardboard mannequin 1.5 times the size of a normal humanoid.

He They It stands at the entrance, gawking out of the cafe to King St beyond.

Zekka is an edgy, fringe, avant-garde fashion outlet that houses some serious brands I’ve never even heard of.

I haven’t shopped there myself (perhaps sometime in the future), but I do come for the coffee.

The cafe occupies a similar space as the fashion outlet, however it is less edgy and more minimal and a helluva lot more functional.

Zekkacafe is found at the rear of the store which opens up high into the urban environment, the lighting is reflected by the buttresses of buildings. Its an airy column of brick and mortar– good for soaking up the thermal mass of summer, but more like a conduit for breeze in winter.

As you would expect, the cafe does all its own cakes and glass cabinet goodies, light lunches and the like — nothing too serious.

The (coffee) prices are what you would expect in Perth ($3–4), and the quality is worth going back for.

They use Crema (thanks everyone for letting me know!) and Avon Valley Milk.

This time of the year, because of the greener pastures, the milk is sweet.

Don’t believe me?

Order a milk-based coffee without sugar and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

I’d recommend this place if you’re after a little get-away from burning up the CC on King St or having your office cubicle close further around you. Respite time? It’s perfect.

The space is quite unusual and the coffee is tops — a spirited rival to Tiger Tiger for the best cup in town.

My 2 cents? They don’t have a small bar license. Pity.

(08) 9481 1772
Perth City
74 King St
Perth, 6000

Highgate Northbridge may seem like one of the most unlikely places to house this charming deil-cum-cafe.

But away from the carnal desires of the erotic fun-houses and the neatly swept vomited sidewalks of inner Northbridge, there lay small and homely establishment serving an array of baked goods like the Candy Man in Willy Wonka.

The decor is an eclectic mix of all things old, beautiful and ridiculously discarded. Cakes of every wicked manifestation are displayed like a banquet before the Sun King and you the patron sit within arms reach of them.

Lincolns, aptly named, situated on the corner of Lincoln and Stirling Streets in outer Northbridge Highgate was once a quaint corner store. Still holding on to the quaintness, it’s now a three year old cafe that churns out coffee, cakes, breakfasts and lunches. It’s a small neat shop with more character the modern cafes strive to achieve. In some regards it is a modern cafe, but the balance of nostalgia and charm are done just right.

We had breakfast late one Sunday morning. The rosti, bacon, poached eggs and spinach were superb if a bit on the small size for the price. (In lieu of a side for breakky — opt for a piece of cake). So hungry we were, and perhaps tempted by the gingerbread cake winking at us from the counter, we shared a piece.

Of all the things that day, it was the cake which had no parallel. Moist, fluffy and in perfect poise of piquant ginger with the molasses base. Served slightly warmed with an ear of double cream it took the er, cake, for the value-for-money that day.

Lincolns 102

Mon–Sat

7:30–4pm

Sun

8:30–4pm

Imagine having the power to sniff out lumps of fungus underground that smell freakishly similar to a sow on heat. To be possessed with that super power you could ravage through the forests of Europe, digging up Black Truffle or Périgord Truffle, then selling it on the [black] market for thousands of dollars per kilo. Alas, only pigs and dogs have the sensory acuity to triangulate these wondrous subterranean growths. And it’s the more reliable–less greedy version of the two, the canine, which is used in Manjimup.

Homesick for the annual truffle festival in France, Alain Fabregues set out to recreate something of the memory of his small town; the merrymaking of food, wine and truffle when the season started.

Sculpture Park — Mundaring is where this franco-joviality has been happening for the past few years.

$10 Entry will get you in among the stalls of providers with a consistent timetable of events throughout the day. Most of the events are free, bar the entry into the Perth Hills Wine Show (2009 link) and the sit-down lunches and dinners.

Mundaring Truffle Festival 2010

Weekend Saturday 31st July & 1st August.

Skirting around the faux pas food–wine matching, Shiraz and Asian is an unlikely combination. But it’s a folly well played.

I know food and wine matching goose-steppers would resound crisp Riesling or Sem Savvy Blancs with Asian food, so it was with stubborn denial that I ventured with a friend to Hawker’s Cuisine with a McLaren Vale Shiraz in tow. The aim was to see what dishes this rickety bee-hive of a restaurant had to offer.

Upon first impressions, this restaurant looks like any grime encrusted eatery in China Town. If the jittery queue of people trying to get in is anything to go by, they would sure be blind to this fact. We were assured our table would be ready in 10–15 minutes. No biggie. I wouldn’t have expected a place bursting at the seams to accommodate anyone as a table walk-in.

After having a stroll around Northbridge to kill some time, we entered Hawker’s Cuisine again, bumbled around inside for a few more minutes, then sat at a table. I would imagine everyone goes through this triage in order to dine. Our waitperson scurries off with an order. Wine time.

While at Steves earlier on that day, I had bumped into a young winemaker, Tom Stransky. A graduate from UWA’s Viticulture and Oenology, his curious intensity lead him around the world in 13 vintages to almost every wine producing region bar Spain.
He has delicately made small-batch wines from McLaren Vale fruit, and had them emblematically labelled. The Mo’ Shiraz it’s called. Profoundly, it has a Mo’ on it.

Tom was to save the only spare bottle he had that day (the gold mo’s are apparently for family) to give to his uncle, but he graciously gave it for tasting. [Tasting note at the end]

We ordered Spicy Squid Tentacles (they apologised and brought out sliced squid tubes instead), Beef Rendang and Tofu Veggie Claypot. Aside from the squid being a little too oily with a thin batter, the flavour of intensity were commanding. The Rendang espically married the wine, a soft sweet fruit immixed with the star ainse based beef. The tofu came out on a little tea-light burner to keep it hot, was as expected in quality and mass.

This is a place for a no frills midweek meal. The service is edgy but effective.

Like most people dining outside, we disregarded the cockroach crawling up the wall in favour of a steaming bowl of Asian love. Really hits the spot.

Thumbs up for Hawker’s.

The Mo’ Shiraz 2008 (Mt Compass, McLaren Vale, Clarendon)
If supple could be used as a descriptor in wine, this red is a Russian contortionist. It has a chunky fruit-jube character on the nose, it’s a ripe temptress. Slurped with gusto over the tongue, The Mo’ is lighter than expected in tannin profile. This gives two impressions. One a bendy, flexible nature to it — a fleshy skinned plum cheek. The other, it’s not as tapering or elongatedly thread-like. It ends solidly with ample fruit weight. 17.1

Mexican cuisine to the USA is Vietnamese to Australia.

We can go to pretty much any city and get decent true-to-form Viet fare. I can’t really say that for Mexican.

It’s not suprising (given our proximity to Mexico) we have a reached a glass ceiling on the stretch to fine mexican cuisine. Stodgy, canonical and banal would round up a usual “Tex-Mex” offering.

I’m not a pro when it comes to Mexican food — I don’t get the chance to eat enough of it. But when I do, it’s gormandised so quickly I’m usually left with a crusty adherence around my mouth — possibly resembling refried beans or tortilla crisp that people poke fun at long after I’ve left the table. This is what happened at The Flying Taco. It was a piece of lettuce that covered my tooth however, so I resembled  someone who had a misadventure in pub brawl. The food was spectral. A rainbow of flavours. My eyes had finally opened to Meh-hi-co.

The Flying Taco is an honest, approachable entry into Mexican food. It has a modular menu which consists of a subway-esque ordering method. First choose your (carb) style, then your filling, then a salsa. It’s a chicane of possible flavour matches spurring a flexible choice for people that would tire of same old same old.

You can pick up a feed for less than $15 making it a port-of-call for frequenters of the Rosemount Hotel up the road.

I got a Burrito + Mole Poblano + Salsa Chipotle. It came nestled in a basket, resembling a soft glittering infant, warm from maternal care with smokey chilli-garlic sauce at its side.

And the taste? Round and fruit-inspired, the beans and rice gave an interesting texture to the soft flour tortilla. The salsa is where the joy was at. Piquant and agreeably hot (could have been hotter!).

I guess what stood out for me was the freshness and interplay of flavours. Not everything tasted like Old el paso taco seasoning. It’s the mantra that is written conspicuously on the back of the flyer.

“Genuine, healthy, homemade, fresh food — made to order, with love, quickly.”

Flying Taco doesn’t stray from that point.

The Flying Taco

40 Angove Street, North Perth, 6006

Wed — Sun

Noon– Late

BYO Cash & EFT

P: 08 9227 6393

Shit coffee gives me the shits. Well not literally.

It’s because I know I can do it at home—better, that, and the fact I just forked out $3.50 to pay some chump at a machine to immolate my long macchiato.

On the other hand, good coffee is like a bolt from the blue.

It sends filamentous sparks across my brain, and somehow the waxing misanthropy is abated. I want to hug people.

So it’s reassuring to know that there are more and more boutique cafes poking up-and-out of our sunny pavemented city.

What is so special about boutique cafes I hear you ask? They are focused on delivering good coffee, in unique surroundings. Just think. If a boutique cafe made terrible coffee it wouldn’t last long. It too would suffer from a (fiscally) fiery death.

Mooba in Subiaco is not a place where beans are sacrificed. It is a place to get coffee that delivers that blue–bolt with precision.

Curving to the street corners of Outridge and Railway Road, Moodba is a cafe that makes clever use of light, space and glass.

The ceilings are high and the network of upstair’s plumbing is unapologetically contrasted in red. Polished glass meets structural steel that is cool and airy. This meets the warm brown decor echoed in Mooba’s signage. Artist prints hang from the walls. The coffee just looks that little bit browner…

But enough about the space.

How is the coffee? Top-notch.

The long macc I had, was a double ristretto pour. A Mooba house-blend by 5 Senses, it was piquant and pure, rounded by the soft-sweet milk froth. (Abstract Gourmet said he’d hurt me if I used my wine terms for coffee, so I’m taking self-defence classes)

It’s what I would expect for a small business that is switched on. Facebook. Twitter. Blog. They’re there.

You need coffee on the run? SMS your order to the cafe’s dedicated number and pick it up as you breeze though.

Now that’s using the old noggin. And it the old noggin works best when it’s had a good cuppa.

Enjoy.

(Mooba also holds a small bar liquor licence)

A playwright friend recently asked if I could photograph his upcoming play.

“The Myth of Julian Rose” it’s called.

This solemn and distortive play opens a can of festering worms into the incredulousness of maternal sexual child-abuse.

An unsettling theme flowing though the play like a toxic undercurrent, the main character (and audience) is terrorised by a demonic Minotaur presumably an allegory of suppressed memory thanks to an ignoble mother.

The lack of forgiveness can be seen as a destructive energy, wreaking havoc upon personalities. Yet this morbid glee has another side.

“The Myth of Julian Rose” is elegiacally puzzling as it is avant-gardist.  It’s a squeamish, guileful and instructive invitation of contempt from the audience.

And if had that impact. It got through.

The Myth of Julian Rose, Perth Cultural Centre  53 James Street, Northbridge 8 – 26 June 2010, $25 Full/$20 Con

Bookings through The Blue Room Theatre or (08) 9227 7005