So my terribly difficult holiday sees me lunching with my foodie buddy, and discussing what we will cook up at her place that night, And catching up with my drinking buddy has us checking out the small bars of Perth in a very short amount of time. It was our duty!
Here's what I got up to - its gonna be a big blog this week! Apologies for no visual yet but I'm still learning how to do that on the iPad and the formatting isn't perfect coz I need to board a plane in a minute.
Thursday
Lunch Zing's at Hillary's boat Harbour. Pleasant little spot and we shared a taster platter. All good but I forgot to take photos.After a settling walk around the harbour we decided we needed to stop for dessert. It wouldn't be fair to baby if we woke him up just to put him in the car. (not really, this is he worlds easiest going baby)
How terrible that we end up at San Churros again. Can't go past it's namesake. I've tried, on numerous occasion to drink the hot chocalate here. I can never finish it. it is soo rich!
And a lovely home cooked meal that night.
Friday
Tapas lunch at Duende in Leederville with a friend who when we were in Sydney we never quite managed to catch up. I've seen him 3 times in the past week. A lovely meal, good service and an amazing glass of wine, highly recommended.
I really like this area. Lots of cafes and restaurants and a few pubs and bars for later.
From here I jumped on a train to Fremantle to meet up with a regular Sydney drinking buddy who happens to be in Perth right now. We dumped our stuff in the hotel room and freshened up for the night ahead. The three of us jumped on a train back to Perth city.
Now here is where I had to start referring to Facebook to remind me what we got up to.
Friday 5:47pm Greenhouse
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| some fruity cocktail @Greenhouse |
6:25pm Helvetia bar
A little rum bar hidden down a little city ally. If you are a regular reader you will know that apparently women aren't supposed to drink dark rum. And i find this a challenge so i drink it without screwing up my face. I had a dark and stormy, a nice gingery one. After the very girly looking fruit filled cocktail at the last bar, it was the boys I was with that got their drinks in fancy glasses while I got a tumbler. Dark, noisy converted warehouse that tries a little too hard and didn't quite get it right on the decor.
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| tea - long island style |
This place was good, although the staff were a little rude and not as attentive as i think they should be. I shared a teapot of long island iced tea with one of my male minders for the evening. Served in a fancy teapot and very pretty teacups. The drink was fine but they forgot our order of chips and I had to flag down bar staff. The crowd were a bit older and it looked pretty cool in there, good atmosphere but the bar staff weren't having nearly as much fun as the last establishment.
Time to get out of the city
9:17pm the Stanley
A general thumbs down here, we order basic beer, and i think it should be a cafe. And the only thing they had on the food menu was peanuts, olives and some other insignificant snack. Also a few too many religious icons and not sure how ironic or kitche it was supposed to be. Next!
Moving on to Subiaco ( I think, started getting hazy around here)
Kebabs, but we forgot to check in. I'm pretty sure we tried a bar or two but can't remember coz we didn't check in on Facebook.
10:46 pm Fire and Ice
Cheap and tacky but above Subiaco station so perfect for that last drink before heading home. Well that was the plan. We lost one person who had to be responsible and work the next morning. So then there were 6? How does that work? Easy, you find like minded individuals who just don't want to go home yet. 2 girls, 4 boys so the odds are looking good for me and we hit a few bars in Subiaco. It was late so some establishments were closing, others brimming to capacity. But it's all who you know and one of my new friends says, "wait here, gimme a minute" and goes to chat to the bouncers. Is he being a wanker and just trying to impress us? We wait, he comes back followed by one of the hostesses who leads us around through a car park and in the back door. Ok. Drinks in hand and some danceable tunes like Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie?! Yes, Facebook says so.
12:55am Purl - all night long with Lionel Ritchie
We got in so no, not a wanker and yes, suitably impressed.
So when this place closed what are a bunch of drunken party people to do in a town that is closing down for the night?
Well, assuming this blog doesn't get read that far and wide I don't think I'm getting anyone in trouble by saying that we ended up having a few more drinks at my new friends work place. It's all who you know.
You can find out where if you really wanted to but it doesn't need to be listed here.
I know my head hit the pillow at 6:30 the next morning.
The next status update was
Saturday 1:03 pm - ouch.
I at least managed to get out of the hotel, wander around Freo and find some food unlike my companion who I left curled up in bed for the day.
6pm and my companion managed to down the medicinal bundaberg ginger beer I got him, make it to the shower and get ready to head out for dinner.
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| my mini steak |
6:48pm char char bull
Steak dinner in Fremantle - yum! My salt and pepper squid was average but I couldn't fault the steak. Ironically, Fremantle is mostly geared around seafood, basically the "fisherman's wharf" of Perth. But we felt like steak and their seafood was average.
8:00pm Little Creatures
An local institution and a must for any visit to Perth and Freo. 1 pear cider and a Chinese lion dance. Yeah the Chinese lion dance was rather random but very entertaining none the less. Due to the previous nights activity we were going kinda slow on the alcoholic beverages...for now. Took us about an hour to get through 1 pint, pretty sad, I know..
9:21pm the Sail and Anchor pub.
Met up with a few more folks and got going on the beer games. Taste testing and basically being beer wankers trying to pick the aroma and flavours and what it would best be paired with.
Because we have very little will power we continued drinking beer til about midnight , grabbed yet another kebab befor heading back to our beds again.
Sunday 9:48am Cafe Lumos
If you get the chance check it out. Great atmosphere, good menu and the chef' s not a bad guy either. How you doing?;-)
12:55pm yum cha at Emma's in east Vic park.
This is the best (albeit, only) yum cha place I have tried here. Don't miss out on the shanghai dumplings that we like to say look like little spaceships.
Monday
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| med platter and green beans |
Highlight! Amazing menu. The two of us mega foodies couldn't decide between about 4 different entrees and another 3 mains.. Best menu I have seen in a long time! Thank god they had a Mediterranean plate that included most of the entrees we were after. Happy now. But we had to go over to the cellar door and do some tasting to decide what wine to have with our meal.
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| just a few dumplings - YUM! |
Quickly headed home to start making our Home made wontons and gyoza. My generous host asked about making dumplings so it was my duty to share my dumpling skills with her and the yumminess of it with her and her partner.
I'm bursting with dumplings right now.
And we teamed it with a sparkling Shiraz from upper ridge.
Tuesday
Japanese Lunch in leederville
Chai tea and tiramisu at Greens
"work" woohoo, this is now a business trip! (Seriously, it's a screen australia forum.)
Nachos and beer at a little "local" pub in Wembly
Wednesday
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| all gone |
So here I am at the end of a HUGE week and sitting at the airport I know I am ready to head home.
Why does it look like all I did is eat and drink in Perth? Oh coz I did. Food buddies and drinking buddies are here so how do I not? No touristy stuff this time round, but a great week of visiting. I reckon I could live here if I had to. BUT I did have the illusion of being more popular than I actually am because I had to see everyone I know in a short amount of time. I caught up with 4 good friends, only two of whom knew each other before this visit, spoke to another on the phone and made a few new ones too. Busy week. It'll be shell shock when I get back to my little apartment and an empty fridge and calendar.
