Bites: Heather’s Hutch Cafe @ Nedlands

Taxation is a done deal, so is Investment Analysis and Financial Accounting Theory & Practice.  Exam season has not been kind to me.  It has been raining every single freaking morning!!  Cold.. hungry.. *emo*!  But that is ok, I found a nice place to seek shelter from the cruel winter!  After taxation on Tuesday, darling and I were literally starving!  Not to mention it a typical cold winter afternoon with chilly winds with puddle of water everywhere!!  Hungry as we were, we wanted to eat something proper!  After much thought we decided to eat nearby and it immediately came to my mind that there is a nearby cafe neatly tucked amongst the apartments on Broadway!  Decided to try my luck because I remember them being closed on some days!  Lucky as we were, Heather’s was actually open!!

 

Heather’s  Hutch and its interior!  Felt slightly vintage! 

 

We order the mushroom soup ($9) and a lasagne ($16) to share!!  I have to say, both of it turned out nicely.  But god the serving is just too big!  Both of us did not manage to finish even half of the lasagne I think.  No doubt it was yummy, but the serving was crazy huge.  I think something like twice the thickness and twice the size of the one sold in uni!!!  For the size, and quality (of course!), the price is justified!  But then again, it is really too filling for one person!  Next time if I came alone, I would like to have the soup again!  So yummy!!

 

Ok mates, over and out! Today I woke up at 6am, reached uni about 7am and started nerding! So goddamn sleepy now! Off to bed!! Oink oink!

 

WenY

Bites: The Imp @Victoria Park

I promised myself awhile ago that I shall abstain from any food blogging but ZzzzzZzz. I got bored of studying :P!  I have been to new brekkie place over the weekends so I’m here to share my latest brekkie tryout in Perth!  The place is just a couple of minutes away from home and it is really convenient!  The Imp is conveniently located along Albany highway near to Toto and is pretty much a nearby neighbour of Utopia BBT.

 

We started our morning pretty late at about 10 but that is pretty early considering that I sleep about 3-5am everyday.  I guess this is the Asian thing huh?  Wonder how I will cope with my lifestyle once I graduate! The Imp was pretty crowded possibly a mix of old customers and new ones driven by hype and curiosity!  On the menu, the Imp has all the usual suspects but my exploit this morning would be the big brekkie.  At least I know it is something that will last through dinner :D!

I decided to give a miss on the drinks but sister had to have her daily dose of caffeine which I have to insist came out very very tempting!

With a froth of layer to die for, I would have loved this to be a hot chocolate!   But alas, it is still coffee, my arch nemesis.  My sister says that the barista is from one of the cafes she frequents in city!   On the taste, well I did not take a sip so I’m pretty much clueless!

 

Pretty much all of us had the big breakfast except YH and Kelvin!

Poached eggs on sourdough toast for the first course? :)!  While we had 6 poached eggs on the table, darling was a little let down by the fact that hers was cook through.  No more liquidy yolk!!!  EMOOOOOO!!  Fortunately mine was every bit as runny as it should be! 

 

Bacons! What would you do without these??  It is even a complete breakfast meal without these?  Most would say no but I would beg to differ!  Nevertheless, crunchy bits of salty goodness are outmost welcomed in my tummy!! I mean, who would every say no?

 

And for the final course on the plate, we see the Imp’s hash browns, roasted tomatoes, chipolatas and homemade beans.  While the sausages were mediocre at best, the hash browns and full flavoured tomato was something to die for!@!@#!  I liked the hash browns as they very unique and pretty different in every way!  The tomatoes were good, very juicy and everything a good tomato should be.  Had plenty which still felt raw inside, while this was juicy throughout!  The homemade beans, felt undercooked but the sauce which tended to be a little spicy was really good.  Or at least I thought so :)! 

Nevertheless, seeing the uninspiring chipolatas was a let down.  I mean seriously?  =X!  I feel that the big breakfast all over Perth, especially top rated ones fail to amuse in this department!@#!@#  I hate all, I MEAN pretty much all the sausages I have eaten so far. 2 words to describe them - “uninspiringly boring”.

 

Next comes what I dare say, the winner!  This was YH’s open BLT!  So what makes this the winner? Well, first you do not see any bread.  And then the plating is on a plank of wood. Mmmm awesome aye?  Hehe ok, I’ll stop cocking for a moment.  But really, generous lashings of balsamic with crispy-wafer thin bacon streaks and a runny poached egg was just too hard to ignore.  It was so, so, so good!  Shaved cheese did add some complexity but wow, the choice of balsamic, it was really good.  So good I must insist.

YH’s open BLT!

 

Putting the sausages aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the big breakfast although if you were to compare it to the savoury Asian breakfast I had at Gopi the day before, … .  The simplicity or rather complexity taken for granted in Malaysian breakfast food was so satisfying even though the Nasi Lemak rice was not “lemak” enough.  Overall, the morning was all good at the Imp, the pricing was decent, food above average (putting sausages aside)  and wow, the open blt? Desirable!!

 

WenY

Date Night: XO-Lounge, Perth

After a week of harsh self-abuse, it was finally time to dress up and stop that stupid university rubbish.  Exams, assignments, projects.  What in the world is UWA up to this year?  Broken data, crappy lecturer.. oh my the list miseries goes on!  Putting that aside, I had a gorgeous dinner night with the little darling!  We went to XO-Lounge located along the Exchange Plaza on Wednesday night which marked the start of my Easter break!

 

 

We ordered the XO-Antipasto ($40) to share.  The antipasto had four assortments in it:

-Char grilled veal and parma ham kebabs, spiced romas and sage crisps.

-Sherry cured ocean trout bruschetta toped with salmon caviar.

-Spiced king prawns, fresh coriander, chilli and lemon preserve.

-Smoked buffalo cheese tart, caramelised onions and tossed walnuts.

The prawns were bursty with yummy flavours.  The lemon wedge is a must squeeze on the prawns as it made it taste so good!  The kebabs were special with combination of meat that somewhat reminded me of a Vietnamese meat skewer!  It was good too!  The buffalo cheese tart was “OK” and it reminded me of the Pizza Bianca served at Olivers! 

And the ocean trout bruschetta ahah, I didn’t have any but darling said it was not bad.  Looks nice though, but that slice of raw fish didn’t seem tempting to me at all @@!

 

For our mains, little darling ordered the Tasmanian salmon ($38).  The fish looked delicious on that mountain of vegetables!  But that scoop of paste which I thought was made of sundried tomato tasted of “sambal” instead and that was absolutely weird.  Otherwise, I think the fish was super yummy!  I couldn’t resist asking some from her too.  The fish was well cooked with the outside leaving it light pink in colour while the inside tended to be darkish pink!  Yums!  The vegetables were cold and so I think its some sort of cold salad. 

 

And for me, I ordered the Black Angus Steak ($52) served with homemade crunchy wedges and with salsa roast tomato.

This one I must insist was very very very enjoyable.  The steak was cooked to medium with perfection.  Darling couldn’t resist and had a few mouths of that juicy tender steak.  BUT DAMN it is SMALL!  Two Angus fillet steak was no bigger than half the scotch fillet I had the day before!  But damn it was good.  Wedges were another highlight.  One of the best homemade wedges I have ever tasted.  Not some dodgy  home made French fries which I’ve had many times in burger bars.  But at $52 dollars this is quite heavily priced even though not as dear as the dry aged steaks. And one think which left me puzzled was the sauce on the steak.  I have absolutely no idea how that green patch turnout to be the roast tomato salsa.  But putting colours aside, the sauce which I got was pretty good too!

 

The night wouldn’t be complete without our sweet accompaniment wouldn’t it?  We ended our night with some yummy desserts!

Chocolate and  Cointreau  Mousse ($18) wrapped in chocolate fudge, orange caramel and a pistachio biscotti.  A good level of sweetness with a line of smeared jam and rwarrr!  But biscotti was on the hard side!  Not that it matters as the main focus was the chocolate mousse! :)!

 

Glazed lemon and cinnamon crepe ($16) filled with lemon mousse and a blueberry and ginger compote!  Darling like the way it was presented with the super tempting crispy crust of burned sugar on the crepe.  Blueberry and ginger compote was fresh but hmm didn’t taste like any ginger was in there =/.  More importantly, it satisfied darling’s sweet tooth.

 

At the end of the night we were smiling.  Would this pass the serendipity test? An accidental experiment than turn out beautifully!  What was happier is that while our entire bill totalled to $164 dollars!  And that was excluding the bottle of white wine which we brought home too which would place the bill somewhere around the 200 dollars mark!  But with the coupon I got, it was 90 dollars for this very yummy dinner.  It is really quite funny how much we enjoyed it considering how lowly people rated this restaurant!  I was surprised how much darling and I enjoyed the food.  The service was decent but tended to be slow at the start.  Took awhile for them to confirm our meal and awhile for water to be served.  Otherwise, the service was attentive and good!

 

WenY