Inglewood Hotel

A special occasion had come and gone but my family hadn’t had a chance to get together and celebrate as we had been quite busy. It was then decided that we would all go to the Beaufort Street Steakhouse for a meal on the upcoming Sunday night. I made the call to place a booking and as I was listening to the answering machine message I thought I heard it isn’t open on Sundays.  I quickly jumped on their website (http://www.bssh.com.au/ - which is currently either not working or has been taken down?) and discovered that it is indeed not open on Sundays, only Tuesday to Saturday.

We quickly tried to think of somewhere to go for dinner that would have menu options that keep everyone happy. After scratching our heads for a few minutes a light bulb appeared above my head when I thought of going to the Inglewood Hotel, also located on Beaufort Street. So I made the booking, changed our plans and we were good to go. 

We seemed to arrive all at the same time and found that a table had been reserved in the restaurant section for us. Our menus were waiting for us at the table ready to be pored over and not long after that, a bottle of champagne ready to be poured. There is a great atmosphere at the Inglewood. For plenty of people it is their local, the place to be when they want to relax with a drink and also patrons like us who wanted to catch up over a meal. I find that the Inglewood has the perfect balance between formal and informal. 

After eating at the Inglewood previously, I knew from experience that the platter to share was already going to be ordered. The plate is $32 but came with sweet corn and crab cakes, arancini balls with red pepper aioli, sticky pork belly, tempura prawns, cinnamon duck breast, tortilla chips and dip. The harder decision was going to be what I was going to get for mains when there are so many good choices on the menu.  M decided to order the Beef and Guinness Pie ($18), my dad had the Lamb Medallions served with vegetables and carrot puree ($28), mum had the Squid Rings with mango salad ($25) and my brother D had the Seafood Laksa ($22). I decided to try their Steak Sandwich ($19) which has been voted WA’s best steak sandwich for the past three years. 

 

We ended up ordering 2 of the shared platters for the 5 of us to share and I really wish I had taken pictures of the platters but I didn’t. To describe the platter in one word would be "eurghf". That is because you are too busy eating the platter to be able to talk. After devouring them ever so quickly, we spoke about what our favourite item on the platter was and it was different for all of us. My dad preferred the tortilla chips, I would choose the duck breast and pork belly, my brother liked the arancini balls and M loved the prawns. 

Seafood Laksa

Within a good amount of time our main meals appeared before us. I immediately had food envy of the Laksa.  The first thing you will notice are the big chunks of seafood and vegetables in the bowl, it was hard to see the soup component! D graciously let me have some and it tasted better than it looked. 

 Lamb Medallions

 Beef and Guinness Pie

 Squid Rings

 Steak Sandwich

My Steak sandwich served with big potato wedges was good but to be honest, I was so full and satisfied from the platter that I could only had a small portion of it. M said his Beef and Guiness pie served with the chips was nice and my mum really loved her squid with the mango salad.  My dad used my leftover wedges to dip in the sauce left on his plate and I am sure, if my mum let him get away with it, he would have picked the plate up and licked it clean!

We were offered the menus to look at the desserts but I don’t think any of us could have had some even if we wanted to! 

I would still like to try the Beaufort Street Steakhouse but I don’t think there were any of us wishing we had gone to there instead and we definitely made the right move going to the Inglewood.  All of us would certainly go back there again, 5 stars!

Royal East Perth - Strawberry Daiquiri Sunday!

Recently all the weekends have been sensationally sunny and on one particular Sunday, my friend K and I wanted to go somewhere for a drink where we could sit in the sun and have a few cocktails. We decided on the Royal in East Perth as it is on the water and is quiet enough to have a good chat as well.

We arrived at about 3pm, paid our $6 for an hour and a half of parking and managed to get a table in the sun.  A waiter helped us with some menus and soon after we decided to share a tasting plate. I can't remember how much it was but I think around $30. I did remember to take a picture but not before we started hoeing into it already! The plate was nice, it had chorizo, which was nice and crispy, along with satay chicken, quiche, olives and bread with dips. 

I ordered a glass of champagne (les petites vignettes crémant nv  burgundy, France) which was $11 and K ordered a Strawberry Daiquiri ($18.40). 

As soon as the drinks had come out I wished I had ordered the same! Hers was decorated with a cherry as well as a strawberry on the top. Needless to say that when it came to ordering for the next round, I decided to get one.  The cocktails were nice and refreshing with a good kick to them. As I wasn’t driving I could indulge in a few more than K.  I did find it odd though that the cocktails had very exact prices. There were some on the menu priced at $19.55! 

At about 4:30, when our parking was due to be topped up, we decided to go for a drive to the Inglewood so we wouldn’t have to keep paying for parking.  It turned out to be a good move as the Daiquiris were only $15 and they were a lot nicer.  Keep in mind that this opinion is from someone who consumed 5 or 6 during the day! 

The Royal is a nice place to go for a meal and the view in Claisebrook Cove is awesome. I will definitely be going back there but if it is for cocktails I may just stay more local and head to the Inglewood. 

Greenwood Hotel

A couple of days before Father’s Day I had a call from my mum to say that my family would be having a Father’s Day lunch at the Greenwood Hotel. The Greenwood Hotel is located on Warwick Road in Greenwood, right near the Greenwood shops and not too far off the Warwick Road Freeway exit. I had heard quite a few positive reviews about Greenwood Hotel so I was quite looking forward to it.

M and I arrived and saw that my family had already been seated. They then told us about the debacle they had been through to get seated. In my dad’s words “When we first arrived there were 2 girls talking behind the counter. We stood there for about two minutes while they talked; then they just turned and walked off, totally ignoring us.  We then walked across to a bloke and asked which table we had been allocated.He then simply pointed and said number 20 over there. I couldn't believe my ears.”

My family then grabbed the menu’s themselves for the table.This wasn’t even bad service, more like no common courtesy. The inside of the Greenwood is quite nice and has a lot of natural light coming through the windows. It isn’t a dingy pub by any means and is actually quite large on the inside.

When we arrived M and I placed our order for the drinks first with M ordering a beer and a Bulmer’s cider for me. I did like the fact that they had this on tap, It was perfectly refreshing!

After looking at the menu we had to go up to the counter and place our orders. They did have a specials menu but it wasn’t really “lunch time” type foods with all the meals being quite heavy. In the end I decided to have the steak sandwich ($16.50) which was described on the menu as “tender steak, bacon, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, sautéed onion and tomato sauce, served with a side of golden fries”. This seemed to be the most popular choice of the day with M and the majority of our table ordering the same.

My dad had the Eye Fillet Steak ($34.90) which was on the menu as “Grilled to your liking served on sautéed garlic and herb potatoes with broccolini and your choice of pepper sauce, mushroom sauce, a simple jus or hollandaise”.He ordered it with pepper sauce and served medium.

My mum ordered the Chicken Involitini ($33.00) which was “Chicken breast filled with prosciutto wrapped prawn served on a citrus risotto with broccolini and Hollandaise” and my Nan had the Caesar Salad, main size with chicken ($21.90).

The meals came out in a reasonable amount of time, close to about 20 mins, and the steak sandwiches arrived first. I first noticed the amount of bacon that was spilling out the sides of the sandwich. There was also quite a bit of salad inside and a decent piece of steak. This was no problem for M or my brother but I found it quite difficult to eat as it was so big. I ended up eating each item of the sandwich separately using my knife and fork. The consensus of the table was that there was so much bacon, it was really a bacon sandwich with steak. Normally it should enhance the flavour of the sandwich but it seemed to dominate the flavour of the sandwich. I ended up eating the steak, bacon and the salad as the bread was about an inch thick and wasn’t particularly fresh. The chips which came with the meal were cooked well and had a nice taste to them. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, just the way I like them!

Notice the bacon spilling out?

The steak, chicken and Caesar salad came out a couple of minutes after the sandwiches. The Caesar salad looked quite nice and fresh and had a perfectly poached egg on the top. The steak and chicken also looked good with the sauces poured over the meals. After my Dad had finished his meal he commented on the fact that his steak wasn’t very tender and thought it was quite expensive in hindsight for what he got. 

The Caesar Salad with Chicken

 

Chicken Involitini

 Eye Fillet Steak

I know my Nana liked her Caesar salad but she wasn’t able to finish it off as it was so big.

Upon looking at a poster about half way through our meal, we noticed that they were giving away gifts to all fathers. We assumed this would be given to us after we had finished our meal but when they seated another party next to us and handed them their gifts we decided to ask for ours. It ended up being a card and a stubby holder, better than nothing!

I mostly enjoyed the meal we had at the Greenwood but I think it was more the company that I enjoyed rather than the food or the service. I wouldn’t rush to go back there if I was making the decision but would go there if somebody else wanted to.