Cantina 663, Northbridge Festival & Beaufort Street Merchant

One of my good friends runs Top Perth on Facebook, a page to go to if you want recommendations on where to eat in Perth or what is good in Perth (click here for the link)!  Miss Top Perth definitely appreciates a good meal and we had an awesome day lately where we caught up for some grub, a chat and a walk around Northbridge to check our the Northbridge Festival.I met Miss Top Perth a long time ago in Bali when we were on the bus together to go to the same hotel. After bonding over Dior lipglosses and Lancome Juicy Tubes we spent the whole holiday together.  She is one of the busiest people I know so it was great to spend some time with her recently! 

We started out with a coffee and muffin at Cantina 663 on Beaufort Street in Mount Lawley.   This place is always so packed and it’s not surprising when they change their menu every sitting. You know you will always get the freshest of the fresh. We had arrived too late for breakfast and too early for lunch so Miss Top Perth ordered a Banana and Walnut Muffin to go with her long mac. I ordered a cappuccino and enjoyed every bit of it! So after our little chat we decided to head on down to the Northbridge Festival and see what is happening. 

It is so disappointing that they have so many resources for the festival yet I don’t think they were used to its full potential. We had a walk around and saw some of the kids on their skateboards, had a look at some of the market stalls and then headed up to the Cultural Centre to see what that held. It was pretty dead and there weren’t many people there. I know that it would have been busier at night but I was still hoping that on a Saturday there would still be some activity happening.

The Cultural Centre was again a ghost town with a small band playing towards the museum and a couple of art projects along the way.

After taking a stroll through Northbridge, and checking out all that was happening, we decided to head back into Mount Lawley and dine at the Beaufort Street Merchant for some late lunch. 

It was quite a warm day and it was so nice to walk into an air-conditioned restaurant.  One of the first items on the list was to order a fresh juice. We both decided on the Lush ($7) which has watermelon, apple, mint and rosewater. It was delicious and refreshing, such a good combination of flavours but you could definitely taste the rosewater. 

After looking at the menu I decided on the Orange and Hazelnut salad which also had snow peas and broad beans. Miss Top Perth decided on the Lentil Salad consisting of green lentils, sour cherries, bacon and gorgonzola. Both of these were $16 and we also added a baguette to the order. 

Our salads arrived in very unique bowls and our baguette was warm, served on a chopping board with a knife and some sticky balsamic and olive oil.

My salad was sweet from the orange and hazelnuts but deliciously crispy from the snow peas and broad beans. The hazelnuts also gave it a nice nutty flavour to the whole dish.

Miss Top Perth’s dish was more savoury than mine, a bit salty but definitely comforting and hardy.  It had a bit of a pea and ham soup flavour to it. As we discussed the salads, we decided nourishing was the best word to describe them. 

We carved the baguette into two and shared the sticky balsamic and olive oil. The bread was so nice and warm, crunchy on the outside, definitely fresh.

After I had eaten my salad I still had the juice from the orange in the bottom of my bowl so I used my bread to soak up the juice. Yum!

The Beaufort Street Merchant also has a little store at the back of the restaurant which sells gourmet delights including cheeses, chocolates, beers and wine. You can even choose your bottle of wine to have with your meal!

It was such a good day spent with an old friend and it was made even better with quality coffee, food and company!

What's Happening Lately?

Sorry I have been so absent lately! I have had a lot going on in my personal life and going away with a quick trip to Kalgoorlie and wedding planning I haven’t had much time to spare! I have so many posts to come including the Beaufort Street Festival from last week, Old Perth Road Markets, Kalgoorlie and lots of yummy meals to blog about!

The Chimney - Northbridge

M and I have dined at The Chimney in Northbridge previously and we were very happy with our meals (try the pomegranate salad!) so when we wanted a quick breakfast recently we headed back there. The Chimney is right next to the Paramount, although please don’t judge me or the restaurant in saying that! I can say there were no drunken 18 year olds in the vicinity on the morning we were there. 

 

After grabbing our seats outside we first of all ordered our coffees and apple juice. We were pleased to see that they serve Lavazza coffee and even more pleased to find that we were served them quickly! 

The prices of the breakfast meals on offer are quite reasonable with the Full English breakfast coming with eggs, bacon, tomato, mushrooms and sausages all piled around two big slices of toast going for a measly $14.50. M liked the look of that but I ended up deciding on something relatively egg free; the Pancakes ($12.50).

The meals came out in about 15/20 minutes and I was surprised with how big my pancakes were! They had berry compote on top and maple syrup in a side dish. They were nice but way too big and filling, I could only finish half of the plate! 

M’s Full English Breakfast looked good with poached eggs done the old fashioned way and big bursty mushrooms on the side. The only thing I can say is that it looked like it needed a bit of greenery on the side. Maybe some wilted spinach or something?

The meals at the Chimney are always very good and this was no exception. There isn’t a huge variety of choice in terms of the breakfast menu but it is refreshing to see such little prices.

We will definitely be going there again! 

Beaufort Street Festival

So this Saturday is the Beaufort Street Festival and I have volunteered to help Miss Top Perth with the Arts Program that will be happening on the day.

There will be so much going on during the day so after helping out in the morning I will be heading to the Barista competition at the Ellington stage. Then I will be nomming some of the tasty treats that will be on offer including the food tasting happening at 5 Bar. 5 Bar is a brand new bar which is opening on the weekend of the festival.  (Just quietly, is anyone else dying for Malt Supper Club to open?!)

Some of the art projects happening on the day include The Locked Cabinet and Tattwash with more details available here.  

If you are going to attend please do NOT drive! There is very limited parking and why not take advantage of the lovely weather we are having by walking or riding there?

I will no doubt go home at some point to have a nanna nap as I have plans to kick on after the festival!

It is going to be a crazy awesome day so I HIGHLY suggest getting down there and getting amongst it!

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!