Perth’s Penang Restaurant

As you may all know, we (the eating gluts) frequent restaurants around Perth and have had our fair share of good and bad restaurants. One of the worst ones that we went to the other day was Penang Food Restaurant down at William Street. We went there around lunch time on Sunday. When the waiter was distributing the menus, he told us that there would be a 20 – 30 minute wait for the food. We quickly decided what to order (being the kia sus that we are) and tried to place our order. Here’s where the first drama started… no one wanted to take our order! Every waiter or waitress we got said to us the they dont take orders and had to wait for the person taking orders to come around. In the end I had to walk up to the counter to ask if anyone was going to take the order. The girl at the counter pointed me to the order taker and I told her that she has to make sure that the order take comes over to our table. Meanwhile, counter girl came to take our order for drinks. By the time order girl came to take our order, it was like 15 minutes later. Our order was really simple, fried kway teow, Penang Laksa, Nasi Lemak…. Our drinks came really quick….

After 20 minutes, the Penang Laksa arrived at the table and we waited for the rest of the food to come before starting. However, the Penang Laksa was getting cold so we ate first. And by the time the Penang Laksa was fully consumed, the others still had not had their food yet! By this time it was well and truly over the 20-30 minute wait that they told us we had to wait… so I asked the waitress where the food is and said we would walk out if the food wasnt going to arrive and they came back to tell us that they had just started cooking the food!!! That was already 1.30pm. We got in at 12.30pm and ordered around 12.45pm…. U can imagine how frustrated and irritated the hungry ones were!!

So we told them that we were going to cancel the order and didnt want to pay for the meal and drinks that was consumed as they stuffed up our orders. That didnt go down well with the waitress. We asked to see the manager who turned out to be the counter girl and she kept insisting that our order was taken at 1pm. Anyway, we stood up and started walking out, and when my bro walked out of the door, the kitchen reinforcement came out quicker then the drinks as they thought that we were going to walk out and not pay. Well and truly we didnt want to pay as we felt that they didnt deserve our money. In the end we had to part with $30 for food consumed and drinks. What a waste of money. To make matters worse, we overheard the owner telling the so called manager and I quote “TELL THEM FIRST COME FIRST SERVE, NOT HAPPY DONT COME”. If it was first come first serve, their order taker should have taken our order first instead of going to the other people who came later than us!! I can guarantee we wont be going back in there and I dont think we’ll be welcomed back either.

Perth Entertainment Book

So the gluts managed to buy a Perth Entertainment Book and in the book there’s heaps and heaps of vouchers and coupons for us to use on various restaurants in Perth. So we’ll keep you posted as and when we try any of these restaurants, cafes, and bistros

Korean Seafood Hot Pot

This was a dish that my friends and I tried at a Korean restaurant one time and kept raving on about it and we decided to give it a try on the weekend.

The recipe calls for:

Anchovy stock

Chilli Pepper powder

All the seafood you want – mussles, crabs, scallops, prawns, etc etc

Choice of noodles – glass noodles, rice noodles, udon

The anchovy stock and chilli pepper powder were purchased at the korean grocery shop. They come in a loose powder form in a packet. But on closer inspection, the anchovy stock is probably similar to the ‘Knorr Ikan Bilis’ cube stock readily available in most Asian grocery shops.

I’ve tried the recipe twice and once with crabs and once without and I strongly recommend with crabs.  Makes the soup sweeter.

…  Jade Forest ….

Dinner @ Hyatt

I got invited courtesy of TC to accompany her to the launch of the Hyatt Hotel new menu in Perth. When we arrived, we were offered champagne, wine and heaps of various canapes. It was an interesting array of canapes I have to admit. However, the highlight of the evening was what was served for dinner. The entrees were served in small portions on the lazy susan and we could pick and choose which entrees we wanted to try, the mains were randomly placed in front of us and for dessert, all the samples were put on an individual sample plate in front of me. Here's what we had

Entree:

Layered Mediterranean vegetables with fetta cheese, balsamic glaze and basil pesto

Pear and so mainated beef brisket with roast capiscum and garlic aioli

Roulade of chicken breast with mushroom cream cheese and sundred tomato tapenade

Blue Manna crab and prawn timbale, capiscum coulis and citrus olive oil

Lightly Smoked ocean trout avocado salad with citrus and chive salsa

Main Course

Honey mustard glazed chicken roulade, parsnip potato mash, carmelised aubergines and morel truffle jus

Roast salmon steak gremolata with quick fried green beans and asparagus on mushroom risotto

Aged beef tenderloin with skewered scallop, oyster and prawn wrapped in pancetta and sauce cheron

Oven baked Red Empereor in puff pastry cheese with yabbies, artichoke and asparagus ragout

Dessert

Warm pear and almond tartin with lime mascarpone cream

Mango sour cream cheesecake, pink grapefruit sorbet and sweet mango chutney

Sour cherry and Amaretto roulade with Brazilian cream and chocolate nut sticks

Three fruit and vanilla bean yoghurt with mint crumble

Baked kabocha pumpkin custard with sweet potato ginger ice cream

So for appetiser, I zeroed in on the crab and prawn timbale which I thoroughly enjoyed. For the main course, I was given the tenderloin which I was very happy with. The meat was cooked exactly to medium rare perfection. As for the desserts, I have to say that my top 3 favourites were the pumpkin custard, sour cherry & Amaretto roulade and the mango sour cream cheesecake. To top of a very gluttony evening, we were each given a little chocolate cupcake which to every chocoholic dream was an absolute bliss

So I'll highly recommend the Hyatt for any functions budget permitting of course

…Jade Forest

Steamboat Night

A couple of weeks ago, we had steamboat at home. Another name for this is the hot pot. For those who are not familiar with this, simply put, it is the asian version of the fondue. Instead of the cheese sauce, we have stock inside the pot; instead of the little food pieces that gets dipped into the cheese sauce, we have uncooked meats, seafood, vegetables and they all go into the pot and we scoop it out from there. This meal is great for a winter night, where the soup would warm you up and a great meal with friends where you just sit, talk and cook and taking it easy. A new addition I tried to this steamboat night was that I made my own chilli sauce – in an attempt to have my sauce taste like the famous Coca Steambot Chilli Sauce. I think it almost tastes like the chilli sauce so here's the recipe:

Fresh Red Chillies (grind finely in food processor)

Sambal Chilli or Chilli Sauce

Coriander

Honey

Finely Chopped Garlic (optional)

Easy method – just mix the above ingredients to suit your chilli level.

… Jade Forest

A little slice of heaven aka Ode to durian cake

Sublime. There i've said it. The durian cake that was ordered from Chrys Lim and so readily enjoyed by us was beyond description. I will try to do it justice.

Believe me when I say that I enjoy all things durian-flavoured, be it durian puffs from Joo Chiat to the durian paste that merchant court has for it's buffets, but you haven't had the ultimate expierence till you've eaten the durian cake done by Chrys Lim. The cake has layers of durian paste sandwiched between sponge cake layers and topped by a thick layer of, well you guessed it, DURIAN. What makes it so special, you ask?

Mmmmm, how do i begin? Let's see. Is it the smell that rises to your nostrils or is it the sight of the multi-layered cake. Hard to say, well suffice to say…..I am always transported to another place whenever i eat the durian cake specially done by Chrys Lim. Foodies, you haven't lived till you had a slice of the cake.

—- Herman

Asia Pacific Best Restaurants List

I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about Restaurant magazine's survey of the world's fifty best restaurants and how few restaurants from Asia, Australia and the Pacific islands were represented in it. So, in a bold (and perhaps hubristic) move, I've decided to try and build a comprehensive listing of Asia-Pacific's best restaurants.

This list, however, depends entirely on you, fellow bloggers, readers and friends. And in such, anyone and everyone is welcome to take part in this. I'll make this caveat right away: any survey is only as good as the people who take part in it. And it's only really credible if a lot of people take part.

—— ChubbyHubby, Tomorrow

The call has been made, lets all go out and eat around the world…

Pies & Afternoon Tea

All in a weeks work, SJ decided to have a pie for lunch this week and offered to buy me one. A pie? That's so out of my diet, but I decided to give it a try as SJ insisted that the pie he was going to buy was one of the best pies….. and… he was absolutely right!!! SJ bought the pies from Chez Jean Claude Patisserie from Subiaco. We had a steak and mushroom pie and we went halves on the vegetable pasties and stragonoff pie. The fillings in the pie were plenty and you could taste proper meat. One of the reasons I'm hesitant to have pies is knowing what could be in the pies … however, after tasting these pies and being able to see what I'm eating, I started to enjoy the pies. The pastry was buttery and soft, so it melts in your mouth when you eat it. And here's a tip… no tomato sauce needed

Yesterday, whilst running around doing errands, SJ suggested getting afternoon tea of Baklavas from Boucla also in Subiaco and just a couple of shops down from Jean Claude. I got their Baklavas and a custard puff pastry. The Baklava was one of the better ones I've had as it was totally filled with nuts and not just boring puff pastry. Also, the pastry was not drowned in honey to make the Baklava overly sweet and sick. The custard puff pastry was absolutely delicious!! The custard was mixed in together with the pastry, and it was not too sweet with the pastry melting in your mouth. It was abit of a mess eating it though as the pastry was flaking off as you try and put it into your mouth. All in all, a great combination for an afternoon tea!!

…. Jade Forest

Waffles Night

Tuesdays Waffles Night for most of us at Gelare…. you can get waffles for half price but it's only for the waffles. Any extra ice cream or topping (for example a banana) is at the normal price. Funny thing is that most people who are at Gelare on these nights are mostly Asians. Depending on which outlet you go to, you might get real cutlery (as opposed to plastic cutlery) and at some you even get free H2O!!

We're off to Waffles Night later, so will try and post some pics if they look good

…. the Jade Forest

Update: 12 May 2006

The waffles were good except Whitebear's waffles was a little hollow underneath. Sorry no pics, we kind of ate everything and then remembered!