Tom Yum Soup

I once tried a Tom Yum Soup in a tin from the shops.

BAD IDEA.

This experience put me off the sweet, sour and spicy Thai soup for ages! Serves me right really, because who eats Thai soup from a tin anyway?! I felt so sick afterwards and the memory haunted me for years later.

Over much reluctance, I’ve been slowly adapting my tastebuds to the soupy sensation that is “Tom Yum”. I’ve even reached the point where I would have a few spoonfuls at a restaurant and actually enjoy the taste. When done well, with the right balance of sweet, spicy and sour flavours, this soup can actually be a winner.

Just recently we made Tom Yum soup for dinner for about 12 people. I followed a recipe that included a few types of Asian mushrooms (as a mushroom lover this was like heaven), lemongrass, shallots, chilli and galangal among other Thai herbs, prawns and vegetables.  

The simplicity of boiling the sweet and spicy stock water with the ingredients in which the Thai flavours infuse throughout the broth is brilliant. You chuck some fresh slices of tomato in at the end and sprinkle with coriander and spring onions.  

Here is a photo of the Tom Yum we made a couple of nights later just for dinner for two. Same recipe though.

I would make this more if I only had ingredients like lemongrass and galangal sitting in my fridge.

Worth a try to impress J

The Wealthy Thai

Surprise! Another Thai post!

This little Thai restaurant was certainly a surprise…for good reasons!

After an impromptu dinner date was announced we were forced to find somewhere for dinner in the Vic Park area. Thai was a favourite by most diners, so after Urbanspoon pointed me to the highly rated Thai restaurant in Vic Park called The Wealthy Thai. We were more than willing to give this restaurant a shot!

I hadn’t actually heard of The Wealthy Thai before. Being the Thai lover I am, I thought I had sussed out every Thai restaurant in WA. Apparently not.

The Wealthy Thai is on Berwick Street and is easy to miss. I think the Google address for this restaurant actually takes you to the wrong address, but after a small mishap, we found it. The Wealthy Thai is suited in a random building off from Berwick Street and isn’t well lit. After a close look, I noticed the sign out the front, but you could easily drive by without ever knowing there was a restaurant here at all.

There was quite ample seating in this place, I noticed a few other tables, but after all, it was a Wednesday!

We were served quite promptly, but due to being so busy catching up with each other, we hadn’t had a proper chance to see the menu.

It seemed the poor only waiter was run off his feet as he rushed around and although took our order with care, you could tell he was very stressed. We had to ask them to give us a few mnore minutes to decide.

All very reasonably priced, we ordered the Tom Yum vegetable soup for entrée. This came out after a little wait, but was well balanced in sweet/sour/spiciness and hit the spot. Nothing too amazing, but certainly above average. 

Tom Yum Soup

For mains we had the Panang Curry with Prawns and vegetables (As far as I can remember, prawns and veggies were not on the menu but when I asked if this was an option, they replied yes without hesitation).

We also ordered the chilli/garlic vegetables and tofu stir-fry and stir-fry vegetables in oyster sauce.

The others on the table ordered Vegetable Spring Rolls, Chicken Thai Green Curry, Chicken Pad Thai and Beef Massuman Curry.

As there is no menu online, I cant remember the prices exactly…but the main dishes were all under $20, The Chicken Pad Thai being about $13 and some seafood dishes in the mid $20’s.

The prawn and vegetable Panang Curry was absolutely delightful! Rich, creamy and peanutty in flavour with a subtle spice kick (not very chilli). The prawns were cooked to perfection. Fresh, large and just popped in your mouth with a fresh crunch! There were about eight prawns which were generous considering we had vegetables and rice as well, plus this was relatively cheap.

To be honest I don’t care whether this Panang Curry was not the most authentic curry I’ve ever tasted since Thailand, but oh my god - it was the tastiest! With those perfectly cooked prawns and veggies – I was in heaven…almost licking the bowl clean with every last drop of creamy curry goodness!

 Prawn & Vegetable Panang Curry

The two stir-fry’s we ordered were very similar in flavour. I preferred the simple oyster sauce with the vegies and prawns, however Jack liked the “chilli” stir-fry which wasn’t really spicy in flavour but had a distinct oyster/chilli sauce flavour.

Chilli vege and Tofu Stirfry

Vegetable Stirfry with oyster sauce

The vegies were fresh and tasty and we cleaned up these dishes regardless.

I tasted the Thai Green Curry sauce and although our friend thought this was “the spiciest/hottest sauce he has tasted” I didn’t taste one bit of chilli. So either I am very immune to chilli or he is very sensitive (or both!). The green curry flavour was lovely though. Also very creamy in texture.

The Massuman Curry was nice, it had a strong beef flavour throughout the curry sauce which I could taste quite prominently. The flavour was rich and tasted just like a Massuman should!

I didn’t get a chance to taste the Pad Thai as this disappeared quickly as a favourite. Nor did I taste the spring rolls, so I cant give an indication on how they were either.

Our meals came out quite stagnated. It was awkward to know if we should start eating or whether we should wait for the rest of the meals to come out. After waiting about 5 minutes or more, we decided to start…eventually, all the meals were brought out, but the timing wasn’t great.

We were so full we couldn’t fit in any desserts. But I do like being offered the option of the dessert menu. There’s nothing more annoying to me when desserts/coffee are never offered and you feel they are just trying to get you out so they can refill the table or close.

This was not the case at The Wealthy Thai.  Such a lovely meal all round.

Highs: Panang Curry heaven

Lows: Service was not consistent.

Overall: Wonderful sized meals, fresh food, tasty and affordable!

Will I return? I’d have to go back for the Panang Curry! But also to try some more dishes.

 

Daily Planet Cafe - Mt Lawley

ANZAC day led me to appreaciate having a day off on Wednesdays during the week.

This was an opportunity to catch up with some girlfriends over coffee/brunch, when we would otherwise have to had been at work.

As much as I love the food at The Beaufort Street Merchant, we avoided eating/getting coffee here due to the excessive price increase they slapped on all the meals due to the public holiday.

I appreciate staff need to be paid more, but how much is too much for a coffee in Perth…when do we draw the line and admit that a latte is a latte…and I just felt ripped off paying nearly $5 for a cup of milk that I could just as nice quality with my Nespresso Coffee machine at home… and $6 for a soft drink!? Take away the ice and the size of the glass, this was hardly bearable.

We decided to wander down Beaufort Street and came across Daily Planet café – attached to the Planet bookshop.

This café had a nice rustic feel, with red bricks, tall ceilings and funky wall art to amuse your eyes. Although Planet Café wasn’t entirely full of customers, the first thing I noticed was the staff rushing around hectically as if there was mayhem in the kitchen.

We seated ourselves and brought another chair over from a table and sat here for a good 10 minutes before I managed to catch a waitress running past us, trying ever so hard to avoid any eye contact with us in the small hope we would not want to order anything. I slipped in a “could we please just grab a glass of water” quickly as she looked at me with her hectic eyes, disappointed she had yet another table to attend to…

After another 5-10 minutes we hadn’t received our water and I asked her again before she apologised for forgetting and plonked down some glasses and ran away before we could order any proper drinks or food. The rest of the staff were the same, walking past in a rushed manner never making the mistake of making eye contact with us.

Again I nearly startled a waitress when I interrupted her galloping path to the kitchen to ask if we could order some food. She hesitated before asking us what we would like.

I ordered the mushrooms, ricotta, roasted tomatoes with rocket and pesto on toasted sourdough. $15.50.

After a fair wait, My meal came out. Being the rocket lover that I am, I initially noticed my meal had spinach leaves and not rocket and goats cheese, not ricotta. This didn’t faze me, as the dish still looked nice. I cut off a slice of the toast, realising it was hardly toasted at all…expecting a crunch of toast, I just cut through bread… I then noticed how dry the meal was, the mushrooms, although oily were just sitting on the bread with two slices of tomato. There was no real flavour or dressing to bring the whole meal together. I remembered seeing “pesto” on the menu and asked the waitress if this was supposed to have pesto on it, she admitted this was correct and instead of bringing me out some pesto to drizzle/spread on my dish, she took my whole meal away….but ….but … I was so hungryyyy!!

She brought another dish out not too long after and I noticed this has the correct rocket not spinach leaves and pesto drizzled over the dish. This actually made a huge difference and although the dish was a lot smaller than I hoped, it actually tasted pretty nice.

The goats cheese on the side was enough to feed 8 goat babies and I hardly put a dent in the bowl of goats cheese on my plate.

This was the only remaining ingredient from my meal.

With two small field mushrooms, two slices of roasted tomato, some rocket, goats cheese and a tiny slice of bread…It was a small but satisfactory meal.

I could have done with more, but that's just classic Lisa.

Overall, it’s hard to give an accurate review of Planet café due to the fact it was a public holiday. I don’t know if the staff are as unhelpful during normal days, but I just felt like I was being a nuisance ordering food.

The setting was lovely, the café itself was a cute little haven with the quirky brick walls and cute tables and the menu had a lot of vegetarian/vegan options which I really liked.

Overall, the service was terrible, but I’d be willing to come back and try this café on a non-public holiday to see if there is any difference.

Highs: The vegetarian options

Lows: The terrible service

Overall: 6/10

Would I return? Possibly, it wouldn’t be my first choice.

 

Crust Pizza – Mt Lawley

Crust Pizza has been on my mind a bit lately.

I drove past the one in Mt Lawley after being in the area and I was reminded of my curiosity with the Gourmet Pizza place whose launch party I stumbled upon one evening when Crust recently opened in Vic Park.

I noticed then that Crust offered some delicious sounding vegetarian pizza options and since analysing the menu, this has been on my list of places to try.

I know the Food Pornographer has experienced the Crust goodness at a launch party and managed to taste a fair few varieties of gourmet pizzas on offer. So check this blog out if you’re interested in what the other (meatier) options look like.

The pizza we tried was the Chilli Prawn Pizza. ($18 for a medium).

Now if you know me, you’ll know I take pizzas very seriously. I love a good gourmet pizza but can never seem to try anything that isn’t made at home by myself with love. To say it frankly…I’m a pizza snob.

So to try a BOUGHT pizza, this was a risk!!

The pizza was actually really nice! The crust was thin and crunchy, but thick enough to still taste that bready goodness. The prawns were cooked beautifully, still crunchy and fresh. I specifically noted there was a big prawn on each of the six slices. Great value when you think about some of the pizzas joints which seems to skimp on quality ingredients. I love a west aussie brewery and the beer at Little Creatures brewery, but specifically remember the time when I ordered a prawn pizza which had one and a half prawns total. Half the size of the crust pizza and nearly twice the price!

This Chilli Pizza from Crust had big flakes of basil scattered across the slices, chunks of white fetta sprinkled and gooey cheddar cheese. The tomato sauce on the base wasn’t particularly chilli in spiciness but the pizza itself had a lovely flavour throughout.

Munch munch munch…what pizza?

Massuman

If you know me, you'll know I love Thai food. 

My favourite curry is by far Panang Curry.

However, despite my love for a good Panang, this post is about a Massuman Curry we made at home one night.

Massuman is typically made with red meats such as beef and teamed with potato and onion. 

It has a similar flavour to a red curry, but with peanuts and with more of a 'meaty' flavour. 

Hence, this is a dish I rarely order at Thai restaurants.

None-the-less, we managed to turn this Massuman Curry into a chicken based curry with vegetables.

The chicken and potatoes heating in the Massuman curry base.

Vege's in the Massuman curry paste.

Adding the coconut milk.

with rice - yum!

This curry turned out to be one of the tastiest curries we've ever made at home!

So homely and bursting with flavour, it's the perfect curry to have on a cold night!

Who would have thought a Thai dish which is typically cooked with red meat can be turned into a delicious meal that my vegetarian self can also enjoy!

YUM!

Spicy Seafood Bisque

If I told you I have the most perfect boyfriend you will either do one of two things:

1) Roll your eyes - Displaying your relationship-hater stage as you ever so desperately try to find the man of your dreams through endless dating. or

2) Go "aww, that's sweet" as you acknowledge it's OK for someone else to be happy.

(choose this one!)

I came home after one heck of a day at work to find my man cooking up a storm.

Now, if you know me...

I love seafood.

I love chilli.

I love food.

and I love it even more when I've been working all day, I'm tired and ever-so-hungry!

Jack cooked me a Spicy Seafood Bisque for dinner.

Now this meal deserves to be celebrated as he literally just whipped it up one afternoon.

Using his amazing cooking abilities, he managed to cook each piece of seafood in this bisque perfectly. The fish just fell apart in my mouth, the prawns crunchy and light and the squid fresh and not the slightest bit rubbery as most restaurants will serve it to you like.

The rich tomato broth had a kick of chilli and spices to just send your tastebuds wild!

He toasted some herbed turkish bread and I was treated to the warm spicy seafood bisque that  

made. my. day.

If you're after a dinner-winner. Give this a go. It absolutely hit the spot!

High Tea at The George

It’s a cloudy Sunday afternoon and Perth cannot find it’s female population…

I visited The George on St Georges Terrace in Perth one afternoon with my lady friends for a goodbye high tea.

Here… I found 90% of Perth’s ladies.

The George is a classy venue, filled with ladies from all over the City enjoying tea beneath their towering stands of afternoon delights presently neatly on a three-tiered stand.

As I curiously sneak peaks at everyone’s table to see what they have ordered, I soon realise that everyone has identical tables, as the high tea menu is the same for all.

The sweet aroma of tea leafs waft through the dimly lit room, draped with curtains, comfy couches and neatly set tables with the wafting smell of cooked delicacies.

Now came the most important part - tea ordering time!

We were told the selection of teas were from T2 and I chose the Choc Chip Chai tea.

I love a nice authentic chai tea, so I thought a spin off the original could be very interesting...

The Choc Chip Chai had a beautiful aroma, smelling sweetly of that cinnamon, star anise and spices that I know and love. The choc chip flavour wasn't hugely there, I smelt a hint of cocoa but that was mainly it. 

The tea itself wasn't very strong. It was like they were running out of tea leaves and only half filled it, as the tea leaf flavour itself was missing.

I added sugar and milk to mine as Chai's are meant to be sweet and milky. I thought considering this was a choc chip chai, it was a cause for even more sweetness!

The overall, tea itself was enjoyable and many others on the table seemed quite satisfied with their tea too. I did get a few more comments on the strength of tea leaves in each of our pots however...so maybe this was a common issue at The George?

Out came our three-tiered stand of gourmet treats! 

I was given a "vegetarian version" of what was on the High Tea menu.

I had a quince scroll, a spinach and fetta quiche, a bagel with a sweet beetroot chutney and another with olives, goats cheese and mustard. The sweet selection was a lemon lime tart and a rich chocolate mousse tart.  

The rest of the table had the same pastries as me, but on their bagels were beef, and another with smoked salmon and capers with cream cheese. I absolutely love smoked salmon, so I found declaring myself a vegetarian and opting out of the salmon bagels was a rookie mistake.

Luckily I was able to sneak a salmon bagel from the communal stand and swapped one of my olive bagels as I'm not a huge fan of olives.

The three-tiered stand below with sweets and pastries on top, scones in the middle and gourmet bagels on the bottom. 

The scones were delicious!

Although I've been spoilt for years with pumpkin and date scones and all varieties, I normally shy away from the plain scone as they seem rather boring to me. These however, were a nice surprise. Light and fluffy, and despite being plain in flavour, this was made up by the fact I could team it with the Vanilla Bean Cream and Chilli-Raspberry jam.

The vanilla bean cream was ever so light and fluffy and balanced out that rich, sweet raspberry jam in which had no hint of "chilli" that I noticed. So in actual fact, the raspberry and vanilla with the plain scone was a lovely touch.

Overall, the service was fantastic; the tea tasty but but not strong; and the food sweet, small and rich.

Highs: An enjoyable sunday afternoon occasion to spend with the girls.

Lows: Paying $40 for a meal which left you a little underwhelmed. However I'm more one for getting a nice filling nutritious meal when I pay $40. 

Will I return? Probably not. Nothing against The George, but High Tea really isn't my thing. 

Overall: 4/10

Macaron Magic

The Hawkers Markets in Perth City among other things, allowed me to spend $12 trying these little delicacies! 

Out of all the Asian, Moroccan, Turkish and Indian delights - I chose the sweetness that france offered.

Below are the six macarons I bought, sitting neatly on a plate, unaware yet of my pending judgement...

The first I tried was Blueberry.

This bright deep blue macaron was my favourite. Although the flavour of blueberry was not as authentic as I had hoped, it still had a sweet blueberry flavoured creme in the middle and a crunchy outside.

 Blueberry

The next macaroon was pistacio flavoured and was green in colour. I normally really like pistacio flavoured macaroons as they are often not as sweet as others and have that sweet nutty flavour that pistacios are known for. This was less pistachio-flavoured and more general-sweet flavoured. Gobbled up nonetheless. 

 Pistachio

This almond praline macaron was even less flavoursome than the pistachio macaroon. I expected to taste the almond, but again, just another sweet biscuit flavour with subtle almond flavours.

 Almond Praline 

Lemon macarons are my favourite because you get that sweetness from the sugar and that sour zing from the lemon flavour. This macaroon did not dissappoint. It was the sweet lemony goodness of a lemon biscuit and the even sweeter lemon-curd-flavoured creme filling.

 Lemon

The salted caramel was another hit, with that sweet caramel richness you expect from caramel flavouring to that ever-so-slightly salty tinge. A caramel-lovers best friend.

 Salted Caramel

The coconut macaron was not as strongly flavoured with coconut as I had hoped. The flavour was more of a coconut essence rather than that real coconut hit I was hoping for.
I think this was the pattern with these macaroons, not as authentic flavoured as I had hoped.

Coconut

All in all, a macaron is never a terrible experience really. I enjoyed treating myself to this well-deserved sugar high.



Beaufort Street Merchant Cafe

Beaufort Street Merchant.

As I entered this cafe/restaurant, the first thing I noticed was how dimly lit the place was. The walls were filled with bookshelves and cupboards were full of jars, chocolates and a selection of gourmet goodies. 

I don’t know whether this was because it was the month of easter or if The Beaufort Street Merchant is like this normally, but there was so much chocolate in this place, I didn’t know where to start looking. It was a Saturday night and this place was pretty much full.

We were seated at a table with floating candles and a vase of flowers. A very romantic settling if that was the idea...but this was a double date, so not really the atmosphere we were going with.. haha.

I had to move the flowers after several attempts to strategically place my head so that I could see the others at the table. The menu looked quite simple and select, to what reminded me of a fusion of Italian and modern Australian. There were hearty dishes such as The Merchant burger, chicken pie, fish, pork and fillet, plus sides such as chips and greens and lighter meals such as gourmet salads and plates to share. 


There were two pasta dishes which sounded equally delicious and the special of the night was also pasta.

The gourmet salads especially interested me; beetroot and choritzo; avocado and cherry tomatoes; and spiced chickpea and artichokes with a lemon yogurt dressing…..hummm winner!!

We ordered the entrée of pearl barley mushrooms which were mushrooms stuffed with delicacies such as goats curd and herbs served with a salad.

Our waitress took our order and offered for us to chose our drinks from the drinks fridges in the restaurant. I glanced over to the section of the restaurant dedicated to storing beers, ciders and wines from all over the world. 


As I browsed the selection, I noticed beers with unusual flavours such as banana bread beer and raspberry beer. If only I was a true beer fan! …

After waiting a good 15-20 minutes for entrée, our mains were brought to the table. We asked the waitress where our mushrooms for entrée were and at that point we realised she had some how missed that request from us, and these were never actually ordered.

After she offered to reorder some, we decided we would just eat the mains in front of us and not worry about entrée…after all the mains looked incredible!

I ordered the chickpea salad $18 (with extra prawns $12)

These Moroccan spiced chickpeas were the star of the dish, complimented by small pieces of aubergine, artichokes, and sweet potato tossed through baby spinach. This was drizzled with a tart lemon and mint yogurt dressing which complimented the chickpeas, which were in a curry-like consistency sauce.

The tang of the yogurt went beautifully with the rich spiced chickpeas. I couldn’t get enough!!
If anything, the dish was predominately dominated by chickpeas and there was very little of anything else – like the other veges.

I gobbled this up scraping the plate clean without once reaching for the pepper and salt. (Which goes to show – the flavour was amazing!).

The large king prawns fried and placed on top of my salad added that protein element that I really need in a salad! Although there was plenty of chickpeas to fill me up, the prawns complimented the dish wonderfully too.

We also ordered the Rotolo Pasta $25 (with extra prawns $12)

This homemade egg pasta with roast pumpkin, ricotta, pinenuts, sage and burnt butter was UNBELIEVEABLE!

We ordered extra prawns to go with this dish and four large succulent king prawns were placed on top of the delicately curled pasta rolls, oozing burnt butter and sprinkled with fried sage.

The smell of the burnt butter aroma was beautiful.

We could smell this from the kitchen before our meals even arrived at our table.

As I cut into the pasta rolls, burnt butter and ricotta oozed out and the pine nuts added a tiny crunch to this velvety smooth pasta dish. That sweet pumpkin with the sage leaf complimented the entire dish, giving each ingredient an element which unified the dish wonderfully.

With only four rolls of pasta, this dish could be considered less than an average size, however the flavour combinations and texture impressed me so much that I got over the smaller-sized serving.

There was not a scrap left on either of our plates and with a sigh of satisfaction we leaned back into our chairs to appreciate the wonderful meal we just devoured in 10 minutes.

As we were leaving the Beaufort Street merchant, I passed a table with a large array of dedicant desserts. Doing a complete 360, I turned around to analyse what was on offer.

Rainbow coloured macarons, overfilled muffins bursting with fruit and chocolate, rich cakes and much more!

If we weren’t heading elsewhere for coffee and cake, I would have happily tried any of these desserts.

Highs: Best salad I’ve ordered at a restaurant in a long time!

Lows: Size of the Rotolo Pasta

Will I return? Definitely, I’d love to see what the other dishes look like.

Overall: 9/10

Vanilla French Toast with spiced ricotta, grated apple and honey

Brunch on a Sunday would have to be an occasion I look forward to every week.

I guess it’s because I can sleep in, and wake up with lots of time to get creative with my cooking and make something special for brunch!

This morning I decided to try a breakfast dish I first tasted at Toast café in east Perth (see my blog post about Toast here).

Toast had a fig and walnut fruit toast with spiced ricotta, grated apple and honey.

My rendition of this was a sweet vanilla French toast with spiced ricotta, grated apple and honey.

I couldn’t get over the flavour combination of the sweet honey and lightly spiced, smooth ricotta with that sweet apple crunch. The French Toast aided as a soft doughy toast that complimented the stack of goodness!

Ultimately I think I could come up with 1000 different topping combinations to go with French toast.

Toast in East Perth features a French Toast menu item with ricotta, blueberries and maple syrup.

So in a way, this was also similar to my breakfast.

I thought I should share this brekky delight…after all – it looks pretty impressive if I do say so myself!