Hello Perth!

So nice to finally meet you, having first wanted to see you in all your glory many many years ago after your most amazing restaurant featured on Masterchef – Greenhouse.

I had only known a week earlier that I’d get the opportunity to say hi, and had scrambled to shortlist a cafe and restaurant selection for only two days. The internet recommended Standing Room Only, plus some others, but I knew the key to the crawl lay in the charming baristas.

 So there I was, after landing at about 9AM on a Friday. After a quick check in, I started my quest. The key is being super polite and inquisitve, but the biggest winner? “Hi, I’m new here. Oh, and I’m on a timed quest to find all the coffees of Perth.” I ordered a filter – Kenya Thunguri pourover. I love super juicy coffees, however I went with a friend who is super normal and pointed out that she was ordering  a NORMAL latte with two sugars. I personally like Patricia Coffee Brewers better – being located in an arcade doesn’t do them justice! That being said, it’s super cool to step through the non-existent glass wall to pick up your coffee. It also wasn’t long before they gave ne a hanwritten list of cafes to go to! Wow! It definitely helped with my CBD crawl – so much so that by the end of it all, well… I’ll mention it then!

Anyway, in my classically random way of getting around in an unfamiliar city, I walked around in circles until I found my next stop – Ristretto Coffee Roasters. Another little takeaway hole in the wall, I decided to try and order their namesake, but lucky for me they recommended espresso! I was very pleased. For those playing at home, that was coffee number two.

My friend and I needed breakfast, so we decided to visit Small Print next – a place I had either not found or dismissed, but one which they had claimed was very good. They weren’t wrong! It felt like a canteen but I eyed the bakery equipment and some guy sitting in a glass room, working away at his laptop, surrounded by coffee equipment and possibly a large piece of baking machinery.

AND THERE WERE COWS JUST CHILLING THERE. By cows I mean toy cows on top of the display cabinet. They had a nice selection of coffees – I was impressed by their range, and it turns out Perth has a decent offering for filter coffees. A Columbian geisha later, I was in warm peach iced tea heaven. They seem to really like using the Bodum french press beakers in Perth. I wanted to sample an espresso fron here too, but I had so much more to try. So off we went to Lowdown, a little coffee place in another arcade type place. This one wasn’t so great, a little too dark for my liking.

Next stop, Chik & Kent. Another espresso here, but this one for me wasn’t as tasty as the baristas said it would be – out of all their recommendations, Small Print is the one I’d recommend to others. Somehow during this exploration process, we managed to find a cafe that I’d dismissed – Tiger Tiger. According to online reviews, it isn’t as great as it used to be. It is however, located in a cute little alleyway and had tiger orange espresso cups, and also tiger toys on the windows.  My eyeballs were starting to fuzz at this point, and my friend had experienced the “too much latte” effect of milky coffees.

We were now approaching lunchtime, and I was eagerly anticipating the awesomeness that is Greenhouse, which, for the sake of keeping this post relatively short short, as well as ensuring I have an opportunity to shine that fantastic restaurant in all its glory,  I will place it in its own post.

There’s a lot of nice artwork everywhere nowadays, but the first to really catch my eye here was the sea dragon with human hands:

After Greenhouse I had time to circle back to SRO to thank them… and have another coffee. Apparently, wondering if I’ve had enough coffee and continuing to comtemplate another coffee means I haven’t had enough coffee! So espresso it was, and I got to hear some conversation with other people about coffee in London. It was then that I realised they serve double espressos where every other place had served singles. I counted that as two, for the purpose of sounding insane. I was then also lucky enough to sample another filter they have!

So by the end of this, I had a total of just over 8 coffees between the hours of 9AM – 2:30PM So good, and a new record! I was all caffeined out and seriously felt like I needed a lie down. That’s what too much coffee does to me past the eyeball fuzzing phase.

The night was spent at a work party, so I didn’t get a chance to go to anything fancy. However, I was up and ready to complete my adventure the next morning! I was awake way too early, so had to kill time out and about. I attempted to go to Greenhouse for breakfast, and along the way, the weirdest thing happened. As Iwas GPSing along, this guy walking next to me came up and said, “if you follow the guy ahead, you’ll get to the right place.” This confused me to no end! How does a stranger approach someone and say follow the person in front????? So I then said that I was actually looking for breakfast and wanted to go to Greenhouse. His then again puzzling reply was, “oh, you’re here for the convention?” Woooah life is definitely stranger than fiction!  There was some “Imagination” breakfast function going on at Greenhouse that morning, and I had to explain that I was a tourist who had heard about the restaurant’s reputation and wanted to visit – and that it’s impossible to miss the building. Then lo and behold, we were magically there, at which point I took the liberty to say that I, as a stranger to the city, had lead someone to a landmark! Or something like that.

So now that I knew there was a function, I had to somehow kill more time before officially starting my morning-after crawl. I did manage to walk all the way to Ristretto Wall Coffee, but they hadn’t opened yet, plus I wasn’t particularly in the mood for coffee, so I took a look and must have looked so suspicious, before finally making it to Greenhouse for breakfast. On the way though, I concluded that Perth was a thoroughly weird place as it had cats on giant TVs.

They also do have some adorable giant dinosaurs and whimsical paintings.

It was then time – to head to the Crown in preparation for Rockpool Bar & Grill Perth. Having been to Sydney and Melbourne to compare the two, it was finally time to complete the trio. The Crown is located on the other side of the river in Perth, and I didn’t get to catch the ferry. Instead we caught the train, and it reminded that train lines in Sydney are so complex. I love this side, the expensive, picturesque side of the city. Very nice statues and scenery. Some parts of the edge of the river looked like beach, so I got some very nice skylines of the Perth cityscape (does that sentence even make sense???).

It turns out Perth is also home to killer ducks. I was randomly taking pictures of ducks when one of them started swimming towards me! I thought that was a little odd… maybe it was protecting its territory, but I wasn’t sure. It then got out of the water and continued to walk towards me at a very slow pace!! This was too much, so I turned and ran for my life.

In all this rush, panic and confusion, I managed to eat at Bistro Guillaume. I’ve always wanted to go but never wanted it enough that I actually went, till now. I knew that there’d be a selection of nice restaurants at the Crown, and was hoping to eat at Nobu, but Guillaume captures my heart more – the beef tartare always wins out. I wanted a light lunch, so we only ordered a few dishes – a chacuterie plate, beef tartare, chips, and I couldn’t resist sampling half a dozen oysters.

I didn’t expect the tartare to be pre-mixed; and while it was tasty, I couldn’t help but think that the entire thing was mixed in with some sort of tomato chutney. I personally prefer Felix’s tartare – that was absolutely gorgeously delicious. So much so that I think I need to write down what serves the best things.

The terrine on the chacuterie plate was WOW. WOWOWOWOW. So good! The cornichons on the other hand, were a little too vinegary, so that I couldn’t breathe while eating them cause I started coughing when I accidentally did so. Sadly, not my favourite french eatery. Felix wins, and Vue de Monde still wins for best souffle- the disappearing raspberry ice cream act in this one was still no match!

I have posted some of this out of order, as I did most of the exploring around Crown after lunch, however I’m allowed to have a messed up sense of time, so it’s straight to Rockpool Bar & Grill Perth! It has the most grand entrance of the three, with a candled hallway before you get to the reception. Both Melbourne and Perth seem to be more casual and don’t have the bar sectioned off from the restaurant. In addition, they both offered full menus whereas Sydney keeps them exclusive. So, I did have access to the caviar and steak, but I had only one goal here: to compare the David Blackmore Full Blood Wagyu burger with my other experiences. I had a great Victorian pinot noir while I was at it. Oh Rockpool, you certainly have the best wines. I now fully understand and appreciate that each Rockpool Bar & Grill is its own identity. It means that they remain unique!

My verdict? Sydney has the best burger. So tasty and just right. For some reason the other sites just don’t have that magically perfect combination of flavours. That being said, Perth is notably different as they use a spicier sauce – that I had to eat it slowly. And I think the older I get, the less food gorging I can handle. That being said, while the burger didn’t top Sydney’s, the dessert was OMG THE BEST ROCKPOOL BAR AND GRILL DESSERT I’VE EVER HAD. Almond milk ice cream, strawberries, rose jelly, almond praline. Oooooh you beautiful, gentle dessert. The ice cream was soooo good and there was this amazing sprinkle of praline crunch on some super sweet strawberries that made them mindblowingly sweet, and the rose jelly was so subtle and not at all overpowering that added that extra bit of texture to the dish. So. Amazing. Gorgeous. Wonderful. Why can’t all Rockpool Bar and Grills have this.

There is only one thing I wish I’d managed to do, and that’s go to Helvetica, which is a whisky den. I’d missed out on Whisky and Alement in Melbourne, so I had to go to Helvetica. But it was in a dark alleyway (which didn’t really bother me), but it was still crowded and busy at 11:30PM so I didn’t end up going. Turns out, it’s not such a big deal because I can turn it into a thing – never managing to visit a whisky bar in my travels.

All in all, the western hub of Australia was worth a visit. A very different city from Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide. Friendlier and more built up than Adelaide. Not as Melbourne as Adelaide is, and has to define dress code in a lot of city restaurants where Melbourne and Sydney tend to have unspoken rules – either that or I’ve never actually paid attention. And not like Sydney at all. I miss Sydney. I can’t wait to go back.

Rockpool, here I come!!!