Garden of Thai Cuisine - East Victoria Park

After last week's flirtation with Cambodian food, we were still craving for some good Pad Thai. Well, we recently found out that Red Basil in Victoria Park has opened a sister restaurant, Garden Thai Cuisine, also in Victoria Park. Red Basil is well known for their delicious food and good prices, so we just had to try Garden Thai Cuisine!

Seafood Pad Thai ($17)

No surprises here, the first dish we ordered was their pad Thai. When the dish came out, we were shocked by the size of the fish fillets on top of the noodles. We all loved the pad Thai, it was full of flavour, sweet, hint of sourness and nutty. I did wish the dish was a bit more saucy, but the flavour was great.

Green Mango Salad With Soft Shell Crab ($18)

The green mango salad is one of Garden Thai Cuisine's special dish of the month. It seemed like most of the tables at the restaurant ordered this dish. The green mango salad was great, it was very light and refreshing, although it was a bit too spicy for me. The soft shell crab was also great, but I felt it didn't go very well with the salad, so we just ate it separately from the salad.

Beef Green Curry ($16)

Tamarind and Chilli Fish ($15)

To complete our dinner, we also ordered the Thai green curry and the tamarind and chilli fish. The green curry sauce was thick, creamy and tasty. Some of the beef was a little bit tough, but the flavour was great and made up for it. The tamarind and chilli fish was another great dish. The fish was cooked well, very soft and flaky, but the batter was crisp to perfection. The sauce was a mixture of sweet, sour and spicy and everyone loved it.

Overall, we all enjoyed our dinner at Garden Thai Cuisine. The food was great and well priced, and the service was attentive and friendly. It was no wonder this restaurant was packed on a weeknight!

Ratings: /10
Food: 8.5
Price: 9
Atmosphere: 7
Service: 8
Overall: 8.1/10

Restaurant information:

Garden Thai Cuisine

975 Albany Highway

East Victoria Park

Ph: 9355 1273

Website: gardenthaicuisine.com.au

Taste of Cambodia at Samari's - Mount Hawthorn

What do you have when you want Thai food, but you don't want to seem like you have Thai food every weekend? You have Cambodian food. My family and I love the food at Royal Cambodian, East Perth. We've dined there often, so we thought we should give another Cambodian restaurant a go. So we found Samari's restaurant. 

Seafood Phai Thai ($14.95)

As always, we opened the meal with a serve of Pad Thai (or Phai Thai as written on their menu?). We liked this dish, but didn't love it. The portion was generous and so was the seafood filling, but the flavour didn't wow us. There wasn't enough sweetness, sourness and spiciness coming through.

Khmer Sizzling Plate - Chef's Special Sauce ($21.95)

Then we tried the Khmer sizzling plate with the Chef's special sauce. It certainly smelled amazing when it was delivered to our table and it tasted good too. The lamb was tender and was marinated well, so it was very tasty. I thought the sauce was similar to a Mongolian lamb sauce.

Fish With Ginger & Salted Soy Bean ($21.95)

This fish with ginger and salted soy bean dish was actually my choice, but unfortunately it became my least favourite dish. The fish was cooked well, however the salted soy bean was just that, salty. The flavour of the soy bean overpowered everything else, so we scraped it all of the fish, which left it pretty bland. 

Khmer Traditional Green Curry ($19.95)

The last dish, and also our favourite, was the green curry with beef. The curry sauce was delicious, it was creamy and tasty. The beef and the vegetables were nice and tender.

Overall, we enjoyed the atmosphere and the service at Samari's. The food was okay, not amazing, it certainly wasn't as tasty and fragrant as we had hoped so it was slightly disappointing.

Ratings: /10
Food: 6.5
Service: 8
Atmosphere: 7
Price: 7
Overall: 7.1/10

Restaurant information

Samari's Restaurant

413 Oxford Street

Mount Hawthorn

Ph: 9444 5817

Website: samarisrestaurantfineasian.com.au

Two Birds with One Stone at KU DE TA - Perth

The expression, "when it rains, it pours", is so true when it comes to my social life. There are weekends when I've got no plans and then there are weekends when I don't even see our house until Sunday night. Well this weekend was one of those weekends and funnily enough I pretty much spent it at one place, KU DE TA.

On the first night, some friends had actually planned to visit KU DE TA and we made reservations at Ku Dining. 

Wagyu Beef ($88)

For our dinner at Ku Dining, Ms. C and I ordered the Wagyu beef dish to share. This dish was pricey, but you do get 400g of the beef and could easily share between two to three people. The beef was tender (they don't ask how you want it cooked) and the broccolini was tasty and charred perfectly. The beef was also served with humongous cuts of spring onion, which we thought was odd, but actually taste great.

Potato Galette ($12)

We also ordered the potato galette to share. We didn't know what to expect with this side dish, we were all imagining some kind of potato bake, but when it arrived it all made sense, it was a type of potato crepe. It was delicious the potato was thin perfectly thin and the crepe made it very crispy.

White Fish ($32)

"Black Gold" Delice ($20)

Miss J ordered the White fish for her mains and the "Black Gold" Delice for dessert. I didn't try the White fish, but Miss J enjoyed every bite. I did have one small bite of her dessert and it was chocolate heaven. The "gold" sponge was actually honeycomb and the dark chocolate sponge was similar to an Aero chocolate. The main component of the dessert was the chocolate mousse and it was smooth, sweet and decadent. 

We enjoyed our dinner at Ku Dining, they had great service and atmosphere. It was a great place to relax, enjoy food slowly and have a good catch-up. We thought the menu was slightly difficult to understand, it was hard to imagine what any of the dishes would be like. The prices were also on the high end for Perth, but the dishes we had were tasty.

Then, the following night, some friends invited Mr. T and I to join them for dinner at KU DE TA. This time we visited The Deck. Below are the numerous dishes we tried!

Garlic Bread with Mushroom Relish ($12)

Vitello Tonnato ($25)

For the Love of Europe ($24)

Wholemeal Bigoli Carbonara ($25)

Crab Spaghetti ($25)

Pepperoni ($23)

Yes, we ordered a lot of food, we even shocked the waitress. But, we did share between the seven of us and we were famished. 

We started the with the garlic bread with mushroom relish. The bread was not so garlicky, but it was all mushroom! This is a great dish for mushroom lovers. Next, we had the pizzas, We loved the wholemeal pizza base and the crust was perfectly crisp. The pepperoni pizza was certainly a crowd pleaser, but I loved the For the Love of Europe pizza as I've always been partial to seafood pizzas. 

Then came the pasta dishes. The hit of the night was definitely the carbonara. The carbonara dish was served with an uncooked duck egg yolk, when mixed into the pasta, it made the pasta even creamier. The other pasta dish we ordered was the crab spaghetti. This dish was creamy, but much lighter than the carbonara and it had a strong Japanese influence with a not-so-subtle dried seaweed flavour.

To finish the dinner we ordered the Vitello Tonnato. Simply put this dish was thinly sliced beef tartare covered with herbs and capers. The beef was melt-in-your mouth, and it was great on top of the crispy toast.

So, The Deck of KU DE TA is a great place for a more casual and laid-back catch up, although it does get loud and busy. I especially loved the pasta dishes, but the pizzas were great for larger groups and tasty too.

Ratings for Ku Dining: /10                                             Ratings for The Deck: /10
Food: 8                                                                                         Food: 8
Value: 7                                                                                        Value: 8
Atmosphere: 8                                                                            Atmosphere: 7
Service: 8                                                                                     Service: 8
Overall: 7.8/10                                                                    Overall: 7.8/10

Restaurant information

KU DE TA

306 Riverside Drive

East Perth

Ph: 6234 1100

Website: www.kudeta.com

Concrete Paradise in Chinta - Mount Hawthorn

Mondays are the only day I'm able to brunch due to work and Church commitments. We all know that's the worst day for it, many cafes are closed on Mondays, and absolutely no one else I know is free to brunch on Mondays. Especially after Miss D just had to get herself a full time job. I know, how inconsiderate of her! Then one public holiday, my opportunity to brunch blew wide open. So of course I took it with open arms. 

This time I knew exactly where I wanted to go to, Chinta. The name is so romantic and everytime I drive past it looks like they're hiding paradise behind those windows. On this particular Monday morning we thought we should come early to avoid the rush. We did, but just barely. We were seated on the bar seating, which I was disappointed about, as I wanted to sit under those lovely red umbrellas. But, it was still very nice and cool there.

Summer Brisket ($23)

After long consideration, I chose the summer brisket. I'm not sure the picture did it justice, but this dish was huge. The mound of brisket sat on a pile of Asian slaw, on top of a brioche bun. It also came with two poached eggs covered with hollandaise sauce. I thought the hollandaise sauce lacked flavour, but the beef brisket was full of it. The beef was saucy and tender. I didn't think the hollandaise sauce and the brisket sauce made too much sense together, but it was good individually.

Gua Bao "Benny Buns" ($20)

Mr. T ordered the Gua Bao. These were deconstructed beef brisket buns. The beef brisket in this dish was completely different than the one in my dish. I loved the flavour of the beef in the buns more! The beef was cut into bite size pieces and it was sitting in its own tasty gravy. It also came with a great tasting hoisin sauce. As we had to construct the buns ourselves, it became a bit messy, but it was great fun.

Yes, I loved this brunch session, I've missed brunch so much and was glad we had a good experience at Chinta. The Gua Bao was a great tasty dish, the beef brisket was not bad, but not my favourite brunch dish.

Ratings: /10
Food: 7.5
Price: 6
Atmosphere: 8
Service: 7.5
Overall: 7.3/10

Restaurant information

Chinta

29 Scarborough Beach Road

North Perth

Ph: 9242 8887

Enjoying Pachi Pachi Very Much-y - Victoria Park

One night my family and I were craving for some good Asian food, but also wanted to try something we've never tried before. Well, I knew where I wanted to go,  Pachi Pachi, but, previous experience told me that I won't be able to get a table at the last minute. As I was feeling brave, I called anyway, and lucky for us, they had a table with our name on it! So we quickly made our way down!

Barramundi & Eggplant Red Curry with Rice ($21.50)

That night the first dish to arrive was the barramundi. The sauce and fish looked so golden and shiny. It tasted as great as it looked. I would've liked the fish to have been a bit thicker and juicier, but other than that it was well cooked. The batter was nice and crispy and absorbed the curry sauce perfectly. The curry sauce had just the right amount of heat and a lot of great flavours. The slices of eggplant was a little bit crispy and a lot of delicious.

Prawn & Lime Leaves with Golden Egg Floss ($20.90)

Then came the prawns. The prawns were deep fried, it's similar to the golden prawns you would get at a Perth Chinese restaurant. The batter was actually a bit soggy and not as crunchy as it looks, but the flavours were amazing and the prawns were fresh and large!

Angry Birds ($19)

   
The last dish, and I think our favourite dish, was the Angry Birds. This dish has a choice of a few levels of spiciness. We chose of level two out of four. It was the perfect level of spiciness for me, so for those who love chilli could probably go a lot higher! This dish was delicious. It can get a bit messy as it's better to eat with bare hands. But, the meat was juicy and it's smothered in this delicious sweet, sour and savoury sauce. This dish was really tasty!

Overall, we loved all the dishes that we ordered. We also thought the menu was well priced. It's no wonder this place gets packed out every night.

Ratings: /10
Food: 9
Price: 9
Atmosphere: 7
Service: 7
Overall: 8/10

Restaurant information

Pachi Pachi

608 Albany Highway

Victoria Park

Ph: 9472 0088

Website: pachipachi.com.au