Hotel Rottnest and our day trip over to Rottnest Island
Posted by | Categories: Beach, Featured, Perth, Pub, Restaurants, Travel
In January every year, the Boy’s family organise a joint holiday for all of us somewhere north of Perth. It is a big endeavour to get all eight of us able to coincide this time together so in order to simplify things for everyone they decided to change the tradition and take us over to Rottnest Island for a day trip instead. Rottnest Island is located about 18 kilometres off the coast of Perth and is only about 11 km long and 4 ½ km wide. Despite being a popular tourist destination since the early 1900s, the island itself is not overly developed having just a modest number of fairly basic beach shacks and villas, a YHA backpacker’s hostel and a camping ground. There is also some accommodation at the only pub on the island which now called Hotel Rottnest (it used to be called the “Quokka Arms Hotel”).
One of the most popular ways to get to the island is via one of two ferry companies. We travelled with Rottnest fast ferries. Ticket prices for day trippers are $82 for an adult, $43 for a child or you can purchase a family pass for $210. The ferry that we boarded was slightly old and run down. With Perth currently being in the thick of a heat wave; the ferry’s air conditioners struggled to cope leaving a stale almost mouldy smell in the cabin. Not pleasant.
Our journey over was pretty rough going which I am told can be quite a common occurrence. If you are one of those unfortunates who are prone to getting seasick, I strongly recommend dosing yourself prior to departure with some travel sickness tablets. Thankfully neither the boy nor I suffer from this but it was a completely different story for the poor children. Shortly after embarking from Hillarys, I noticed each child gradually turning from white to green and becoming unusually quiet. It wasn’t long before our niece admitted defeat and was headfirst in a sick bag, tears streaming down her pale face. Our nephew tried his hardest to tough it out at first, repeatedly saying to us that he felt absolutely fine and stubbornly refusing to take a bag. The Boy loves to stir the pot at any opportunity so he started to show our nephew photos on his phone of delicious greasy hamburgers and barbequed pig’s intestines! This didn’t go down very well and before long he was grabbing for a bag and joining his sister. Already surrounded by the thick stale air, the smell quickly diffused throughout the cabin and even I started to feel a little nauseous! I certainly didn’t need a bag though.
On arrival to the island the Boy’s parents wanted to catch the bus around the island in order to see the sights. On such a glorious day, the last thing I wanted to do was be stuck on a bus with a bunch of tourists, so I suggested to the Boy that we hire some bikes and explore on our own. Rottnest Island Bike Hire is the largest facility of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere with over 1,300 bikes available. They provide helmets, locks and each bike has a luggage rack for you to store your beach towel or other belongings. Hire prices are very reasonable; we paid $27 each for the full day (plus a refundable $25 bond per bike).
The boy and I used to do a lot of outdoor exercise together in years gone by. We once walked 34 km on a round trip from our chalet in Margaret River to Clairault Winery in order to enjoy their five course degustation. However over recent years, my keen running obsession combined with his devotion to strength training with weights has meant our exercise regimes have drifted apart. Treadling around the island with him was so much fun that I might consider diversifying my exercise a little so we can enjoy our endorphin highs together.
After working up a bit of a sweat coursing up and down the hills, we stopped off at The Basin for a well-earned dip in the cool ocean. The water was so refreshingly good that after drying myself off in the glorious sunshine, I felt rejuvenated and ready for more exploring. The boy had a different idea and I have to admit it took minimal persuasion for him to convince me to join him at the pub while we waited for his parents to return with the kids form their bus ride.
The Hotel Rottnest is located at Thompson Bay in the main settlement area on the island. The historic building dates all the way back to the late 1800’s where it was originally the Governor’s residence. In 2007 the building underwent a major restoration which took over two years to complete. It has a spacious outdoor dining area facing directly onto the beach and its presence injects a bit of a much needed modernisation to the otherwise out-dated architecture on the island.
Grazing plate: prosciutto, bresaola, lombo, gremolata fremantle sardines, olives, danish fetta, fresh bread ($36)
The hotel was well prepared to cater for gluten-free customers with a ready prepared list of suitable items from their menu. The boy and I chose to share the grazing plate, a bucket of Exmouth prawns and some chips. The grazing plate wasn’t the best value nor did it’s ingredients show any flair or talent of the kitchen. The prosciutto was delicately flavoured with the perfect balance of slightly salty and fragrant sweetness. The bresaola was not as good quality, it was sliced a little too thickly making it a bit chewy in texture and must have been sliced a considerable time before serving as it had dried out and gone a little hard.
The menu mentioned the tasting plate featuring a third meat, some lombo (meaning pork) however this wasn’t on the platter and was replaced by three dolmades. We were not advised of this at any point by the staff. The dolmades tasted like they were from a can. The fetta and olives weren’t really anything special either. The platter also had some fresh Fremantle sardine fillets topped with gremolata. Thankfully I came prepared with some gluten-free crackers, and topped with the sardines they were a treat.
Bucket of Exmouth prawns, seafood sauce, crusty bread
The Bucket of Prawns contained about a dozen juicy and fresh prawns. We felt they were quite overpriced at $42 considering most of the bucket contained ice. This is when compared to other touristy places in Australia such as On The Inlet in the beautiful Port Douglas marina where they cost less than half the price at $18.
Overall our experience was relaxing and pleasant however there is a lot of room for improvement with the food and the prices. Being the only pub on the island has allowed them to overinflate their prices because customers don’t really have anywhere else to go!
Hotel Rottnest 1 Bedford Avenue, Rottnest 6161 | (08) 9292 5011 | hotelrottnest.com.au Price: $$$$ ($25-42 entrée, $26-42 Mains) Food: 2.5/5 (boring and overpriced) Service: 3/5 (didn’t inform us of menu alterations) Ambience: 3.5/5 (great scenery and relaxing vibe on the terrace on the beach) Drinks: 2.5/5 (again overpriced, limited wine selection, at least they had fresh limes this time!) Total: 11.5/20
The George and our Engagement Party
Posted by | Categories: Modern Australian, Perth, Pub, Restaurants, Wedding
What a blissful and sunny start to our day! Starting off with a delicious brunch at the Greenhouse with my family and the boy, the morning got even better when Dad gave me a generously sized suitcase filled to the brim with beautiful Robert Robert and Diavolina shoes. Most importantly, the suitcase contained some super-hot shoes for the party tonight! I headed home with my love to spend the afternoon preparing ourselves to look our very best for the big party. One of my bridesmaids, Amber was so kind to offer to go The George without me earlier in the afternoon so she could set up everything for the night. This meant all I would have to do would be to arrive on time! She is such an angel!
The afternoon flew by surprisingly quickly and before I knew it we only had a short time until things were due to kick off!! I slipped on my shimmering Alannah Hill dress matched with the cutest flower headband, kicked on my most awesome shoes from Dad and jumped in the cab hand in hand with the boy!
Upon our arrival my heart sunk for a brief second as I expected to walk into an ambient lit room and instead was nearly blinded by bright ugly fluoro lighting. I subsequently found that some of Amber’s instructions she had carefully given to the staff about setting up the lighting, heating and visual equipment had not been followed through. Consequently some further little instructions were given to the function staff and they slowly assisted us without an accompanying smile. Not that anything could take the wind out of our wings! Grabbing a quick round of pre-party G&T’s, we all felt our nerves settle ready to greet all the special people in our lives that would join us for our celebrations.
Amber is a very creative person – something my scientific brain is most definitely not – so when she suggested we have a lolly bar at the party I initially struggled to visualise what she actually meant. We had shopped all around town together in the weeks prior to the party buying a collection of gorgeous vintage vases and bowls that she filled to the brim with lots of colourful sweets. It looked fantastic! The boy wasted no time getting stuck into the assortment, tossing handfuls of lollies into his mouth for a strong pre-party sugar kick.
Before guests had even started to arrive, the waitresses started bringing out plate upon plate of turkish bread with dips to scatter around the tables. I rushed up to the waitresses and advised them stop them filling up two little cocktail tables with plates of food and to try and stagger them a bit with the arrival of our guests. The food provided was delicious – a part of me wishes I had stopped talking and mingling among everyone for two seconds to be able to snap some photos, but it didn’t even cross my mind until the following day! I guess us food bloggers should be allow a night off once in a while! The selected canapés including freshly shucked oysters, spring onion aranchini, lamb koftas, sun-dried tomato and asparagus tarts and a variety of sushi rolls. The special gluten-free options included five spiced duck pieces – amazingly succulent little cubes of meat marinated in a sweet chilli caramel sauce. I’m sure I must have greedily gobbled a number of those!
A major feature of the night was the amazing efforts of two of my guests (one of those being Amber) in joining forces together to bake enough cupcakes for seventy people with a third of the cupcakes gluten-free! They sparkled glamorously in the centre of the lolly bar and almost looked too good to eat! Being able to enjoy devouring cupcakes with everyone else at the end of the night was such a treat although the way I stuffed the butter cream frosting into my mouth may not have been so nice!
The highlight of the night to me and my sister was surprisingly not food related. My Mum and stepmum have not spoken words since over twenty years ago when Mum and Dad separated. We have all accepted this and our family events have always been planned separately to accommodate for this. So when I looked over and saw my Dad arm in arm with my dearest Mum on one side and his wife on the other my eyes started to burn hot. My sister came running over to me in amazement and we shared watching this special moment together before flicking away our tears of joy.
Toward the end of the night I wanted everyone to be able to have something more substantial than just the canapés so we arranged for some noodle boxes to come out with sticky pork with ginger, chilli and bok choy. The pork was so scrumptiously juicy and the sticky marinade had nearly caramelised but not burnt. This was the most popular food for the night and I’m sure I saw a few people go back for a second box!
As with all good parties, the night flew by at the speed of light and before I knew it we were standing under those hideous bright fluoros with the reality that it was over. All those weeks of preparation and anticipation for a night that felt like it only lasted one hour! I was extremely chuffed to see that our budgeted bar tab lasted for the whole night and no one had to dip into their pockets to pay for a drink.
After such a fabulous occasion, the events that followed on next totally took me by surprise. Bear in mind that the venue was nearly empty in the main bar for the whole night so our party of 70 people would have been the only real income for the night for The George. As we were all slowly drifting out of the function area and leaving through the main bar a couple of the bar staff got annoyed with us not leaving quickly enough for them. As they walked past the bar, a number of my guests clearly overheard the staff retorting insults and foul language directed at us presumably because they wanted to us to hurry up so they could go home. None of my guests were unpleasant or rude to any of the staff to call for this attack.
We all waited outside The George for what felt like hours all trying desperately to hail cabs. One of my friends had taken a bit of a stack on the pavement and had developed a very swollen ankle (she actually ended up in RPH early that following morning poor thing) so I wanted to get her home quickly. I was also mindful that my dearest mother was keen to get home as she is not accustomed to standing up in her high heels for hours on end anymore. I went back to the front door of the hotel and knocked to get someone’s attention. All the staff were still inside closing up everything for the night. I asked the bartender if he could kindly please arrange us some cabs for us as my friend was injured and many others were tired and ready to hit the sack. He refused and told me to walk down the street to the closest hotel the Hilton where apparently I could find many taxis. I explained to him my friend was injured and couldn’t walk, he then repeated that he wouldn’t call us cabs, and that was that! He closed the door in my face and locked the door!!
After spending thousands of dollars at their venue that night I was completely gobsmacked at such rudeness and appalling service. Despite the actual night being such a wonderful success, it was so disappointing to end on such a sour and unprofessional note.
Price: $$$ (Entree $18-21, Mains $25-39) Food: 7.6/10 Service: 3/10 (for the rudeness!) Venue: 4/5 Total: 14.6/25 (58%)Update:
Well, things have gone from bad to worse with the level of customer service that I have received from The George. We left my old iPod touch there on the night of the party and since then I had attempted to contact the functions manager by phone and email to let her know that I would be popping back to collect it on my day off. As I had received no reply, I figured that it’s not too complicated a request to fill so I went into town on my only day off to collect it.Upon arrival my bestie and I spoke to the bartender who explained to us in a curt manner that I needed to speak to her manager. She got her bar manager who happened to be very same person who had bad mouthed to my friends and refused to call us cabs on the night.
I started to explain to him that I had left my iPod behind and had tried to contact the functions manager but had received no reply from her. I purely just wanted to collect my iPod and that was it. He fobbed us off saying that the functions manager was in a meeting and that she couldn’t be disturbed. So I offered to go into the cupboard in the functions room myself to collect it upon which I was then told that she was having the meeting in there so this wasn’t possible. He said to us: “And that’s if you actually have left it here.” If?!?! He offered to call me in an hour when she would be finished her meeting but then uttered that she could be in there for hours so who knows how long she would really be.
My bestie and I popped down the road to the Sentinel for a drink (where the service by the way was very friendly – a total contrast). During this time we received no phone calls from The George. So after one hour we left and made our way back to The George. On my way I called through and asked to be put through to the functions manager, consequently I was put through straight away implying that her meeting was over. She then proceeded to tell me she had no time to walk to the cupboard where I left my iPod and retrieve it for me as she was far too busy! I explained that it was my only day off, I had come into the city specifically and I was 50 metres away! She repeated to me: “I have absolutely no time to search for it, I am very busy and that’s provided you have actually left it here anyway!” She said she would try and call me back by the end of business – it’s now been nearly a week and not a peep!
Final update:
So it’s been a number of months since all this happened and I thought I better give you dear readers a final report on the outcome with The George…..click to read my Epilogue.
The George 216 St Georges Terrace, London House, Perth 6000 | (08) 6161 6662 | www.thegeorgeperth.com.au/
Five Bar, Mount Lawley
Posted by | Categories: Featured, Perth, Pub, Restaurants, Tapas Bar, Wine Bar
Spontaneity is an uncommon occurrence for me. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, in fact quite the contrary it’s just that I can’t help but plan and organise things. I hate the thought that an element of enjoyment is missed out due to lack of foresight. But as I was running to my car during the heaviest part of the down pouring rain I got this burning desire to go out for the evening. We both work long hours and often have hectic busy days so most weeknights tend to be a sombre experience of crashing on the couch, eating dinner and watching television. I sat in my car drenched right through to the skin in my work clothes and phoned the boy who was still at work, half expecting him to decline the offer with protests of exhaustion and lack of motivation. His immediate response was yes! Wa-toot!
On the previous weekend, a group of us had a pub crawl up Beaufort Street and on our way to the Flying Scotsman we all dropped into Five Bar for a refreshing beverage to quench us for the uphill stagger to the Scotto. I remember making a mental note to return to try their tapas and so we did.
As you walk into Five Bar you almost feel like you are in someone’s oversized living room. There is a mismatched collection of lounge chairs, ottomans and crates to relax on and the interior is decorated with a similarly eclectic collection of lamps and oddities. As I sipped on my Hendricks and tonic, I felt all the tensions of my day smoothly melt away.
The menu is quite small with the majority of the dishes designed to be shared tapas-style. After requesting to our waitress for suitable gluten-free and onion free options, this menu unfortunately further narrowed down to a smaller handful of dishes.
Marinated olives
The marinated olives contained a crowd pleaser selection of pitted and non-pitted, black and green, and in all sizes from jumbo through to the teeny-weeny Arbequina olives. They were all of excellent quality and very moreish.
Gingin Beef carpaccio with goat’s curd, pinenuts, EVOO and fresh herbs
The beef Carpaccio was dressed with cornichons, goat’s curd and capers, pine nuts, some fresh herbs and EVOO. The beef was sliced perfectly paper-thin but was a bit dry and lacked a little flavour. This was somewhat compensated for by the tarty goat’s curd however that shouldn’t really be the aim of this dish. A few extra lashings of olive oil may have improved this dish.
Grilled chorizo with lemon
We were informed after ordering the chorizo that it may contain onions so I gave this a miss and let the boy munch his way through the generous sized serve. It seemed to be quite tender and juicy and disappeared with no complaints.
Slow roasted mushrooms with Danish fetta, balsamic and chives
The slow-roasted mushrooms with Danish fetta, balsamic and chives were definitely one of the better dishes. I am a bit of a self-confessed mushroom addict. I really love their rich savoury flavour; in fact it would be safe to say I eat them daily. These mushrooms were roasted wonderfully. The chef has managed to capture and enhance all that delicious mushroomness I enjoy and the subtle tang of the balsamic gently cut through these flavours to then be followed by the more lingering creaminess of the fetta. We ended up ordering seconds!
The final tapas dish we ordered were the sweet potato frites served with a Moroccan spiced mayonnaise. These were very tasty albeit also a tad oily. Nevertheless I could have eaten more of them if I could fit them in!
We ended the evening with a duo of macarons – vanilla and coffee. After overindulging on some amazing macarons from Choux earlier in the week, unfortunately these ones were a bit of a disappointment. I enjoy the contrast of the crispy outer shell with the chewy nearly gooey centre. These ones were consistently chewy all the way through and showed none of the contrast in textures macarons are meant to have.
Given the popularity of tapas in Perth at the moment we are spoilt for choice. I walked away from Five Bar thinking there are better quality options for the price we paid and probably wouldn’t go out of my way to return there.
Venue 8.5/10 Service 7.8/10 Food 7/10
Five Bar 560 Beaufort Street, Mount Lawley | 0467 534 267 
Fuse Bar @ Hotel Northbridge
Posted by | Categories: Perth, Pub, Restaurants
As high as a kite on French champagne and with Rochelle Adonis‘s exquisite high tea delicacies still swimming around on my palate, my friends and I skipped over the road from her studio to the Hotel Northbridge to extend our celebratory mood a little further into the afternoon. After leaving the bright and clean environment of Rochelle’s, the grimy stark reality of the empty pub was initially a little off putting but good company has a way of distracting your attention from these details and we soon sat to continue our chatter and giggling. Of course we wanted to continue drinking champagne and therefore we were all a tad disappointed to read the drinks menu only contained Australian bubbles. For an exorbitant $68 we got a bottle of Chandon Brut and ordered a tasting plate, salt and pepper squid, and fries.
The food arrived fairly quickly, but we were left totally confused as to how to ration four serviettes, three forks, four knives and one plate amongst the six of us. Odd. I would have also liked to have been informed when I placed my order for the food that the salt and pepper squid actually came on a bed of fries as we didn’t really need the second bowl. Needless to say one can see from the photo that the salt and pepper squid wasn’t really such. Deep fried battered squid would be a more appropriate description as the dusting was nearly thicker than the squid itself. The added touch of MasterFoods squeeze-on packets of sweet chilli, tartare and tomato sauces didn’t raise the appeal much either. If you want to charge me $17.50 for such a dish then you had better make an effort on presentation or at least increase the size of your serves to make it good value – this dish had only twelve small pieces of calamari!
Moving onto the tasting plate we were preparing ourselves for the worst. Seriously, what were we thinking coming from High tea to this? If only Rochelle let us have another course! The tasting plate contained a paltry four thin strips of Turkish bread, some tasteless cubes of fetta, two small bowls of watery inedible dips, a handful of jarred olives, a pile of chorizo, about one teaspoon of very scary looking sun-dried tomatoes and some olive oil. The chorizo was the low- light and no one could eat it. It had an unusual taste that wasn’t pleasant.
Disappointed with such poor quality food, a rebellious streak started to emerge from our little group. By this time our over-priced bottle of average sparkling was well and truly empty so we decided it would be a fabulous decision to sneakily pop open our remaining bottle of Cattier from high tea. Anyone tried to open champagne sneakily? After a delayed and unsuccessful attempt at smothering that wonderful popping sound with laughter and coughing, the bartender scurried over to inform us we cannot drink our own bottle. We offered to pay corkage but she wasn’t willing to bend the rules. Fair enough. One of my girlfriends surprisingly managed to squeeze the cork back into the bottle, only for it to pop out later at an impromptu time during our drive home whilst traveling on the back seat. Needless to say the car still smells like celebrations!
Service 5/10 venue 4/10 food 3/10
Fuse Bar @ Hotel Northbridge Cnr Brisbane and Lake St, Northbridge, 6003 | (08) 9328 5254 | www.hotelnorthbridge.com.au/bar.php
The Brown Fox, West Perth
Posted by | Categories: French, Perth, Pub, Restaurants
Living in the Vic Park/South Perth area we are spoilt for choice for dining locations, but sometimes you just want to relax at the pub. Being a little weary of our regular locals as a result of some recent poor customer service and lack of attention to detail, we decided to venture out of our usual stompin’ ground for a short distance over to West Perth to The Brown Fox.
We both had a pretty hectic week at work and were really craving some time to switch off and relax. The venue was great for stimulating conversation on this cold wintery night, and with the cosy dim light atmosphere it brought back memories of our London life. The service was excellent, with our waiter going to great lengths to ensure my food was allergy free and he ensured our glasses were never left empty for long. Even all the bar staff were full of smiles.
Great frites!
We ordered some frites, olives and almonds, and the goats cheese salad for starters. The frites were crispy and really good although the aioli wasn’t the best I’ve had. I would go back just for the frites! The almonds were seasoned and very moreish, and the olives had a variety of types to suit different tastes.
For main we both had the beef fillet – the meat cut was reasonable quality and was cooked perfectly. It was served with Paris mash which I felt was a little bland and needed seasoning.
Venue 8.5/10 service 8.5/10 food 7.5/10
PS Sorry about the horrendous quality photos – I forgot my camera and had to rely on my iPhone!
The Brown Fox 72 Outram St, West Perth,6005 | (08) 9425 5222 | www.thebrownfox.com.au
