150 East Riverside Bar & Restaurant, Ascot
Posted by | Categories: Modern Australian, Perth, Restaurants, Wine Bar
Late last year some of my workmates and I were lucky enough to be the winners of the annual Vetpath Quiz Night. Our prize was a $250 dinner voucher for 150 East Riverside Bar and Restaurant. Nearly six months came and went and we still hadn’t managed to coordinate a night where all six of us could come along. Getting everyone to agree on a set date felt a bit like trying to herd cats but with only one month left on the voucher before it expired; I successfully locked down a night when all but one of our winning team members could all attend. The member who couldn’t join us had recently moved to live in Queensland, so I figured that was a reasonable excuse!
150 East it is currently situated along a highway that appears to be undergoing something that is close to becoming the Greatest Road Works of the Decade here in Perth. Great Eastern Highway is being widened from two lanes to three lanes each way and for those not familiar with this area it may sound like no big deal. However the reality of it is that currently all telecommunications, power and gas lines lie under the existing footpaths which will soon be turned into highway roads. So prior to widening the roads, all these need to be located, dug up and moved. They are also adding bike lanes, bus lanes….the works. To complicate things even more the highway is the major gateway from the Eastern suburbs into the city thus making it a project of mammoth proportions which I believe is costing more than $225 million. All along this stretch of highway peak hour traffic has been slowed down to mind numbing speeds of 30-40 km/hour. I am lucky enough to get to travel along this every day to get to work!
As a result of these road works the access into 150 East is quite difficult as it is pretty much centred in the eye of the storm. Surprisingly despite this fact I found that the restaurant was relatively full. They had a live musician playing some covers of Angus and Julia Stone giving a relaxed and chilled out ambience. Some of us met at the bar for a couple of pre-dinner drinks to settle into the mood before we were shown to our table.
Seared scallops, crispy pork belly, truffle emulsion, micro herbs
I shared a main sized entrée of seared scallops with crispy pork belly. The scallops were cooked beautifully and were soft tender little pillows that nearly dissolved in my mouth. The pork belly was a bit of a letdown. Each mouthful left that lingering fatty aftertaste and the crackling wasn’t crunchy enough. The dressing failed to tie these two ingredients together either and needed a little more sweetness to it to marry the flavours.
Fresh hand cut tagliatelle, prawns, crab, sun-dried tomatoes, Cajun cream sauce
A few at our table order the fresh hand cut tagliatelle with prawns and crab. I was informed that the sauce clung beautifully to the strips of delicate pasta, the prawns were crunchy and fresh but the Cajun sauce lacked the punch they were looking for.
I ordered the fish of the day and I realise some of you may be a little weary of my incessant ordering of Barramundi. I agreed that maybe I order it a little too frequently but when done correctly with crispy skin it is one of my favourite types of fish. This time I was fairly disappointed to find my fish was slightly overcooked and didn’t flake apart under my fork.
Duo of duck, confit leg, duck, pear and cognac sausage, merlot and aniseed braised cabbage, Swiss chard, jus
The duo of duck was the most popular dish of the table and consisted of a confit leg with a duck and cognac sausage. The sausage was juicy and bursting with flavour and the confit leg wasn’t dry at all. The only negative feedback was the fresh pear garnish was a bit too hard.
Despite all being quite full, we all were really aiming to push the boat out for this rare occasion and make the most of the wonderful evening. I shared the vanilla and mandarin crème brûlée which was a beautiful smooth consistency but could have done with a hint more citrus after notes. Needless to say I still nearly licked the bowl clean.
The gingerbread pudding was soft and fairly moist but apparently needed more caramel sauce and as a result my colleagues didn’t finished their serve as it became a bit too stodgy without any extra gooeyness.
The biggest flaw in our evening was the cheese platter. It included a brie (Mon Sire Franche, Comte, France), a blue vein (La Traditional Du Bon Fourme D’Ambert, Auvergne, France), and a hard cheese (Gutshofer Schafskase, The Netherlands). So much potential was completely lost on our taste buds due to all three cheeses being served cold and seemingly straight out of the fridge. The brie was the literally the hardest hit by this oversight as many dear readers can surely empathise making the resultant cheese tasteless and barely edible.
We waited quite some time for our bill to arrive until eventually our waitress came over to inform us their computer had broken down and it would be a long wait until they could reboot it. It was getting quite late so we asked if we could just let her know what we ordered and pay. We were met with reluctance to do this but after further waiting with no computer recovery in sight she allowed us to go through the menu with her. Lucky for us our winning voucher covered the majority of the bill and we had minimal remaining to split amongst us. Given it being a near freebie meal, we all left very full and relatively content. However I hope once the highway access improves for 150 East, so will the quality and attention to detail in their restaurant.
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150 East Riverside Bar Restaurant 150 Great Eastern Highway, Ascot 6104 | (08) 9479 0099 | www.assuredhotels.com.au Price: $$$$ (Entrees $11.50-24.50, Mains $23.50-42) Food: 2/5 (porky aftertaste, overcooked fish and cold brie) Service: 2.5/5 (average no major hiccups) Ambience: 3.5/5 (loved the live music) Drinks: 3/5 (reasonable wine list, includes a lot a lovely Margaret River wines) Total: 11/20 
Chapter One Brasserie, Subiaco
Posted by | Categories: European, French, Perth, Restaurants
I have a penchant for excesses. A friend once coined a term to describe me as “all or nothing”. It is the source of both extreme happiness and great trouble in my life. Currently my focus is on surviving this gluten challenge whilst trying to avoid going overboard. Easier said than done. The Doctors recommendation has been to eat a meagre two to three slices of wheaty wheatyness daily for six weeks. This all started out very well, but the all or nothing has quickly taken over and despite it making me so ill, when I’m out for a wonderful dinner I go out of control.
In a manner of pre-empting the evening eating excesses, I thought I’d get my bloated self out into the glorious sunshine and run around like a freak around the river with the concept that the more calories I burned the more I could eat that night. Unfortunately the whole dietary indiscretion thing is not very conducive to my running efforts, and it was more so a rather pathetic jog where numerous non-poisoned runners zoomed past me totally in their zone. I’m so jealous. Only three more weeks to go. Hey at least I can eat real food! After nearly six weeks of enjoying his long service leave payout, my love has decided to return to the workforce and has successfully passed through a rigorous interview process to be accepted for a job he is really keen to have. With hopes for a even brighter future what better way for us to celebrate than with good food and some bubbles!
After flipping through the Entertainment Book we booked a table at Chapter One Brasserie in Subiaco. Chapter One is a relaxed and unpretentious restaurant run by a husband and wife team; Hayley and Jason Walker. Hayley has extensive experience in the hospitality industry and this became apparent as throughout the night she confidently flitted from table to table ensuring everyone was enjoying themselves and their meals. We both immediately warmed to her bubbly personality and her pride in her restaurants success. The chef Jason trained at the London Hilton before going to work with a number of Europe’s famous chefs including Marco Pierre White. This European influence comes through strongly on his menu with some hearty dishes including rabbit pie and duck with foie gras.
We started our evening with a baguette and butter. The baguette had a wonderful crunchy exterior with fluffy lightness inside, something one really misses out on when on a gluten free diet. It would have enhanced my whole experience if the bread wasn’t cold. Or the butter for that matter. Cold butter does not make for very elegant eating.
We moved on to our next course to share the Tasting plate. This contained four shot glasses of pea and ham soup, some grilled polenta with a tomato salsa, some vol-u-vents, chorizo and some asparagus spears. The soup was served hot and was a much needed hit of warmth in my belly after the disappointment of the cold baguette. It was thick and creamy and the ham was meaty with minimal fat. It was a tad quirky that the spoons served with the soup didn’t fit into the little glasses. The polenta was soft on the inside but grilled to a flavoursome brown and was the most enjoyable item on the plate next to the soup. The chorizo was good but nothing special. The vol-u-vents were disappointing as they were luke warm and the puff pastry had no crunch to it.
After reading some others reviews on the net raving about Chapter One’s Blue manna crab angel hair pasta, we decided to once again make pigs of ourselves and order a second entree. Well the Italians do it don’t they? And aren’t we meant to be celebrating? Memories of cold dishes slipped into the back of our minds as we slurped our way through this amazing dish. I highly recommend. It truly shows looks can be deceiving as the strong crab flavours worked their magic over our palate. Hayley claims their secret is in the sauce and she is most definitely not mistaken there. Oh boy, I was really going to pay for all this glutenness tomorrow!
For mains we both ordered the braised rabbit & wild mushroom pie, with parsnip puree and a sage jus. I can understand why this dish remains on his ever changing menu as it was executed perfectly. This time round the pastry was buttery and feather light (and hot), and the rabbit was tender and succulent. We also ordered the warm beetroot and goats cheese salad. I felt there was an excess on onion in this dish, not really necessary given the abundance of strong tart taste of the goats cheese.
Unsurprisingly I was convinced we had room for dessert. That doesn’t actually mean there was room in my stomach but refer to my original point I made at the beginning of this blog. All or nothing. I wouldn’t (couldn’t?) have it any other way! I ordered the berry and creme fraiche tart and the boy ordered some sort of butterscotch cheesecake.
The berry tart was well balanced with both sour and sweet flavours however the pastry base was very hard and half of my dessert went flying across the table when I tried cutting into it. The boy found it quite entertaining as once again you could easily see my place at the table as in front of me was a collage of colours ranging from the pale green of the pea soup to the brilliant ruby red of the berries. Apparently he thinks this is a regular occurrence. Overall the evening was very enjoyable and I will dream of the crab pasta well into my gluten free days.
Venue 7.5/10 Service 9/10 Food 8/10
Chapter One Brasserie 292 Hay St, Subiaco, 6008 | (08) 9388 1323 | www.chapteronebrasserie.com.au
