Feeling totally liberated with gluten freedom at Solomon’s Café & some free WIFI at Crust
Posted by | Categories: Breakfast/Brunch, Featured, Paleo, Perth, Raw Food, Restaurants, Vegetarian
Having food intolerances can be a real pain if you also happen to be a foodie. Over the years I have learnt not to get fixated with a particular dish on the menu as there is always a good chance that I won’t be able to eat it. Some restaurants are compassionate of our allergic needs and clearly identify the gluten free dishes on their menu which makes ordering food so much easier. I look forward to the day I see a fructose friendly marked menu.
Thankfully, my fructose malabsorption causes me much less severe symptoms than my gluten intolerance does. Provided that I strictly avoid all gluten, I can afford to occasionally be a little lenient on the fructose. We were recently invited to Foodie Craving’s Crust Gourmet Pizza store in Mount Lawley to give feedback on their new free WIFI installed in store. The event didn’t start until 8pm so the Boy and I decided to stop en route to Solomon’s Café on Beaufort Street. The concept of an entirely gluten free restaurant is one that already gives me warm fuzzies, but at Solomon’s Café it is also all organic AND dairy free – it almost sounds too good to be true!
Knowing we had an evening of pizza feasting ahead of us, we planned to have a light snack only but as is often the case we may have ended up ordering a bit more than we necessarily needed.
Crispy parsnip chips ($6)
Raw zucchini pasta with cherry tomatoes, carrot and coriander pesto ($20)
Maybe I should just blame it on the meal sizes? When I chose the raw zucchini pasta, I certainly wasn’t expecting the towering mountain that came to the table. Nor did I plan ahead and ask for the omission of onion. Having eaten raw zucchini pasta on several occasions myself at home, I have grown to really love the texture and will make a great effort to make sure each “pasta” strip is made from the entire length of the zucchini to give long luxurious spaghetti-like strands. For this time round I was disappointed to find my pasta was made from short, comparatively fat pieces of zucchini that would have only been about 6-7 centimetres long. It felt a bit like I was eating a grated zucchini salad. It was tasty, but not what I was anticipating.
Beetroot gnocchi ($12)
The beetroot gnocchi was much more satisfying although that may be in part because I so rarely get to order gnocchi as most are made using wheat flour. They tasted a little doughy yet still had a light texture and matched well with the vegan pesto drizzled lavishly over the top.
Vegan nachos ($20)
As soon as I saw there were vegan nachos on the menu I had a gut feeling the Boy would order this for himself. I was quietly hoping he wouldn’t as we had only recently shared raw nachos at The Raw Kitchen the week before. I like to have interesting and different dishes to photograph and write about but he just wasn’t having it. It was a much bigger serve than The Raw Kitchen and he preferred the salsa as it was more flavoursome.
Vegan nachos: sprouted chips, tomato, black bean & guacamole with a nut parmesan ($20)
Continuing in our quest to try and abstain from alcohol for sixty days we each ordered a healthy antioxidant packed drink. I chose the “Bloody Detox” juice squeezed full of fructose friendly beetroot, carrot, celery, parsley, ginger and lemon. The Boy chose the vegan but creamy mango lassi made with mango, coconut milk, cinnamon, cardamom.
Vegan mango lassi ($10) and “bloody detox” juice ($9)
Pleasantly but not overly satiated we strolled up Beaufort Street to Crust. I was glad I had left a bit of room for some pizza as they always have plenty of gluten free options for me. The purpose of the evening was to trial run their new free in-store WIFI to assess how useful it would be for their customers and if it was easy to access without guidance.
Oregano Verdi and Parmesan Squares on gluten free ($11.50)
As we made ourselves comfortable on the alfresco tables some starters were brought out including the gluten free oregano verdi and parmesan squares. All my vegan efforts were thrown out the window as I couldn’t refuse the offer of such cheesy deliciousness like this. Crust’s gluten free bases taste incredibly “normal” and fellow blogger Jacqui from Pantry in Suburbia commented how she couldn’t even tell it was gluten free.
Crust Szechuan Chilli Prawn on gluten free ($22)
After polishing off some starters we ran through an online questionnaire using the free WIFI. It was very simple to connect across the variety of devices everyone were using and the Internet speed was much quicker than my Optus 3G network. For the gluten free pizza option we chose the Szechuan Chilli Prawn. Crunchy spicy seasoned prawns were scattered generously over the gluten free pizza base along with fresh capsicum, bocconcini and sweet chilli, and then garnished with fresh lemon and chilli. This pizza has a bit of a kick to it and I highly recommend it for those who like a bit of heat.
Black Forest Crumble (not GF) ($11.50)
Crust’s dessert pizzas unfortunately cannot be made gluten free as the gluten free bases are made off site in a gluten free environment to minimise any contamination. I looked on in envy as every devoured the Black Forest Crumble; a decadent dessert pizza layered with custard, mud cake and black cherries, topped with baked crumble, drizzled with berry coulis and dusted with icing sugar. Given that our small table managed to eat its way through two of these, I am guessing they were pretty damn good. Gluten free dessert options at Crust include their chocolate mousse and all their ice cream flavours. The chocolate mousse is by far my favourite. I love how there are numerous little chocolate nibs buried in the mousse.
Solomon’s Café is definitely worth a visit for anyone with dietary issues as the menu is designed for us. Better still they use organic ingredients without the high price tag you would expect. Whilst not all our dishes had a wow factor, I loved how I could order pretty much anything off the menu like back in the days before I knew about my intolerances. Total freedom without all the health issues that used to come with it!
Solomon’s Café 487 Beaufort Street, Highgate WA 6003 | (08) 9328 7995 | Facebook Price: $$ (Mains $20-36, Sides/Small bites $5-12) Food: 3/5 (would prefer more vego options given niche target market) Service: 3.5/5 (slow to bring out meals however were packed) Ambience: 3.5/5 (noisy and vibrant) Drinks: 3.5/5 (both juice and smoothie options, fructose free options) Total: 13.5/20 
Miss Kitty's Saloon, Inglewood
Posted by | Categories: Bars, Breakfast/Brunch, Canadian, Featured, Perth, Pub, Restaurants
For those that know me, you will agree that I’m not a calm or quiet person. Nor do I tend to run out of things to say. With some people I can sense this personality trait of mine can be a little over bearing yet with others it creates a spark for even more animated conversation. One of my dear blogging friends Amanda from Chew Town shares a similar passion for words and during one of her return trips to Perth we caught up for some brunch and a “talk-off”. We cannot agree between us who can talk more and happily settled for a tie after this round. She is always keen to try new places around Perth having left our sunny city some years ago so after throwing a few options around we agreed on Miss Kitty’s Saloon in Inglewood. I mean, anything that refers to felines in its business name has to be good!
Miss Kitty’s is a quirky new-ish venue on Beaufort Street in Inglewood. Their menu is inspired by Canadian and American cuisines and they shamelessly have a pig’s head suspended in one of their fridges behind the bar. Our delightful waitress proudly informed us they buy the “whole pig” and pretty much use all of it in their dishes. The pig’s head specifically features on their evening menu in the form of Pig’s head nuggets!
Devilled eggs
House Smoked Ocean Trout, beets, soft egg, goat’s curd
There are a number of gluten free options and the chef seemed happy to fiddle around with some options to accommodate me. Our stand-out dish for the day was undoubtedly the char-grilled tamarind pork ribs. I’m not normally a big pork fan, nor do I often order ribs, I often find that they are too fatty and grisly for my liking. Additionally getting all the meat fibres stuck between my teeth drives me mad.
Charcoal Tamarind Pork Ribs
After eating Miss Kitty’s Saloon ribs, I am proud to say I am a converted rib fan. The meat pulled off the bones in one clean bite and the mapley after taste was enough to make me weak at the knees. Our more heart conscious choice of the fennel salad balanced the syrupy sweet ribs with some acidity and freshness. Surely all that summer on a plate negated the sugar and fat in the ribs?
Shaved Fennel and Citrus, olives, chickpeas, herbs
Although I had already had breakfast, I couldn’t resist ordering a serve of their devilled eggs. The cute presentation of these little beauties was enough to make me giggle. The seasoned whole boiled egg gave me my much needed egg porn of the day and if I had showed better self-control and not already eaten earlier that morning I would have been happy to do another round of eggs and ribs.
Devilled eggs
Hello sunshine!
At this point in time our entertaining waitress had caught eye of my conspicuous SLR camera and shimmied back to our table for a laugh and a chat. She was such a crack up, even to herself, and she confessed that she was obsessed with reading Miss Kitty’s Saloon reviews on Urbanspoon to see what things people said about her and her fellow colleagues. It turns out that she is also gluten intolerant and we shared stories of our experiences eating out. After finding out there were no gluten free desserts on offer she offered to us a de-constructed gluten free version of their Banoffee pie. Finding her wide eyed energy and joy hard to resist we found room in our bellies and ordered dessert to share.
Deconstructed Gluten free Banoffee pie
What came out was the most hilarious Banoffee pie I have ever seen; thick syrupy banoffee pie contents sans casing filled the plate and was decorated with chocolate nibs, fresh banana and kitsch bright yellow dyed cream. Amanda and I could not stop cracking up at this comical dessert. Although it was super sweet, the lack of pie casing didn’t stop us and we sat giggling like school girls as we spooned it into our gobs.
Cute
My late morning brunch has definitely incited my interest in this venue and I am determined to come back and try their evening menu. All the staff were vibrant, passionate and looked like they loved their jobs and enthusiasm is very infectious. I can’t wait to see what the Boy thinks of Miss Kitty’s!
Miss Kitty’s Saloon 882 Beaufort Street, Inglewood WA 6052 | (08) 9272 6669 | Facebook Price: $$ Food: 3.5/5 (keen to go back and try some more dishes as they use some interesting combinations of flavours) Service: 4.5/5 (bubbly, interesting and funny without being obtrusive) Ambience: 4/5 (an eclectic muddle of Country and Western style with quirky antique oddities) Drinks: 4/5 (Five Senses coffee……) Total: 16 /20 
