Bivouac Canteen & Bar, Northbridge | Eat Drink Perth 2014
Posted by Bars, European, Featured, Perth, Restaurants, Wine Bar | Categories:One of the perks of being a food blogger is that we often receive invitations to attend various foodie events and launch parties. Free food and booze is enough to put a smile on anyone’s dial however sometimes there can be very few gluten free options for me to eat and it just ends up being one big tease. If it’s a high-profile cocktail style event I have occasionally omitted telling the organisers that I’m gluten free to avoid making a fuss. This brazen approach has sometimes worked and sometimes not. At the Taste Great Southern Launch Party my strategy was a complete fail. For the entire event I proceeded to be tortured by multitude of amazing dishes coming out of the kitchen and yet I couldn’t eat a single one. I won’t be making the same mistake again. Fuss or no fuss I need to eat!
The only thing I could eat were the natural oysters shucked fresh by Carl Thee Shucker. I positioned myself right up next to Carl and greedily gobbled them as he shucked them but unfortunately they ran out quite early in the night. Luck was surely not on my feasting side that night. By the end of the party I had drunk a disproportionate amount of wine to food and was in urgent need of a decent feed. We were just around the corner from Bivouac Canteen so thankfully I didn’t have to stagger too far. After a short wait we were seated at our table at which point I could I swear I could have nearly eaten my own arm I was THAT hungry.
Our waitress was absolutely gorgeous and helped me through my desperate state to see what could be done gluten free. She came up with a variety of options and due to my urgent hunger I pretty much ordered them all. Being a little obsessive with crispy skinned fish this was my immediate first choice. The barramundi had a buttery smooth texture underlying a crunchy, wafer thin layer of seared crispy skin. It was served with a salty, samphire citrus sauce. Alongside the fish was a currant, pine nut, feta and rocket salad with bright little pomegranate seeds dotted in for some tarty sweetness.
The baby carrots were firm enough to pick up whole yet soft enough to cut with a fork. They felt oddly decadent smothered with rich almond cream and a hint of spicy harissa. I never knew carrots had so much potential!
Amazingly the fried local whitebait with tahini yoghurt could be served gluten free. I rarely have such an opportunity to eat these little guys as they are usually dusted in wheat flour but this time round there was no holding me back. I relished in eating them head and all for the full flavour punch.
As my raging hunger took some time to settle down I realised that I was the one doing most of the eating as the Boy was already quite full from all the canapés served at the launch party earlier. In a moment of self-control I thought it a wise idea to order a salad to fill me up as our final choice. But I cheated a little, I mean who can go past a grilled haloumi salad? I’m sure it has elements of healthy in it, right? It was tossed in with watermelon, mint, pistachio and green olives. The spritzy orange blossom and fennel dressing left a light and refreshing taste on the palate convincing me that I had been good enough to justify ordering some dessert.
I ordered the peach and lavender fool without really knowing what sort of dessert a “fool” was but I love trying new things and it was one of the few gluten free options. I also asked for some Turkish delight on the side to which the Boy retorted “What do you want THAT for?” Turkish delight is something I detested for years until recently when I received some for the Sweet Swap and now I am totally converted. Pillows of firm jelly dusted with powder puffs of icing sugar left gentle scents of rosewater and orange on my satisfied taste-buds.
A “fool” turns out to be type of English dessert made by folding stewed fruit into whipped cream or custard. Bivouac used honeycomb yoghurt to mix in with the fruit and generously drizzled the lot with dark ruby red berry coulis. Shard of honey comb and sprinkles of lavender completed this creation but I confess it was all bit too much dairy for me. The Boy on the other hand was completely smitten and happily finished it off with a contented smile on his face.
I loved Bivouac’s spunk and groove; it typifies just how cool Northbridge is becoming. It is no longer the roughened playground of hardened partygoers but has a number of snappy eateries with their fingers firmly on the pulse. I can guarantee this is one place we will definitely be returning to.
This is not a sponsored meal and Chompchomp paid for this meal in full. Bivouac 198 William Street, Northbridge WA 6003 | (08) 9227 0883 | bivouac.com.au Price: $$ (Share plates $7-34, Pizzas $23-26 (not GF) ) Food: 4/5 (share plates of simple concepts with an interesting twist) Service: 4/5 (quick on their feet with hipster humour and smiles) Ambience: 3.5/5 (happening, busy and loud) Drinks: 4 /5 (excellent interesting choice of regional Aussie and Internationals) Total: 15.5 /20Halia, Singapore Botanic Gardens
Posted by Attractions, Degustation/Fine dining, Featured, Restaurants, Singapore, Travel | Categories:One of the many unfortunate consequences for me if I eat gluten is the way my skin reacts. Within about eight to twelve hours of being “poisoned” I break out in an extremely itchy rash that often spreads to my face. The itch is incessant day and night breaking my sleep into fitful scratching fragments. The eczema is unsightly and I’ll confess to my vanity as it makes me feel highly self-conscious taking over a week to heal, sometimes longer.
Understandably in the months preceding our wedding I became painstakingly cautious with everything I ate. I was not ready to take any risks of accidental gluten ingestion. My sufferance paid off because on the wedding day my face was blemish free and radiant. On the return trip home from Thailand via Singapore my newly wed husband and I spent nearly four days eating non-stop. I was so relieved to finally be able to stop scrutinising everything I ate; it felt like a pressure was lifted off my shoulders. However as is often the case with me it is all-or-nothing and consequently I swung too far into complacency resulting in the obvious; gluten poisoning.
The following day the Boy dragged me from our hotel room to the Singapore Botanical Gardens where he started to get a little frustrated with me. I am normally a very energetic and excitable person sometimes to the point of excess. In stark contrast gluten transforms me into a lethargic, whingeing misery guts. As we walked around the beautiful gardens all I could selfishly think of was finding a cool place to sit and enjoy a drink and hopefully some gluten free food. We were right in the heart of the Gardens so the Boy thought the easiest thing to soothe for his poor suffering wife was to take her to the café inside the Gardens themselves; Halia.
As we walked toward the restaurant my head was spinning and I felt nauseous. Gluten does evil to me I tell you! Desperate to escape the humidity we moved inside keen for some icy air-conditioning. I noted two big split systems side by side on the wall inside and chose a table where I thought we would receive most of their blast. Sadly it turned out that it didn’t really matter where we sat because the sliding door opening out onto the decking outside was continually left open by passing staff members.
The prices on the menu were fairly high for Singapore standards and I hoped this meant we were in for a fine dining treat. Our fine dining experiences in Singapore have been out of this world but these meals haven’t come cheap. Halia offers a set menu for lunchtime or you can order dishes at full price off their à la carte menu. There was a dramatic difference in prices between the two menus but sadly nothing appealed to me off the cheaper set menu. I ordered a single course off the more expensive option with a garden salad on the side whilst the Boy opted for the two-course set. I was brought out a small serve of raspberry sorbet as an amuse bouche but because the boy had the set menu they didn’t offer him a serve. It was very refreshingly and cooled me down nicely.
Despite advising them I would like my salad to come out with my main, it was brought out separately on its own without any other meals. We finished it well before either my solitary main or the boy’s entrée even made it to our table. Each of our meals then came out slowly one by one, the Boy ate his entrée, after a bit of a wait his plate was cleared and then out came my main dish, and then just as I finished my food out came his main. What terrible timing!
The Boy ordered what was described on the menu as harissa marinated tuna tataki, tuna tartare, daikon salad, avocado and lime. However placing our order we were informed that there was in fact no tuna left and that the tataki and the tartare would be replaced by harissa chicken tenderloins. Hey? That’s one way to save on kitchen costs! The Boy was served a couple of barely edible dry pieces of overcooked chicken bedded on a smear of avocado with some grated daikon.
I ordered the salmon gravlax rosette with ginger flower perfumed Hiramisa kingfish sashimi and salmon roe. Sounds amazing. Priced at $32 Singapore dollars I was expecting either incredibly high quality pieces of fish or a decent sized serve on my plate; one or the other. Unfortunately I presumed incorrectly. My salmon roe was not fresh and left an overly fishy aftertaste in the mouth. The small serves of salmon were a little chewy and lacked much flavour. The biggest joke of all was the “ginger flower perfumed Hiramisa kingfish sashimi”.
Blink-and-you-will-miss-it pea-sized nubs of kingfish sat inside each rosette and were each barely bigger than the baby capers on my plate. It was embarrassing.The Boy’s main arrived just as I finished my three mouthfuls of tired fish. He chose the aged grain fed Rangers Valley Wagyu rump cap. His dish was the only one for our whole meal that had any merit. Although his piece of rump was not much bigger than a large spoon, the meat was buttery and tender.
Having visited Singapore twice in the past three months we have been consistently wowed with some incredible food on both ends of the price scale. Halia was our only disappointing meal for both of these trips. I found this quite a surprise considering the prices of the meals and the location but I guess I should be grateful. Two trips spanning over a total of seven solid days of eating yet only one meal that didn’t hit the mark is a pretty good innings!
Halia Ginger Garden at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, 1 Cluny Rd, Singapore 259569 | +65 6476 6711 | http://www.thehalia.com/ Price: $$$$ Food: 3/10 (lack of fresh ingredients, over-priced, no flavour) Service: 2/5 (very slow and unresponsive) Ambience: 3/5 (dirty glass widows and poorly functioning air conditioning) Drinks: Unable to assess Total: 8/20