Villa D'Este

The pronounciation of the second word of this restaurant caused such a fuss amongst us, but not more than having to share a plate of the yummiest gnocchi ever tasted in Perth EVER. In fact there was just so much fuss, fuss over the name, having to share a yummy entree and a quarter of us usual diners skipping out on this fabulous dinner, resulting in M's disappointment that only one Entertainment Card was being used.

Villa D'Este itself is a bit of a fuss, only because its located in West Perth amongst all the boring attire of black and white suiters, in what looks like a villa plucked out from a countryside somewhere and dropped in the middle of CBD buildings, hence the fuss - a bit paradoxical, and well, parking in the city... The deco is typical of Perth's restaurants, wooden floorboards, very 1800s-like socialite "homestead". I did however, loved that there was a rose with a simple vase in the middle of all the tables.

The service was slow. It took them 15 minutes or even more for them to take our drink orders and even longer for our meals, even though there were two different waiters for us - one for our meals, one for our drinks. Maybe they should have only had one waiter who took both the drinks and the meal orders, that way everyone in the restaurant gets exceptional service.

I suppose all this can be quite forgotten, because the meals that came out were absolutely sensational. We had bread,  before the entree - which was much needed because it took them forever to bring out anything and to take any sort of order. In fact I think they forgot that they hadn't taken our order - took them 30-40minutes before they came around to us to take our order. But like I said, the lack of service can somewhat be overlooked because the food really was sensational.

Two entrees -

one of which was the special of the evening - the blue cheese gnocchi - it was the best ever!! My tastebuds were in heaven and just looking at the photos again makes me drool...

there was also  the Linguine alle Vongole Saporite - which was a home made pasta served with a sauce of fresh clams, white wine, pasley, garlic, olives, capers and chilli - it was also superb, but not even close the heavenly experience that the gnocchi.

Our side mixed salad to go with our mains (and to get some sort of vegetables into us - have to have a balanced meal right??)

which also was dressed with their homemade dressing or some other choice which I can't remember. They dressed it at the table so the salad wasn't soggy - I can't stand soggy salad.

The mains -

S's Medaglioni di Vitello Con Prataiolo - Medallions of veal topped with a field mushroom and served with a sauce of dry sherry and a touch of garlic and thyme..

M's Due Gemelli alla Montanara -  beef fillet medallions grilled topped with a porcini crust and served with a flamed brandy sauce

My was a Chef's Special of the night - it was breast and leg of duck (MASSIVE PIECES!) - double cooked duck with my choice of a porterhouse sauce rather than a creamy one. Best duck I've had in Perth so far.

We didn't get dessert because by the end of the night we were stuffed. We had also forgiven them for their bad service (although I still believe if you going to claim that you are a fine dining establishment you still need to have damn good service!! especially if you are going to charge ridiculous prices for food, although sensational, are not exactly mind blowing - except for that gnocchi..) and promised we be back and will be bringing the fourth member of the team who bailed on us because he was 'sick' and 'coughing up a lung'. Oh and understood why a collegue of mine raved and ranted about how it is her favourite restaurant in Perth. I don't know if it's my favourite, but it's definately up there.

Happy Birthday Daddy

Although we don't always see things eye to eye,
and sometimes I say and do things that I know would hurt you,
and you do the same.

Deep down I know that you love mum, me and the boys oh so dearly,
and that everything you do and everything you give to us
really is sacrifice and is really because you love us.

I'm sorry that I act spoilt and selfish and irresponsible.
I'll try to do better, I promise.
But I do really appreciate everything you've given me.

I love you, Dad, so very much.

Happy Birthday Daddy.

Princess in the Garden

I'm feeling a little lazy to blog properly so for now I'll just post some of the fashion editorials that I find rather sexy, glam with a touch of all thrown together.

And it includes my loves at the moment, which is a little bit of lace and ruffles.

I have a few lace dresses/tops and sheer shirts I can't wait to wear and strut about in my Louboutins and Chloe shoes.

Just have to wait until the weather warms up just a bit, like today, it's perfect.

24 degrees,

warm

sunny

beautiful

just the break you need from cold winter.

Pity I have nowhere special to go.

And to end it all... something a little more sweet, vintage and oh so summery..

pretty in white

 have numerous people planning their weddings, and these are a few pretty white dresses I've found that I think are just so pretty, wow, glamorous and just little left of the centre.

Just the details of the dress above is amazing

The following photos below are from Collette Dinnigan Snow White Bridal Collection

disjoining in the middle of the night..

I woke up last night in pain - I couldn't move my arm and the elbow area was tender.. I thought it might be just because of my pump class. But no, I woke up again after what seems like 10 minutes and it was so painful like someone has twisted it, I tried moving my other arm and my legs and everything was fine.

I woke up this morning to observe what's happened and there is this HUGE MASSIVE JOINT sticking out next to my elbow. Obviously I've done some aerobics in my sleep and have disjointed something rather. I'm in pain. I can't even put my bra on because I can't bend up arm or even touch my shoulder. I can't even move my spoon to my mouth to eat my lunch!! SO MUCH PAIN.

And I am making dinner for family and boyfriend tonight. AH.

Toast..

When an all day breakfast cafe is down the street from your house sometimes it's not far enough for it to feel as though you are "going out somewhere to have brunch" so I've been putting it off, until the day of On the Bright Side festival, where I figured the best meal is pretty much a brunch (seeing as I woke up at 10:30 and the festival started at 12-ish which meant that we should be there by 2-ish).

So I had a slice of leftover quiche before S arrived and we made our way to Toast (which by the way used to be this little crappy cafe - thank GOD that is gone considering how bad the food/cake/coffee was and now something better is there at a prime location).

The thing I love about Toast is the cute little white wooden garden chairs outside, with white umbrellas, blue and white tables all overlooking the lovely Claisebrook Cove (and there were vintage 1960s red vinyl chairs inside) and the cute little coloured plastic cups and vintage/old glass bottles (which probably was something else before it was cleaned and reused). It was all very school-like.

S Lemon Iced Tea

Cappuccino - weren't enough coffee in it - it was almost watery..

Caramelised Banana Crepes - which was delicious, sweet, buttery and 

the crepes were the right thickness

My healthy option - low GI (which kept me going for the whole entire festival and some more!!)

bircher muesli, traditional swiss style, oats soaked in dairy,
served with rhubarb and raspberry compote, toasted almonds

It was fantastic - it wasn't soggy and tasteless (or some museli ones are like vomit like!) But this was perfect  mix of sour sweet and the almonds just gave it that crunch!

Oh and Toast does take away too! Which was exactly what I did today for my late lunch.

 Corn fritters with avocado, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce

- The Avocado weren't ripe enough and the hollandaise sauce was sour, not enough of the buttery-ness.. I won't be getting the hollandaise anything at the place..

Overall Toast wasn't too bad, it's quirky, quaint and very much like the artsy cafes that seems to be popping up all over Perth at the moment. If it's busy I wouldn't recommend you sitting inside - in fact why sit inside (unless if it's raining), after all the views are excellent outside and it's a lot more roomy.

I think I'll be back and next time I'll try one of the usual suspects - bacon, eggs, mushrooms and toast. 

My Fair Lady

I spent yesterday afternoon enjoying My Fair Lady - one of film's greats.

I forgot how classic, catchy and funny the music in the movie is. I also realised how so much of it is re-used and alluded to in so many cartoons, movies and books in our time.

And as always, Audrey Hepburn is stunning and such a fantastic actress.

By favourite scene however is the monochromatic Ascot Opening Race scene

and now I'm really eager to go to Melbourne for the Melbourne Cup.I've even come up with what I'm wearing - I'm wearing my lace short dress with exposed zipper at the back - it's flattering and elegant. Now all I need is the big hat.

Riley's Wood Fired Cafe

I wanted to go to a casual eatery, a local cafe with good pizza, steak, fish and chips, pasta at affordable prices. I also had to find something south of the river, which for me is a HUGE challenge considering the fact that I'm not very familiar with anything south of the river. With a little help of google I found Riley's Woodfired Cafe. It serves salad, steak, fish and chips, pasta and most of course wood fired pizzas.

Riley's Woodfired Cafe is a little local cafe situated in Brentwood/Mt. Pleasant area, pretty much in the middle of the suburb. It's brightly lit, white walls and seatings with a few book shelfs and an open kitchen where you can see the wood fired oven. I was suprised by how busy and packed the little cafe/restaurant was. We waited at the back bench before a seat was available.

What really surprised me was that there was only one waitress and one other person at the till. For a place that was packed they really do need a system of service, whether it's by those beeping things, or employing more waitresses/waiters.

The food? The pizza was beautiful and big enough to share between two. However, bf didn't want to, he wanted fish and chips (although he ended up eating the pizza too).

Agnello - lamb, baby spinach, red onion, roasted capsicum and tzatziki sauce (the sauce was sooooooo good!)

bf's Fish and Chips

I love the fact that this place was brightly lit, the food was filling and cheap, the pizza was yummo, and it wasn't just some dodegy looking dirty local cafe. To top it off, there were also a few other couples in the place, as well as a family, for something tucked away in the suburbs it wasn't too bad.

Green Tea Cupcakes..

Firstly you are going to say... "hmmm.." except for all you green tea lovers..

But let me tell you that it's delicious when it is fresh out of the oven and is nice and warm and moist and it's healthy-ish. It also gave me an excuse to use the match powder that I bought from Tokyo and Kyoto.

I modified the receipe I got from mashi so the receipe..

90g butter at room temp
75g sugar
2 eggs
125g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
50g ground almonds
50ml milk
2 tsp matcha powder

Firstly I ran out of baking powder, so I opted to use self-raising flour (i'm not sure how much I used because i went with according to the mixture's texture as I was folding the flour).

I didn't have grounded almonds so I used fresh almonds and grounded them up in the motar - because I was a little lazy to ground it finely, the end result was the cupcake had a little bit of of an almond crunch.

So firstly, you..

Preheat oven to 180'C.

Beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until creamy. Add the eggs and continue to beat. Gradually add the flour and baking powder (in my case I added the self-raising flour), then the almonds.

Heat the milk in a saucepan, remove from the stove and add the matcha tea powder. Leave to soak for 3 minutes, then beat it all to remove any remaining clots. Add the matcha milk to the dough and incorporate well (do not over mix or your cupcake will be tough)

Matcha green tea powder

 

Distribute the mix between a 12 muffin tray, bake for 20 minutes.

You can use as much matcha tea powder or as little as you want - it really depends on how "green tea" you want the cupcakes to taste. The sugar is the same, my matcha is not as sweet, so I added a little bit more sugar to my cupcakes.

Happy baking!

A little bit of leather haven...

Last week I got myself a stitch detail leather biker jacket, it's warm, it's gives a little bit of oomph to all my outfits, and to top it off, it didn't cost an arm and a leg. It was affordable REAL leather.

It's from Just Jeans - it's $199 but I got it for $149. It's not lamb leather but it still feels nice and you can smell the leather smell - which I love. There are other styles and colours as well. There was one with a hoodie - it's actually very casual and relaxed look and I quite like it, although the whole idea of a leather jacket hoodie is baffling. But when you put it on it's rather nice.

I now have a white and a black leather jacket and I really feel like investing in more by grabbing that hoodie leather one... but maybe later.

Being Cultured - Patricia Piccinini's Relativity

M, H and I had a very thought-provoking, eye-opening arty cultural experience today at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

We spent lunch time gossiping at David Jones food hall (which by the way has some very yummy sushi!) before heading to the Art Gallery to see Patricia Piccinini's Relativity.

You are first confronted with a huge spider web looking thing where a child peeps out from within the web and huge blobs hang underneath. Upon further examination (where you walk up the stairs) you see that the web holds slug looking things inside the web and the child seems to be playing in it. The whole web is made from human hair. It's really quite cool (except for the slugs - they just look ewww... and the faces looks like a dugong.. and as H put it.. "ooo and you can see their butthole..").

The next thing you come across were two children playing video games (I thought they were real kids, especially when two little boys were next to it and taking.. I thought they were all real and the actual real boys were looking at the game boy too..) it turned out the two children playing the video game wasn't real at all - in fact upon closer inspection the children are prematurely aged - the wrinkles around their eyes were amazingly detailed.

There are also all sorts of interesting creatures and the whole exhibition is so detailed, and little short videos to accompany it all.

The exhibition is on until 22nd of August at the Art Gallery. It's worth seeing. OH did I mention that it's free - if you enjoy it just donate a few coins.

The Art Gallery is also has the Body exhibition on as well. Body will focus on corporeality in many guises, from the seemingly simple representation of the human form, from ceremonial markings on the human body to works by contemporary artists that are determined by the physical body of the artist or seek to include the body of the viewer within their realm.