X-wray

Oh what surprises Fremantle brings! In a little, blink you will miss car park in Fremantle lies X-Wray, a cafe by day (with a choice of beers for drinks) and a bar at night (with some live jazz music on some nights). With a big alfesco area and a small-ish indoor dining, X-Wray is decked out in retro simplicity and with palm trees around the outdoor area, it reminds me of a beach bar, minus the water. Using recycled San Pellegrino bottles to hold their sugar and their toilets filled with gigs and street festival information, X-Wray is friendly to the environment and dedicated to promoting local talent.

We had a very late lunch consisting of homemade lean beef burgers with a side of wedges (which were really homemade potatoe chips) and aioli dip. The patty was lean, juicy, moist and delicious. The sauce the burger came with was to-die-for. Really makes the burger. And of course you can't really go wrong with wedges and aioli dip!

Then with a cup of coffee Freo day out was to be fantastic.

I think next time I would try to make it for breakfast, because the menu looked great and it's a pretty nice place to just hang out.

 

Pasta with love

My bf and I made a lovely dinner and some to freeze over one night. This consisted of tomato based sauce (along with addition of a couple of tomatoes), chirozos (left over from making breakfast one day), carrots, mushrooms and broccolini, a dash of masala and tumeric powder to make lovely pasta with a twist. Along with the pasta, we had some garlic bread.

 

 

It was a lovely dinner and the pasta with the addition of some spices gave it that nice kick and made it all the more interesting. 

Cheeseburger sushi at Iku Sushi

After such a rotten day at work on a weekend as well, and having had nothing except a cup of tea and a biscuit the whole day I dropped by at Iku sushi in Perth to grab some extremely late lunch at 4pm.

Iku Sushi is a tiny little sushi bar located on William street in the near 140william building. It's decked out in very cutesy colours and bar stools and tables, along with touches of hungry hippo game dispensing out soy sauces and picnic tables holding chopsticks, spoons and tissues. very Tokyo!

Iku Sushi has your usual sushi rolls and take away bento boxes as well as catering for sit down meals. However, unlike other places it has a unique take on it's roll and the most famous of those is the cheeseburger sushi. This sushi is epic - it's rather large in size (definitely larger than the normal 6 piece sushi) so I recommend that you get the 4 piece (small size) rather than large, if you can barely finish the regular 6 pack sushi. I got the cheeseburger sushi with the lot. So this contained either teriyaki beef or teriyaki chicken (I got the beef), along with pieces of bacon, shitake mushroom and mozzarella cheese rolled in nori then rice then coated in bread crumbs and deep fried. It it absolutely delicious and definitely bad for your arteries. The mix of flavours is divine and it's worth the try!

Iku Sushi, also offer catering services and for an extensive menu and what they offer check out their website.

Saturday Delights

I say nothing is more delightful than spending a lovely sunny Autumn day being immersed in culture. So on Easter Saturday, I grabbed my younger cousin and drove down to Fremantle to see at least one French film, as the French Film Festival was still on, and an added bonus was that the Fremantle Arts Festival was on.

It took us half an hour to find parking, went around in circles far too often, due to the lack of signs around Fremantle and their many narrow one ways streets, street closures due to the festival and what nots, I've almost given up. But out of the blue, this 4WD leaves and right opposite the Luna SX as well.

Our luck was turned. We ate a lovely meal at X-Wray (see next possible post) then off we went to the Fremantle Markets and to explore its streets.

Had my dose of caffeine at X-Wary - had a slight burnt taste, but wasn't too tragic and AL catching up on scheduling her diary.

We wandered around Fremantle markets and the watched a few street performers do their thing and of course wandered into a few second hand book stores and boutiques scattered around the center. There was so many people, it was a little cramped on the narrow footpaths of Freo, but, that's half the fun.

While wandering around the Fremantle Markets, we managed to grab some dessert at the Macaroon stand. The display at the street front was lovely and oh so french sheek but alas the reflection in the photo did not portray that.

There were plenty of Macaroon flavours to chose from so we decided to be good and only get one each. AL ended up getting honey and thyme which was excruciatingly sweet, couldn't taste the thyme and the "honey" tasted more like caramel than honey. I settled for something more zesty, in the form of Lemon, because I always think it works better for Macaroons, gives it that nice balance of sweet and citrus, and it definitely turned out to be nicer than honey and thyme.

After dessert, it got a little too hot, so we went back to Luna, which was actually timed perfectly, as people were entering the cinema and grabbing a seat. So with a glass of San Pellegrino Chinotto to quinch our thirst we headed in to watch Paris-Manhattan staring Alica Taglioni and Patrick Bruel.

It was a lovely film. Made me smile and laugh throughout it. It is why I love watching French movies. They always tend to make "romantic-comedies" with sophistication, humour and of course, an air of utter romance and yet although dreamy, its still somewhat realistic. If you get a chance definitely go and watch Paris-Manhattan, its fun, funny, romantic and I couldn't help but feel happy after seeing it, it was nostalgic and makes me want to desperately go back to Paris and explore, even if I think Parisians are rather rude.

The day was definitely worth the drive and the stress of parking an the traffic on the way home. All that couldn't wipe away the delightful day and from the feeling that you get from watching a romantic French film.

Hot cross buns..

I'm loving hot cross buns this Easter!

Traditional, chocolate.. Even mocha!

Slightly heated quickly, 10 seconds only in the microwave and with a cup of tea or coffee.. Just perfect! If only the weather was colder it'd be even more perfect!

Shhhh... It's my secret love!

A girl should never go without her lipstick EVER. It's especially blasphemous if she forget her red Chanel lippie.

Everything seems more sexy, more seductive, more luxurious with her Chanel rouge allure 67.

I couldn't live without it. Massive love and worth every penny.

Amour Chanel.

Clarences

Located in the heart of Beautfort street and Clarence street, Clarences bar has proven to be a favourite of the local. It is one of my favourite small bars to just chill out and catch up with a few mates for pints of cider or beer or a glass of wine. It provides a relaxed atmosphere, with simple black walls with prints, a non-fussed decor, with private seatings at the front for diners and a bar at the back with a small intimate courtyard at the back. Clarences has a decent selection of ciders, beers and wines and quality tapas to share and a limited selection of mains. On certain weeknights there are main specials, such as the chicken parma on Monday nights.

The chicken parma on Monday nights will set you back $15, which isn't too bad, considering the decent size of the meal. It also comes with a side of frites and salad. The aroma from the parma was delicious, a decent amount of cheese was on top and it wasn't too over-cooked that the chicken was dry. Definitely, $15 well spent.

Another one of my favourites at Clarences is their fries. Homemade with love and comes with aioli and homemade tomato sauce. The tomato sauce used to be fantastic, but lately, either they haven't made it in house or the chef have changed and the sauce is not as good as it used to be; there definitely isn't the taste of homemade.

Clarences also makes amazing mini cheese burgers with pickles, which really isn't very mini and makes for a substantial meal. It's fresh with slices of melted cheese on the beef. What can I say but yum?

They also have amazing fried chicken wings, which are lightly battered, fried and is covered in spicy so it has this nice bite to it. Unfortunately, there are no photos as the smell of the wings were too much to resist.

Another lovely tapas dish on their menu, which I also failed to take a photo of is their, porcini arancini, feta whip.

Clarences ceviche, coconut, lemon and coriander is also delicious, fresh and creamy. It just melts in your mouth. However, I think it needed a bit of zest and a little less coconut, as the coconut flavour over-powered the whole ceviche's traditional zesty flavours. Nevertheless, it was still pretty good.

I also quite enjoy their confit of mushrooms, which was a bowlful of button mushrooms seasoned with butter and herbs. The mushrooms were not overdone and the flavours worked really well together, I just think it would have been better if it was field mushrooms instead. (Might just be biased).

Clarences also makes amazing pork belly. The meat was juicy and tender and the crackling was crisp to perfection.

And their panzaella salad is filled with lots of fresh vegetables in an amazing, pleasantly zesty dressing. A perfect accompaniment to any dish.

They also have an amazing selection of cheese. My favourite being the will studd brillat-savarin, cow’s milk (soft cheese) with honey comb and baguette. I can eat this thing all to myself, with a glass of wine in hand.It's absolutely divine with the honeycomb on the cheese.

Clarances is one of my favourite small bars, plainly because it offers lovely selection of dishes, with an ambiance of dark, sexy coolness but one which isn't pretentious. It sometimes lacks service in peak time, and can be a little too dark to see what you are eating, but regardless, it is the perfect venue to catch up with mates over drinks and nibbles.