I've never seen anyone drink bubble tea so quickly (it was chocolate with custard. To me, this is the most disgusting combination. I tasted a bit and got a mouthful of tasteless custard and overly sweet chocolate. I feel the best bubble tea should be fruity like mango or lychee, coffee-flavoured or traditional milk tea. And now I've talked enough about bubble tea).
We went and were seated. There were actually numerous empty tables around ours so I wondered why they hadn't seated us straight away. We got talking about the rumour that all the waitstaff are apparently British or at least have British accents. The rumour proved to be correct we realized over the course of the meal.
We started with tap water and a complimentary bread basket.
Yes, I Instgrammed the shit out of these pictures. Enjoy the doctored hipsterness. The bread was dry and tasteless, made better by dipping it in the olive oil/balsamic vinegar mixture. This saddens me greatly as one of my greatest joys in life is bread. I expect more. Bread should be joyful to eat, not a chore. Maybe the dryness is understandable as it's a complimentary bread basket and slices are cut from a loaf that sits out in the open as and when they are needed. That doesn't make up for the tastelessness though. The breadstick was better (but it's a breadstick). In the background is "music bread" which is basically the crispbread you get with cheese. It was also decent but relatively tasteless.
Bread has a taste and that taste should be delicious. I like bread. This bread was mediocre. I am sad.
We ordered a serving of "posh chips" to share. Normal hot chips with parmesan cheese and truffle oil. The truffle oil was indiscernible but the cheese was tasty. This might have been the best "dish" of the meal.
I ordered the sausage pappardelle, main size. The serving size was decent but not exceptional. I've gotten a lot larger for a similar price at suburban restaurants though. There was also the option of an entree size for $6 less but I saw pictures online and the serving size was minuscule. I figured it would be worth it to size up.
The sauce was tasty but slightly more acidic than I'm used to. However, the pasta itself was undercooked owing to the actual shape. The pasta (which reminded me of the small intestine, appetizingly enough) was thick in the middle. It wasn't quite chalky but not quite cooked enough either. The parmesan breadcrumbs on top were tasty.
My brother ordered the wild rabbit tagliolini. If you aren't already aware, my brother loves steak. He should have ordered the steak.
I had a bite of his. The pasta and sauce were well cooked and tasty. I thought the sauce was pleasantly light and tangy but my brother said later that he found it too buttery. I only had a little bit so probably didn't get the full effect. The rabbit, however, was like rubber.
Rabbit is a white meat (like chicken... but where does duck stand? I always wonder) but the texture of this rabbit was almost like a really overcooked piece of beef or lamb. It was bad.
Special Friend ordered steak tagliata described as "180g aged grain-fed Angus Hereford steak with crunchy fennel, watercress, mint, chilli, garlic, horseradish & lemon." She also had the truffle butter for an additional $4.50.
As you can see, it looked more like a salad than a steak. I guess because it's only 180g, they sliced up the beef and spread it out to make it look like more. Special Friend said it was horribly dry and tough. She ordered it well done though so who knows really.
My brother and his Special Friend shared a brownie. It was a hunk of brown with an attractive dollop of vanilla ice cream on top. It looked reasonably fudgy. However, on first bite, I was informed that it tasted cheap. More sugary than chocolatey. Worse that what could be found at Woolworths or a Vietnamese bakery. I was sad. There is nothing sadder than a chocolate dessert that tastes more like sugar than chocolate.
I had the ice cream. Three (small) scoops of ice cream with a choice of two toppings (butterscotch sauce, honeycomb, seasonal fruits or crushed nuts). The ice creams were chocolate (pale without a real chocolate flavour at all but yummy enough), fig and something alcoholic I think? Amaretto maybe? They were lighter and more moussey than normal bought ice creams but I think I actually preferred this. The fig ice cream was actually really nice with a lot of chunks of fig in it. The third flavour was completely non-descript. I can't even describe it to you. It kind of melted into the other two as it was at the bottom.
The honeycomb was delicious and the butterscotch sauce butterscotchy. I should have got double honeycomb instead though...
The total bill came to $93 something.
With $93, we could have gotten a feast at a Chinese restaurant that would have left us with copious leftovers (actually, debatable given my brother's appetite). The thing with going to restaurants to eat pasta is that it never feels worth it. It's all just pasta and not much else. I can buy pasta for 99c from IGA. If I'm going to get pasta at a restaurant, it better be freaking delicious. Otherwise I'll get a burger.
Because burgers are always delicious. I should have gotten the burger.
All in all, no bueno. Save yourself the $93 and go to this place: http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/338/1370726/restaurant/Perth/Singapore-China-Town-Northbridge
The sizzling Japanese tofu is delicious.
J
1 comment:
Your pasta was cooked al dente, which is actually authentic italian. Youll find when you get here, all the pastas are cooked this way. It threw us off too. Weve just been cooking our pasta wrong all these years, although truthfully i like mine a little more cooked (unless its like a dry pasta dish i suppose).
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