The Day

Guess who’s in town?

Guess what else happened?

Sunday brekky @ Harvest Espresso

Lately my weekends have been working weekends. So it was nice to slow down on Sunday to indulge in a yummy breakfast.

Our cafe of choice was the fairly new kid on the block in Victoria Park, Harvest Espresso. It was my second visit to Harvest Espresso,  I love it that this tiny cafe is conveniently located in my neighbourhood, best of all, they serve 5 senses coffees :). The coffee was good but I couldn’t finish it because my nervous stomach can no longer take caffeine (T__________T).

My breakfast was the banana bread with berry compote and mascarpone and pistachios ($13). The banana bread was lovely with a nice chewy texture. I also liked the added crunch of the pistachios and the tartness of the berry compote. Overall, I enjoyed it even though added together it was probably a bit heavy for me.

R’s black pudding, fried eggs with spinach and sourdough ($17). The black pudding sausages came out hot, crispy, and tasty, eggs were perfect and bread was pretty good. Overall we felt that the brekky dishes at Harvest were innovative, beautifully  presented but a tad heavy in terms of flavours. The service at Harvest is excellent, earnest. What  a wonderful and fun new addition to the Vic Park cafe strip. I will be returning for the desserts and muffins!

Harvest Espresso
629 Albany Hwy
Victoria Park, WA 6100

Egg noodles two ways. Si Yaw Wong Chow Mein, simple stir fried egg noodles with soy sauce and chicken strips.

Char siew egg noodles with minced pork and kailan.

I finally ticked off some of the recipes from my 2013 30 must-cook recipes. This is the Mad Moroccan Lamb with lots of pumpkin and sweet potato. I didn’t follow the recipe to a tee, but it was nice! I think I will be cooking this again.

Another must-30 recipe, Jamie Oliver’s chicken tikka masala. I thought it tasted a bit like Malaysian chicken curry haha but Jo said it was different. I didn’t have almonds so I substituted with cashews. It was a nice, mild curry and I thought the lashings of yoghurt gave it a fresh twist.

Apricot clafoutis ticked off! Only I cheated and used white peaches because they are in season. I’ve never had clafoutis before so I don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like, it definitely wasn’t what I expected, slightly custardy, fragrant with the unique texture of almond meal.

A pretty good cooking week :).

Ahoy Matey!

It’s been a while since I’ve done any creative cooking in the kitchen :(.

I’m no where near diminishing my 30 must-cook list, so far I’ve only cooked one out of the 30, but I promise I will do one more this week. Instead, I have been relying on my old-time favourites, such as this teriyaki beef onion, tamagoyaki and stir fried cabbage and carrot bento.

But at least I have been trying new food places! This is Tao Cafe, which while not actually new (they have branches in Myaree and Innaloo), is pretty new in Victoria Park. Already it is very popular and was buzzing on Saturday night. The upside of Tao? They have a wide variety on their menu ranging from Vietnamese, Thai to Japanese (they even have a sushi train). The downside? Jack of all trades, master of none. The Pho Tai above was very average, in fact, while the broth was alright, their noodles were not the usual smooth rice noodles that we’re used to from the Vietnamese fare in Northbridge. Prices also on the higher side (around $15.50 – 18.00 for a dish) compared to their counterparts in Northbridge.

HC’s Com Tam ($15.00) broken rice with pork chop, egg and shredded meat. His first reaction was ‘very salty’ haha, so I guess that means it was pretty tasty.

I have to say that the presentation of Tao’s dishes were all very appealing and nice, the orange hue of the rice of my Com Ga Chien Don ($15.50) a crispy chicken with rice and sweet and sour sauce, was very pretty. Unfortunately I’m not sure what they put in the rice to get that nice colour because the rice itself was rather bland and didn’t taste of anything much. It was much better after I mixed in the sweet and sour sauce which tasted like sweet chilli sauce.

Jo enjoyed her Pineapple Fried Rice ($15.00) and said that she would return in the future. While the food was only average and portion perhaps on the smaller side, I can see why Tao Cafe is popular in the neighbourhood especially with its BYO policy, good location and bright cozy interior. I think it will be here to stay.

Tao Cafe
Shop 1, 860 Albany Highway,
East Victoria Park 6101
Phone: 08 9361 1100

All aboard! A different Sunday evening in Fremantle. The guys accompanied me on a work function of a different kind (no, I am not a sailor) which saw us board the Leeuwin II.

Baby was dressed up in his Sunday nautical best for the voyage haha.

Lots of romantic stories regarding the Leeuwin. My colleague once proposed to her husband on board the Leeuwin II.

The tiny bunks down below. No individual cabins or captain quarters here.

The whole family on the decks of Leeuwin II. I wish my parents were here, I think they would have enjoyed a tour around this little ship. Ah well, two more weeks till they arrive and we can go fishing in Freo. Bon voyage!

Blur

This is a ‘yes I’m still alive’ post. My days have been a blur of work, work and more work. Luckily it was the Labor Day long weekend this week, but I still went into the office to catch up on some deskwork. Ok, it actually wasn’t too bad because R came with me and we went shopping afterwards haha.

Weekends are always good because you have nice brother-in-laws that make you homemade ice kachangs!

It’s HC mum’s last week in Perth! I think she is going to miss baby Tristan a lot, look how big he is now. But I think she is secretly longing to go back to Kuching, the heat in Perth has really gotten to her. Look, even her t-shirt says I love Kuching :).

Soon it will be Easter and my parents will be here! Can’t wait!