Taylor's Art & Coffee House | Perth, W.A.

Taylor's Art & Coffee House | Perth, W.A.

This coffee house is in Swan Valley, and next to the chocolate shop. Once you finish your meal, you can walk to the chocolate shop, have an ice-cream or fudge. It was a relaxing experience. The cafe House is composed with a studio, a workshop and a gallery. When you come to the entry, you are greeted by what feels like a secret outback garden, except the fact that the mismatch and table chair distributed evenly over the gardens may give you a hint that they are serving customers.

There were also different types of rusty art installed, acting as the tables. It is another rare experience in Perth.

Inside the cafe, you can see the mismatch of chairs and tables. There were even school chairs, looked like they picked up the furniture from the streets, where people ditched them (just my opinion). Also, the roof is made out of tin. My boyfriend expected to have his meal inside the oven, but again, out of expectation. It was cool inside the cafe.

Unfortunately, it was a hot day today. Flies are inevitable in Western Australia, not sure the flies make the place more close to the nature environment or annoyed the hell out of me when I was enjoying my meal. I have ordered a coconut water, unexpectedly surprise that they use a real coconut instead packaged coconut water that you buy from the supermarket. My main is spinach pancake. It was the first time I gave savory  pancake a go. I decided that I love it so much. I highly recommend this lunch dish to all my vegan or vegetarian friends. The pancakes were full of flavour, with garlic paste on top of it . Lemon brought out the freshness of the vegetable in it. Although the dish was mostly dark green in colour, and did  not look appetizing, especially to those carnivores, like my boyfriend, but you know, it just showed the real spinach colour when it is cooked. The colour that indicating of rich iron level in spinach.

I think the rating of Taylor's from Urbanspoon is quite reflective on the environment and the quality of food and drink. Sometimes, I found that the rating is extremely low or high and improportion with the services and quality of food and drink of a particular restaurant. If you are going to Swan Valley next time, and sick of chocolate factory and winery tour, Cafe food may be your other option to enjoy your day. Not sure what the studio in the cafe for, but there was a hotline on the sign for enquiry, I have included that sign in my photo slides below. Enjoy!

Food 4.5/5
Drink 4.5/5
Environment 4/5
Overall 4.33/5

Posted by Editorial Team on 01:33 in

Movie Review: Big Hero 6

Spoiler alert: If you want to know everything by watching the movie yourself, please do not read the review below. I am sure you will be pissed after reading this.

Big Hero 6 is a funny-action superhecartoon. There were some touching points in the movie as well. The main character Hiro, was a smart kid, graduated high school at 13 years old. Started doing illegal robot fighting and earning his first lot of money. Hiro's elder brother called Tadashi Hamada, he was going to college and spending most of his time in the nerd lab, inventing Baymax, a personal Health care companion, and an inflatable and huggable robot. This robot was invented to serve in health care industry. 

The movie is based on an original Marvel comics (loosely at best), but it is not anything close to the Big Hero 6 in the Marvel original comic series. There were some disagreements between Disney and Marvel on the Poetic licence aloud. But what was the movie like?

Much of plot and quality gave it a Hollywood feel. For example, the quality of the artmentship. The fluidity and the graphic were high standard and believable, increasing the immersion feeling, nearly forgot I was watching a cartoon at some points. 

It made me sad a few times to the point that I become teary (yea, I admit that I am an emotional person, but still it is a good film). 

Tadashi had inspired Hiro to become a college student by bringing him to his nerd lab, and introducing him with his nerdy friends. By encouraging Hiro to become a college student, Hiro invented Microbots that controlled by neurotransmitter headset. This invention had been attracted to high tech company and the professor of the college, who asking Hiro not to sell it. However, the professor eventually stole the invention and created an incident, that made people believe he died in the fire after revealing Hiro's latest invention of microbot. The touching point is when Hiro found out the one who indirectly killed his brother and stole his invention was not the boss of the high tech company, but his admired professor. 

So there was backstory between the professor and the boss of the high tech company. Hiro  needed to follow the clues in all the plot to find out what was actually happening between revenge plan of the professor and the new invention in the high tech company involving the professor's daughter. 

Baymax comes across as a true caring robot, as Tadashi has put a health care chip (of his design) into the control board. His responsibility was more than a nurse to Hiro, and it connected the plots throughout the story.  The existence of Baymax was to care people in need of medical attention, if the patient had never satisfied with its service, then it could not deactivate itself. In the story, Hiro was Baymax's patient, and his emotional state were incorrectly diagnosed as puberty hormonal bullshit. Hiro had been modifying Baymax, which made it more compatible in achieving Hiro's goal for find out who killed his brother, but at the same time, be responsible to not injure other human beings. As injuring others was conflicting with the previous coding that invented by Tadashi, aiming at caring.

Hiro and his brother's friends had soon become really good friends. The nerds became a team of super heroes with different abilities (from their love of science), and working together to find the one who killed their beloved friend and brother. The abilities include the laser cutter hands, the magnetic resonance running shoes, the super jump and firing through the monster head costume. 

I recomend this movie and agree with the ratings at Rotten Tomatoes

  

Posted by Editorial Team on 19:55 in Movie review

Bocelli Cafe and Restaurant | Perth, W.A.

Bocelli Cafe and Restaurant | Perth, W.A.

Nice environment. By nice, I mean italian family oriented atmosphere. Nice starter, we ordered garlic bread and eggplant Parmigiana ($15), which was basically layers of eggplant topped with tomato sauce and parmesan cheese, which was simple, but lovely.

I ordered the special of the day, which is the salmon dish (yay). The salmon skin was crispy, but the smoothness and tenderness were not evenly distributed across the whole salmon. I saw some reviews on Urbanspoon complaining about there were not enough sauce on the salmon, I partly agree on that, as I can still tell the salmon was fresh to the point that any sauce would have cover the original taste on it. so to me the level was just right.

I have tried another dish, which is Gnocchi ($20.5). It was beautiful. The dish looks creamy on its appearance, but when you taste it, the gnocchi was mushy, like melting in your mouth.

After all the mains coming through my stomach, and of course I have saved some space for dessert. Like the tiramisu. The flavour had been balance really well between the coffee and the wine. The moose between each coffee dipped finger biscuits  was smooth.This is an soothing dessert after all the rich mains.

Posted by Editorial Team on 19:21 in food review

The Empress Cafe | Perth, W.A.

The Empress Cafe | Perth, W.A.

The Empress cafe locates at Como, If you are interested in property/investment, you may want to check this area out. However, I am not impressed with this empress. We ordered two dishes

The killer breakfast ($18)

This terrifying breakfast name is just another  typical big breakfast. I was not surprised, juicy mushroom though.

Small fish in the big apple ($9.5)
It was a dish with smoked salmon slices, cream cheese, dill, capers and pickled cucumber in a New York style bagel.

Let's talk about the main ingradient: smoked salmon. By now, of you follow me, you will discover the blogger loves salmon so much, as you can see the photos of salmon regularly. In general, the salt content is higher in smoked salmon than in raw salmon. During the smoking process, the added salt on the salmon promotes the water loss inside the salmon, which lengthens the time for food storage by inhibiting the growth of microbes. But no need to add extra salt...

Another question is: Do you know why New York style called big apple? Apple refers to the prizes awarded to the races in New York, and there were large number of different races happening in the old times. To know more, click here.

Browsing through the food review on Urbanspoon, apparently, the sgnature dsh of the Empress is the contended pig ($19).It is basically the slow cooked pulled pork, smoky vines BBQ sauce, staw, bacon, sliced dill pickl, in a light sourdough bn, severed with fries.

Posted by Editorial Team on 22:30 in food review

Euro Patisserie, East Perth | Perth, W.A.

Euro Patisserie, East Perth | Perth, W.A.

I will go pass this eatery everyday during school morning hour,  as I have to drop the kid off every morning to his school. I always  see the students from the boy school next to it and those spoty people who walks their dogs in the morning fill up the cafe every morning. The students always have breakfast with their parents or friends,  but I never know this cafe is such a good  place to have your essential meal of the day. There were also lots of regular old customers around afternoon. People enjoyed their coffee in the cafe, and reading their newspaper. In such a small cafe, there is a sandwich bar, like a mini subway, but the sandwiches taste way better and cheaper than Subway. Also, they have a desert and pie bar. Next to dessert bar, you can buy a whole cake in the fridge next to it. 

The waitress and staff in there were really friendly and with smile on their face when they were serving food. The atmosphere was really friendly in such a small shop. the waitress would greet you once you got into the shop. This was a rare experience in Perth, by paying an Asian price for western food that can filled you up, and with such good customer service.

I ordered an ice Mocha, lime and lemon brulee,  scone with cream and jam. My boyfriend ordered a bacon and egg panini. All together is $14, I thought I back to Hong Kong for a while, as the waitress in there were all Asian and the I got lots of food for $14.

The iced Mocha was warm in the first sip. It was made out of real coffee, but not from the coffee syrup, but I could not taster the coco bit in the coffee, they could have put more in my mocha. The fact that they use ice-cream instead of ice was a real surprise for me. There would not be any water from the ice dilute my drinks, and the vanilla flavour ice-cream added some creaminess on the drink, make its texture silky. After the coffee kicks in, I could feel my heart beat raised and sweat in a cool day.

The lemon and lime brulee was too sour for me. However, if you like the sour taste and its subtleness, you would definitely love this dessert.I just could not stand the sourness in this cake. By watching my boyfriend enjoying his dessert I could see the consistency extend every single boyfriend's bite, with consistent portion of base to lemon and lime brulee. To me, it was like a cheesecake, but less like a brulee. But for one thing, I could not find any pastry in that brulee, not sure was it still count as a brulee. Welcome for any discussion.

I was craving for scones in that morning, The scone costed me $1.8, like my fist sized big and I could not finish it, as it was genuinely filled up my stomach. I left about a quarter for my boyfriend to finish off..

The egg and bacon panini was average to me and to my boyfriend was another amazing dish,. The reason for my boyfriend to like it so much was because the bacon and egg were his favourite dude food. The second reason was because the panini was relatively cheap compared to other eatery with the same quality.

Fair enough, Another good and easy cage that I have introduced to you, especially if you are a uni student, with tight budget and try to enjoy your lives a little bit. This is a good place to hang out with your friends.

This place has 51 votes on Urbanspoon at the moment with high rating. This place is definitely a great place with regular customers. In here, I would love to give this cafe  a shout out, I do not know their boss or anyone  working in there. I simply just want to share this great, welcoming place to everyone in Perth to try this out, no matter you live near South Perth, or planning to send your kids to the prestigious school next to it., should give this cafe a go, see what do you think.

Food 4/5 in relative to the price
Drink 4/5
Environment 3/5
Mood 4/5
Overall 3.75

Posted by Editorial Team on 02:44 in food review

Flipside Burger Bar Como | Perth, WA

Flipside Burger Bar Como | Perth, WA

The first impression of the burger bar was neat, tidy and spacious, even the table were distributed sparsely. Gimmick poster, such as burger of the month, was on the wall. I love their idea. Open kitchen, including open grilling area, so customer can see what they are doing over the other side of the restaurant.  In the fridge you can find imported drink and  rare soft drinks. I ordered a guava and my boyfriend chose a lemon bitter soft drink. They were made in Mexico, according to the label. Undoubtedly, frizzy drink and burger are the perfect match, somehow I feel the frizzness of the drink counteract the the greasiness of the burger.

Today, the burger style is more Australian barbeque style, the edge of the burger are burnt, The overall texture was similar to the homemade burger. I ordered Pear and Parmesan, Pear were sliced into several thin pieces. The pear was not very juicy in the burger, but brought the burger with crunchy texture. Underneath the pear was pile of lettuce, the crunchiness and crispiness focused on the bottom layer of the burger.

Neverthless, I would recommand the burger, that ordered by my boyfriend. The beef petti was amazing, which was really tender and mixed with other vegetables, like carrot, It was the good quality homemade like peti.

The chips were pretty good and standard quality, considering it is a burger place. The sweet chili mayo was peppery, You can see the grinded black pepper mixing with the sweet chili mayo. I prefer a real hot, but I am in Australia now, This taste preference made me become a minority in the  white culture, so I would not say that it is a bad thing. It is the beauty of fusion dishes or even cooking skills between different culture. In my opinion, sauce is the spirit of all dishes, no matter how simple it is.

This Burger Bar also provided serviette on the table, it was a really considerate move. I appreciate this little stuff that contribute to the overall  level of enjoyment in the meal. The tomato sauce was also provided in the tomato shape container, All these reflect the bar stresses the details when presenting to customer. I am loving it.

According to UrbanSpoon, there are four flipside burger bar in perth, and the one in South Perth has the highest rating. Guess why? I have no idea.

Food 3.5/5
Drink 4/5
Environment 4.5/5
Overall 4/5

Posted by Editorial Team on 16:47 in food review

Sandrinos | Perth, WA

Sandrinos | Perth, WA

On this Tuesday night, friends gathering were organised in Fremantle. It was an fine dinning liked experience with friends in Fremantle. Dinning at Fremantle is a really good idea during this time of the year, as christmas lights and decoration are on now, it created an joyful and warmth filled atmosphere.

Despite  my boyfriend always called this place as a hipster paradise. In his dictionary, hipster is just another word associated with luxury and costly way of enjoying lives for those higher class people. Anyway, I forgot to take pictures before enjoying the chilli mussels. Please accept my apologies.

Sandrino is a place full of loud people on Tuesday night, in a delightful atmosphere.We ordered the chili mussels  ($20/half kilogram) as our starter. It was made in a chili brough (heaps of garlic, tomato sugo and olive oil ) filled with real hot chili. I love the spiciness and richness of the brough. It was really tasty  to soak up the brough with a piece of bread. However, the mussels were overdone, indicating by the big shells and shunk tiny mussels inside the shell and also the mussel shells opened in a largerextent

I ordered salad dish instead of main, bocconcini, containing few pieces of avacado, large portion of cherry tomato and good amount of large bocconcini cheese with aioli and big patches of basil pesto for ($16). To me, it is an overprice salad. Although they use a big chunk of bocconcini cheese, which were in cube shape with angles, but not in bite-sized ball shape. The texture of the salad were rough, which affecting the overall. And yes, I am a picky eater and not a great spice person. So do not count me on that

This place was fully booked on the Tuesday night, and we walked in and got a table for six. I understand salad requires lots of effort in cutting, seasoning and mixing, poor salad textures in this busy dinner time may accountable for the quality.

Anyway, in the slideshow below, I have showed you my friend's dishes, judge yourself whether it worth the fine dinning price for the dinner, considering we were dining in at the 'hipster paradise'.

The drinks were nice, Nothing much to comment on and pretty standard.

Food 3/5
Drink 3.5/5
Environment 3.5/5
Overall 3.3/5

Posted by Editorial Team on 04:19 in food review

Burgar Bistro in Leederville | Perth, WA

Burgar Bistro in Leederville | Perth, WA

A little incident happened when a blogger went into the restaurant holding the camera.
Chef in the kitchen: (watching a photographer taking photos of the restaurant):" Excuse me? Why are you taking photos?"
Photographer: "I am a photojournalist and I need to take some photos in your restaurant.for my blog"
Chef:" at least you should ask first."
Photographer: "I am so sorry, Is it not okay for me to take pictures here?"
Chef: "so What kind of blog you are posting the photos to?"
Photographer: just my random blog. (thought: leave me alone, I did it for interest, not a commercial thing, get a little bit frustrated)

Wow. Things getting serious here. Being a blogger is hard sometimes, you may offend someone.

(Without prejudice) Anyhow the food is quite okay. My boyfriend ordered an USA ($15), as the name has suggested that it is an American style burger, including beef, melted cheddar, pickles, ketchup, mustard, lettuce tomato , onion and brioche bun,The bun is crispy on the outside and fluffy in the inside. I am impressed. However, my boyfriend had a different opinion than me. He thought it was oily. His burger is the real dude food, more or less like a fancy double cheese burger. I had a bite, that greasiness and beefy and cheesy taste is real strong and rich compared to my cranberry and pretty dried chicken breast. I think that is why he commented on the bun was oily in that circumstances. Do not get me wrong, It is still a good burger, just me being a lady, I want to  pretend to eat clean. The photo above is my boyfriend enjoying his last bite of the burger. It is how easy to satisfy your man stomach with dude food.

I ordered an Brie-Ann Burger($15.5). This is a burger with chicken breast, brie cheese, cranberry sauce, lettuce, tomato. onion and brioche bun. To me, the first layer bun and the second layer cranberry sauce and the third layer brie cheese were paradise to me, but I am not impressed with the thick and dry chicken breast in the fourth layer, even though mixing with all those amazing flavoured layer. Maybe I should order a vegetarian burger instead.

Also, we ordered a small fries. Real fries, not the hollow one you get in Macdonald, great aioli sauce.

The environment is quite spacious and artistic. Like the menu, it was printed on the student single-lined paper and I think they are all manually typed with the old school type writer. It was really cool. That was the reason why I couldn't stop myself from taking pictures and got into trouble. We went there on Wednesday afternoon; few people were in there. This place were quiet and quite suitable for conversation.

Nevertheless, the table at the back were quite close together, you could sometimes overheard other people conversation about their lives. The front part of the restaurant was quite dark and the back of the restaurant have the sun shune into the dinning table. The decoration with poster and chalkboard art were quite modern.

Sorry for fewer photos in this blogpost, as the chef was not impressed with the photo taking action within the private property.

Food (Burger): 3.5/5
Food (Fies): 4/5
Environemnt: 3.5/5
Staff : 2.5/5

Posted by Editorial Team on 22:29 in food review

The Litttle Piggy | Perth, WA

The Little Piggy café | Perth, WA

After reading the list of Top 100 places to eat and drink in W.A., I decided to follow the list for the top 20 to 30. The first place on the list is The Little Piggy cafe at North Fremantle.

When I first arrived at the cafe, there was a burnt toast smell wafting from the kitchen and a single fly around my table and my face. I was apprehensive at this point to order any bread related dishes. 

However, I could not decide on a choice, so I passed the responsibility to my boyfriend, who chose the man food. As the name of the cafe suggested, he chose the dish with bacon and ham.

The first came up on my table was my chocolate milkshake. "Oh yum" was my first  reaction after my first sip. With a splice of minty flavour counterbalance the sweetness of the drink. Freshened up my Sunday morning.

The egg benedict with bacon and mushroom as sides, are fantastic. Both bread and bacon were crisped up. The pouched egg was soft and runny, the big mushroom steak was tasty and juicy. The whole dish glue it together with hollandaise sauce.

I share my big breakfast with my boyfriend, as the big chocolate milkshake filled me up a bit. The milkshape is irresistible

The total cost for the breakfast, sides and drink was $26. A reasonable affair for a Fremantle eatery, but still quite costly. 

Food 4/5
Drink 4.5/5
Environment 3.5/5

Overall 4/5

Find the Little Piggy cafe at Urban Spoon

Posted by Editorial Team on 01:07 in food review

Mends Street Cafe | Perth, WA

Mends Street Café| Perth, WA


On this beautiful Saturday morning, a stones throw from the swan river. I have ordered Fresh iced lemon tea and Croquet Madame which here is basically a fancy ham cheese egg tomato toasty.

 

Toasty was average, not bad but I could have whipped it up at home with some butter ham egg and cheese. The sweet onion relish was the winner of this dish, without this home style side I would not get this again. This breakfast is overpriced for what it is, but we are eating in south Perth on the river.

The café is small, but they use the daylight and large wall mirrors to blend the street and the shop together, which makes the café look more spacious. The use of matching dinning set and decoration/paint theme gives me a cosy feelings.  

The total cost for the breakfast and drink is $20.20.

Something interesting that I saw while walking to the café, a cookie monster biker helmet and a Santa biker riding around. The environment is a bit noisy but up beat, considering it was 9a.m. when I had my breakfast this morning.

 

Food 3/5

Drink 4/5
Place 3.5/5

Overall 3.5/5
 

Find Mends Street Cafe on Urbanspoon 

Posted by Editorial Team on 23:51 in food review

Casa Bianchi | Perth, WA

Casa Bianchi | Perth, WA

You may think this place is expensive, and you are right. Ordered pouched egg on multigrain bread, ($15) with a side of thick gourmet style smoked salmon ($5) and a bowl of mushrooms ($2.50). Also a cappuccino for $4.50

The mushrooms are juicy, full of texture, with a light buttery taste that did not overpower the mushroom flavour. However, the egg was a bit disappointing, as it was simply overdone with the over peppery flavoured, rough texture to the white of the egg and non-runny yolk. The dish also included caramelised onion, although very tasty, was too spicy for my pallet. If you like the peppery and spicy taste in your onion, then this is for you. If not, maybe ask to hold up on the spice.

The cappuccino was light and fluffy and not overly bitter. However, not a super quality coffee; passable.

The water fountain with a koi pond add to the soothing and relaxing environment. Decorations are miscellaneous, with different style chairs and a miss-mash of classy but vintage tables and chairs. A magic feel with a rainforest garden theme

Overall, I enjoy the meal, was let down by the quality of the egg and the spiciness of the onion. Coffee was good but not great. Environment extremely relaxing, great place to take a book and spend some time. One could find themselves immersed in this gorgeous café.

Also, it is a really great place to snap a few pics, a unique experience in Perth city.



Food: 3.8/5
Coffee: 3/5
Place: 5/5

Overall: 4/5
 

  

Find Casa Bianchi at Urbanspoon 

Posted by Editorial Team on 04:58 in food review

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