a spewing of sorts

Since I got back from Darwin I've been going crazy eating eating alla time eating... Darwin has some amazingly good food but the bulk of it is Asian with a few rare exceptions: hi Manoli's :-).

I've missed deli's and great bread, Italian food and amazing butchers.. so it seems like everywhere I go these days there's something I want to try or write about. I've also realised that I've been storing up all these little Perth food nuggets for years and now I finally get a chance to write about them! So I'm starting with the Mount Lawley strip because that's where I scour the mean streets looking for my lunch.

Antonio's Continental Deli must be one of Mount Lawley's most loved institutions - an Italian deli, in a nondescript alleyway tucked in behind a tobacconists and a butcher, it opened around 12 years ago. It also has the sweetest women working there! It does a roaring trade in lunch rolls cos they are sooooo good... so good that when I'm getting one I have been known to textually torment my sister to which I can pretty much guarantee an anguished and/or abusive response. My favourite is the swiss cheese continental roll with all the salads - this guarantees a crisp italian roll (fluffy on the inside) stuffed with layers of swiss, beetroot, cucumber, tomato, spanish onion and any other yumminess you can dream up - everything that should be in a roll and so rarely is.

Anyway I digress - the reason I started this post is because of their pizzas.
Every Friday for years now Antonio's have gotten in stacks of wood fired pizza's neatly wrapped in their individual plastic bags, all ready to be taken home and loved. They used to be a cool five bucks and 12 years later they're 8 bucks (that's an inflation rate of 25c a year!). They come in potato, zucchini, eggplant, a plain mushroom and tomato and on occasion I've seen a hawaiian tenderly placed in the fridge. They even sell the plain bases (which the Antonio ladies tell me MUST be turned upside down and the topping placed on the bottom so it doesn't slide off). Anyway, now that I've told you about them I don't want you to have any. More for me.

Antonio's: 7/623 Beaufort St Mount Lawley, 7 days a week

http://www.antoniosfresh.com.au/

Perth: good meat hunting

I just have to send a big shout out to Mondo's butchers on Beaufort Street in Inglewood for making the best pies I have ever tasted, anywhere EVER.  I had one years ago but didn't have a food blog that I could write in because they hadn't been invented yet.  But now I have and so I will say these puppies haven't changed a BIT in all these years - they are just SUBLIME, crammed full of huge chunks of steak and pieces of real mushroom (apologies to the vegetarians), no gravy overload here and the best pastry I have ever tasted. I also bought a chicken one for my housie and even though it was full of massive yummy chunks of chicken AND she offered me some, I only had eyes for my new girlfriend the Mondo's meat pie.


Mondo's:  824 Beaufort St Inglewood
Times:  Open every day but Sunday and Monday (busy prepping all that loveliness I'm guessing)

http://www.mondo.net.au/

I'm baaaaa-ackk!

Hey there

I realise it's been, like, YEARS (months probably) and for that I can only apologise.  I went to New York (see attached New York Yankees doughnut) and was so despondent when I got back that I just couldn't do it! But I'm back and I'm eating.  The main differences are that:

1) My main eating hangout will be Perth for some time, which doesn't mean that I won't be posting up Darwin tips that come my way (hi Sam).  So send them to me. 

2) The old blog got taken over by some chick holding a puppy so you'll find me now at www.chickwithguts2.blogspot.com (I think).  All the old posts are here so anyone hunting for the lowdown on Darwin eating will be able to find them still. 

3) I have a macbook now so I won't be trying to manage my blog in worktime (oops).

4) I have a new camera so won't be posting any more dodgy cameraphone shots.

Very excited and looking forward to sharing more eating adventures!

The chickwithguts (x 2) X

Chick with guts would like to apologise.....

For the lack of posting!!! The Chick was wandering the mean streets of New York's lower east side (LES to those in the know) for a month eating and eating and eating some of New York's finest grub and has been in the pit of despair since coming home. Not conducive to long expressive posts about food. But to keep you in the loop I will post up a guest blog that a good mate wrote about our trip to Per Se, Thomas Keller's 3 Michelin starred restaurant in the Time Warner Centre overlooking Central Park!!!!

Lonely Stretch

Alawhatthefucka! is what I would like to call Alaturka Restaurant after last nights debacle. You know when you go to dinner somewhere you've really been interested in going to and then it all goes bad and wrong? And so it was in this case - started out well and yeah, it all kind of took a wrong turn. In the immortal words of the Triffids: I took a wrong turn off an unmarked track...I did 7 miles I couldn't find my way back...

First impressions: I walk in the door and get a little bit lost. The register and maitre d are all WAY down the back of the restaurant which is somewhat - howyousay - cavernous, so I'm left standing like a bump on a log. Luckily when I hail a waitperson she is over in a flash and I'm seated quickly. I have a look around and it looks pretty flash - iconic turkish pictures on the ceiling, pretty paintings, nice furnishings, candles on the table, a palpable hum in the air... all boding well for a good night. Service attentive, drinks come quickly - I'm feeling good! So where exactly does it start going wrong... ?

Is it churlish of me to mention the bread? First course is dips, eggplant, hummus and the turkish equivalent of tzatziki - but served with STALE turkish bread and some random lebanese bread thrown in for good measure. Passable - even I can forgive stale bread. Benefit of the doubt and all that. So we move on to the other appetiser, which is presented on a very imaginative garnish - a capsisum that's been carved to look like a crocodile! Even I am impressed by this. The meatball that comes with it - a minced lamb meatball that the menu informs me will be rolled in nuts n stuff and covered in lashings of cous cous - comes out and is very very tasty, although I can find no evidence of cus cus (SP). Tick. Moving on.

Mains arrive. Now let me tell you that the menu was quite specific in listing the components of both the dishes that we ordered - for me, mini chicken stuffed with rice, sultanas, peanuts and turkish herbs, for her, swordfish skewers with grilled potatoes and mushroom sauce with pomegranates. What came out? Hmm well.....my mini chicken was definitely not stuffed with any of the ingredients stated, it was stuffed full of greenness, which led me after the fact to suspect that perhaps it was one of those leonards mini rolled chickens. It was nicely presented though, came out with a mound of rice, a wee bit of salad, some yoghurt, oh and did I mention the wedges? Yes, you read right, WEDGES, the lesser known staple of turkish cuisine. Dining partner looked at her dinner in dismay - 3 swordfish skewers in the middle of the plate stuck into a lemon half and some scattered busyness around the plate which kind of gave the illusion of food without actually providing any - oh and yes - again with the wedges. No grilled potatoes, no mushroom sauce. Taste-wise - the chicken was ok, a bit dry, and didn't taste of sultanas, peanuts or herbs really but the swordfish skewers were pretty unlovely - if it had been my dinner I would have cried my eyes out. And the worst part was that it cost almost $30! $30 and not a side in sight!

Moving on - just let me mention here that while the service started with a bang, it's totally disintegrated by this point in the meal - the restaurant is totally packed and our table is full of old glasses and plates n shiz - so the logical thing to do is to visit the toilet. So I head down the back to find the toilet and find the ambi-pur toilet fresheners are kicking around the floor in the hallway OUTSIDE the door of the toilets. When I go inside I can't find the lock on the door, there's no toilet paper on the toilet-roll holder and I'm trying not to look at all the dust on the shelf. I have a mate who calls this kind of stuff "dirtyflash" - it's all good on the surface, but if you poke around a little you uncover all the hideousness.

By the time I come out I'm done with this place. It's inconsistent and overrated. Mama turkish lady is scowling at me everytime I walk past her. But I gird my loins to tackle dessert. Kadiyifi with icecream. It comes. It's yummy. The icecream (3 flavours) is good. The sweet turkish coffee i've ordered is FABULOUS. But nothing can bring me back from the wedges.

Look what I found! Nigel's website!

http://nigels-kneads.com/page004.html

Signatures (from a source)

And my source says: Got a tip from a kiwi builder friend of mine (Hi Duncan!) ... Signature’s Cafe in the Chinatown building. Had a quick lunch there today and it was damn good. A little Greek lady serves it up and just wants you to be happy – calls everyone darling (couldn’t really understand much else she said!). I had a skewered sausage thing – looked like some kind of native mammal poo to tell the truth – but it was delicious and meaty and garlicky, with extra garlicky-ness in the yoghurt sauce. There were also stuffed cabbage leaves and a spanakopita about the size of a truck tyre. Greek sweets too. I think my poo skewer plus salad was $8.50.

Nigel - we love you

I wrote before about Nigel and his Kneads (bread) - he is just becoming more and more prolific. His breads can now be found, albeit in limited quantities, every day at Greenies Wholefoods in the Rapid Creek Shopping Village, Parap Fine Foods on Parap Road, the Gourmet Deli on Knuckey St in town, at the Mitchell St night markets (not sure when these are on) and somewhere else... *thinking* dammit I know there's somewhere else, but my memory is failing me - oh and I hear that Martin of Martin's cafe in Coconut Grove is selling Nigel rolls to go with his soups. His rye bread really is the bomb - I brought some into work the other day and it was snapped up by my workmates - he makes a mean sourdough.. it's all really really good.
You heard it here first.

Silent Disco Imix

Just for something a little bit different.... a month ago I played at the Silent Disco at the Darwin Festival.. you can download the imixes from Itunes here:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=333212640

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=333212641

Gourmet Traveller