19 May - Cream, East Perth

CB and I decided to go somewhere swanky (stemming from all the Gordon Ramsay we've been watching lately) for our 8 year anniversary, and I read up on EatingWA that there was a little place called Cream in East Perth. We booked, trying to get one of the booths at the back (came from a recommendation from EatingWA), but were unable to secure one. We got a table towards the rear of the restaurant though.

For a starter, I had the house smoked salmon with a potato and leek mash of some sort, with some aioli. (sorry about the descriptions, but they don't have a website where I can steal the names from!). The salmon was lovely, and is the most smokey that I've ever tasted. The aioli complemented the salmon and potato very well .. all in all, a very nice entree.

Round 2 consisted of Baby Beef in a red wine confit, with crushed potatoes and fried onion rings. The beef was amazingly tender, being very slowly braised, it literally pulled apart and melted in your mouth. The sauce was very rich but went wonderfully well with the rest of the dish.

For desert, I had a pavlova, with passionfruit cream and contreau strawberries. The merringue was cooked to perfection, crispy on the outside and just enough marshmallow type consistency in the middle. Very delish. CB had a creme caramel (sort of a creme brulee with a caramel top) which was also very good.

All in all, the food was great, and the service was pretty good (none of the swanky service ala Raffles in Singapore, which, being honest, is too over the top for me). The meal portions were just right, even looking a bit small but when walking out I was completely satisfied...