2 Jul - Cafe Bellavista, East Perth

Ah-Stan's second birthday celebration was at Cafe Bellavista in East Perth. Everyone arrived half an hour early so we decided to start dinner a little earlier than planned.

I started off with some garlic bread. This was more buttered toast, I hardly got any garlic aroma.

I chose the linguine vongale special. This was seasoned well and very tasty. Linguine was al dente, clams were tasty and there was the slightest hint of chilli.

To finish off, I had a cafe latte. Whilst I got my coffee in a reasonable time frame, others had to wait a long time for their coffees.

1 Jul - Padburys, Guildford

Last Friday was Ah-Stan's supplies 60th birthday. We got there on time, and mingled a bit before dinner was served.

Starters was a poached prawn dish. Prawns were poached in a sweet white wine and served with an avacado salsa. The dish was nice, although it didn't touch the sides.
For mains, I chose the chicken option. It was chicken breast, wrapped in prosciutto and stuffed with sundried tomato.

We were served cake afterwards and a choice of coffee/tea. I chose the coffee option.

4 June - The Old Bailey, Joondalup

CB's friend Ben had his 25th birthday out in Joondalup last night. I decided to go for the rump special ($17), cooked rare with pepper sauce. The steak was cooked rare, but was still a little tough (I guess that's rump for ya). The chips were nice, but were soggified from the sauce.

29 May - Madhatters on Milston, Henley Brook

Before Supagolf, a group of us had brunch at Madhatters which is across the road from Oasis resort. I ordered:

a cafe latte. Whilst coffee coloured, it was very watery and not very strong at all.

Bacon and eggs. I went for poached eggs out of choice of fried, scrambled and poached. The bacon was termed "crispy", I thought it had been deep fried and was crispy, but was way overdone for me.

29 May - KFC porridge

Lunches this week was KFC porridge, made in the slow cooker. 5 pieces of Hot and Spicy, with 800g rice, a heap of water, chinese cabbage and chilli powder. A bit of salt and pepper in the morning, chopped chives, some fried shallots and done.

The slow cooker (or probably stove top for 8 hours) made the rice silky smooth.

28 May - Ning Kwong, Morley

LWA had this birthday and he chose the local "Chinese" place to celebrate. Instead of ordering individually or ala carte, we decided to go for the banquet menu. The following were the dishes we had:

Entrees consisted of spring rolls, wontons, boxing chicken and a battered fried prawn. The spring roll and wonton were pretty ordinary, the prawn was better but for me, the boxing chicken was the tastiest.

Next course was chicken and sweet corn soup. This was nice, served piping hot.

The "main" course dishes consisted of:

Lemon chicken. Deep fried in a sweet lemon sauce.

Fried rice, with bits of prawn, char siu, egg and peas.

Sweet and sour fish.

Salt and pepper pork ribs. These had bold flavour (probably MSG) and were very tasty.

Chilli prawns. This dish had decent bite and by the end of it, my mouth was slightly burning.

"Satay" beef. More like beef with peanut sauce.

Mixed vegetables.

All of this was washed down with Chinese tea. I was going to have a fried icecream but was too full afterwards to even contemplate the thought. For $25, it was a decent feed.

19 May - Villa da Vinci, Ballajura

CB and I had dinner at Villa da Vinci for our anniversary this year. For a Thursday night, this place was actually quite busy.

To start off with, I ordered some garlic bread. These were full of buttery garlicky goodness. Whilst rich from the butter, it wasn't crispy in the middle. Oh well, can't have it both ways.

I washed down both entree and mains with a LLB.

As a main, I chose the barramundi and chips. One pet hate of mine is serving things over chips (they go soggy). This serve was quite large and after I ate all the garlic bread, was struggling to finish this off (due to size and the oil).

The serving sizes here definitely looked good and I would like to come back and try some other things on their menu.