out and about

4 day weekend has passed with a whimper

Posted on January 31, 2012 by bekswhoknits

Australia day, we drank Aussie beer, watched cricket, and listened to the hottest 100.

The day after Australia day (hangover day), I resigned myself to my hangover and watched an entire season on My Family and had some quality bonding time with my couch.
Air con was appreciated, particularly as it was pretty hot (42 I think) outside.

Saturday we went shopping for a new tv, and some more lazy viewing.
I bought a crepe maker (guess what we had for dinner) and we watched the Perth Scorchers lose the grand final (boo).

Sunday I finished my sockhead hat, and started a new sock, Scylla.
And started watching series 1 of Buffy. (and since bought the box set). I thought I’d have nightmares about creepy ventriloquist dolls but thank fully I didn’t.

And look what arrived Monday afternoon. The books I thought I’d read on the long weekend.

Dinner, a show, & a parking fine

Posted on November 2, 2011November 3, 2011 by bekswhoknits

It’s cricket season. Yay! I love cricket. For those un-aussies among us cricket is like baseball except over 5 days. 5 days of sport is glorious.

So the Sheffield Shield is our local competition, and free entry means we can catch a couple of hours after work.
After the games play (we’re kinda losing on day two) we starting heading back home but it was peak hour and annoying, so we stopped in East Perth for dinner.

It was close and it had started raining so we stopped at local Italian place Antico Caffe. Tempted by the sign ‘free beer with pizza’.

The waitress was adorable, and very attentive.

The food took a little while to come out (exactly the time it took for me to drink a glass of wine), but when it came out it was pretty delicious.

I had a pizza with chickem, potato, and bacon which went down a treat.
But I should have ordered what the Mister had, chicken stuffed with prawns in a white wine sauce with potatos.
Which was “like his three favourite meals combined to make one super meal”.
The free beer (an italian beer we’d never heard of) wasn’t too bad to begin with, but the end verdict was we’ll pay for beer next time.

We had probably the best seats in the house, as we were looking outside to the intersection and all the people who were stuck in the rain. Including a pizza delivery guy who was supremely lost.
We watched as he crossed the street three times, asked a random stranger where he was, and took at least 18 minutes between us noticing him and him driving away again.

I can never eat a full pizza so I’m always happy when I can doggy bag it (it made a great lunch).
So we left on a bit of a high until we realised that we had a parking fine.
Silly me was trying to escape the rain and didn’t put enough money in the machine.

So it ended up being an expensive dinner, but it wasn’t as bad as all the other reviews on Urbanspoon have made it out to be.

The menu definitely had enough things to try that we wouldn’t mind going back.

Dinner at the Scotto

Posted on November 1, 2011November 1, 2011 by bekswhoknits

We had to get out of the apartment. Last night there was a disturbance resulting in a lot of yelling and screaming, 3 cars of slashed tyres, and a broken window.
None of it affecting us except the yelling, but as tensions were running high in the complex we wanted to have dinner somewhere.

I’m without a car at the moment (my sister in law is borrowing mine due to writing hers off [not her fault] and be not needing a car to get to work whereas she does) so I have no other way to get to the local knitting stitch n bitch.

So I convinced (using that word very loosely) the Mister to have dinner at the Flying Scotsman and then drop me off at the Queens.

I had been craving fish all day so I had the Cider Battered Fish & Chips, and Mr had the ribs.

It’s always good portion sizes and really hit the spot.
I could then knit the night away and forget all my troubles.

The weekend in review

Posted on October 24, 2011 by bekswhoknits

The Lounge Room – Guildford

Posted on October 23, 2011October 22, 2011 by bekswhoknits

I wish urbanspoon had an undecided rating. This would definitely be the verdict on The Lounge Room.
The inside was so pretty but the food was decidedly average.

I woke up this morning and wanted pancakes.

When the Mister said ‘Do you want to go to Guildford and go antiquing’ I jumped at the chance.
And we headed along to get a late breakfast. The first place to have pancakes on the menu was ‘The Lounge Room’.
The wind machine was on full blast, but we sat down in the comfy surrounds. The details were gorgeous. Butterfly shaped mirrors adorned picture frames and hand written messages of love were scribbled on the walls.
The background music was triple j circa 2005 which suited me just fine.

I ordered my pancakes and Mr P-D&S ordered a big brekkie with mushrooms as an extra.

Unfortunately both meals came out cold.
The pancakes were light and fluffy, with the berry sauce delicious and sweet. But the fruit on the side seemed like a bit of an afterthought.

The Mister rated the big brekkie a 7. And he is an expert on big brekkies. There was no hashbrown which was disappointing. The scrambled eggs looked light and fluffy, but the bacon was rubbery and the bread was toasted past the point of no return. Even the mushrooms were too cold.

I think we’ll have to try again some other time and order something else. It deserves a second chance.

Mrs.S

Posted on October 19, 2011October 22, 2011 by bekswhoknits

It was a hot Sunday and we wanted to get out of the house. So we had lunch at Mrs.S which is just down the road and always busy so we thought we’d give it a try.

The decor was lovely. It had an modern but homely feel.
The menus were golden books which is a totally cute idea.

There were flowers everywhere, with colourful aprons hanging on the walls.

My expectations were pretty high, but the menu didn’t live up to them.

Gluten free and organic food is pretty trendy at the moment. I know that because it’s everywhere!
And it was definitely the theme at Mrs.S

It was a pretty short menu which didn’t help.

My watermelon juice was beautiful. Very refreshing for a hot day, but Mr P-D&S didn’t like his apple juice.
It was freshly squeezed which I ended up finishing.

I had a chicken, pineapple, and herb salad. Which was very fresh. It could have used more salad, less herbs, but it didn’t quite hit the spot.
I could have used more (which is saying something because I had downed a couple of fish cakes before we even go there.

The Mr had a chicken penne with gorgonzola.
Again the portion was really small, and apparently if had way to many nuts. I don’t even remember seeing nuts on the menu.

It wasn’t terrible (well the Mr would disagree, he was not impressed at all), but if I was to go again it wouldn’t be for the food.

Brekky at chapels

Posted on October 15, 2011October 13, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Pictures presented without commentary.

Lunch in Freo

Posted on October 14, 2011October 13, 2011 by bekswhoknits

On a sunny Sunday arvo we went to Freo, with the hope of picking up some NFl or MLB gear from a stall in the markets.

They didn’t have any of our teams but we did have a nice lunch at Portorossa.

I only wanted a salad, but ended up with a veal sandwich.
It was delectable. There’s nothing worse than chewy meat in a sandwich, but I’m please to say this was nothing of the sort.

The Mister had a meat lovers pizza. Nothing too elaborate. It was a pizza.

But it was a beautiful day in freo, even if someone (me) was feeling cranky and overwhelmed by birds (slight phobia) and crowds (too polite).

Definitely return to sample more of their menu. And I liked that all 4 wait staff said ‘have a nice day’ when we left.

Manners cost nothing.

Celebratory dinner @ the queens hotel

Posted on October 5, 2011October 5, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Last weekend when we were at Piccos, the Mr and I decided that we wanted to try more new places, instead of the same old. How this works in with us starting to save for a house… well it doesn’t but if we’re going to eat out we may as well eat new.

So we had a bit of news to celebrate. I verbally accepted a job offer (very exciting, particularly as my current job isn’t guaranteed at the moment). There are still a couple of ways it could fall through, but being their “preferred choice” is rather exciting. There have been a few sleepless nights this week.

So on the back of that good news we decided to head towards Beaufort Street and find somewhere to eat.

Well Beaufort Street has a lot of tapas. Which is great. I like a bit of tapas. It always makes me think of the IT Crowd. In fact I may have put the Mr off tapas by referring to it as “little food from Spain”.

Anyways, after looking at 3 bars that only had tapas, 2 places that were closed, and Siena’s which we tend to go to all the time even though it has a terrible urbanspoon rating, we ended up at the Queens. Which we hadn’t been to for ages, but we used to go to all the time, particularly when we were first dating.

We wanted something hearty and we got it. At the perfect table right next the fire, we got in just before the rush. Which meant we got some awesome service. The waitstaff were jokey, friendly, and attentive. I had the kangaroo which was cooked to perfection. The tomato chutney was perfect, just tangy enough to complement the kangaroo without drying it out too much. The potato and horseradish rosti also went down a treat.

Mr polka-dots & sparkles had the 400g t-bone with garlic prawns and chips. It was the medium side of medium rare but it was spot on. 4 prawns is a good amount, and although there was a point where it looked like it was going to be too much, it all got polished off.

For some reason (maybe something to do with stress and hormones) I really wanted desert.
Fortunately they had a sticky date pudding on the menu. Unfortunately it was over half an hour between ordering and receiving our deserts.
We did get an apology, and it had got noticeably more busy whilst we were waiting, but it was just long enough for my headache to return.

The pudding was good, not the best I’ve ever had but that will take a lot to live up to. The Mr’s sundae looked good, but not half an hour’s worth of assembly.
Overall it was pretty good. Until the desert we really couldn’t fault anything.
It was still a good night, we just came away with headaches and stomach aches. We almost never have desert.

But I’ll be back there next Monday for a Ravelry s’n’b, unless I chicken out again. Or am still feeling horrible.

Lunch at Silks bistro

Posted on October 1, 2011October 5, 2011 by bekswhoknits

A little while ago, when we were running errands on a Saturday, we stopped in at Silks bistro for some lunch.

The place was relatively quiet, it was obviously their downtime. But even so they had the music so loud we could barely hear ourselves think.

I was impressed by the presentation of the parma. It certainly looked better than your average pub grub. The olive tapenade around the outside was a hit in my book. Overall it was delicious.

Mr Polka-dots&sparkles had a burger, which he said was ok. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

The verdict? We’d go there again, if we were in the area. But we’re not going to be planning a special trip.