44 Angove Street, North Perth, WA.
(08) 9328 7442
Website
Facebook
Hours:
Mon - Sun: 07:00-17:00
L'amore per la vita dolce" -Love for the sweet life- is the motto of this family operated Italian patisserie, gelateria and café located at the bottom end of Angove St's café strip.
THE GOOD
+ Some of their hot dishes are very good, tasty and good sized. I especially like their baked eggs breakfast (eggs, white beans, home-made tomato sauce, chorizo, fresh tomato, baby spinach, cheese, and parsley plus toast), which makes a terrific brunch. They are very good and very filling, and the best baked eggs I have eaten in Perth so far. My opinion. Their Thai and vegetarian capsicum salad are very nice, too.
+ Their selection of sweets and cakes is impressive with a mix of Australian traditional favourites, authentic Italian sweets, and European seasonal desserts. Their cabinet is a heaven for dessert-o-holics, and it is difficult to choose just one thing. Their macaroons are amongst the most popular item. They have wonderfully pre-packaged macaroons and cupcakes for Mother's Day, and other seasonal festivities, the last one I bought, a gorgeous china tea cup and saucer with a cupcake.
+ Portions are decently sized.
+ Food and coffee are better than in some of the cafés around.
+ The Coffee is good. They use Bonissimo Beans, which are among my favourites, as they produce strong flavoursome coffee that is not bitter. Their mix is not as flavoursome or strong as in other cafés, but it is is still good, and the coffee is very well prepared, even artistically finished at times.
+ They have very good quality cutlery and strong decent paper napkins. Little details make a difference.
+ Most of the staff are attentive, polite, friendly, and eager to serve.
+ Service is relatively fast.
+ No hype here. This is a family friendly place, with patrons from all ages (although mostly +30y.o.).
+ They have plenty of newspapers for customers.
+ Their cooling system for their alfresco area is super-cool (literally!) with a aspersion system that sprinkles cold air above the seating area. That is soooooo appropriate for Perth scorching summer!
+ They cater for functions, design your wedding or birthday cake, and sell ice-cream tarts.
+ I love their sweets and cake slices. They seem to have a new one each week, and they use seasonal produce. All of the ones I have tried were amazing.
THE SO-SO
- Their sweets are really tiny in size and a bit pricey. Some of them are really nice, but others are just average and not worth the price.
- Their lamb chunks can be very dry and hard, and difficult to cut with a normal knife.
- Although they have air-con inside, the place can be humid and hot in +30-degrees days.
- I have found isolated examples of staff rudeness and unfriendliness. It is a pity, because one person can ruin the reputation of the whole place. I have also found a sort of lack of organisation in the service at times.
- Service can be disorganised at times.
- The place is always crowded, and it can be tricky finding a place to seat during weekends.
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
= Provide sharp knives when serving steak or dishes with thick pieces of meat. It makes a whole difference!
= This is just a personal wish. I do not like elongated plates for my food, They limit the movement of my hand and moving the food around. On the other hand, how to put it? a round plate improves presentation and comes prettier in the photo...
= I think service need to be a more systematic. In the sense that one person takes care of one thing, so you don't have three people asking your if you have been served or three people not paying attention to you. One person at the cash, one person serving coffee, a person serving sweets, a waiter serving food on the tables, that sort of structuring of the service.
TIP
- Go for the lunch specials, macaroons, and coffee and you won't be disappointed.
- Seat outside in hot days. It sounds like a joke, but it will be cooler than inside!
- If you have a birthday or seasonal event and want a sweet gift for somebody walk in and check their special packed items for Mother's Day, Valentines, and other seasonal festivities.
Calle Malaga, 3
18001 Granada
Spain
Ph. 958 271 598
Website in English
Facebook
El Botánico, as it is usually called by locals, is an icon in the Granada food panorama. This café-bar-restaurant opened 13 years ago, and is still as contemporary and modern as it was when opened. They were like an electroshock to the Granada dining scene, as it was one of the first café-restaurant in the city to avant-garde in fusion cuisine, started the tradition of brunching, and started opening and serving food all day long, at times that are not traditional in Spain. No wonder, the place became soon a favourite among local foodies and hypsters, and foreign tourists and expatriates. Despite that, there is no hype around the place any longer, as the hype is elsewhere in the city. This is, still, a trendy café despite the pass of time.
I love the fact that the place is located in the heart of Granada, but a bit hidden, just in front of the tiny Botanical Garden of Granada. The interior is very modern, with clean lines and an elegant mixture of white, orange and blues, and functional pine tables, adorned by the artistic exhibition on display at the time you visit. There are two distinct areas, the café-bar at the entrance, and the dining area properly speaking, which is located at the rear back of the long corridor.
The recipes are a mix of fusion food (Mexico, Japan, Middle Easter, Morocco, Italy and France among other influences), modern contemporary Spanish cuisine and the traditional tapas culture, which has its roots in this very city. Everything I have tried here is delicious and well prepared, from the soups, to the mains to the desserts. The red wine of Granada (terroir denomination "Vino de Granada") is one of those wines that got me hooked, after trying it here last year; it has started to get a name among foodies for its smoothness, silkiness, colourful flavours and richness of colour.
If you live in Perth WA, el Botánico is to Granada what Bivouac is to Perth, but it opened more than a decade ago!
El Botánico has great prices. It is a bit pricier than other places in the city, but not much really, especially if you choose the set menu, which is great. The set menu is a tradition amongst Spanish cafés and medium range restaurants, and includes bread, water, one alcoholic drink of your selection, a starter, a main course, and a dessert) for the ridiculous price of 12 Euro inside and 13 on the terrace (taxes and service included!). Otherwise you can eat a la carte. They have special prices for breakfasts and brunches during weekdays. If you compare these to Perth prices, you could be clapping out of joy, or thinking, is that really possible? Good food, nice place, cheap? Yes, it is, if you have hundreds of bars, cafés and restaurants in a tiny city competing for your visit.
The service is friendly, and decently paced, but it changes from person to person. The restaurant hosts temporary exhibitions and musical events inside.
To be fair and honest, if I was a tourist, I would rather immerse myself in the delicacies of the real Spanish gastronomy elsewhere, in a city that is renowned for his hundreds of tapas bars, traditional and contemporary Spanish restaurants at very good prices. However, El Botánico is still great place for escapades into territories that are quieter, more cosmopolitan and more flexible regarding eating hours, and culinary styles.
TIPS
- If you go at the traditional Spanish eating hours, the place can be quite hectic. But very quiet otherwise.
- They do takeaways!
- They have pre-arranged set menus for groups.
- They have vegan and vegetarian dishes.
Shop 3, 140 William St
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9481 0047
Hours
Mon - Thu: 09:30 - 18:00
Fri: 09:30 - 21:00
Sat: 09:30 - 17:00
Sun: 11:00 - 17:00
Website
Facebook
If you love good bling, you certainly love Swarovski crystals and Swarovsky exclusive branded jewellery, accessories and decoration figurines.
The shop at 200 Murray Street (also listed as 3/140 William St) replaced the now closed small shop at Carillon. The boutique is large, with ample space to move around and browse the numerous wall and table cabinets. Most of the pieces are locked, except for some of their charms range. Their shopping windows are always beautiful and eye-catching.
The pieces at Swarovski range from the utterly beautiful and timeless to the daring baroque, from the classic to the just this season outrageous, and from the old lady to the spoilt-rotten little girl.
Prices are high, but you pay quality crystal from a renowned brand. However, they have seasonal sales and discounts, some of them considerable when new seasonal items are brought into the shop. The timeless pieces, though, are rarely reduced. They packaging and shopping bags are beautiful.
The service is good but a bit lacking and uptight at times. I think it can be explained by the fact that a huge amount of visitors enter the shop just to browse around. I do so regularly. However, once they see your interest, even if it is just to try something on, the guys are very helpful and nice.
They accept exchanges within a 14-day period, if they are returned in their original packaging and tags attached. However, they do not accept returns for change of mind or during sales.
A low-budget science-fiction original movie that tells the story of a group of friends who are carrying out several engineering Physics experiments in a garage and discover, by accident, time travel.
The director and main actor is Shane Carruth, an ex-engineer who also wrote the script, and made the music! His family and friends make most of the cast, too!
Carruth is a scientist by formation. Therefore, all the part of the story related to the experimentation and discussions taken part in the garage are truly believable as they have all the technical jargon that you expect from real physicists. If time-travel was discovered would be, we can guess, in a similar way to the one portrayed in the movie.
The use of the camera and the amateurish acting (really pedestrian in the case of Carruth) help the story to be credible, down to earth and realistic. As if somebody was filming the meetings and wanderings of the characters with a video-camera. Something very close to reality to what went on in Carruth's house when he was preparing and shooting the movie.
The movie is definitely
original, believable and refreshing, and incredibly good-looking
for the low budget. A good suit and a tie always work on camera! The 1990s mood and style are very good. The mobiles and the computers range between the mid 1980s and mid 1990s, and the laptop in the movie is very similar to my first (and now ancient MS2) Toshiba.
The first and main problem of the movie, to me, is not the jargon, but the fact that the dialogues are crowded, words colliding atomically against others at the speed of light. Moreover, the diction of the actors, especially of the two main characters, is really bad, a fact that is highlighted by the poor quality of the sound. Secondly, there are gaps and blurs not well explained in the script, or perhaps are just the result of a poor editing. In general, the movie is a bit thick and confusing.
The movie won the Prize
of the Jury and the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at Sundance 2004,
but I do not think the first one was deserved - my opinion.
The first time I wrote about this movie, I ended saying:
Carruth is somebody to watch in the future and has brilliant ideas. Hopefully, he will have enough budget next time, and will have learnt better film-making skills, so he can make a great film that is not just for scientists doing a Ph.D. and without having to sacrifice any depth. That's possible. You need to learn film-making, not just produce your own brilliant ideas.
Well, he has proven to
continue to showcase his talent, and wrote the scripts for two other science-fiction movies: the critically well-received "Looper" and for the just released and winner of the Special Prize of the Jury at Sundance 2013, "Upstream Colour".
Dr Seuss's eponymous story is brought to the big screen with respect, truthfulness and heart in this animated movie. The thing that makes the movie good is not not the animation, but Dr Seuss's story, which is universal, timeless, simple and complex at the same time: A person is a person no matter how small. Stand for what you believe. Believe in what you don't hear or see. The world is more than yourself and more of what you see. What you do has a direct effect on other people. Reality is not always full of reason. These are some of the important life messages that are embedded in a story that is, beyond the message, full of fun and adventure, and archetypical characters.
Steve Carell and Jim
Carrey, who are well known for their over-the-top performances, are
gladly very restrained in their performances in this movie, and their
interpretation really gives life to their respective characters: Carell
as the bullied Major of Who, and Carrey as the good-hearted elephant
from the Nool Jungle. Carol Burnett is also great as the matter-of-fact
Kangaroo.
The animation is not as
spectacular as in other modern animated films, but some parts of it
deserve praise: The characters' facial expression and body language, the
attention to the detail in the creation of the Major, the
architecture of Who world, and the visual creation of some characters are excellent. My favourite characters were the creepy fluffy
yellow Katie, and the pathetic vulture. My favourite scene is the one with Horton is searching for his lost speckled world in a field
of pink of thousands cloves, which is truly magic.
Heart-warming and charming for both children and adults, this is a movie of which Dr Seuss would feel proud.
218A William St (Rear)
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9227 7628
Hours:
7:00-17:00
Website
Tea for Tú looks like one those places photographed in "Frankie".
In the very heart of Northbridge, but hidden from any noise and human agglomeration,
below Mechanics Institute, at the back of Tú Boutique, Tea for Tú in an example of how a
business can thrive doing simple things right. The alfresco area uses vintage and second hand items to create a cute quirky place in which
all the elements blend harmoniously.
The indoor area is functional and modern, with two mini wall tables, and the coffee and food preparation and conservation areas; the most remarkable thing about this area if the absolutely gorgeous custom-made shelves. Their old vintage crockery is beautiful.
Tea for Tú is not only a beautiful micro-café and tea parlour, it is a business that does well what any café should be doing:
1 - They have a very good coffee, which is well prepared, creamy, strong but not bitter. They use Crema beans. To me, strong coffee is the perfect companion to sweets. The price for the in-house coffee is cheaper than in other cafés in the area (3.40$). They have a 3-dollar takeaway between 7-9am.
2 - They have a good selection of brewing teas.
3 - They have a good selection of savoury and sweet temptations. Their Danish
pastries, croissants, mini-cakes and tartlets are simply delicious. They have a nice
colourful selection of macaroons, cupcakes, slices, and savoury mini-sandwiches.
4 - They have an excellent service. The baristas attending to the place are good looking, very cool and genuinely friendly.
5 - They have a small but nice selection of magazines and newspapers.
The main downsides of the place are:
- The seating areas are: very small upstairs, and minuscule downstairs.
- They do not or cannot prepare hot food in the premises.
- The coffee is strong, but there are noticeable differences regarding strength and preparation depending on the barista.
- Their take-away coffee is more expensive than in other cafés after 9am.
- Their alfresco area can be quite hot in hot days.
- It is a pity that the flowers that used to decorate each table have been replaced by pots of herbs. Why not flower pots? A bit of the charm of the place has gone with that.
This is one of my favourite cafés in the Cultural Centre, because it is cute, it is quiet, it is friendly, and you can escape anything and anybody. Even if the place is full, the number of people around is very limited, so you aren't going to get stressed about the noise level. Most importantly, you can have a nice conversation with your company of selection.
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The area surrounding the "Fresh Provisions" supermarket in Mount Lawley seems to be, since ever, a heaven for graffiti, stencil and sticker artists. I always pay attention when I walk by this area, and there is always interesting, cute and creative material. However, the examples showcased in the slideshow below are remarkable. Despite its simplicity, the messages in the stickers are poetic, witty, cheeky, thought-provoking, and even philosophical. Fleeting thoughts of a talented artist/writer who can turn a traffic sign pole or a rubbish bin into something interesting to look at.
Dopamine is an original independent post-modern love story that reflects on traditional/modern views on love in our contemporary world, and on the difficulties of human connection in a world that is every day more virtual.
The main characters are Rand -a computer animator working on a project of a virtual pet- and Sarah -a schoolteacher-, who are convincingly played by John Livingston and Sabrina Lloyd. They really have great chemistry on camera.
Sarah believes in love, from heart to heart, and in a committed relationship. Rand, is very influenced by his father's teachings on human biology and chemistry, according to which most human emotions -love included- are just the result of biochemical reactions in our body. Love, in that regard, is directly connected to a high production of Dopamine in the brain. However, Sarah is rough, edgy, and unpredictable, while Rand is a sweet sensitive guy.
+ The good things about the movie are:
+ The story is very engaging and believable.
+ The acting is good and the main actors have chemistry.
+ The characters are all well-drawn and grounded - believable.
+ The dialogues are great, fresh and thought-provoking.
+ The story is never straightforward or simplistic, and shows the difficulties surrounding men-women relationships from a new perspective.
However,
- The pace of the movie is too slow.
- The music is forgettable. I don't even remember it!
- The colours, cinematography and texture of the film used for the movie are not visually engaging or attractive, which is a pity as the movie was shot in the colourful bright San Francisco.
- The ending is predictable.
The movie won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, and it is not your usual love story. It is not a proper chick flick, or perhaps it is a chick flick for chicks that aren't your average romantic chick.
Underground is a Serbian-Franco-German allegorical tragicomedy about the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.
The movie is structured in three parts: War, Cold War, and War. The first is devoted to the WWII, the second to Tito’s period, and the third to the civil war that ended with the disintegration of the country. The second part is the most interesting -and the one that gives the movie its title- as it shows, in a metaphorical way, how the Yugoslavs related to each other, deceived each other, exploited each other, lied to each other and built up the hatred that would end with a very nasty civil war.
All the characters are well drawn, and all the actors do a great job in their respective roles. The main characters are a couple of rascal friends and a nymphomaniac actress. They represent three human archetypes. Marko -played by Miki Manojlovic- depicts those people who say they have political beliefs and brag about them, when in actuality they have none. Cmi = Blacky -played by Lazar Ristovski- depicts those people who truly believe in what they preach and act accordingly, but they do so in such a dogmatic and obsessive way that become oblivious to reality and ignore the harshness of they political regimes they support. Finally, Natalija -played by Mirjana Jokovic- depicts those people who will always support the political regime in power, with a passion, no fight or confrontation, and go on with the flow and with their lives in a successful way. The counterpoint to these three characters is the character of Ivan (Marko's mentally changed brother) -played by Slavko Stimacy-, who loves his monkey Soni and wants to hung himself as he's always deceived and betrayed by everybody; he seems to be the only honest decent person and human being around.
Although all the themes touched in the movie are serious and dramatic, Kusturica's merit is to present them in a farce-like comedy and to talk about his people showing both his positive and negative traits. The movie, thus, mixes
elements of surrealism (some of them very Buñuel-ish), comedy of the
absurd, neo-realism, and époque films. Some scenes of the movie are unforgettable. My two favourite ones are the one at the old village square, which is terrific and visually shocking, and the ending with the "island", which really explains the whole movie and contains one of its most beautiful scenes. Some of the scenes related to the marriage of Blacky's son, his first outing to the real world, and the shooting of the movie about Blacky, are also great.
Some Bosnians and French intellectuals accused Kusturica of producing a pro-Serbian pamphlet. Kusturica, who
considers himself to be an Othodox Serbian (despite being born a Muslim
Bosnian) does not mention anything about the barbaric acts committed by
the Serbians. I do not know the director personally, or enough about him, so I cannot speak about his true intentions. However, the fact is that the movie rarely mentions any ethnic group. I see the movie more an evaluation of the (arche)type of people you find during pre-war or war periods than a justification of any of the barbarian acts committed during those period by any ethnic group. In fact, we are shown that all of those ethnic and social groups are to blame for what happened. Kusturica shows, in a way, certain fatalism in his approach to the events, as if what happened was inevitable. We see best friends killing each other’s... anybody who wants to understand, will.
My main criticism to the movie is its the extremely long footage, its slow pace, and the fact that it is not always engaging. Moreover, the camera style and film colours are those ugly ones typical of the TV shows of the 1980s. That is so because the film is an adaptation for the big screen of a 5-hour TV series. I would have not had any problem with that if the editors had taken into consideration that people going to the cinema expect different things than those watching a TV series, and that superfluous things are OK for TV but not for a movie. I found the music overbearing and annoying in general, although some of the individual pieces are beautiful. However, the music goes well with the histrionics of the characters and the craziness of the story.
Once upon a time, there was a country... and people who were happy partying and playing music, would end killing, torturing, and hating each other in a way that is difficult to understand for outsiders.
Underground, despite its comedic tone, is a very sad movie that speaks of social and human failure, and of the wickedness of the human spirit.
Shop 1/ 591 Beaufort St
Mount Lawley Western Australia 6050
(08) 9368 4577
Website
Hours:
Mon-Fri 11:00 - 22:00
Sat-Sun 10:00 - 22:00
Tutti Frutti is a frozen yoghurt franchise selling milk and Soya yoghurt ice-creams. This Mount Lawley branch opened three weeks ago, and it is getting fans rapidly. At present, the place looks like a set of a movie, so shiny, spotless and colourful is.
How does it work?
+ Chose one of the bowls to put your ice-cream yoghurt.
+ Fill it in the flavour/s you fancy using the different dispensers. Self service. You can put as much as you want, as many flavours as you want. They have fruit, chocolate and cake flavours. Flavours rotate regularly.
+ Add as many toppings as you want. There is a large variety of then. Any colour, texture or flavour available. Fresh fruit. Chocolate. M&ms. Add any "sauce" if you want.
+ Put your bowl on the weighing machine.
+ Pay and enjoy!
The result is whatever you fancy, personally, in a big bowl. Do not blame others for your gluttony. There are not small serving cups available, which is an indication that we will pay a bit, as it is difficult to put a small quantity of anything in a big cup. Psychologically challenging! We want to try everything! There are so many flavours and toppings to choose from! Why can't we control ourselves? They know that. Yes, they do. That is why the we pay for weight and not for bowl/cup.
Yoghurt ice-creams are always light, and Tutti Frutti's are no exception. They aren't too sweet either, which is an added bonus. I have tried six flavours, but most of them taste so similar that it is difficult to distinguish them unless you have your eyes open and see the colouring of each one. The toppings, on the contrary, are delicious, very fresh and varied, and they really complement (even accessorise!) the ice-cream. The combo is very refreshing, and a healthier alternative to the normal ice-cream...that is, if you exercise some self-control at the toppings and sauces area.
Service is very friendly.
They would need a few tables inside, as at the moment is mostly a place for take-away, and they just have three tables on the footpath.
