The Meat & Wine Co, Camberwell, Melbourne

Upmarket place in the heart of Camberwell, Meat & Co honors its name by offering pieces of meat cooked to perfection in very classy settings. 

The menu is varied and scalable regarding size of the meat you want, variety of meat, and cooking of the meat.  Their dishes come with salad or fries, and the sauces have to be ordered as a side, as well.

Their selection of wines and drinks is also very good.
My meat was cooked to perfection and it was, in fact, the best thing of my meal. Truly satisfying, juicy and yummy. The fries were totally average and don't make any favor to the meat or the restaurant. The garlic sauce I ordered was very delicate, so in my case the garlic flavor was good but not enough.

I love that they have good meat knives and fabric napkins, something I don't take for granted.

I found the place good-priced for the quality of food and drinks you find. I had the smallest cut of meat and I left fully full and satisfied without being ripped off.

Staff were very professional, courteous and polite, but also a bit uptight and not specially friendly.

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Kailis Brothers Fish Café (Leederville, WA)

101 Oxford Street, Leederville, WA
(08) 9443 6300
Website
Facebook
Opening hours:
   Mon-Sun: 7am-11 pm

The place is comfortable, and very functional in its decoration, but also crowded and noisy depending on the day and time you visit. The restaurant seems to attract large crows of +70yo on Sundays, and families, and +35y.o. couples and groups on Saturdays.

The staff are lovely, and they are very accommodating about everything. Service in general was fast, friendly, and attentive -- Very good.

 

As you can expect, the fish they use is super-fresh and yummy, but the food I tried was nice overall, nothing more. The fish and chips were average. The fries tasted of frozen ones. The fish was good, but very oily, and needed a bit of a dry-off. The creamy chowder was utterly disappointing and tasted more of corn flower than of fish. That is unforgivable! I have had a better chowder at Bivouac, and they aren't fish experts. The entrées of prawn croquettes and zucchini chips were the best thing I tried there, really flavoursome. 

They have a decently priced and varied chart of local and international wines, and a good selection of sweets. 

 

The place is utterly overpriced for the quality of the cooked food they offer. Example: 4 little croquettes, tapa size, 20 dollars. A rip-off. It made me want to swear the continental way. I swallowed a WTF instead!I have found better prices for croquettes in posh restaurants in Perth. Just saying.

The fish markets are great, but you will pay top dollar for the fresh fish and marinated goods they have for sale. Yet, this is Perth.

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Lot 20 Bar (Northbridge, Perth WA, Australia)

200-206, William Street
Cultural Centre
Northbridge
Perth WA 6000
Website
Hours
    Mon-Sat 10am-12am
    Sun 10am-10pm

  

Lot 20 is all-in one café and bar located in the heart of the Cultural Centre. The place has a wonderful layout with many different micro-spaces created in their alfresco yard and indoors: cosy spots, hide-in spots, alone spots, eating-with-your-pal spots, girly spots, macho spots, couples spots. Spottified! 

The place is woody, retro-industrial, very colourful and with plenty of funny and quirky elements of decoration and artwork. The painting with the jugglers freaks me out every time, I swear. The toilets are great with all those black tiny tiles and the chromed piping ending in those bottles of white creamy soap, really cool.

The atmosphere is also very cool, not only because of the design, but because of the various clientele that visits the place, all ages, all dressing styles, all kinds of humans, that are seasoned and stirred up by a mix of retro music.  

Opening times are awesome - food, coffee and drinks available in the city centre any time of the day from 10am to 10pm. Beat that! And the prices are OK taking into account that this is Perth city centre.

One of the things I like the most about the place is that they add new dishes very often, so if you happen to go often, you will always find something new to try. I love that. It keeps me going to places.

FOOD

Lot Twenty has a mix cart of post-modern pub food, with plenty of vegetarian dishes, and they use local fresh produce, which is always a guarantee of freshness and flavour. They have a great concept about the dishes they offer, but the food has been yummy sometimes, OK others, and absolutely blah others. 

The top in my chart have been the Son in Law Eggs with chilly caramel dressing and coriander, so beautiful looking, so smooth in your mouth, sweetish and with a wonderful mix of flavours, colours and textures. The home-made terrine was great, fresh, soft, smooth and very delicate, perfect with the dollop of mustard sauce. 

The asparagus on potato foam with yuzu and kaffir lime "magic dust" were wonderful, very simply prepared and beautifully presented. I also loved the beetroot salad, a mix of fruit and veggie salad infused in the beetroot juice, which was delicious; mine had apple, orange, compressed melon, beetroot and another veggie that I could not recognise. The warm vegetables salad was very simple, but very healthy looking and tasty, the veggies cooked to perfection, not too hard not too soft.
 
I liked their home-made onion rings and the fish and chips with the accompanying slightly spicy sauce dip - home-style unpretentious pub (oily) food and very filling. 

I had high expectations regarding the slightly smoked pork belly, but I had a ploff sort of moment. The produce was top notch, and the flavour of each separate item as well, but the mix was not complementary. The cardamom and apple gel was lovely in flavour, and nicely plated, but it was not enough quantity or texture to envelop with its flavour and moisture the very dry crunchy pork belly. The chestnut flakes were also lovely, but another dry element to add to another dry element, dry to the square, which prevented the pork belly from gliding down my esophagus toboggan style. 

The spiced cauliflower has been the main disappointment (absolutely ploff!). I love cauliflower, it is one of those vegetables that is easy to cook and morph into amazing things. However, the cauliflower was way too hard, the chunks too big, the dollops of herbed [sic] yoghurt sauce too thick to be easily spreadable and give moisture and flavour to the dish as a whole, while the wonderful pomegranate and nuts sprinkle were lost trying to seduce a frigid cauliflower. No chemistry, baby.  

I did not like the olives. Why anybody would choose mediocre olives over wonderful ones escapes me, like a butterfly passing by. Perhaps they should like olives first to choose good ones!!  

DESSERTS

Regarding the sweets, the Pear Friand was great! Very small (cute actually) but wonderful regarding flavour, moisture, texture and level of sugar. In contrast, the chocolate pudding sorta thing was a  "does he love me-does he love me not" sort of dish. A 3-dollar dessert really puts me in the mood of anything good, so I did enjoy it. On the other hand, what I got was, basically, jellied condensed sweetened milk zombified by a bit of Milo. You could think, genius! I agree! But I prepare similar things at home in summer and takes no culinary skills to do so; I was just expecting something beyond my poor-dessert-making skills, that happens when your expectations are expectant. And... why not calling it Condensed Milk Pudding so my imagination does not fly mid way to crash hard against concrete reality too soon? Anticlimactic!

DRINKS AND COFFEE

I love their wine and drinks chart, and the prices of the international wines are terrific for Perth standards. I absolutely loved the Lopez de Haro red wine, smooth like a nice kiss. 

Their coffee is well prepared and creamy, but the beans they use produce one of those "weakienikis" that we find throughout Perth. Perfect for you if you like smooth weak coffees. Otherwise, my easy-solution kinda solution is ordering a topped-up long macchiato instead of your usual flat white. I did so and I was happy with the strength an flavour of my coffee. Oh Wittgenstein you know how wording works on the tongues of people. 

SERVICE

Most of the staff are really welcoming, helpful, very friendly, and very cute! The problem is the organisation of the service at times. It was chaotic, confused and inattentive during my first visit, a bit of a disaster and got me annoyed. Fortunately, first impressions are delusive and I always give a second opportunity. Glad I did because the service has dramatically changed in my following visits, and these guys have been pampering my regal butt since then. Kiss Kiss. 

The main problem with the service is not the people, is that the dishes take quite a while to come out at times, no matter the difficulty in the preparation or how empty the local is. Almost half an hour for a dish of simple eggs is unacceptable. I wondered if they were helping the chicken to lay the eggs directly cooked onto the plate. Bang Bang. 

However, I mentioned the issue to one of the waiters, and my eggs were on my table presto!, and my second dish came 5 minutes after ordering it! The Sound of Music.  

That is willingness to please! Kudos to all them for the effort. The more I go, the more attentive they are to my needs, and that is always a great sign, and what turns customers into regulars. 

***

I will go back, I like the place, there are many things I want to try, like their visually enthralling burger and Dutch chips, fish and chips, and all the new dishes they are incorporating into the menu. They have so many different veggie and meaty things that is impossible not to like at least a few of them. Having said that, their food can easily improved, and needs to improve, it takes a willingness to work the textures and flavours of some of the more avant-garde dishes a bit better to do so. Nothing really wow. But you don't want to be wowed that often; otherwise your wows would be less genuine. 

EMERGENCY!

Coffee takeaway cup size is minuscule ridicule. Fix it! You need at least a large cup to make any coffeeholic happy!

NOTES OF INTEREST

* Free Wi-fi for those who just communicate with their antennae.
* No PayWave. Wave your fingers athletically to introduce your PIN, instead

FLEETING THOUGHTS

>> I hope they have big umbrellas for the patio area once summer comes, because the place is already hot, and you don't want to seat al fresco to get hot.<<
>> How many steps or kilometres do the waiters do going upstairs/downstairs the kitchen the whole day? Good workout!<<

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WTF Foodie moment 4: Cue

{I get to the last "it" restaurant, usually with kilometre-long cues waiting at the door. No cue today. Is this my lucky day? Plenty of tables available!}

< A table, please.
> Just for you?
< No, my friends are coming.
< How many?
> Three.
<How long it will take?

--> (He thinks I read minds. It makes me feel important.)

< Dunno. Very soon. 

--> (Click click click checking with my friend).

< About 10 minutes.

> Wait in the cue area.

--> (My jaw drops to the floor and bounces back.)

< Can I enter and wait for them inside?

> Wait outside, we don't have a table for three. 

--> (So many empty tables! I am first in an cue with one person, me! A cue of one person is a mathematical enigma).

--> (A couple comes, cues, and the waiter ushers them in before me. A second couple comes, cues, and the waiter ushers them in before me - again! Is this a cue?)

--> (A group of five arrives, and the waiter ushers them in before me. WTF is this cue?)

--> (I'm cueing on my own, again! in an empty cue. To cue or not to cue, I don't have a clue.) 

--> (A human river starts to arrive. They cue behind me. I feel the queen of this cue and we are all cueing together. This is a cue!)  

--> Finally I get my table, and I am allowed out of this WTF cue. 

(WHERE? Papparich Northbridge.)

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Sayers Sister (Perth WA)

236 Lake St
Northbridge Western Australia 6000
(08) 9227 0429
Hours  
    Tue - Sun: 07:00 - 17:00
Website
Facebook

THE PLACE

A bit hidden in Lake St, a few metres away from Hyde Perth, in the outer skirts of Northbridge, Sayers Sister is a replica of the menu of the mother house, but delivered in a funkier and smaller setting.

The place has a beautiful rustic romantic vintage decoration. Everywhere you look, you see something beautiful and special: From the little flower arrangements to the chandeliers and brass lamps, from the cute mugs to the colourful water glasses, from the artistically designed sweets and lollies containers to the old-fashioned sugar bowls. Everything, even the toilets. The ambience music is great, too.

The place receives patrons of all ages and conditions. From tradies to business people and everybody in between, but it is especially popular with young people and professionals.

 

FOOD AND COFFEE

They have Mediterranean inspired dishes in simple but winning recipes. Their food is well prepared, portions are generous, flavours fantastic, and the plating beautiful. Their tagine, croquettes, and full breakfasts are yummy and man-sized! The Ploughman's board is also huge, and has a nice mice of flavours and textures. Everything I have tried is great.

Their sweets are great, too. The gluten free chocolate and strawberry mini-cakes are one of those things that you think about often after trying one. Their pineapple muffins are delicious.

Coffee is good, smooth and not strong. They use a mix of the house from Five Sense. They do mugs. I repeat, they do mugs!

SERVICE

All the waitresses have been delightful, smiley, polite and willing to serve every time I have visited. Service is laid back, but they do their best to accommodate and please patrons, especially at peak times.

 

PRICING

At Sayers Sister, you pay more or less as you would pay at any other café for your breakfast, lunch, coffee or cake. However, the food you get is way bigger, better, fresher, tastier and prettier. 

I always wonder why Sayers and Sayers Sister can be successful businesses without ripping us off, while other renowned cafés in Perth need to overcharge us and treat us as morons with the excuse of them using fresh seasonal produce. I think the answer relies on the fact that the Sayers do not want to make money out of hype and laziness, despite the fact that they use local fresh produce too. They respect their patrons, the same that cue at their doors every weekend.   

DOWNSIDES

- It is almost impossible to get a seat at Sayers Sister during the weekends, and cues are common at peak eating hours. Weekdays are way better, still, if you go at certain times, it will be difficult to find a table. 

- As a consequence, the place can be a bit hectic and crowded at times.
- The cashier counter is a bit high, or better said, the place from where the staff stands. That always puts customers in a position of "looked down", unless, of course, you are 6 feet tall. 
- At times, their poached eggs are a bit overdone, and the muffins left too much time in the microwave.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

- Let's face it. Most people do not want to seat at the communal counter. However, there are not enough individual or two-people tables on one of the sides of the café, and some of the four-people tables are used by two people. Therefore, patrons arriving are turned down, or do not stay, or the staff have to ask people to move around. They should replace the four-people tables with two-people ones, so they can be joined or separated on demand. I do not need to say that a few more tables outside would be welcomed.
- It would be great having a few extra more magazines available for patrons.
- It would be great if they had their Sayers Sister-only dishes and specialities.

***

The Sayers have done it again! Sayers Sister shares the brilliant menu with the mother café, but I feel they are a bit behind regarding excellence. However, their food is still great, their service is very good, and this a funkier, more modern and stylish café than the original one. 

Location: 7.5/10
Layout: 6.5/10
Ambience: 9/10
Service: 8/10
Food: 8.7/10
Sweets: 8.5/10
Coffee: 7.5/10
Pricing: 8/10

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