The Grumpy Sailor Northbridge (Perth WA) - CLOSED

212 William St
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9227 0930
http://www.thegrumpysailor.com.au/
 http://www.facebook.com/thegrumpysailor
Closed Down

A wooden bookshop with a café is my sort of favourite café, the one that invites me to enter, perhaps because I associate both things with nice interesting people. However, I am very picky with my coffee. I like it to taste of coffee, smell of coffee and have consistency or creaminess. We get coffee concoctions in most of the city, not proper coffee, so when I found the Grumpy's I thought my prayers to the Olympus had been heard.

The Grumpy Sailor Northbride  had my super-favourite coffee in Northbridge by far regarding taste, consistency and creaminess. They had a great selection of home-made cakes, too, although I never tried them. Not only that, the staff really gave the visitor a genuine friendly treatment and conversation, teamed up in genuine friendliness with the lovely guys attending to the New Edition's bookshop. Winner team! Something that you rarely see nowadays, as you get to a café and your "good morning" is not replied to.

Despite so, the Grumpy Sailor struggled to survive in Northbridge, and closed down its doors a few months after opening. How can that be possible?! I truly can't believe that cafés in the Perth Cultural Centre get all the hype and people cueing for average coffee and poor service, while the Grumpy Sailor struggled to survive. What is wrong with you people?!!!! Well, I know exactly what is wrong with you people...

The place was mostly for take-away coffee, as the seating space was limited to a few benches on the footpath and a little corner inside, so this might be one of the reasons why they did not attract more customers.


Fortunately the Grumpy's are still open in Fremantle. 

Please come back grumpys!

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Govinda's Restaurant (Hare Krishna Food For Life) (Perth WA)

194 William St
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9227 1684
http://www.iskconperth.com
Hours:
    Mon-Fri 11:30 - 14:30
    Mon-Fri 16:00 - 19:00

I hadn't been to Govinda's for about three years or so, before the general overhaul of that part of the street and the restaurant moving a few doors down from its primitive location on William. I had very fond memories of Govindas, so I was looking forward to returning to the place, to enjoy their food and hospitality.

The food hasn't changed much, except for the pricing, but it is still very cheap and very tasty. Indian people say it is real Indian, so Amen! It is certainly not refined Indian vegetarian but still very good. You can have an all-you-can-eat buffet for 10 bucks, or 8 if you have any concession card.  The menu consists of a dish with rice, a side (curry or bean dish), salad and one piece of pappadam, plus a mini-bowl of dahl (so good!) and a mini-bowl of their famous custard & halva dessert (yummy, but very sweet). They have yummy samosas, pakoras and other Indian dumplings (always my fav) for which you pay an extra, between  3-1$. If you are hungrier, you can bring your plate back for refilling. You can also buy your food out of a meal.

I am a bit disappointed with the refurbishment. The place looks now bigger, cleaner, wider and also as any other average eatery. Something is missing - that indescribable charm that the former place had, part of it because of the cosy layout and angled counter that created a contained space that was much warmer and more welcoming.

The joy of the place has somewhat gone, too, and the service is more matter of fact, go down to business, so to speak, than anything else. There was a joy in the people serving the food at Govindas in the past. They were really welcoming and hospitable, and you felt that they were there more than serving food.  I don't know if anybody who has been going there for a few years has the same feeling. I didn't feel the same while eating at Govinda's this time. I felt more like having food at a cheap quiet eatery than anything else, despite Brahmanic texts, Krishna bibliography and other religious things being on display for sale.

Despite everything, Govinda's is still a local institution on William St and in Perth, a quiet place to eat, a place with cheap good vegetarian food that serves a good cause. You will leave happy with you belly full and a smile of satisfaction written all over your face.

TIP
Budget take-away from 04:00 to 7:00PM

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Sassellas Bar & Bistro (Perth WA)

Upper Hay St, Carillon City Arcade
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9322 4001
http://www.sassellas.net.au/
Hours:
    Mon-Fri 10:30 - 20:00
    Sat-Sun 10:30 - 16:00

Sasellas is a shadow of what used to be - a family friendly unpretentious tavern offering nice pub food, with a nice range of Mediterranean and Australian dishes. The food used to be fresh, well cooked, the portions considerable. This has changed, and nowadays, despite the size being OK and dishes well plated, it is mostly fluffy stuff. The catch of the day is actually frozen food, refried and tasteless surrounded by a humongous serve of fries and salad (the latter very tasty), or minimal meat portions in the same arranged fashion. I mean, if you call a dish "lamb chops whatever" I expect at least two or three, not one. If you call something catch of the day, I expect the fish to be fresh. The traditional pies are good, their pasta OK, their fried food shrinking in size and quality by the year. If I pay +20 dollars for a dish, I want the dish at least to be good in what I am asking, meat or fish, and the sides be just that, sides, not most of the plate. The prices are still considerable, but the quality and quantity of the food is just mediocre.

The only good thing about Sassellas, at present, is mostly the convenience of the place, its atmosphere and the service, which is still fast and extremely friendly. Also great the location and the balcony, although, to be completely honest,  the space in the latter has been maximised to the extreme, and the space between tables is minimal. Therefore, if you have a big bottom, mind it, because you could get stuck in there. ;O

I used to love and frequent Sassellas in the past, but after my last two experiences, last year, I am not hurrying to return. 

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State Library of Western Australia (Perth WA)

25 Francis Street
Perth Cultural Centre
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9427 3111
http://www.slwa.wa.gov.au/
Hours:
    Mon-Thu 9:00 - 20:00
    Fri 9:00 - 17:30
    Sat-Sun 10:00 - 17:30
 
Revamped in the last years, the State Library has become an open public space to lay and professionals, students and researchers, yummy mamies and homeless people. The Library offers what you can expect from a State Library: an ample collection of books, rare documents, private archives material, an important collection of maps, music-related material, an impressive photographic collection, sources for Family history and WA History, the daily newspaper and most of the State newspapers microfilmed from their first issue. The 3rd floor, formerly known as Battye Library, holds material specifically related to the History of Western Australia, the microfilms area, and reproduction machines. Borrowing books from the library has become one of the improvements in the last years, formerly not allowed, and makes things even easier for book lovers.

The Library's ground is both a source of relax and free Internet for backpackers from around the world, while the 1st and 2nd floors are also places to unwind, read a novel, checking your fav travel guides or technical books, or finding a nice quite place to use your computer or study, with plenty of study desks for students.

The Place, on the mezzanine floor, is a colourful and fun area devoted to children. Check my other review.
The Library holds yearly concerts, movie shows, and small exhibitions at the foyer and theatre areas, as well as corporate/academic privately arranged functions, and plenty of cultural activities all around the year. It is a place where you meet people in the city, have a coffee at the Aroma Cafeteria or use the toilets, which seem to be very popular!

The Library being such a welcoming place, is often crowded with people with mental and/or anger problems, smelly homeless and the occasional petty thieve and drug dealer. Beware, if you leave your computer unattended it can be stolen. Really? Yes, really. The same apply to the lockers: make sure you introduce your pin when people are not watching, as there are petty thieves who, at seeing you leaving fancy stuff in the lockers, will pay attention to the pin you are using, then open your locker and steal your things. This info is not to scare anybody, just to let you know that there are nasty people everywhere, the Library included, and that you have to be cautious, because these happen quite often. Having said so, I have never ever had a problem of the sort here, ever.

The staff are all w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l.

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The Place (Perth WA)

25 Francis St
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9427 3211
http://www.slwa.wa.gov.au
Hours:
    Mon-Thu 9:00 - 20:00
    Fri-Sun 9:00 - 17:30
 
The Place, located on the mezzanine floor in the State Library, is a colourful and fun area devoted to children, which has become increasingly popular among the little ones and their parents because of the free activities it hosts, like book readings, story telling, painting and drawing and other activities that children love. In fact, any child going to the Place will tell you that loves the place.

Some people are using The Place as free day-care leaving some children then unsupervised and unattended, which is like WOW! Which sort of parents are they? Most of the children, though, are supervised, however their parents/carers do not supervise them and the kids run wildly, shout wildly, and cry wildly during  part of the day. Please, parents, put into practice some of your parenting skills. The fact that The Place is a free place for children doesn't mean that they can act wildly.

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"Code 46" by Michael Winterbottom (2003)

Code 46 is Michael Winterbottom's allegory about a our near future, a world where human relationships and society are damned by the power of eugenics and the extensive use of in-vitro genetically-designed pregnancies.

Tim Robbins is William Geld, a Government official on a trip to Shanghai to investigate a case of document forgery in a Government security plant. There, he finds worker Maria Gonzalez (Samantha Morton), to whom he feels immediately attracted despite his conviction that she is the forger. Their love story, however, is cursed from the beginning as, under Code 46, they must not enter in a relationship, get married or have a baby as they share at least 46% of their genetic code, being, therefore, family related.

The movie is an allegoric projection into the future of the technological, scientific and cultural trends and issues predominant in our modern world. Being so, Code 46 is set in a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-linguistic society. The characters in the movie use an hybrid English mixed with words from different languages, mostly Spanish, but also Italian, French, Mandarin, Arabic, and Basque among others. A pigeon-language similar to Spanglish. Winterbottom's future is strictly compartmented and structured, with a controlled individual freedom, and limited freedom of movement between world areas unless you have "papelles" [= from the Spanish papeles, i.e. papers/documents), which are only granted depending on your health state and genetic disposition to certain maladies and weaknesses. A believable situation in which Private Health Insurance and Government are almost the same.

The premises of the film are brilliant, thought-provoking and original, although connected with themes already presented in Gattaca. The high-tech future world is perfectly drawn and showed, and uses a mix of Shanghai, Dubai and Kuala-Lumpur futuristic urban settings and architecture, which provide a very sleek urban, metallic imagery and a cold feeling. In contrast, the outcast areas are wilder, more rural and underdeveloped, but warmer from a human point of view; they were shot in the desert area near Dubai and in India. The music (with a cameo performance by Mick Jones singing "Should I stay or should I go?) is also great, and gives a great mood to the movie.

Despite the undeniable style and good premises of the movie, the whole gets washed out by the poor script. The movie is supposedly a love story, but the  leading characters' personalities and emotions are poorly drawn, explored and portrayed, and the love story feels more like a lust story than anything else; moreover, Robbins and Morton don't have a great chemistry on camera, so the movie ends lacking emotion and when the film finishes, you wonder: where is the love? On the other hand, the outcast society and the outcasts are barely introduced, so it is difficult to understand the sort of world we are dealing with, as we are just presented with the developed part of it. In other words, while the future society feels like real future, the outcast society looks more like the underdeveloped rural areas of our modern world, not the underdeveloped areas of the future.

A thought-provoking film with sleek visuals and music that is wasted by a drafted script and mediocre performances

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The Merchant Tea & Coffee (Perth WA) - CLOSED

183 Murray St
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9221 1323
http://www.themerchant.com.au
Hours:
    Mon-Thu 6:30 - 19:00
    Fri 6:30 - 21:00
    Sat 7:00 - 19:00
    Sun 8:00 - 18:00

The thing I like the most about the Merchant at Murray is that it is located in the busiest place of the city, but it is an intimate place for you to escape the world. The atmosphere of the place has always mesmerised me, me being a sucker for old colonial style, woodiness, cosy corners, little iron tables, ceiling fans, wood shelves and pigeon-hole areas with plenty of coffee-related stuff, and cozy corners with people whispering their secrets unaware that there is no noise-insulating bubble protecting them.  The whole furniture and decoration of the place is wonderful, and very welcoming and inviting to stay there for a long time, and that is why the place is usually full. Groups tend to seat in the terrace outside, though, while couples and solitude seekers tend to seat indoors.

However, the coffee they serve is just OK - Average, as well as their cakes, or at least the ones I have tried in the past. I haven't eaten there for a few years. Back then the food was simple but good, but I cannot say how things are at present. I will try again and report back. 

The service is just OK.

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