Burger Me

Always on the hunt to find the perfect burger in Perth... So far, my favourite burger joint is The Burger Bistro on Shafto Lane. Mainly because of their no-carb option which is just a beef patty topped with melted cheese served with two generous dipping sauces and a side serve of salad. On top of this, they have the most amazing chips. They are crunchy without feeling overly oily and are just delicious!

I've actually been quite impressed by most of the sides (chips or onion rings) at most burger places.

The Burger Bistro
Shop 16 Shafto Lane, Perth
http://www.theburgerbistro.com.au/

DELICIOUS! What more can I say. But like I said above, the main reason why I loved this place so much was because of their no-carb (i.e. bun-less) option. And their amazing chips and sauces. Average price for a gourmet burger around the $14-15 mark.


Jus Burger
743 Newcastle Street, Leederville
http://www.jusburgers.com.au/

Their onion rings are amazing! The burgers are nice from memory but nothing that stands out. First time I went I had The Mullet (bacon, beetroot, cheddar cheese & free-range egg) and I got the kid's burger (pictured with onion rings) the second time I went just because I wanted something small to eat. I'd definitely go again if I was in the area. Like all gourmet burgers, it was a tad difficult to eat. I had to split the burger into top bun and bottom bun and eat them separately, which kind of defeats the purpose of a burger, but I still enjoyed it. I just saw that they have a burger with foie gras! I'm tempted to try this...


Bilby's
Shop 5, 64 Davies Street, Claremont
http://www.bilbys.com.au/

I remember hearing that this was the best burgers in Perth and so we had to go and try it out. They're cheaper than other burger places at around $9-11 and they have this really cheap deal where you get 2 classic beef burgers and 2 classic chicken burgers for around $20-30... I've forgotten... but it's a good deal!!! The first time I came here I tried the chicken burger which wasn't the best choice unless you're a big fan of chicken breast. I'm a thigh person, and so I found the chicken a little tough. I went back and had the beef patty and I will never go back to chicken burgers! Nice simple burgers which are quite tasty. Chips with their peri-peri mayonnaise is very tasty! But a little difficult to finish after eating their giant burgers.


Alfred's Kitchen
Cnr Meadow & James Street, Guildford
http://www.alfredskitchen.com.au/

Simple home-made like burgers. So simple, and so tasty. There were hamburgers or steak burgers with eggs, bacon and/or cheese. Burgers were around the $8-10 mark which isn't too bad. They also have a nice bonfire type thing going on there. But I hear you have to head there early-ish for it to be warm enough in the winter. We went around 2am and the fire was dying down so we found ourselves eating in the car. There's no indoor seating. It's like a school canteen type of set-out.


FAB Burgers (Australia's Finest Burgers)
Hillary's Boat Harbour, Hillarys
http://www.fabburgers.com.au/

They claim to be Australia's finest burgers so of course we had to try this place! Wasn't anything amazing considering we drove half an hour to get here. We chose the Supreme (100% Butterfield Beef, Sauteed mushrooms & onions, smokey barbecue sauce & salad) and the Cheese (100% Butterfield Beef, mature cheddar cheese, salad & relish). There was a generous amount of BBQ sauce, so much so that it spilled all over my hands and onto the plate. Perhaps my bad eating skills are also to blame... The buns were softer than what you find at other gourmet burger places which made it easier to eat. And they have cajun onion rings which are overly deep-fried so very oily but tasty in small portions. As a deep-fried lover I quite enjoyed them but I'm not sure if they'd be everyone's cup of tea.


Flipside Burger Bar
239 Queen Victoria Street, North Fremantle
http://www.flipsideburgerbar.com.au/

My friend and I got the BBQ Bacon and Cheese + Egg (150g prime beef, crispy bacon, cheddar cheese, salad, chunky BBQ relish & mayo) and the Q.V.B. (150g prime beef, crispy bacon, cheddar cheese, free range egg, beetroot slices, salad, tomato relish & mayo) which came to $26/2p. The burgers were pretty much the same as any other gourmet burger place, although slightly cheaper. The thing that set this place apart was their eggs. They were cooked perfectly! The egg yolk was still slightly runny, not so much that it overflowed, but just enough to have that soft yolky taste. Delicious!


V Burger Bar
12/910 Albany Hwy, Victoria Park
http://www.vburgerbar.com.au/

We got the Classic V (Prime beef, gourmet salad, V relish & aioli) and the F.B.A Full Blooded Aussie (Prime beef, bacon, fried egg, cheese, sliced beetroot, gourmet salad, BBQ sauce & aioli). I liked this place for the generous amount of sauce. I'm the kind of person who asks for extra sauce and extra cheese when I go to Subway, so the sauce made it for me. I'd revisit if I was in the area but it wouldn't be my favourite place.


Grill'd
669 Beaufort Street, Mt Lawley
http://www.grilld.com.au/

My friend and I ordered the Wild Wild West (Grilled 100% lean beef, tasty cheese, cripsy trim bacon, free range egg, a couple of slides of beetroot with salad, relish & herbed mayo) and Grill'd Bird & Brie (Grilled chicken breast, brie cheese, thick cranberry sauce, salad & herbed mayo) to share. We choose the chicken one because the idea of brie cheese was very exciting, but it turned out to be very dry, bland and disappointing. The beef burger was similar to what you'd expect at any other burger place, but slightly less tasty. This place boasts being a "healthy burger joint" which I don't believe in. To be "healthy" they have reduced the amount of sauce which reduces the tastiness. Their chips were coated in some sort of herb along with salt which was tasty, but they weren't as crunchy as I would have liked. So I wouldn't revisit this place if I could avoid it. If I was in Mt Lawley, I'd rather revisit Monte Fiore for some deep fried camembert.


Retro Betty's
Greater Union Cinemas, 57 Liege Street, Innaloo

I like this place because it has a nice feel about it, yes, retro. Also they have milkshakes and smoothies. I haven't been here in a long long time though, so can't really give a good review. I've been meaning to revisit for ages, but sadly never got a chance. Will re-review once I try it again.


I think most burger places are pretty similar and it's only the small things that set them apart. My top burger places would be Burger Bistro for its carb-less option and amazing chips, Flipside for its egg and Alfred's Kitchen for its homely styled burgers. I'd say Jus Burger and Bilby's are above average with tasty sides, but I'm unlikely to revisit Grill'd or FAB Burgers. V Burger wasn't awful but it wasn't amazing so I'm unlikely to revisit this either. Burger Bistro mm!

Dae Jang Kum

The plan today was to go to Seoul BBQ on Forrest Chase but for some horrible reason, it is always closed when I want to eat it. And so... we decided to try Dae Jang Kum.

Restaurant: Dae Jang Kum
Cuisine: Korean
Address: 74 Francis Street, Northbridge
Total: $39/2p

We had to wait almost an hour for it to open so it had to be tasty or we wouldn't have been very impressed. And there were another 4 or so couples/groups waiting with us so it must be somewhat tasty we figured?


Food: 4/5


Spicy BBQ Pork (pictured above)
Spicy rice cake (pictured below)
Seafood pancake
Side dishes - Steamed rice, bean sprouts, kim chee, something weird and jelly-looking that we didn't want to try.


The seafood pancake was a little on the oily side but it was deliciously crunchy and it was easy to overlook the oiliness... to an extent. After a while it made us feel a little sick as you could actually feel the oil as you bit into it. But it did come with a dipping sauce which was mighty tasty!

The sauce of the rice cake was nice but the rice cakes themselves were a little mushy. They got tastier as they cooled and got more chewy. While it was edible and fairly tasty, I've had better I'm afraid. The BBQ pork was a bit spicy and would've been nicer if it came with more sauce. Which is the main reason why we were so eager to go to Seoul BBQ. From what I remember they have very tasty and saucy meat dishes...


Service: 4/5

I don't expect fantastic service from these kinds of restaurants so I wasn't disappointed. And they were actually Korean which I liked because it makes the restaurant seem more authentic in my opinion. We were served water as soon as we were seated and once we ordered the food came very quickly. Although the waiters were not overly chatty they were friendly and offered very prompt service.


I don't think I'd go so far as to say this is the best Korean restaurant in Perth but it is definitely not the worst and I wouldn't mind revisiting. Kim Chee House in Chinatown makes better rice cakes though.

...and so begins the blog of my food experiences with La Cascade

Tonight I went to La Cascade. I heard good things about it and figured I'd give it a go. The initial decision was to go to Divido in Mt Hawthorn but for some reason, I thought this would be a good idea. How wrong I was. How very wrong. And this awful experience has sparked my desire to begin this blog. And so here it is.

Restaurant: La Cascade
Cuisine: French
Address: 145 Stirling Hwy, Nedlands
Total: $133.40/2p
Rating: 0.5/5

I normally like to look at menus before I go to restaurants and so was disappointed to find that this restaurant didn't have one. Nevertheless, I found some information on it from some typical restaurant site (yourrestaurants, eatingwa, etc...). The reviews were fairly good, and it was advertised that they had a 3-course-meal deal for $49 per person, which is not too bad in my opinion. And so, I had high hopes for this dinner.

The entrees were around the $25 mark, mains $45 and desserts $15. So even if you were only intending on getting an entree and a main, you may as well go for the 3-course deal. And so we did.


Food: 1/5

Entree:
Deep fried camembertChicken liver

Main:
Snapper with lemon sauce (it was meant to have avocado as well but they had run out)
Rack of lamb cooked in a wine sauce

Dessert:
Nougat icecream
Profiteroles (their special for Friday/Saturdays) - Pictured below


My favourite dish of the night was the deep fried camembert, which does not say a lot for this restaurant. As a French restaurant I was expecting them to sell some foie gras, but all they had was chicken liver. It was served nicely on a mini fry-pan which I found very cute! The servings were a lot larger than what I expected, but you can only eat so much chicken liver before you start to feel sick. And the camembert was an entire round of cheese which is far too much for a single sitting! Tasty though. The snapper was very cheesy, which again is okay in small portions but it makes you feel sick after a while. The lamb was possibly the worst rack of lamb I have eaten. It was served over herbs on a sizzling plate. It was cooked as a whole rack and sliced up to serve. But this revealed the dry and fatty meat which I'm not used to seeing on lamb! It was still edible but definitely not up to the standards that I was expecting. And now the dessert. The nougat icecream tasted like icecream with crushed nuts. The choux pastry of the profiterole tasted stale but it was coated in a generous amount of chocolate fudge which made it okay.


Service: 0/5

We came at 6:30 and were the third table there. When we ordered, the waiter (I think he was the owner) sat down on a neighbouring table as he took our order. This is something I expect from The Moon, but not from this type of restaurant. He was also not that friendly. Back to the ordering - He advised us to order our desserts as well as they would get busy later on, and so we did. We later found out that his "busy" meant 4 other tables. And this "busy-ness" meant that we would have to wait for 3 hours for our 3-course meal, which is beyond ridiculous! A degustation takes at most 4 hours, and this is for 9 courses of delicately prepared tastiness.

During our meal, we called the waiter/owner over to order something and on his way to our table, he was stopped by another table. Instead of asking them for a minute (as we had gotten his attention first), he went to serve them immediately.

We were not offered any water or any bread to start.

We were not offered any cracked pepper or told that the plates would be hot or anything of the sort. The waiters (mainly the owner) appeared to just dump the plates on our table and leave immediately.

And lastly, after we finished the dessert we were just desperate to leave but were required to stand and wait for another 20 minutes as the owner chatted with other guests.


Ambience: 0.5/5

The restaurant was far too dimly lit that it was difficult to read the menus (which were almost A3 size which is beyond impractical!). In dimly lit restaurants you expect it to be warm and cosy but this was not even close. I found the need to wear a cardigan AND a coat just to stay warm. Very disappointing.

The chairs were the awful fake leather type of chair you expect to find in a cheap Chinese restaurant where you are in and out in 30 minutes and your food costs no more than $10. Not only were they awful chairs, the seats were cracked from wear. It was also far too dull on a Saturday night in my opinion. More than half the restaurant was empty (despite the owner exclaiming they would be "very busy" later!) which is pretty poor for a Saturday night.


I am glad that I can tick this restaurant off my list but it is not something I am keen to revisit and I would recommend against it, which is not something I do very often!

And we had to swing by Maccas on the way home.