Tong 86

Address: 86 Beaufort Street, Perth WA 6000


Telephone: 9227 9923

Atmosphere: This restaurant is an ideal place where you can hang out with friends to have some drinkd and some Korean BBQ. It is a casual place and is packed with Koreans (which is a good sign). The renovation is very simple with white walls (one side of the wall is filled with people's written comments and messages), high ceilings and projector out the front showing MTVs. 

Inside of Tong 86

Experience: There is definitely room for improvement in terms of the service provided. It's not the first time I have been to Tong 86. Every time we come, we always have a hard time getting the staff's attention and we always have to follow up on our orders.   We had to wait a while for our food and drinks. The table that ordered after us even got their drinks earlier then us. The price of the food is reasonable and the experience of Korean BBQ is interesting for a change. If you haven't tried Korean BBQ, it is something different as you have to cook your meat yourself. It gives you an opportunity to cook the meat exactly the way you like it.

Food: For people who haven't tried Korean BBQ before, here is a brief explanation of how it works. In Korean BBQ, you cook the meat and vegetables yourself on a grill at the table. You are given tongs and scissors to cut the meat. You can choose what meat you want. We had pork belly and beef brisket. The beef brisket is thinly sliced and the pork belly is chunky. The meat isn't marinated and you cook it the way you like it. After you cook it, you dip it with the sauces and you can also wrap it in the lettuce they provide you. 

We also tried the pork bone soup and Kimchi pancake. However, it was disappointing as I was expecting the soup to be full of pork flavour. However, it was just spicy and you couldn't really taste the pork flavour in the soup. I love the Kimchi pancake at Tong 86. I find that the pancakes in each Korean restaurant varies- some are crispy and some aren't. The Kimchi pancake at Tong 86 is moist and full of Kimchi flavour.  

The grill/ hot plate where you cook the meat/ mushrooms

Beef brisket (left) & Pork Belly (left)

mushrooms

cooking on the hot plate

side dishes

Kim chi pancake

Pork bone soup

Kanta

Address: 76 Langford Avenue, Langford 6147 WA Perth


Website: http://www.kantajapanese.com.au/


Telephone: 9451 5720


Opening Times: 
Lunch: Tuesday-Saturday 11.30 am - 14.00pm
Dinner: Tuesday-Saturday 18.00 pm -21.00pm
(Last orders are at 9.45 pm)


Price Range: Can vary a lot depending on what you order but the price is reasonable. Have a look at the menu at the website.

Atmosphere: I learnt about this restaurant about a year ago when my brother mentioned it and I have fell in love with it since. I love this restaurant as it is a casual dining place that provides authentic Japanese food. The restaurant is opened by Japanese people. One would assume that Japanese restaurants should be opened by Japanese but there a lot of restaurants that aren't in today's society. The restaurant is actually really tiny with two tables and the rest of the seating is at the bar. If you sit at the bar, you can actually see the chefs cooking and preparing the food. There isn't actually much in Langford and if you go at night, you wouldn't really notice the restaurant unless you actually intended to go there.

Experience: It's not my first time here and it wouldn't be my last either. The service is reasonable (it is just a casual place)... Make sure you make a reservation as the amount of seating is limited due to the size of the restaurant. If you were going to try this restaurant (which I highly recommend - as you can see, it is on my top3 list), go for dinner rather then lunch as they do have different menus. I think they have more dishes at night. I just can't stop bragging about this restaurant......

On the night I did the review, we ordered cold and hot food. However, the yukke actually came last out of all the dishes we ordered which was quite disappointing. They also provide a entree for free - which is the chilli noodles (I don't actually know what they call it). However the proportion is really small but at least it is FREE.

Food: Whenever I come here, I usually order a variety of entrees rather then just the main as the entrees are quite good. We ordered the following:

The free entree I was talking about

Spaghetti Salad

Yukke

Chicken Karaage

Spicy Pork Belly

If you can eat raw meat, definitely try the yukke. You can only order the yukke at dinner and you can't have it take away due to health regulations. The beef is really cold and the sauce is addictive. The kaarage is always good, nice and crispy but make sure you squeeze the lemon juice on it. We tried the pork belly for the first time as it was new on the menu. I was a bit disappointed as it wasn't spicy although you would've imagined it to be by it's name.

Boubar

Address: 31A Hampden Road, Nedlands Perth WA

Telephone: 9386 9301

Atmosphere: It has a nice atmosphere there with seating inside and outside. It can be a bit cramped on a Sunday and Saturday afternoon as it is always really busy.

Interior of Boubar

Experience: I've been here many times as it is a cafe that serves great breakfast and coffee. Its a local place to us so I have almost made it a habit to come here every weekend (well at least for say the last 2 months). They are also quite consistent with what they serve. Best of all, they SERVE BREAKFAST UNTIL 3 PM. It's hard to find a place that serves good breakfast until late in the afternoon. The service is generally good but you do need to go up to the counter to make your order. However, they bring you out the drinks and food.

Food: The food at Boubar can be quite expensive. A breakfast is roughly from memory about $15-18. I usually have the eggs benedict but on the day of doing the review I thought I would give it a change and ordered scrambled eggs on toast with bacon and a fresh watermelon and orange juice. The bacon was a bit burnt on the sides but it was really crispy. I love the way they put the bread on the side rather then under your eggs. Most cafes will but the eggs on top of the bread but I hate that as it makes your bread go soggy. I love the bread they use at Boubar as it is always crunchy. The scrambled eggs were moist and perfect. The coffee at Boubar is great too.

Scrambled eggs and bacon on toast

Watermelon and Orange Juice

Theobroma Chocolate Lounge

Address: Shop 47 Waterford Plaza, cnr Kent Street and Manning Road, Karawara WA 6152

Telephone: 9313 2060

Opening Times: 

Monday - Wednesday: 10.00 am to 9.00 pm

Thursday - Saturday: 10.00 am to 10.00 pm

Sunday: 11.00 am to 10.00 pm

Other: Closed Days - Good Friday, Christmas and New Years.

Atmosphere: This chocolate lounge had a nice atmosphere to it where you can hang around with a group of friends or just to kill time alone.

Experience: Chocolate cafe and desserts has recently been quite popular in Perth. Cafes like Koko Black, San Churo and now Theobroma Chocolate Lounge. Overall, it was a nice experience but I would prefer going to other chocolate cafes as I've tried better places then Theobroma Chocolate Lounge. I didn't find anything too exciting about this cafe after visiting Koko Black. Furthermore, the chocolate used in the drinks and desserts at Theobroma Chocolate Lounge was rather normal.

Food:

Some of the things we tried were:

 Milk Hot Chocolate with tea warmer

 New York Baked Cheese cake

 Toblerone Cheese cake

Waffles

I found it quite smart to use a tea warmer for the mug of hot chocolate as it does keep the hot chocolate warm. However, the downside is that it does cost you more to have the tea warmer which I think is unreasonable. The standard hot chocolate is just a cup size and if you want the tea warmer, then you will need to order the mug size. The hot chocolate was only average as I didn't find the chocolate they used too fascinating but it wasn't too heavy which was good. The waffles were great and fresh. You could add strawberries to it too if you want but of course, nothing is free so you will need to pay a little bit extra for the strawberries.

The New York Cheese cake and Toblerone  Cheese cake was good. I only tried the Toblerone cheesecake off my friend and was glad I didn't order it as it was quite heavy. If you have tried this place and liked it, then I recommend you to try Koko Black too :)

Nine Fine Food

Address: 227/ 229 Bulwer Street Highgate WA 6003

Telephone: 9227 9999

Opening Times: Monday - Saturday; 6.30 pm - 10.00 pm

Price Range:

This restaurant is considered fine dinning and is quite expensive. We had a four course and it was $65 per head. There was also a  3 course option which was around the $55 mark. You could also order the entrees and mains separately.

Atmosphere:


Romantic :) The lighting at this restaurant was dimmed and there was either a tea light candle or one of those lamps that showed the fake tea light effect. On the night that we went (Thursday), majority of the people there were couples.


Experience:


I've actually always wanted to try out this place after hearing about it from a friend. The reviews online also rated it highly so before going there I did have high expectations and I wasn't disappointed. In fact, it is one of my top 3 restaurants now. I was taken there by my partner for my birthday. I haven't had much experience with fine dinning apart from C Restaurant and Bistro Felix. I found it incomparable to my other fine dinning experiences. When I go fine dining, at the end of the meal I always ask myself whether it was worth that price.  Most of the time I would come up with the answer - I'm paying for the atmosphere rather then the food and the food was only so so. However with my experience at Nine Fine Food, I actually thought it was worth the price. I think I enjoyed it a lot as I haven't tried modern Japanese influenced by Western cuisine before. All the food were presented very nicely to the point where I didn't want to spoil the presentation by eating it. The service is also good but I am unsure about the weekend when it gets really busy.


Food:


I'm actually quite excited to talk about the food as I enjoyed it so much. However, I have to apologise in advance as the photos may not be the best photos that could've been taken. I didn't actually take the photos myself (partner did) and we weren't sure whether we were allowed to take photos of the food as my partner told me that he read on another review that they were told off by the staff.

We had the 4 course dinner and there were several options for each category- the entrees, mains and the desserts. The four course included two entrees, a main and a dessert. We tried to order different things so we could try a taste of everything.

Beef Tataki (entree)

 Sashimi (entree)

 Fried chilli seafood platter (fish, squid, prawns) - entree

 Lamb with scallop (entree)

 Beef  with Miso sauce (main)

 Duck with Mash (main)

All the food were cooked very nicely. The Sashimi was fresh and there was small amounts of different types of fishes. Some of the Sashimi was marinated. Beef Tataki is usually my favourite Japanese dish as I love the sour taste and the texture of thinly sliced beef with thinly sliced onions. However, if you have tried Beef Tataki before, you can see that Nine Fine Food's Beef Tataki is quite different just from looking at the photo. The dish wasn't bad but the sauce didn't have that sour taste or the onions and the beef was sliced quite thickly. I was a little bit disappointed with the Tataki. 

My favourite dish of the night was the Chilli seafood platter. The orange sauce you could see in the photo is a chilli creamy sauce and the green one is a Wasabi sauce. The dish was perfect and I wanted more of it. I loved the sauce so much that I couldn't get enough of it. The presentation of dish was also very pretty as the chef stacked it very nicely layering the fish, prawns, salad and squid. Now with the lamb..... my partner loved it and the lamb was really soft and cooked very well. It was so soft that it would basically melt in your mouth. However, I personally found the taste of the lamb too strong and overpowering. I can usually eat lamb but some people don't eat lamb because of the strong taste/ flavour it has. The lamb had a scallop with it too and the scallop was cooked PERFECTLY - not overcooked or undercooked.

The duck was very nice too as it was really soft and the sauce complimented it very well. The mash was really smooth yet not buttery. For dessert we had the black sesame ice cream and cream brulee. At the bottom of cream brulee, it had a layer of green tea pudding which went well with the brulee. The black sesame ice cream had a nice balance in terms of the amount of black sesame in it and it was really smooth. 

I highly recommend this restaurant if you are planning a special occasion or giving yourself a special treat.

Bistro Felix

Address: 118-120 Rokeby Road, Subiaco , Western Australia 6008

Telephone: 9388 3077

Opening Times: Open 7 days a week from 12 pm (noon). Closed Public Holidays

Website: http://www.bistrofelix.com.au/index.php

Price Range 

Starters and Entrees (dinner): $3.80 each (for oysters) to $28.00

Mains (dinner): $33.00-$42.00

                                 

You can view the menu and the prices via Bistro Felix's website.

Atmosphere 

I would call it fine dining as the prices are up there. The lights are dimmed and I would say that this place is quite romantic. I would've personally preferred a tea light candle on each table. The place is quite elegant and it will be a place where you might want to dress up a little before going.

Experience 

Service was good and they even provided complimentary bread which was nice and soft. I still cant figure out why the bread had a tinge of salt. It wasn't bad but I haven't ever tried bread with a salty taste to it. Bistro Felix has a bar and a wide selection of wine. Most people there seem to order wine with their meals. I would've enjoyed some too but unfortunately I don't appreciate wine.

The downside of the experience was that I could hear the chefs from the kitchen. It wasn't pleasant when you can hear a chef telling off another chef while having your meal!! We weren't even seated directly next to the kitchen either.

If you do plan to go on a weekend, make sure you make a reservation in advance. I tried a few times making a reservation for the weekend probably about 2 days in advance but they were booked out by then. We eventually went on a weekday while we walked past and we managed to get a table without a reservation.


Food

We had the Margaret River wagyu rump, frites, cafe de paris butter with mash potato. For dessert we had the Bobe Alaska. Te wagyu was average and I would've preferred more sauce. The down side was that the food wasn't hot and rather cold. The mash potato was below average as it wasn't smooth. I found the dessert better then the main. It was the first time I had tried the Bombe Alaska so I won't comment on it too much as I am unsure of what to expect from it. However, I found it quite pleasant.

 Wagyu Rump

Bombe Alaska

Overall, the food was average and if you go, you are paying for the atmosphere and service. If you have the entertainment book, then remember to bring it as it will save you on the cost of one main. Luckily, we had the entertainment book or else it would've costed us a fortune.

Phill Bean

Address: Shop 2, 17 Tribute St West, Shelley WA 6148 (Shelley Hub Shopping Centre)

Telephone: 9354 7272


Opening Times


Monday, Wednesday to Sunday Dinner 5:30pm - 9:30 pm
Friday and Saturday Lunch 12:00 pm - 2.30 pm
Tuesday Closed


Website: www.phillbean.com.au


Price Range (Mains): $7.50 - $35.00


Atmosphere

This Korean restaurant is situated inside a suburban local shopping center complex. It was quite spacious inside the restaurant unlike other Korean restaurants which are usually really small and tiny.

Experience

Overall, the price was reasonable and the dishes werea standard size. The service was good although it was relatively quite (I think it is because the place is still new). We were asked  if we wanted refills for the side dishes. Unlike other Korean restaurants, they usually charge you for refills for the side dishes but I don't think this restaurant had extra charges for the refill. We also got free dessert, which was a red bean dessert with sago. 

Food 

The Dumplings and the Spicy Pork was quite delicious. The Dumplings were golden brown and crispy. However, I wasn't a big fan of the Tofu soup with the Kimichi and pork as I found it a bit spicy. 

Dumplings (appetizer)

Pan fried Spicy Pork

Tofu Soup with Kimchi and Pork

I wouldn't say it was terrible and I am sure other people would like it but I personally didn't think it was my kind of dish. The mains came with rice and side dishes.