Last night was the second last performance of our buddy Garry's (Gaz) latest play, Small Poppies. Gaz has the lead role of Clinton, a young boy dealing with the first day of school. A role once performed by Geoffrey Rush no less. So big shoes to fill and fill em he did. Gaz scored all the big laughs last night and the wetting of his pants scene may very well be the hot (or wet) topic of discussion over a lot of beers in the near future!So we were out of the play by 9pm and Chris, Caz and myself thought we'd leave everyone at the after party and grab some food as we hadn't eaten yet.
So we ducked into Northbridge, the main nightspot for the peeps of Perth, surely there will be something open in there. We didn't feel like eating Asian food (we probably should have) and thus began the quest to find a restaurant in Perth prepared to serve you a meal after 9.30pm. Yes Perth is a capital city. I know. Incredible.
First stop The Moon Cafe, always guaranteed of some food and drink there until the wee hours. Sure, if you can get a table, packed. I've just checked out their website and clicked on the food section to see what we missed out on, it appears we may not have missed much at all............fitting really.
So onward we toiled. popped into Bar Italia, they had already started piling their chairs up onto the empty tables. Pity the poor diners still in there, now surrounded by piled up chairs. Nothing says thanks for your custom, now please get the fuck out, than an upturned chair does it.......ahhhh Perth.
Well I guess Vultures will be open, it's 24 hours isn't it? Oh no, not for years now. "Sorry we've stopped cooking" was the response. Coffee dude suggested a few places further into the heart of Northbridge, dire suggestions indeed.
Now as I started to exit Vultures I noticed a guy behind the bar polishing glasses, it was none other than Stan 'The Man' Lazaridis. Former Socceroo and Birmingham City player now glass polisher at a washed up and worn out cafe. Surely Stan made lots and lots of money playing the beautiful game. What's going on here, does he own it, does he owe someone big money? Is he meant to drag customers in off the street "Eat where Stan The Man Eats" not sure. But he did overhear my utterance in response to the no we're closed comment "Perth....fucking unbelievable". Not that my retort will jolt them into the 21st Century by any means.
So yet again we ventured deeper into Northbridge, dodging the early drunks. Next stop Valentinos, I used to head chef there (we served dinner until midnight back then, did a roaring trade too), haven't been back in years, probably wont return for many more. We stood at the front desk where staff just stared at us like we were aliens. "Surely they don't expect food this time of night do they, they must be from Melbourne or something". Needless to say we stepped out of there as well.
Across the road to some nameless generic Italian Cafe who quickly informed us that no they couldn't serve us a meal as "We've run out of food"
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You've run out of food? My god, where's Gordon Ramsay when you need him. Why the hell do I live in this town? Why can't Melbourne be closer to my work?
So back across the road (stick with me, the quest is about to be fulfilled - to a degree) to another generic Italian Cafe/Restaurant, The Sorrento.
"Do you...?"
"Sure come in"
Finally.
I could go on now about how tough the lamb was, how oily the pasta was, how the garlic bread tasted of burnt oil but I wont, it was food, it was 10.20pm and we were no longer hungry, that's all that mattered. The wine was actually really impressive, no idea what it was, except that it was from McClaren Vale, a cab sav and over priced. But at least it was enjoyable.
Well done Perth, at least you've moved beyond prawn cocktails and Wiener Schnitzels as Haute Cuisine (not that you'd know it in a generic Italian Cafe) but my god when will you start to act like a big city and come to grips with the fact that not everyone eats dinner at 6pm.
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WAz