THE GREENHOUSE

Perth is cold at night these days and we were pretty glad that our trek down St Georges Tce had ended and we were now inside the warmth of The Greenhouse (no pun intended). Parking being at a premium in the city meant that we had a fair walk to get to the eatery but I have to say it was worth every cold step. Read on....

Karks and I arrived slightly late (see above) and Gen and Linda were already at our table so we were seated very quickly. One gripe was that nobody asked to take our coats, it's winter time and coats are big and thick and they take up a lot of space on the back of the Greenhouse chairs, which when you see them you will  know that they are in no way designed to have a coat draped over them. This however, will be one of my only gripes for the night because the Greenhouse is great. Wait until you see some of the fab recycling ideas they've used in this place (The Greenhouse is constructed entirely from recycled materials), like old BBQ gas bottles cut in half as door handles and my fav, the rear view mirrors from cars as the bathroom mirror....

Dinner is tapas only and seriously this is a perfect way to eat with someone, you get to try a pile of different flavours and textures and there's a whole bunch of arms crossing the table, offereings of another dish, a great way to interact with your fellow diners. We chose 5 dishes to start with. The greenhouse bits and pieces, cuttlefish, chickpeas and spinach, beer battered mussels with tahini sauce, piquillo pepper and manchego croquettes and the pig head trotter terrine with mustard pear puree. The highlight for me was the bits and pieces platter which amongst other tasty morsels had a beautiful liver parfait. The croquettes were also given worthy praise, don't get me wrong the other dishes were wonderful too, it was just that those two stood out the most. Contrary to our waiters suggestion that this would probably be enough food it most surely wasn't as we could have grazed there all night (which we pretty much did anyway as we were the last to leave). So more food was ordered and we finished off our main meal with a serve of seared skirt steak, romesco and the plate of wood roasted vegetable salad, salmoriglio. The skirt steak was lovely and medium rare with just a hint of good rock salt around the edges. The roasted vegetables took quite a while to get to us but seriously, if you order this dish do not complain about the wait, these vegetables are being roasted to order to perfection. Trust me, it's worth the wait.

"Could I interest anyone in dessert?" questioned the waiter, "It would be rude of us not to even look at the menu" was the reply. Four desserts on offer and we chose two to share, the green apple tart with calvados mascarpone and the valrohna chocolate parfait with pistachio, honeycomb and cherry bubbles. The apple tart was beautiful but the chocolate parfait was to die for. DO NOT leave this venue without ordering it, got that? Service at the Greenhouse is great, never was it overbearing and yet always attentive. The bill was another highpoint, expecting it to be on the higher end of the scale (and more than happy to pay for it), came in at $190 for 4 and keep in mind that around $50 of that was for the lovely bottle of  Spanish Red? (I kind of forget what we drank - but it was good). So $50 a head is a cheap night out as far as I'm concerned, especially at a place of this quality.

The Smudge: Maybe take the coats and hang them somewhere if at all possible, it gets crowded in there with all that excess baggage.

The Shiny Bits: The food, great flavours, good sizings and a good variety of choices. The value for money.

8 recycled jam jars out of 10