BETWEEN TWO FERNS

If you haven't seen a Between Two Ferns interview yet you fail at the internet, watch the others in the series as well, brilliant.

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Steve Carell from Between Two Ferns

BAROLO ON BEAUFORT

I caught up with Nells this week and we headed down to Borolo. I'd been keen to try this place since a menu was dropped into my letterbox some 4-6 months before it had even opened. Good rustic Italian food is hard to come by in this town. You see Perth is dotted/infested with Italian style cafe's that serve the same damn menu, penne arrabiata, spaghetti bolognaise, penne napolitana, veal scallopini, veal ala marsala .... I could go on. So my hopes were high that Borolo could deliver the goods, the goods being simple yet interesting Italian food that I couldn't necessarily whip up at home in 5 minutes for one tenth of the price.

I wasn't disappointed.

The first thing that hits you when you enter Barolo is the noise, don't get me wrong it's not deafening but you soon realise that you probably wont be bringing someone here for a quiet intimate meal. That's okay, you can cross the street to Jacksons for that. This is a place to EAT and TALK and DRINK. They've done a remarkable job with the decor as well, It's a big space but there's plenty of bits to break it up, least of all the incredible arches that cross the centre of the building. Something tells me they were already there because how would you afford a thing like that these days, cast iron arches? I'm prepared to be corrected on that though. An incredible fixture nonetheless.

We were greeted at the door and sat promptly and then I started to notice a whole bunch of familiar faces both on the floor and behind the bar "That's right, these guys are from SOTO". I thought I'd seen them before. Menus arrived and seeing as we were both starving we ordered instantly, although apparently I was hungrier than Nells so I started with a plate of Vitello di Tonato. We probably should have shared this dish as it was huge and delicious. Medium rare slices of veal with a smooth tuna mayonnaise drizzled over the top. One to definitely try.

Nells was a little miffed that there wasn't any fish on the main menu but once the specials were read out to us she ordered the Barramundi with sweet potato mash. Problem solved. I'd chosen the grilled spatchcock on spinach and broken/crushed/smashed (I forget the term they used) potato. Nells' fish arrived looking great, crispy grilled on one side and moist and tasty and most importantly actual Barramundi. Perth has a reputation you see .... My spatchcock was by far one of the most tenderest and tastiest chicken dishes I have had in a long time, If a bunch of you head to Barolo make sure at least one of you orders this dish because you all need to taste it.

I'll be going back to Barollo again and bringing many more peeps with me, it's fantastic to have such a quality Italian Trattoria so close by. I need to mention the service here too as it was friendly, helpful and the staff smiled. Yep they smiled, this is a good thing. All up the meal cost us $107.00 for two and that included two glasses of wine. Not bad at all

The Positivo: The spatchcock, you must try this dish

The Negativo: It's a bit noisy, but it is what it is, don't come here for a one on one smoochy date fest, bring friends for group lovin.

8 empty Chianti bottles sitting on a shelf out of 10

WITH THE WHAT AND THE WHO NOW?

I've been spotting these billboards along my route home through Claremont lately and someone spotted one on the back of a bus. I'm not really sure how I feel about them, the Tin Man one is just naff and well pretty damn obvious, I expect there's a brain surgery one out there with a scarecrow in it. I spotted another this afternoon but could't grab a pic, it was for Orthopedics, I think, it had Humpty Dumpty in it after he'd fallen from the wall.

But the who's the fairest in the land one really pissed me off, seriously, let's make women hate their natural selves more shall we. No mention of boob jobs in the pic at least. It is noted however that these adverts are placed in the wealthier suburbs of Perth.

I'm probably ranting over nothing but lately advertising has been getting my goat. I just find most of it annoying and I avoid it when I can. Huge billboards along the side of the road are unfortunately hard to miss. /endrant]

365 DAYS WEEK 37

Week 37 of my 365 Day challenge passed by pretty uneventfully, I managed to cook, well bake at least and that's a good thing. It's nice to enjoy cooking for others again

SKYBOMBERS

Okay a little bit of background on how I am 2 degrees of separation from the girl and 3 degrees from the guy in this clip. She being Sunni and he being Ryder who are an actual pair in the real world. Well Sunni is the gorgeous daughter of the gorgeous Shari whom I used to hang with in the late 80's. That's her on the left in the pic with Ged who is Sunni's dad. Word on the street is that Ged and Shari are the coolest parents on the planet.

Right so that's that and now here's the very cool clip starring Sunni and Ryder and the song's pretty damn good as well....

Skybombers - Love Me Like You Used To Do

HEATHEN CHILD

First single for from Grinderman's new album

Heathen Child by MuteRecords

THE HOOD # 114

The good Monies on Money st

Had a wander down and around the area near Money st this afternoon. This place is fast becoming a very cool place to live, I just hope it doesn't become overdone. Perth has a habit of doing that. So far so good though and the street art in the lane ways is getting better and better (should continue to do so until the new tenants of the burb complain about "all the graffiti"). For now though we have some great pieces....

This huge collective piece runs between Money and Lindsay st's

ERECTION 2010

Excuse the bad pun, spotted this in the window of the sex shop down on Walcott st today

nice touch with the blood under KRudd

FROM THE TRENCHES

From the place that brought you Salmon (It may contain Fish) and that other stunning piece of enlightenment, Pork (It may contain Pork) comes the following email....

"This morning we went to make our lunches in the mess, and instead of apples, pears, etc they had a big tray of lemons... big, bright and yellow..."

and

"Junior Archaeologist went to get some cheese after dinner, and found it had been coated in curry powder. I've never seen him so annoyed/upset..."

and people looked at me strangely when I used to bring my own food to camp

DAFT PUNK v Tr2n

A perfect match

you can download here

Track 1 Track 2

Track 3 Track 4

Track 5 Track 6

VERY COOL MOVIE POSTERS

Ibraheem Youssef’s minimalist movie posters are very cool, you can order them at his website.

365 DAYS WEEK 36

Week 36 of my 365 Day challenge roamed around Mt Lawley, North and South Fremantle, Highgate, Northbridge and Guildford. A well travelled 7 days.

   

  

THE ART OF BLACK AND WHITE # 5

Gods of rock

Keith

Neil

Joe

and Keith

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

THE HOOD # 113

As I passed this vacant block on William st in Northbridge this afternoon, I noticed the back wall had changed a lot. I posted the wall here earlier in the year, now it looks like this.

ALWAYS LOOK UP

You never know what you might see. I was out scouring Money st this afternoon looking for some street art pieces I'd been told about and I happened to glance skyward. At first I thought it was a bicycle and then I realised what it actually was....

The whole house had a bit of a dark feel to it, wealthy goths maybe? This over the front door....

RANDOM PICS # 41

Old school Star Wars

there's something very creepy about that first wookie's smile

MAD IT UP BABY

Create your own Mad Men character. Here I am sharing cocktails and the news with the gang at the office.

THEN AND NOW

Just sorting through some of my flickr sets and noticed these

Mum and me



not sure we could recreate the pose these days