Eating in Perth

[chefmw67]

There are several places in Perth that should be on your must do list.

1. The Loose Box Restaurant.

http://www.loosebox.com.au

This is place that will hold its own anywhere in the world.

Its a bit of a drive about 40mins out of central Perth.

They have some beautiful accomodation there but it is always full so book well in advance. You will not be dissappointed. Has been running for over 20 years same owner chef.

The other is a Bar come restaurant Must Wine Bar.

519 Beaufort St Mount Lawley Perth

Tel +618 9328 8255

This place would also be happy in any major city in the world, food is great and the wine bar over 400 lablels, 30+ by the glass.

I have lived in Europe, USA, Asia and these 2 places are as good as I have seen overseas, not to mention the price, value for money try going to a similar standard place in London, New York, Paris, Shanghai, you will be paying, min 3 times as much compared to these 2 places, and you get a smile from the staff who are happy to see you, the only thing that gets a smile in the other cities mentioned is 25% tip.

[Amarantha]

Where do you work, chefmw67?

[kieran]

We just got back from a trip to Hong Kong, Perth, and Sydney. We took the trip because a friend was getting married in Perth, and I used this thread (along with a few others on this board) to get some suggestions for where to go. A few places that stuck out for me (good and bad). First, the terrible:

Fraser's: This was hands down the most disappointing food experience of our entire three week trip. Yes, the view was fantastic. The food was okay, a bit hit or miss -- the highlight of everything that our party of four ordered was a Thai-inspired curry with mixed seafood. However, the service was the worst I have encountered at any restaurant in recent memory. We began by waiting over 30 minutes for anyone to even talk to us after sitting down. Okay, we were mellow, it was busy, we were in no hurry. After about 20 minutes, one of our party tried to find a menu, or someone to give us a menu, with no luck. Just as we were getting up to leave, our server came over. We were able to order some bottled water and nothing else -- not having menus or a wine list yet. Okay, so the water arrives, along with menus. Server pours out the water. A few minutes later, one of our party notices a cockroach in his glass and alerts the server. She comes over, spends 30 seconds looking at the glass, grudgingly acknowledges that she sees something, and removes the glass. She brings him a new glass and asks if he wants to order another bottle of water. WTF? I don't think it's overly demanding to expect the original bottle to be replaced gratis, especially when none of it had been drunk. It didn't start us off on a great note for the meal.

The service level held about steady from there. Our server took away two dishes without asking, before we were done with them. She went away so quickly that we didn't have a chance to object. She came back to remove others, one of them right out from under a diner whose fork was just moving to take a bite off the plate she was trying to remove! When we elected not to order a third bottle of wine, she actually rebuked us and said "You DON'T want another bottle?" My meal came without the rice that was supposed to be included with it, and when I asked about it, she said, "Honestly, I find I don't really want the rice when I have it. All the carbs. But if YOU want it, I'll go back to the kitchen." Uhhhh?

It was pretty bad service for any restaurant, anywhere. But it was particularly galling bad service on a meal that cost as much as this one did. This place is lucky that they have the view. The food was only mediocre and the service was inexcusable. It was the big culinary blot in our holiday. I wish I hadn't spent money there and that we had spoken up about the service we were receiving more than we did. Honestly we were kind of shocked.

Okay, that said -- we had some good meals in Perth too:

Maya Indian was great! I wasn't expecting to find great Indian food in the Perth environs (which may just show my ignorance about the Perth environs), but this was really among the better Indian meals I've had, anywhere.

I also really enjoyed Cream and a small Vietnamese place in Northbridge whose name excapes me right now. I really wanted to try Eminen, but the address listed had another restaurant in its place called Chez Pierre). Has it closed? I was also sorry that Shige was closed for the new year while we were there, so we didn't have an opportunity to try it. We didn't have as much time to dine out as we wanted, since we were invited to a lot of family events for the wedding celebration.

In general I really enjoyed my time in Perth. You have a lovely city, and we felt kindness and warmth from just about everyone we encountered. It was a welcome calm after the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong.

Thanks for the recommendations on the board. I'm looking forward to returning to Western Australia (just not to Fraser's).