Hong Kong BBQ Restaurant, Northbridge

Hong Kong has much to offer in food.  Being a part of China, many associate Chinese food with the local Chinese restaurant that has offerings such as fried rice, sweet and sour pork, and boneless lemon chicken.  However, over the years a greater appreciation for Chinese food aided by the increase in other more authentic restaurants opening including less westernised Chinese food, dim sum, noodle and congee restaurants, bakeries, and BBQ meat restaurants.

Whilst many Hong Kong style restaurants can be found scattered throughout Perth, Northbridge in particular seems to be home to a large concentration of them.  The recently refurbished Hong Kong BBQ has for years been one of these, situated on Francis Street and patroned by a large proportion of people from Hong Kong.

Hong Kong BBQ is a pretty normal restaurant for its type, with smaller square tables and larger round tables some with lazy susans (which are those round serving tables that can be spun and are used in the centre of a table that you place shared dishes on).  The lighting is quite white rather than warm and the atmosphere casual and conducive to a quick to medium meal out as opposed to a long drawn out meal (though there doesn’t seem to be anything stopping you from doing that too).  At the front is the counter and behind it is an assortment of roast and barbecue meats on display for purchase along with a small preparation area.  Upon your order, the chef will chop the meat up and serve it to you - in a container for takeaway or on a dish via a waitperson for dine in.  In addition, there is a kitchen at the back to prepare the other cooked meals on offer.

Apart from the roast and barbecue meats, the menu contains other Hong Kong style cuisine including noodles (soup based or dry), rice dishes, and other sharable Chinese dishes (e.g. stir fried dishes).

Mixed meats dish - $28 (large size)

Being a restaurant with a BBQ meats specialty, the first menu choices included servings of BBQ meats.  One of the menu choices was a dish that contained a choice of two, three, or four different meats.  Choosing the large version, we opted to have four meats being BBQ pork (otherwise known as char siu), roast pork, soy sauce chicken, and roast duck.   The dish also is served with chilli oil, ginger oil, and plum sauces.

The sauces to accompany the meats dish

There is a bit of choice in ordering such BBQ meats in Northbridge and thus, due to the similar nature of the way they are made, arguably the differences can be a personal preference of things such as the marinade, the amount of fat or freshness.

The BBQ pork came out as shiny red coloured pork meat that was sweet and savoury at the same time.  With the marinade, the pork had quite a lot of flavour however the inner section of the meat was drier (which is not unusual).

The roast pork had a crunchy skin, layers of pork fat (which is normal for pork belly), but seemed only lightly marinated prior to cooking meaning that this was a more mild tasting version of roast pork compared to others I have tried.

The soy sauce chicken tasted a bit ordinary to me – it seemed like chicken boiled in a strong soy sauce based soup.  Whilst I can see people enjoying this dish, it wasn’t my favourite style of boiled chicken.

To round off this dish, the roast duck had a lightly crispy and dark red skin.  The meat itself tasted pretty normal for duck but I enjoyed the duck skin’s taste and texture despite the obvious layer of fat beneath.  I’m sure the fat helped make it taste better!

Wonton noodle soup - $11

Before I start on this dish, I’ll say I really enjoy a good wonton noodle soup.  Thoughts of some of the meals I've had previously in Hong Kong left me pleasantly surprised as to how good these can taste.

The wontons had pork and prawn and was marinated to give it a boost of a slightly sweet but otherwise pork and prawn savoury flavour that is quite satisfying as a light pork and prawn flavoured dumpling (from my experience the Hong Kong ones tend to be more prawn based which suits me just fine).  Compared to other wontons around Perth that I have tried, they were surprisingly good but not as good as what I recall from my past holidays to Hong Kong (where incidentally I recall the wonton noodle soup to be much cheaper and tastier even though serving sizes are smaller).

A wonton up close

The soup base also had a matching wonton noodle soup flavour that tasted good for a Hong Kong style wonton noodle soup but to me seemed to have a slight powdery taste to the broth (but maybe that's just me!).

Beef brisket noodle soup - $11

This dish consisted of noodles in a soup broth, topped with beef brisket.

The soup base had a beef stock and prominent soy taste to it.  Being beef brisket, the beef had more flavour than a lean beef cut, and felt stewed through the noodle soup.

Though I haven't really tried this dish around other restaurants to make a fair comparison, I am told this dish wasn’t too bad.

In summary, I feel that Hong Kong BBQ is trying to live up to its Hong Kong name.  To me, and one of my friends from Hong Kong agrees, the food has a distinct Hong Kong style and is reminiscent of similar Hong Kong restaurant flavours.

Points to note: Being a BBQ restaurant, you can order roast and barbecued Hong Kong style meats dine in or takeaway.  However, other meals that are noodle or rice based are also available.  BYO.

Go for: Hong Kong style food - including roast and barbecue meats, noodle soups, and rice dishes with share-style main courses.

Hong Kong BBQ Restaurant
76 Francis Street

NORTHBRIDGE WA 6003

(08) 9228 3968

Trading Hours

Sunday to Thursday - 10am to 10pm

Friday and Saturday - 10am to 11pm

Sayers, Leederville

Who likes coffee? Ok... Who likes a great casual cafe/coffee shop to hang out with friends over some good breakfast or lunch and a hot beverage? Hey, there's a few of them in Perth with more popping up all the time but surely Sayers deserves a mention. Most of you coffee drinkers who live or work quite centrally probably already know about Sayers or even have been there so perhaps this post is nothing new.

But here I was, having been up that morning since 5:30am out to catch the sunrise and through much running around had only made it to breakfast at about 10am - where does time go by? 10am is not too bad a time for breakfast but unfortunately it's at about Sayers' peak Sunday breakfast crowd meaning I'd have to wait for a table.

Sayers isn’t very big for how busy they can get. Whilst there are al fresco and inside seats available, the tables are quite tightly packed to maximise space. Further in is the front counter, where you have to make your order and payment, that contains some refrigerated display items such as cakes and quiches.

The menu, apart from the coffee/tea offerings, is split into a breakfast and lunch. The breakfast menu at least seems to start with the core café style breakfast offerings and then expands on this with more gourmet selections that ultimately mean you have quite a bit of choice in your order. The use of items such a free range eggs and some local suppliers adds to the quality of the food Sayers provides.

Full breakfast - $22

The full breakfast came with your choice of poached, scrambled or fried eggs, potato cake, three beans, grilled tomato, field mushroom, Italian sausage and bacon. Knowing that the full breakfast was going to be pretty “full” on, I chose the poached eggs.

I thought the poached eggs were a great choice. I was quite impressed that the poached eggs were cooked to my liking – with the egg white cooked through and the egg yolk completely runny. I tend to find that many places tend to cook the egg yolk such that when you break the egg yolk not much yolk runs out. Being placed on slices of toasted ciabatta, the runny egg yolk was easily spreadable onto the bread slices evenly.

The potato cake was pretty much what the name suggests – soft potato presented like a small cake that was savoury but only lightly flavoured (including only a moderate amounts of salt which is good for me). The three beans, half a grilled tomato, field mushroom, and Italian sausage were pretty standard fare, whilst the bacon was cooked nicely but if you like your bacon crispy – perhaps not. As I’m not a big fan of bacon it didn’t bother me either way.

Wagyu beef oven baked egg - $19.50 (partially eaten in this picture)

With oven roasted tomato, spring onion and cheddar open omelette, and lemon scented rocket.

By inserting the word “Wagyu”, the thought of the highly marbleised beef is meant to incite good feelings right? But of my experiences in Perth, I am quickly reminded that I don’t have many great experiences in Perth that capitalise on the taste and texture of Wagyu beef.

Saying that, this dish didn’t have a lot of Wagyu beef in it and tasted like a pile of omelette in a mini Teflon pan that had been baked. OK, maybe that didn’t sound so good but it tasted pretty good. The omelette’s taste was enhanced by the oven baking, and the overall density and slightly dehydrating baking process made this stand out from a normal breakfast omelette. Whilst overall a good dish, it did feel a bit rich to be eating the whole omelette.

The oven baked egg with ciabatta bread (as served)

The omelette was served topped with the lemon scented rocket, and two slices of ciabatta bread.

Short Macchiato - $3.50

I ordered this the traditional way – not topped up. As a short macchiato, it had a dash of milk and slight remnants of crema.

The taste of the short mach was slightly bitter and had a noticeable but mild sour taste. Whilst this blend that was slightly sour is blended into milk based coffees with the added sweetness inherent in milk (a la cappuccinos, flat whites, café lattes, or even your macchiatos topped up), it isn’t my preference for short mach or espresso but was nonetheless overall not bad.

Cappuccino - $3.70

OK, so I had two coffees. My body seems to be immune to caffeine these days anyway and I can sleep right through it.

Obviously containing a fair amount of milk, this is where in my opinion Sayers’ beans seem to work better for my taste. In the cappuccino the sourness had pretty much disappeared (yes, I have had coffees before where even a cappuccino is sour). Not a bad coffee, though I felt it was a bit too mild for my liking. Otherwise, coupled with the good food and the buzzing and happening environment it’s actually ok overall - and with the amount of people who come here for coffee, surely many consider Sayers to produce decent coffee!

Cake - $7

I’m told by someone in the industry that the cakes at Sayers are pretty good and are house-made. So despite the consumption of copious amounts of breakfast food, I had to have a piece of cake. The cakes on offer seem to vary from time to time. I chose the chocolate cake.

The chocolate cake did indeed taste house made (or not factory made). Very chocolaty, lightly moist, and sweet but not too rich that it became too much – the cake delivered on a decent coffee shop/café style cake.

Overall, Sayers is a popular café that serves up some decent breakfast and lunches. I quite enjoyed the food there having a slight upmarket twist on normal breakfast food.

Points to note: Sayers can get very busy so if you come at peak times, be prepared to wait. Sayers is a cafe/coffee shop with tea, coffee and a bit more range and hints of gourmet than similar places

Go for: A very popular cafe/coffee shop complete with coffee, good food, and in-house made cakes.



Sayers
224 Carr Place
Leederville WA 6007
(08) 9227 0429
http://www.sayersfood.com.au/

Trading Hours
7 days – Breakfast and Lunch

Must Margaret River, Margaret River

One of our popular traditions in Perth is to go down South for a day trip, a weekend trip, or a longer relaxing stay.  Although I don't get down often enough I do enjoy the laid back and comforting atmosphere, and the breathtaking views to be had.  Coupled with the local wineries and breweries, and the decent choice of good food that emphasise local produce, a trip down South is a must for all locals who like to get away and enjoy themselves.

In terms of choice for that good food, Must Margaret River is considered one of the better restaurants down South and is the younger sibling of Must Winebar in Mount Lawley.  Both Must restaurants have made a name for themselves offering excellent food with extensive and impressive wine lists.  Both restaurants are also ideally located with Must Winebar in the heart of Mount Lawley's Beaufort Street strip, whilst Must Margaret River is in the heart of Margaret River's main strip on Bussell Highway.

From the outside, Must Margaret River looks modern and trendy.  Upon entering, this is continued with contemporary design and distinct design features.  Must Margaret River's decor pays tribute to Margaret River's wine region, with numerous large wine racks filled with wine bottles lined around the restaurant.  The whole atmosphere combines classy upmarket dining with casual South West charm.

To go with the design and its Margaret River location, Must is fully licensed with an extensive list of wine from various regions (and fittingly with an emphasis on Margaret River wines), as well as cocktails and other bar drinks.  The wine list is so good that it was a finalist in the Gourmet Traveller Wine List of the Year Awards for Western Australia in 2009 (incidentally, the related Must Winebar in Mount Lawley won the award).  In addition, Must Margaret River won some WA Catering Awards in 2009 including Best New Restaurant.

Food wise, Must has a different menu for lunch versus dinner.  To be expected, the dinner menu is more extensive and seemingly fancier.  However, that isn't to say that much should be taken away from the lunch menu as despite its more limited choices, there's sure to be something for every Must customer on that menu.  For lunch, in addition to some a la carte choices, Must had a special set menu available which costs either $33 for two courses, or $44 for three courses.  Both come with a glass of red or white.  To me, that's pretty good value.

Seafood chowder

The seafood chowder was of a typical creamy taste and texture, and the prominent seafood ingredient seemed to be fish.  However, the seafood chowder didn’t smell or taste overly “fishy” like some other seafood chowders I have had which probably means either the seafood was fresh or it was cooked fresh and well.

The whole chowder's subtle flavours, yet hearty taste made this a nice entree that was well balanced.  Even though this was mainly fish based, I enjoyed the way it was made.

Must Charcuterie Plate of Jarradene Free Range Pork - $28

This dish is a Must specialty.  It is designed as a plate to share, offering samples of four different specially made items neatly compiled onto a plate.  The items were:

• Jambon Persillé; a pickled pork and parsley terrine
• Paté en croute with Peach Chutney
• Rillettes with Cornichons
• Black Olive Tapenade

Overall, the dish consisted of some well prepared food that contained well matched flavours and ingredients that made this almost a delicate tasting plate rather than an entree that uses strong or overpowering flavours.  Of note, the terrine's pickled pork was nicely subtle in flavour - not having a strong pickle taste, and the black olive tapenade too had a definite olive flavour but without being too strong or salty.

Whilst not being an antipasto or filling tasting plate (such as those containing Turkish bread), the Charcuterie plate offered some nicely prepared meats that was like a light appetiser - there to whet the tastebuds.

Slow braised lamb shank pie

The lamb shank pie was served with potato puree and green olive salad

The pie's pastry was light and a little flaky but held its form well.  With the pastry nicely moulded around the filling, the balance between the pastry and filling was good.  The lamb shank was soft (probably as a result of the slow braising process) and the pie's lamb based filling was completed with softened vegetables and a mild but pleasant flavour base.

The pie was placed on a bed of vegetables, and a potato puree that was consistent, smooth and soft.

Grilled Augusta 8 bar cod fillet

The cod fillet was served with parsnip puree and a watercress salad.

The cod seemed fresh and cooked just right.  As a result the fish had a nice texture, was soft and yet held its shape well.  The taste was subtle allowing the fish flavours to come through, and the cod's skin was crispy and tasty, but didn’t give a strong "fish" taste that is often associated with fish skin.

The bed of parsnip puree was very smooth and was subtle rather than overpowering in parsnip taste.  The salad was fresh and the lightness complemented the subtle fish dish.

Beef Rib Eye, with the bone 500g - $48

The beef rib eye was served with crushed Kipfler Potato and Bridgetown Organic smoked garlic butter.  The condiments were French mustard, onion-cabernet jam, salsa verde and either Bearnaisé sauce or Green Peppercorn Jus.

Must states that all their beef is sourced from ‘Daniels Well’ near Albany.  The cows are apparently fattened on a special grain ‘muesli’ for 80 to 100 days.  They are then dry aged in Must’s refrigerated beef cellar for at least 30 days.  Must also states that the beef rib eye dish can be shared between two, but if you're a bit of a decent eater then you should have no problem eating this to yourself.

The beef cellar

The beef was ordered medium rare and was cooked just right.  I am told that Must (as well as many other good steak establishments) use a process of searing and exacting controlled oven cooking to prepare each steak to the customer's order.  It seems to work.

The accompanying sauces

The crushed potato was nice and soft enough to eat, adding the potato to the otherwise
"meat and potato" dish.  The sauces were nicely prepared and the combination of four sauces gave a bit of variety and the novelty of being able to taste test each one.

Chocolate tart

The chocolate tart was served with poached quince and double cream.

The chocolate tart filling's texture was uniform and consistent, with a good density.  Eating it, it had a rich almost creamy feel.  The base was firm and not crumbly and all up the tart was nicely made and nice to eat.

The rich double cream and slightly refreshing quince finished the dish off for a rich dessert that didn't feel too heavy.

Cambozola blue cheese

The Cambozola blue cheese was from Blue Cow Cheese Company, and served with Sebbes Road honey comb and pistachio crackers.  The Cambozola had only a light blue cheese flavour, and was creamy like a camembert.

The combination of the items worked well, with the crisp light pistachio crackers forming a base for the Cambozola blue cheese and the honeycomb adding a nice sweetness to round off the cheese's savoury flavour.  In particular, I really liked the addition of the honey comb as I thought this added a nice touch.

Russo from Swings and Roundabouts

With the two or three course set lunch menus, a glass of wine was served.  This wine above was from the local winery Swings and Roundabouts.

In summary, Must Margaret River offers excellent fine dining food with an impressive wine list.  It makes a great place to visit for a nice relaxing dinner with good food and wine for any trip down South.

Points to note:  The lunch menu is different from the dinner menu.  The lunch menu has some great set menu deals.

Go for:  An excellent fine dining restaurant in Margaret River.

Must Margaret River

107 Bussell Highway

MARGARET RIVER WA 6285

(08) 9758 8877

http://www.must.com.au/MMRfolder/index.html

Trading Hours

7 days - 12 noon till late

Good Food and Wine Show 2010

I'm always up for good food whether it be a great meal at a restaurant with a capable and challenging chef, a simple but tasty value for money meal, or even home cooking something delicious and exciting.  Either way, there is a lot on offer to cater for one's love of food.

This weekend we had the opportunity of attending the 2010 Good Food and Wine Show, which offered something for anyone with an interest in food or wine.  But let's face it - I don't think I would be drawing too long a bow by saying that food is something dear to many of our hearts.

So there I was on a dry, cold winter's day heading into the warmth of the heated pavilions of the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre.  Coupled with the other great thing to enjoy on a winter's day (i.e. food) things weren't looking so bad after all.

Upon approaching the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, you could see a large amount of people coming in all directions and congregating at the entrance.  The show was going to be big.  Entering the show only proved that even more with people heading off in all different directions, lines amassing around the celebrity theatre, and large amounts of people grouped all around the show.

One of the big drawing points of the show was stalls from many of Australia's retailers that were sprawled across the pavilion floors offering everything from tasting samples of food and wine, to purchasable snacks, bring-home food and kitchen utensils and appliances.  The good thing about the stalls was that many suppliers (many of whom were local but I had no idea existed) were able to showcase their products and the public were able to view and/or sample them in a forum that they would not otherwise have access to.  Some of these stalls were also offering bargains - with prices cheaper than what's on offer normally - for example one of the things I went away with was two bottles of coffee Baileys for $45.

My small issue with the way the floor layout was set up was that the stalls were in some areas packed in quite tight resulting in bottlenecks and some confusion at times by people walking through.  I'm also not sure whether a clear map with a list of everything on offers was available, but if not that would also have helped to have been available or at least put in some key locations.

The Good Food and Wine Show also had a range of other activities including celebrity theatre, cooking classes, coffee appreciation experiences, cheese masterclass, and of course wine tasting and appreciation.  Plenty to keep you busy for the day.

The Celebrity Theatre

To me the highlight was the celebrity theatre - not so much for the learning aspect as the recipes were not explored in any great depth, but rather for the entertainment value.  I managed to get into two of the celebrity theatre shows - Manu Feildel of Ready  Steady Cook, My Kitchen Rules, and Manu at L'Etoile (or prior to that Bilson's) fame, and Matt Moran of Aria in Sydney.

Manu Feildel spinning a plate

Frenchman Manu Feildel's aptly named show Spinning Plates was filled with everything from circus style acts, French based cooking, jokes, and sexual innuendo.  Manu's approach was a fun and joke filled presentation drawing on the strengths of his fun personality, throwing in a few circus style acts that he picked up as a kid when he was part of a circus.

More of Manu Feildel's circus style acts

During his show, Manu asked for people to volunteer to come and sit at a table set up on stage to sample his creations.  After a lot of shouting, screaming and jumping up and down, Manu selected four lucky people who got to see some of the cooking up close and then share the prepared dishes.

Manu Feildel serving his guests

Manu's creations for the day were a seafood sausage, and a tarte tatin.  Despite the sausage related jokes, Manu created a sausage with a fish and scallop base attractively placed on a bed of bisque and lightly blanched and decoratively moulded spinach.  The sausage was praised by the four chosen taste testers before Manu moved onto his dessert.

Manu Feildel preparing sausage

Manu Feildel preparing a tarte tatin

The tarte tatin was made using caramelised apples and Manu's mother's recipe for a type of  shortcrust base which Manu explained was superior to a puff pastry.  After caramelising the apples, Manu fitted the pastry over the top of the apples in the pan and baked the tarte tatin.  After removing one 'prepared earlier', Manu cut the tarte tatin and added cream to each serve.  The tarte tatin was met with scores of 10 out of 10 by all taste testers.

Matt Moran cuts up a lamb carcass

Matt Moran started his show with his assistant coming in with a lamb carcass that was labelled "beef" - go figure.  Matt Moran then proceeded to cut the carcass up to get to the lamb rack he needed for his main course.  Whilst telling us stories and slipping in his more laid back humour which included references to MILFs, cougars, the other celebrity chefs at the show, and his not so subtle dislike of vegetarians, Matt gave away the other cuts of the lamb carcass.

Later when Matt chose his four audience members to sit on his tasting table, he explained his earlier references to MILFs and cougars and his own interest in setting up single people from the audience.  It turns out that on a previous show Matt brought audience members up on stage which included a couple in a long term relationship.  The guy had proposed to his girlfriend many years ago, but a "no" had hurt his confidence and kept him from asking again.  After some (no doubt) subtle pushing from Matt, the guy proposed to his girlfriend who was this time met with a "yes".  The nice story was met with "ohh"s from the audience, but back to the show...

 

Manu Feildel helps Matt Moran

Matt prepared two other dishes to complete a three course meal - a scallop entree and a mousse dessert.  The scallop entree consisted of scallops lightly coated on one side with spices, cooked and placed over a bed of brussel sprout leaves and a puree of what I think was parsnip.  The mousse was on a bed of meringue and topped with strawberries.

The lucky table of four that Matt chose got to sample the dishes, and all were impressed.

Matt Moran explaining his scallop entree

After a good day of perusing, sampling, and watching the entertainment, I managed to get away and work it off before heading out for a nine course dinner that night complete with one glass of wine too many.  Upon reflection though, the Good Food and Wine Festival had a lot to offer lovers of food, wine, and all things thereabout.  We'll have to wait next year to see if the organisers can top it.

Little Caesars Pizzeria, Leederville

For years, Little Caesars original branch in Mundaring has been considered amongst the best pizzas on offer in Perth. In addition to locals, Perth city residents as well as tourists would journey all the way from Perth’s inner suburbs to Mundaring just to eat the famous pizzas. Although the hike to Mundaring for pizza is probably too much for the common Perth person, I have a couple of times in the past been up that way to sample the pizzas - remembering them to be well prepared pizzas with generous and very uniformly topped pizzas that offer the full taste in every bite, yet retaining a non-soggy pizza base.

In contrast to the relatively distant location of Little Caesars in Mundaring, Little Caesars Pizzeria’s newer Leederville location is smack bang in the middle of Leederville's bustling central cafe strip. The question is: does the newest Little Caesars measure up to the name the Mundaring Little Caesars has built?

Little Caesars Pizzeria in Leederville offers dine-in or takeaway. The establishment looks modern and seems to fit right into Leederville’s youthful, happening, and somewhat grungy atmosphere. The tables are reasonably packed in to maximise seating in a small area, and overall gives a casual but somewhat trendy feel.

On perusal of the menu, there is quite a large variety of pizzas on offer separated into different categories (e.g. seafood, vegetarian, meat, and even dessert pizzas). The selection contains some interesting non-standard combinations and falls amongst the more modern "gourmet" style of pizzas that are popping up over Perth. There are two sizes on offer – with the use of BC and LC which presumably stand for Big Caesar and Little Caesar. Whilst the takeaway pizzas come in standard brown pizza boxes, if you dine in the pizzas are served on a metal plate that is stacked on top of a metal pizza stand that raises the pizza above table level.

An initial comment in relation to the style of pizzas offered is that the pizza base is medium thick, not oily, and yet not too doughy. The toppings are quite generous and reasonably uniformly spread through the pizzas so with a good portion of the pizzas on offer, each bite pretty much gets some of each core ingredient.

Chicken and leek - $19.50 (BC or large size)

This pizza included chicken, bacon, and leek.

The bacon was salty but surprisingly the pizza wasn't as salty as I was expecting it to be with the bacon in it. Also, to be expected, the bacon had those unhealthy fatty bits but there did seem to be a good proportion of meat to fat in it.

The creamy sauce matched the pizza well and in a good quantity, though for me the pizza would be a bit too creamy to eat in any large quantity. Not being a standard pizza topping ingredient that I have seen, the leek was an interesting ingredient in this. It was fresh, but had a slightly tough leek texture and mild leek taste that added and changed the pizza’s overall taste and texture. I thought the taste combination was quite nice in a small proportion.

Greek lamb - (large size)

The Greek lamb pizza had the typical design of other Greek style lamb pizzas on offer. With lamb marinated in rosemary, kalamata olives, feta, caramelised onion, lemon juice, cracked pepper and tzatziki (garlic sauce) there would be no mistaking the Greek influence.

The marinated lamb on the pizza tasted sweet and was cooked well done throughout. However, the lamb was still moist inside but the outside taste/texture was a tad dry - though saying that, the taste of the cooked lamb with the sweet caramelised onion gave the whole pizza a slight tasty sweetness that kept the pizza from becoming boring.

Small size - dine in

The olives and fetta were scattered and not dominant on the pizza, giving that little bit of extra Greek-ness to the overall taste of the pizza. The tzatziki sauce added after the pizza was cooked completed the somewhat drier elements of the pizza.

Overall, this was one of the better tasting pizzas I’ve tried at Little Caesars Pizzeria.

Jane’s Addiction - (large size)

This pizza came with marinated prawns, prosciutto, garlic cream sauce, wild rocket pesto, and mozzarella cheese. The king prawns were large and in this garlic cream sauce based pizza, tasted a bit like garlic king prawns. I personally think that the garlic cream sauce matched the seafood rather than tomato paste but made it rich like the chicken and leek pizza above and thus best eaten in moderation.

King Prawns

Even though I don’t normally order seafood pizzas (as I seem to find most don’t do seafood justice) I felt the overall mix of a fair amount of decent king prawns coupled with the more fancier than ham prosciutto quite nice even with it being a more sparsely topped pizza.

BBQ - (large size)

This pizza included bacon, ham, chicken, BBQ sauce, onion, and cheese.

A slice of the BBQ

The toppings were diced up and quite evenly spread throughout the pizza and surprisingly didn't seem oozing with fat like some other BBQ meat pizzas out there. The BBQ sauce and in fact the whole pizza flavour was relatively mild and didn't seem specially flavoured in any way. The pizza didn't have any strong elements of sweetness or juicy flavour, and I felt it was quite an ordinary tasting pizza but without a big oily aftertaste. Perhaps this is why it’s called a BBQ pizza as opposed to something that emphasises meat.

The Max (the lot) – (large size)

This pizza came with ham, mushroom, bacon, pepperoni, olives, onion, capsicum, fresh tomato, pineapple, cheese, and pizza sauce.

Given the name "The Max" I was somewhat underwhelmed. Sure the pizza had a fair amount of topping on it but nothing about it stood out to make the pizza special. The toppings were nearly randomly spread throughout and the taste was ok but didn’t feel like a “max” pizza to me.

Mudhoney - $14

This pizza came in a small size, but given how sweet it was you don’t really need a big serve.

The pizza was chocolate mud cake on a pizza base, topped with honey and chocolate sauce, as well as white and milk chocolate buttons, and dusted with icing sugar. The pizza topped seamlessly with the mud cake was quite thick, but the chocolate had melted so much that it soaked into the mud cake portion of the pizza and was moist. However, the bottom pizza base layer had not been soaked through and was still crusty and held the shape of each slice.

Chocolate mud cake and buttons up close

As a dessert pizza, this was pretty good – though admittedly I think this is the first time I have tried a dessert pizza. It had the makings of a warm chocolate dessert with mud cake, chocolate sauce, and chocolate buttons to give it that chocolate dessert feel. The honey added to the pizza with its own distinct sweetness. My only issue is that it was perhaps a bit too sweet for my taste but nonetheless that didn't stop me from eating it.

Overall, though it has been a while since I’ve been there, I can’t help but feel that the Little Caesars in Mundaring makes the Little Caesars’ style of pizza better. Whilst not a bad pizza, the Leederville branch just doesn’t seem to stand out as a pizza place I would insist on going to. However, it’s definitely worth a look.

In summary, Little Caesars is a gourmet pizza place that through the reputation of its original sister company, interesting menu, prime location, and youthful and bright décor is able to draw in the crowds. The pizza isn’t so bad, but each pizza and the style from the base to the way the toppings are added are up to personal preference.

Points to note: Little Caesars can get quite busy so can be hard to find a seat at times, or you may want to book ahead. The menu is available online if you wish to order ahead. Pizzas are available dine-in or takeaway.

Go for: Gourmet pizza that has made a name for itself.



Little Caesars Pizzeria – Leederville Store
127 Oxford Street
LEEDERVILLE WA 6007
(08) 9444 0499
http://www.littlecaesarspizzeria.com.au

Trading Hours
7 days a week – 5pm till late