Just Bar, Como

Just Bar Restaurant Como reviews, Just Wine and Tapas Bar Como reviews

I'm sure I've heard it's healthier to eat smaller portions of food over longer periods of times.  Grazing over multiple meals over a day is something I've become accustomed to, and I think I've even heard someone allude to the hypothesis that the French are relatively thin despite their affinity for butter and cream due to the dragging out of eating meals over a longer period of time.

Tapas, like those served at Just Bar in Como, could be one way of achieving a slower meal (over some good company, and perhaps a bit of wine) and is also a great way of trying lots of different dishes without filling yourself up too quickly.  Not to mention that I'm a big fan of trying different dishes.  I just have to make sure I don't eat too much in one sitting!

Just Bar is a modern looking, yet simple and smallish restaurant that specialises in coffee, wine, and tapas.  Given I was driving and it was a Friday night when I went for my tapas grazing, I concentrated more on the tapas than the wine and coffee (well I kept it to only a couple of glasses of red).  The tapas on offer easily fit onto a page and had about ten smaller tapas (generally one piece designed for one) and half a dozen slightly larger tapas (generally designed to share).  The tapas were supported by a few dessert selections.

After the initial friendly greeting, table seating and drinks order, we found the service to be a little slow compared to what we were expecting - with a bit of a wait at times for service or wait staff being hard to get a hold of.  However, despite the somewhat inattentive service the staff were friendly and helpful when available.

Scallop - $4.50

The scallop was cooked relying on its natural taste and served with a crispy and sweetened bacon slice, or candied bacon.  The crispy and sweetened thin bacon slice did taste how I would expect bacon candy to taste: bacon and candy = yum.  I could have done with more of this.

Exmouth tiger prawns with paprika - $9

This single prawn was grilled with head and tail intact, and served with a chilli salsa.  The prawn seemed a little on the overcooked side (possibly due to the grilling process) and the chilli salsa seemed a little powerful for the subtle sweet taste of prawns.

Rabbit Terrine - $10

The terrine of rabbit showed chunks of meat when broken apart, was a mild taste with seasoning, and served cold.  Accompanying the terrine was a red capsicum jam, light mustard and pickled caper berries.

Lamb cutlet - $12.50

The lamb was done close to medium and not as tender as a lamb cutlet can be.

The lamb was served with a type of herbed dressing, a bit like pesto.

Tortilla with black garlic aioli - $9

This potato tortilla tasted a bit like a potato and egg quiche.  Thin layers of potato were topped with an egg and red capsicum based mixture and cooked, chilled, and served cold.  Unfortunately, the different layers of potato slices were cooked to varying degrees, some cooked soft and some still crunchy, whilst the overall taste of the tortilla seemed bland and lacking much flavour.

Spiced chicken wings with red onion jam - $7.50

The spiced chicken wings were nicely cooked and juicy.  Marinated with very mild spices and some salt they had a good balance of chicken wing flavour and added spice.

The red onion jam was a sweet caramelised red onion and red capsicum chutney like jam that was very strong in flavour.  Personally, I thought the chicken wings didn't need this red onion jam and could have done with something lighter as opposed to a sauce that could pretty much cover the taste of the chicken wings.             

Grilled Baramundi - $12

The barramundi was cooked perfectly.  The fish was cooked with the inside remaining so lightly cooked it was very tender, and the skin was very crispy.  There wasn't a lot of added flavour to the barramundi apart from crispy slices of shaved garlic but as the fish was cooked so well I forgot the need for sauce.

Duck rillette - $4.50

The duck rillette was quite salty but I guess rillette more often than not is.  However, the crisp bread base when eaten with the duck rillette was a nice appetiser like snack.

Patatas Bravas

Slices of potato were lightly covered in a paprika mix, roasted, and covered with a quite spicy chilli tomato based sauce.  Though the potatoes were cooked till they were soft, they weren’t crunchy – perhaps I’m used to my potato chips, roast potatoes or even a potato dauphinoise.

Frozen nougat - $15

This frozen nougat had the taste of nougat but the texture of cassata, much like a hard ice cream but still smooth in texture.  It was set on top of what tasted like a strawberry and orange juice jelly and topped with a frozen strawberry tasting top layer.  Quite a different dessert, the flavours combined to provide a sugar hit that was also somewhat refreshing.

The nougat was served with a strawberry sorbet that was mild in both strawberry flavour and sweetness generally, as well as rocky road, and chocolate crumbs.

In summary, Just Bar is a different tapas experience which for me was a bit of hit and miss.  However, the combination of some tapas alongside some wine and coffee isn't a bad proposition for a casual meal where you want to graze whilst relaxing to a casually served meal.

Points to note: As a tapas bar, there are tapas that vary greatly in sizes - from small single serving tapas to larger share-tapas.  There are a few vegetarian options available but not a large choice.

Go for: Tapas, coffee and wine of course.

Just Bar

20 Preston Street
Como WA 6152
(08) 9474 1977
http://www.justbar.com.au

Trading Hours

Mon,and Wed to Sun 7:30am-11:30pm

Little snippets from the Good Food and Wine Show 2011

Just thinking back to this show about food and wine makes me hungry (and thirsty, even after that slipper of port I just drank).  This year the Good Food and Wine Show was again held at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre and was attended by thousands of people, and even families.

Part of the large crowd at the Good Food and Wine Show

One of the main attractions (the celebrity theatre) included shows by Anna Gare, Gary Mehigan with George Calombaris, Matt Moran, and Manu Fieldel.  I went along to Manu's show.

Manu's opening short film setting things a little bit risque

Manu's show started out with a short film highlighting Manu's French heritage, his recent win on Dancing with the Stars and was completed with dancing girls.  At the end of the film, Manu arrived on a bike wearing his French outfit before changing into his chef uniform, not to mention being accompanied with lots of screaming women.

As always, Manu tries to entertain his audience.  Amongst Manu's chef talk and general chat about his life, Dancing with the stars, and his new cookbook, Manu's show was filled with lots of suggestive comments.  Bearded vs Brazilians for mussels, "it's all in the wrist" and moans during a session where Manu got a teenage boy to whip cream - the show was a bit risque and perhaps not completely appropriate with the diverse audience (and was met with mixed audience reactions from disapproval to laughs) but you could tell that Manu was trying to be playful and fun.

Amongst the entertainment and antics (including eating three apples that he was juggling), Manu prepared four portions of each of three courses: a mussel pie; a caramelised witlof wrapped in bacon and roasted with cheese and cream sauce; and a baked pear served with ice cream and cream.  Not to let good food go to waste, twelve (happy) women were invited to try one of the prepared courses and were also received cheek kisses from Manu.

Photo of Manu winning Dancing with the Stars

Manu's witlof main course dish

Gary comes and rides off with Manu's bike

Manu preparing his mussel dish (sans the need to spit out the mussel beards)

Manu with a teenage audience member helping to whip some cream for dessert

Other attractions included the Riedel bar and wine theatre, Barilla pasta demonstrations, a Malaysian cooking demonstration booth (with guest cook Alvin Quah), a Thermomix stand, and the countless food and wine tasting and demonstration booths set up to show us what's on offer and what we may have been missing out on.

Yum - you gotta love a duck!

Alvin Quah with a Malaysian cooking demonstration

So after another year of Good Food and Wine, let's wait to see if they can beat it next year.  Perhaps if the weather permits, they can hold it out in a nice park and make it more like a market stall and family fun day?

Harvest, North Fremantle

Harvest Fremantle reviews; Harvest North Fremantle; Harvest Restaurant review
My first dinner at Harvest was met with intense screaming.  Unfortunately they weren't screams of culinary ecstasy and definitely not the suggestive "YES! YES!" from the Clairol Herbal Essences girl.

Our party of five for the night turned up to Harvest for dinner and were seated next to a small wedding reception group.  Possibly due to Harvest's modest yet sufficient drinks menu (including a Pimms Pitcher - YES! YES!) a couple of their guests burst into a fight with one woman screaming and then a guy threatening to punch her.  Suffice to say at that point the wedding reception was clearly over.  Poor bride and groom.

Back to Harvest, from the outside the entrance looks quite unassuming and dimly lit.  Inside, the atmosphere at Harvest is cosy with a rustic atmosphere and dim warm lighting that felt quite intimate but also relatively casual.

Whilst Harvest does a la carte dining, when we made our booking we were informed that Harvest would only be serving a tasting menu / degustation on that (Saturday) night.  The six course tasting menu was priced at $80 per person or $120 with matching wine.

For a fine dining restaurant, our experience for the night was a mix of some great friendly service to parts where we had to repeatedly wave someone for service.  Overall though, we thought the service was fine for our table even with the at times slow service.

Amuse Bouche

This amuse bouche was an appetiser of a cheese and cream blended soup combined with truffle.  The soup was rich and creamy and had combined cheese and truffle flavours that glided all over the tastebuds.  The delicious hit on the palate was just enough to start the evening on a good note.

Green Gazpacho, liquid fetta, pickled zucchini, rockmelon

Maybe we just looked ravenous or something but when this course came out, the waiter rushed placing our plates down whilst saying there was “more” coming out.  Though our initial reaction to “more” was a bit of confusion, looking at the plate and noticing the lack of gazpacho I had an idea of what was to come.  So after all our plates were on the table, there was a bit of added excitement when the waiter came back with a pitcher of gazpacho finishing off each plate in front of us.

The gazpacho itself was chilled, had a watery consistency, and was light in flavour apart from having a large amount of salt that caught me off guard and reaching for my glass of water.   Balancing that out, all the other components on the dish seemed salt-restrained in comparison.

The pieces of liquid fetta were cleverly encased in little packets of a very light transparent coating making the liquid fetta look like little shiny droplets of gnocchi.  Taste-wise, the mild fetta gave the gazpacho a nice cheese flavour (perhaps like putting cheese with tomato in a fancy way).

Rounding out this dish the pickled zucchini added some zest, whilst the rockmelon sorbet was smooth and subtle in flavour with its mild sweetness balancing out the dish.

Venison, cauliflower, baby sun rose, pain d’epices salad

I was looking forward to this dish; however it didn’t quite wow me as much as I was hoping.

The centrepiece of the dish, a small piece of venison was cooked medium rare – though not quite melt in your mouth.  This tender piece of venison was a good “appetiser” for some more red meat to come.

Complementing the otherwise simple venison, the cauliflower puree was rich with cream and butter, and ultra-smooth.  Finishing off this dish was some raw baby sun rose that tasted like eating a raw leaf (which didn’t do much for me other than add a bit of colour to the plate), and crisp pain d’epices.

Margaret River Wagyu Rump, bread sauce, garden greens, veal tongue

There were two options for mains – fish or beef.  The fish option was described as a crispy skin fish with mussel broth, wilted cos, and rouille.  However I couldn’t get past the beef which was a Margaret River Wagyu Rump with bread sauce, garden greens and veal tongue.

The wagyu rump was cooked medium rare – we weren’t offered a choice, however I wouldn’t have argued with medium rare.  Despite being (an undisclosed grade of) wagyu, the rump was not as tender as say my preferred cuts of rib eye or tenderloin.  Still, the rump was cooked excellently, tender for a rump though not quite melt in your mouth, and the rump was full flavoured.  Accompanying the steak, creamy herb butter melted around the steak adding nice flavour and moisture.

The bread sauce had a strong beer flavour running through it that complemented the big meaty taste and texture of the rump steak – though personally I preferred the flavours of the herb butter and the beer taste running through what seemed a bit like soggy beer flavoured bread didn’t do much for me.

One other thing I have to say about this dish is I am not really a fan of tongue so unfortunately most of the veal tongue was left behind on my plate with other people on our table following suit.

Watermelon sorbet

After the main course, this watermelon sorbet helped cleanse the palate.  Rather than big flavours of bold sweetness or acidity, this sorbet had a subtle watermelon taste with only a mild sweetness.  It was still refreshing, but without a big aftertaste.

Fourme D’ambert , pear, quince

This French blue cheese was blended with cream to make its flavours subtler.  The result was unsurprisingly like cream cheese, light and creamy, melting in the mouth like creamy brie.  The blue cheese taste was definitely dulled down (in a good way), but was still prominent enough to make a few people on our table stop at one small mouthful.

Accompanying the cheese were the always complementing pear and quince flavours, as well as garlic crumbs which whilst I thought was interesting went very well with the cheese and especially its blue creamy cheese taste.

Chocolate pudding, dehydrated chocolate mousse, oloroso jubes

A welcome rich and creamy dessert, the chocolate pudding was a silky smooth pudding that melted in the mouth effortlessly.  Together with the texturally contrasting but still richly flavoured dehydrated and hard chocolate mousse this dessert ended the meal on a big chocolate punch line.

The oloroso jubes were like strong sherry flavoured jellies coated in nut like crumbs that met the rich chocolate flavour, whilst ginger beer powder added a tangy zest.

In summary, Harvest has a rustic feel and the chef innovates and presents his fine-dining-style creations that in ways seem to match the rustic feel.  Personally, I enjoyed sampling the different tasting dishes even though for a tasting menu none of the courses quite got me on the verge of my own "YES! YES!".

Points to note:  Book in advance for Friday and Saturday nights, and note that like us you may be limited to the degustation menu only on some nights.

If you’re vegetarian, Harvest does cater for you with their degustation, however expect that the courses may just be the menu course sans meat.  For example, the venison course above was served by removing the venison and adding more of the other ingredients to the dish.

Go for:  A rustic type of fine dining with food to match.

Harvest

1 Harvest Road

NORTH FREMANTLE WA 6159

(08) 9336 1831

http://www.harvestrestaurant.net.au

Trading Hours

Tuesday to Saturday – 6pm till late

Friday to Sunday – 8am till late

Winners of the Good Food and Wine Show Tickets

Congratulations to the winners of the Good Food and Wine Show (Perth) Tickets - Skye Melvin and Yee Gan.

Please email your postal address by Sunday the 3rd of July to theaussiebite[at]gmail[dot]com and your prizes will be posted to you [after confirmation of ID]. 

Thank you to everyone who entered the competition!

Good Food and Wine Show 2011 (and your chance to WIN a Double Pass!)

It's that time of the year again.  The Good Food and Wine Show is just around the corner and I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

Last year, we saw the likes of Manu Fieldel, Matt Moran, Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris take to the Celebrity Stage for live performances, including the preparation of a few dishes that selected audience members got to sample.  There are also wine, coffee, and cheese appreciation sessions that I’m sure will appeal almost as much.  On the less formal side, food and food related stalls are abundant, as well as food samples, a dining area, and you can even buy books and get them autographed.  For a bit more on last year’s show, you can look at my blog post here or go to their website at http://www.goodfoodshow.com.au/.

For a couple of lucky readers, I have two free double passes to giveaway.  For your chance to win one of these, "like" The Aussie Bite’s facebook page and then “like” the Good Food and Wine Show post, and/or email us with "Good Food and Wine Show" in the header and 2 lucky winners will be randomly chosen based on entries from each category.  Entries close June 17th and winners will be announced by June the 20th, so be sure to check back to see if you have won (and claim your prize).  Tickets will be posted to the winners.

The Good Food and Wine Show is being held in Perth over the 15^th to 17^th of July, with the following sessions:

Friday 15th: 10am - 5pm

Friday 15^th (after dark): 6pm - 9.30pm

Saturday 16th: 10am - 6pm

Sunday 17th: 10am - 5pm

Five Bar, Mount Lawley

Five Bar Mount Lawley; Five Bar reviews
One fine and sunny Perth afternoon I found myself walking along the Beaufort Street cafe strip - as many of you know this is home to many cafes, restaurants and bars.  In one of those aimless strolls, I found myself in front of Five Bar and immediately thought "five what?" - Five pints of beer, five glasses of wine, or even five courses of food.  Enticing choices I know, so I went in anyway.

You may have already heard people recommending Five Bar, either for its eclectic interior, casual and cool atmosphere, or even the tapas style selection of dishes on offer.  Regardless of what people remember it for, Five Bar is one of those new boutique style bars that offers a gourmet selection of bar type foods to complement those lazy afternoon or cozy night drinks.

Lamps set across a backdrop of wallpaper

The interior of Five is a collection of styles.  The classic wallpaper, and art deco lamps and sofas help create a nice unique environment to have a casual drink or meal.  These furnishings were set amongst other parts of a warehouse pub-like interior which seemed to detract a bit from the stylish parts but as it seemed to separate the bar into distinct areas, overall I still enjoyed the atmosphere.

Comfy, classy sofa

Although Five is classified as a bar, with a full bar selection and beers on tap, Five has a good selection of tapas style dishes and a few "pub" mains (including a gourmet steak sandwich) and desserts.  Whilst the menu is written on a big blackboard on the wall, the quality of the offerings complement the stylish surrounds.

Duck and chicken rillettes - $14.50

The duck and chicken rillettes were served cold, well flavoured and tender from the cooking process.  Despite rillettes typically being slowly cooked with salt and fat, the duck and chicken rillettes were mild on the salt and didn't seem excessively fatty/oily.  However, even though the rillettes weren't bursting of salt and fat, the rillettes tasted like they had been infused with a nice subtle flavour that still allowed the natural flavours to come out.

The rillettes were served with light toasted garlic bread style baguette slices, and a blackberry and orange preserve or jam.  The texture of the broken up duck and chicken meat, which was soft and tender in the mouth, made an excellent and easy to apply topping to the bread.  The combination of the balanced duck and chicken rillettes with garlic bread was enhanced with the sweetness of the preserve.

Rare roasted beef open sandwich - $14.50

Roast beef sandwiches can be simple meals.  Five Bar takes this classic sandwich and turns it into something more without overdoing it.

The thinly sliced rare roasted beef was tender as far as sandwich style roast beef goes.  On the sandwich's salad side of things, a nice red cabbage homemade coleslaw was creamy and wasn't strong as to overpower the beef.  However, perhaps the part which I thought brought the sandwich together for me was the mustard grain and horseradish cream that was light but still noticeable on the palate and matched the roasted beef sandwich as you would expect.  Rounding out the sandwich was a dash of chives, and sliced gherkin that was subtle in pickle (and a slightly bitter) flavour.  A gourmet tapas style "roast beef sandwich".

Dark chocolate pot - $13

This “pot”, which looked like a jar that formerly contained something off the supermarket shelf, was filled with a sweet chocolate mousse based dessert.  The mousse was a very smooth typical mousse, balanced in a good level of sweetness and chocolate flavour so that it was a decadent chocolate dessert that melted smoothly and consistently in the mouth .  Topped with sugared pistachios, lightly sweetened and soft macerated strawberries and mint that were refreshing, the overall mousse was rich, and indulgent.

In summary, Five Bar offers a bar experience with gourmet bar food.  The mostly larger than tapas meal selections seem to be well thought and executed.

Points to note:  Five Bar is a bar and not a restaurant.  In addition to the staple alcoholic liquid meals, it serves mostly tapas style dishes as well as a few "pub" style dishes.  Though there some tables inside, when it's busy you may find yourself standing.

Go for:  A drink or two.  However, you get some good food selections to go with them.

Five Bar

560 Beaufort Street

Mount Lawley WA 6050

Trading Hours

Monday to Saturday - 11am to 12am

Sunday - 11am to 10pm