Mixed review

Amusé?

We had a good night, but with a few reservations.

Firstly, the restaurant was way too dark. Q: How do you know a restaurant is too dark? A: When the waiter has to hand you a penlight so you can read your menu!

Secondly, the food. It seems almost churlish to say anything negative about the food, which was very good. The problem? The flavours were really really strong. This was especially so for our main course, which was a vegetable tagine complete with artichokes, figs, baby carrots and a few other things I could not identify. Strong flavours are not normally something I’d criticise, but in this case they were so strong the flavour of the vegetables was overwhelmed. And, because it was so dark, I couldn’t see what I was eating!

Thirdly, the waiters. Oh, they were attentive and unobtrusive, but if I may make one suggestion, it’s that as a waiter one should enunciate clearly and take one’s time when serving, and not rush one’s description of the dishes. Especially when it comes to dishes that are not listed on the menu – I can’t quite tell you what I had for our amuse bouche – I think it was a grapefruity gin and tonic inspired cold soup (the chef is probably cringing at my poor palate and poor description). I could have called them back and asked them to repeat their descriptions, but they always moved away so efficiently I would have had to raise my voice or gesture to call them back (and they were always standing at the opposite side of the room!).

However, I thought the quality of the food was excellent. The butter was beautiful. I always enjoy it when we eat out and there’s real butter. Because I seldom eat it I have no guilt about slathering it over my bread when I do have it. My entree, a mushroom risotto, was very good (where can you buy porcini mushrooms in Perth?). In fact, I might have enjoyed the risotto better as my main course, the flavours of the tagine were so strong I couldn’t actually finish it. The deserts were good – the pre-desert, a coffee mousse, was very light and very good, and we had a very lovely blood plum frangipane tart with peach ice cream.

And I think it’s great that they cater for vegetarians.