THE pop music’s throbbingly loud and there’s no let-up from the thick fug of cigarette smoke as the bus chugs along somewhere in Java . Still I shouldn’t complain; the driver hadn’t had a break in 10 hours and the music was probably the only thing keeping him awake – and us from imminent death. It…

CHEFS can be tetchy creatures so it’s a testament to Olivier Collas and Franck Gire that they are not only life partners of 33 years, but work together in the pressure cooker of their patisserie Scents of Taste in Mt Lawley six days a week. The couple still have the enthusiasm to share a joke…

MY PHILISTINIC love for instant ramen would make connoisseurs of the Japanese noodle broth cringe, so I worried the experimental flavours of Ramen Lab in Mount Lawley might be wasted on my MSG-reliant palate. I perused the menu keenly but was discouraged to see there were only two choices of broth; rich pork or creamy…

PALEO: The word was like a dagger through the heart. I’m positively Jurassic in my love for all things creamy and glutenous, so my wife’s thyroid-induced paleo diet makes our kitchen tension sizzle like a croque monsieur on the hob. After a relentless barrage of faux doughs and pallid pastries, food reviews have become my…

MIST swirled from a bank of industrial mixing machines as our ice cream froze before our eyes. Welcome to the wonderful world of creamy liquid nitrogen gelato at Ibiza N2 in Mt Lawley. Warm, crisp and delicate churros, a melted chocolate dip ($8.90), and a mug of hot chocolate ($8.50) warmed us as we watched…

THERE really was rice in my green tea (toasted), along with wild-flowers and lemon verbena leaves. And there was I thinking the blurb on  the menu was a bit like the description on a bottle of wine; pretentious flavours you try vainly to detect. Secondeli in Mt Lawley is one of the first to serve…

RADIO NATIONAL announced South Korean author Han Kang had won the Man Booker prize for The Vegetarian just as I was looking for somewhere for lunch. It’s a dark novel about a marriage torn apart by a defiant act of vegetarianism, but that didn’t put me off as I headed to Veggie Mama on the…

Love the Mt Lawley cafe scene, but find the traffic and noise get a bit much sometimes? Then you’ve got to try Secondeli Cafe. Perched in a prime spot on the corner of Second Avenue and Beaufort Street, this buzzing little place offers the best of both worlds. It’s located close enough to still feel…

LUNCH at Bossman Coffee hit a minor bump when I discovered they only do coffee and Greek pastries. Undeterred, my lunch companion and I headed next door to Munchies Sushi, where the queue was long and the place pumping with Japanese efficiency. The ginger fish bento box special ($17.50) sounded so good we agreed to…

“I  CAN’T tell you how good this is,” my companion mumbled. Which wasn’t very helpful given this was a review of Mt Lawley restaurant Three Coins. As she took another bite of her pistachio-crusted lamb cutlet ($36) she paused to opine: “It is absolutely melt in the mouth.” Earlier, taking the edge off our appetite,…