THERE’S a nice synergy between West Perth’s Gordon Street Garage and Fremantle’s Bread in Common.
The coffee-roasting West Perth eatery provides beans to its sister joint, which in turn provides the fantastic bread we were happily dunking in olive oil and balsamic ($2.50).
Gordon Street takes its coffee very seriously, and jars of beans sit on the tables, inviting punters to “smell me”.
One is the green bean—which is really a fruit—that smells of grass, while the other is the roasted bean, with its rich, bitter coffee smell.
Literally an old garage you can see the years of wear and tear on the old concrete floor, with strange bits of metal embedded it it for mysterious uses by mechanics past, while overhead gantries soar.
If this place was any hipster cool it would be snowing.
Conversely the service was warmer than a summer’s day in Iran’s Bandar Mahshahr (72 degrees this week) as our waiter breezily, and knowledgeably answered questions on various dishes on the menu.
For me it was a toss up between the honey-roasted pumpkin, feta, sage and pine nuts pizza ($22), or a ravioli.
“The chef is Italian and really knows his stuff,” the waiter said, recommending the latter.
Happiness is a house-made ravioli, in this case largish parcels, stuffed with a deliciously sharp goats’ curd, with tuscan kale, and a rich and satisfying coating of brown butter sauce and walnuts ($25).
My companion’s slow-cooked lamb shank ($29) was melt-in-the- mouth.
“Having it off the bone made it easier to handle, which is great for lunch, when you don’t have time to wrestle with it,” she said.
The polenta the lamb sat on was creamy and delicately flavoured, while the gremolata topping had the required freshness and bite. “The chili cut nicely through the richness of the polenta,” was the verdict.
Narrowing down a dessert choice was a Herculean task, with a mouthwatering selection in the cabinet, plus a dessert and cheese menu.
But we were up to it, opting to share a chocolate mousse, with chocolate nemesis cake, delicate little slices of sesame seed, and orange quarters ($15), and a berry and marscapone tart ($4,50).
The delicious tart was unfairly up against the chocolate overload of the deceptively light and fluffy mousse and its wickedly rich, and well-named nemesis cake.
Our coffees arrived alongside a business card introducing Diego Mendez, a coffee farmer from Colombia, and an invitation to see if we could find the almond, tangerine and pastry flavours in his coffee.
My smooth long black ($4) certainly had hints of almond pastry, but my palate wasn’t up to teasing out the tangerine. Guess I’ll have to go back and practise.
by JENNY D’ANGER
Gordon Street Garage
16 Gordon Street, West Perth
9322 8050
open Mon–Fri 7am–10pm,
Sat 8am–10pm, Sun 8am–3pm
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