August 30, 2017 by The Chef, his Wife and their PERTH-fect life

40 Foodie Ideas For Father’s Day in Perth

They say the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, so treat your Dad to a delicious treat this Father’s Day in Perth! Whether your Daddy, Pop or Grandad loves his food, or is quite the craft beer or wine connoisseur, there’s sure to be somewhere in my guide that’s floats his boat! Check it out for some delicious ideas to spoil Dad… untitled5

The carnivore Dad…

Lapa Brazilian BBQ is a mouth-watering all-you-can-eat meat fest. Waiters carve a selection of meats onto your plate and Dad can fill his boots, until he’s in a meat coma! More here.

Sampson’s Paddock in Mozzie Park is a friendly neighbourhood bar. The share food is top notch and their steak tasting plate is sure to be a big hit. Read more here. untitled

The beer enthusiast Dad…

Little Creatures is a Freo institution. The brewery has top notch beers, excellent pub grub and an awesome outdoor area too. Read more here. 20131113_132006

Petition Beer Corner is the perfect place to take Dad if he is SERIOUS about his beer. If he gets rather excited to discover a new brew, Petition Beer Corner will be right up his alley. Read more here.

Homestead Brewery is a good place to enjoy a beer tasting paddle and some casual food in the shady beer garden. Be sure to check out their spit roast rolls on weekends! Read more here. untitled1

Refuge Bar (Subi), Baby Mammoth (Northbridge) and Northbridge Brewing Co are also great options.

The golf obsessed Dad…

Leapfrogs, found at the Wanneroo Botanic Gardens, is home to a couple of super fun mini golf courses. After you’ve let Dad win (well it is Father’s Day!), he can enjoy a delicious wood fired pizza at the casual eatery. Read more here.

V Burger at Elizabeth Quay serves delicious burgers and also just happens to be nearby to the Adventure Golf mini golf course. Read more here. untitled2 Continue reading →

December 31, 2015 by The Chef, his Wife and their PERTH-fect life

Year in Review – My Best Perth Dining Spots of 2015

My 2015

2015 has been a crazy and fun year for the Chef’s Wife! It’s been 12 months packed full of many highlights and lots of change! I feel like I didn’t blog as much as I did last year, but my stats do say that I posted 66 new blogs in 2015 – so that wasn’t too shabby I suppose!

In April, Chef decided to leave his Head Chef role at Flinderz and have a “lifestyle change”. After pretty much having no quality time with him for months and months, Little Chef and I were very happy to get him back! Now he is much happier in a position where he’s still making great food, though working nights is very rare and he often gets weekends off too – almost unheard of for a Chef! My sports-mad Chef is seeing A LOT of sport now, as part of his job and a couple of concerts too!

We decided to move house in June and sadly our beloved fur baby, our Golden Labrador Bailey, passed away the week before we found our new house. We moved a whole 6 streets away to our dream home (we do like our area a lot!) and we can now walk to our award winning new local – The Duke. Moving took up a great deal of my time this year and I’m still catching up from it. I lost the will to unpack the last few boxes and have a whopping 14 blog posts I haven’t written yet!

Professionally, I left my day job of 11 years (Accounts for a division of the huge AHG) just a few weeks ago to pursue a brand new career in Digital Marketing – an industry that is a passion of mine – for obvious reasons. So I am very much looking forward to 2016!!

Keeps on getting better – my life-long love affair with Perth

My blog highlights of 2015

Gosh – looking back it really was a busy old year!

I was proud as punch to be ranked at number 4 in Perth’s Hottest 100 Food Blogs 2015. Fellow Perth Blogger Martine, from Chomp Chomp compiles this list every year and though I’ve been blogging a little less, I’d love to hang onto a top 10 position for 2016! The list is a fabulous way to discover new Perth food bloggers – you should check it out!

Continuing my monthly restaurant review for the Post (Perth Western Suburbs Newspaper). I’m heading into my third year of reviews for the Post and very proud to be a part of such a well written local newspaper.

I had an article printed in Rocks Magazine. In a glossy two page spread, I listed my top spots to dine in Perth and it featured a few of my favourite food pics too! The in-flight magazine is seen by people all around Australia.

Perth played host to some fantastic events this year. I didn’t make it to Taste of Perth – such a shame that it was a total wash out. The first Night Noodle Markets were excellent – I loved Hoy Panoy’s satays – all the way from Melbourne. The queues were massive though! Who can forget the visit from The Giants in February. What a wonderful experience that was for a wide-eyed Little Chef and I.

Making it to Pata Negra before it shut it’s doors. David Comer is a very highly regarded Perth Chef and I was never lucky enough to dine at his fine diner – Star Anise. Pata Negra is currently having a re-furb and will open it’s doors again in the new year as an Asian style restaurant – I can’t wait!!

It was also sad to see No 4 Blake Street close it’s doors and Hippo Creek too. Oh my Lawd! Where will I get my Hunters Assagai now?!

I even started a little business – The Chef’s Wife Social Media Management. Specialising in the hospitality and lifestyle industries. I work with cafes, restaurants, takeaways and more to boost and establish their Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Blogger catch ups are a favourite of mine – when I can get a babysitter! This year I have met so many lovely Perth bloggers at events and dinners – some have become great friends. We have a lovely food blogging community in WA and I love to put faces to names of the wonderful blogs I follow. I’m always up for a brunch date! Hopefully I meet many more of you in 2016 🙂

My Favourite Newbies in 2015

In 2015 we have eaten at many diverse cafes, bars, restaurants and food trucks. Like previous years, there’s been stacks of new openings too. Here’s my top 5 favourite new Perth dining spots for this year…

o Chophouse – Perth CBD

o Holly Rayes – Bassendean

o May Street Larder – East Fremantle

o Café 2TwentyFour – Belmont

o The Shorehouse – Swanbourne

One of the stunningly plated dishes at the new Shorehouse

And an honourable mention to the fabulous Stix Bar – Burswood

My Favourite “oldies” of 2015

With all the hype of new venues, it’s important to support existing restaurants that are doing a fantastic job too! Here are my favourite Perth dining spots I visited in 2015.

o Meeka – Subiaco

o Gusto Food – South Perth

o The Standard – Northbridge

o The Flour Factory – Perth CBD

o Tuck Shop – Northbridge

o Mary Street Bakery – Highgate

o Co Op – East Perth

The amazing tagines at Meeka – One of my ALL TIME Perth faves!

Vital Statistics

WordPress, the platform I use for my blog, gave me a look back on my highlights and stats for the year and I thought it was pretty nifty to see how my lil blog has grown from year to year. I thought I’d share my 2015 stats with you here…

o Nearly 70 new blog posts

o Over 65,000 views of my blogposts this year

o Visitors to my blog from 129 countries

o Over 8,400 social media followers – mostly on Facebook.

You can follow me at…

@Thechefswifeperth on Instagram

@perthchefswife on Twitter

On Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheChefHisWifeTheirPerthFectLife

Thank you!!!

My blog started off as a secret little project that I thought up in 2012. I seriously thought 5 people would like my FB page! I’ve created a little monster that takes up a lot of my time – but I love every second and every door that it has opened for me. What a ride! It’s proven to myself that in the wise words of Mariah “you gotta make it happen”. I took a chance, put myself out there and it has far exceeded my expectations in every way. If you have an idea – you should totally go for it!!

To all my followers – Thank you very much for your support! Every Facebook like, Instagram love and blog comment makes me grin. If no one liked it, then it wouldn’t make blogging half as rewarding.

To all the restaurants, artisans and companies that have contacted me in 2015 – thank you for taking the time to discover my blog. I get an incredible amount of emails and invites on a daily basis. I recon that I only go to about 25% of events I’m invited to, if that. Sure, it’s great getting a freebie, but as the saying goes ‘nothing really comes for free” and with each kind gift and invite, a lot of my time and effort goes into creating a post to promote it. And in 2015 there hasn’t been much spare time at all! When I do collaborate with a brand, I do like to keep it local and you know I’m bringing you something I’m really excited about. So thank you to these people that have taken the time to contact me and had to bear with my sometimes slow replies.

What’s happening in 2016… MORE FOOD!! They’ll be more reviews with the Post newspaper and once I recover from the festive season – I WILL get cracking writing those 14 brunches, lunches and dinners I haven’t shared with you yet…. Is there anywhere you’d like us to review in 2016? Personally, there are 100’s of places I’d like to try. One such place I’m hoping to get to in 2016 is Lalla Rookh – a restaurant I’ve heard so many outstanding things about. I’m also excited to check out the State Buildings and the new venues at the Lizzy Quay development.

I’m hoping 2016 is the best yet for us all!

Happy New Year!!

Amanda x

May 26, 2015 by The Chef, his Wife and their PERTH-fect life

{Foodie Event & GIVEAWAY} City Wine – June 5th & 6th

From the people that brought us the Unwined festival (Subiaco) and Sunset Wine (Scarborough) – City Wine is hitting the city on June the 5th and 6th. Last year, we visited City Wine, which is found at the Urban Orchard at Perth’s Cultural Centre – overlooking the city skyline. There’s lots of seating for enjoying a glass and some good food and live music.

It features some boutique wineries from many regions of WA – Margaret River, Ferguson Valley and Swan Valley to name a few; Swanbrook Wines, Happs (my fave!) 3 drops, Howling Wolves Wines, House of Cards Wine and many more. See the full list at City Wine’s website.

I do enjoy a vino of two; everything from a sweet Rose,’ to a fruity SSB, a nice smooth Shiraz or pinot noir. I had quite a few tastings and of those I really enjoyed the House of Cards Rose, it was excellent. That cellar door is located on Caves Road, Margret River (next to Gabriel Chocolate). I will be stopping by next time we’re in Margs!

I also really liked the Swanbrook Winery’s Chenin Blanc. I wasn’t familiar with this Swan Valley winery, but found out that it was formally Charlie’s Estate (and Evans and Tate before that). It’s since been taken over by a local family and they have a little café there too.

I also bumped into fellow blogger Casey – who has a great wine blog “Travelling Corkscrew”. If you love wine I’d definitely recommend that you check that blog out http://travellingcorkscrew.com/

Of course you can’t have a glass of wine without food – there are some excellent choices; Pizza Queens, The Hummus Club, Braised Bros – to name a few.

Entry is $25 ($21 if you book online), which includes all wine tastings and a tasting glass.

The urban orchard is located right next to the main city train station, so taking public transport there is super easy. More info at http://bit.ly/1RjB1kR

{WIN WIN WIN}

To win one of three double passes to City Wine on Friday 5^th of June simply answer this question in the comments below… What is your favourite winery featured at City Wine this year? A full list is at City Wine Exhibitors . For a bonus entry, sign up to my email blog alerts (in the right hand column on my blog) and never miss a foodie post!

COMPETITION RULES

*The competition closes at 7pm Thursday 28th May 2015.

* Prize – 3 x Double Passes to the City Wine festival (value $50 each)

*You must live within the Perth metropolitan area.

*The winner will be selected at random from all comments made on my blog and Facebook as well as new email subscribers.

* Each person may enter once on Facebook or my blog and once as an email subscriber for a bonus entry.

*The winner will be contacted (via FB private message) and the prize distributed, if no contact is made by the winner within 24 hours there will be a re-draw.

*This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. By entering this competition you are agreeing to the rules and acknowledging that Facebook is not connected in any way to this contest.

June 10, 2014 by The Chef, his Wife and their PERTH-fect life

Official Launch of The Truffle Kerfuffle Festival

The 4^th annual Truffle Kerfuffle is on in Manjimup, the biggest producer of truffles in the southern hemisphere, on the 28^th and 29^th of June. It’s a weekend full of everything a foodie could wish for; the star of the show being the West Australian truffle. There’s also fine food, wine, farmers market, master classes and more celebrity chefs than you can poke a stick at!!

Chef and I were more than happy to go along to the launch of the Truffle Kerfuffle at the Oceanside restaurant Bib and Tucker – which we rate very highly. We knew they’d be some excellent truffle inspired food by Head Chef Scott Bridger – and we were right! There was Jerusalem artichoke soup with shaved truffle, truffle tortellini and little bite-sized steak tartar too.

The Potato and Truffle Pizza was divine and whilst I was taking a snap of Chef Scott shaving the truffle onto the pizza’s, he quipped that he better not grate any of his fingers on there too!! Using WA truffle, one of the world’s most expensive ingredients, you’d want to be using every last morsel.

Bib and Tucker do sliders very well. So, it was no surprise that our favourite of the delicious canapés was the Manjimup marron sliders on a truffle brioche – it was outstanding. It showcased WA’s finest produce superbly.

I was very excited to see a truffle dog in action. The beautiful Labrador “Viva” put her very talented nose into action to sniff out some well hidden truffle. She did very well considering it was a packed room of Perth’s foodies and most of us had a truffle pizza or slider in our hand! A well trained truffle dog can actually sniff out a truffle from 50m away! The launch was also a great chance to catch up with some foodie friends too. 20140603_194659

Thanks to Caitlin and Zara at Peach and Pineapple Events for the invite and A-Mazing goodie bag with delicious treats from The Wine and Truffle Co and Whittingtons. So stoked to get my mitts on some truffle oil!!

Find out more at http://www.trufflekerfuffle.com.au/

April 27, 2014 by The Chef, his Wife and their PERTH-fect life

Food Truck Rumble 2014

The inaugural food truck rumble was held recently in Perth as part of the Eat Drink Perth festival, which is on for the entire month of April. Ai-Ling, a Perth food blogger and Chairperson of the Eat Drink Blog Conference last year organised it all on her own and my, she did a great job!

Perth has a fantastic and ever growing food truck culture. I’ve tried the food of many of these trucks at the Perth Hawkers Market, farmers markets and other events and festivals and find that on the whole thay provide tasty fresh food at reasonable prices. Most have an international flava and offer something that perhaps we’ve not tried before.

17 Food trucks rumbled into the grounds of the Perth Cultural Centre (Northbridge). The crowds were expected to be big and they were huge! I had anticipated the popularity, so opted to arrive early, it started at 11am, for an early lunch. It was open all day till 8pm, but many of the vendors had long since run out of their food stocks and shut up shop by then. Here’s who was involved:

Comida do Sul (Brazilian Food)
Mojito Cantina
Butty’s (US style burgers and cheesy fries)
Churro Central
Cocktail Gastronomy (pop up bar)
Vince’s Mobile Wood Fire Pizza
Delish Ice
Franklin Foodies (Ffoodies)
Hey Pesto
Lil Tortilla Boi
Jumplings (Amazing dumplings)
The Merrywell Food Truck
Kustom Cupcakes
Little Caesars Pizzette
Miam Miam (Crepes)
Miss Tartufo (Gelati, sorbet and coffee)
The Juicist (Freshly pressed juices)

Also permanent residents to the Cultural Centre – Ben & Jerry’s Ice-cream and Polly Coffee Bar joined in.

I tried the Merrywell’s new food truck. Like all food trucks, they run with a fairly limited menu, but there were burgers and the famous mac and cheese bites to choose from. I had a Merry Burger ($10). The burger was totally lush, tasty patty and cheese oozing out the sides. We found a shady spot on the steps to eat and I ended up with sauce dripping down my arm – what a grot!

I can safely say that we’ve never passed the Delish Ice caravan without making a purchase! Little Chef tucked into a salted caramel ice pop, which after a bit of convincing him to let me have a nibble, I found it was indeed delish! I also wanted to try some juice from the Juicest, but the queues soon grew really long and Little Chefs little legs were tired! There was also live entertainment and a few kids rides. It was a lovely family friendly event. I’m not too sure what Ai-Ling’s future plans are, regarding when the Food Truck Rumble will return, but given the overwhelming response I’m sure that it will. We’ll be there with bells on!!