My good friends May and Cam hosted an Arty Party on Saturday as a belated housewarming. Our gorgeous hosts supplied the canvasses, oil and acrylic paints (some salvaged from Cam’s bludging fine arts days in uni) and paintbrushes while everyone else brought with them alcohol and imagination. Everyone really got into it – the room was silent as creative juices churned from brain to paper, broken only by the occasional “Who’s got the Burnt Umber?”

Of course, creativity has to be well-fed. May’s mum generously contributed baked goods for us starving artists:

Best apple pie ever, fat with chunks of spiced apple and sultanas. May said that her mum only learned how to bake recently. “Unpossible!” I said through a giant mouthful pie, clumsily spraying bits of buttery flaky crust everywhere.

May’s mum also made a zingy, creamy lemon tart. May served it with some lemon sorbet.

I’m a bit hesitant about putting everyone’s art up because I forgot to ask if it’s OK, but here’s my finished masterpiece:

Here’s my incentive to finish the painting on the day:

Orange cupcake, baked by May’s mum and lovingly decorated by May and Cam. Finish a painting, get a cupcake. Shakespeare got to get paid, son.

I don’t know about you, but a day of painting and eating baked treats always makes me hungry for savoury carbs. Cel, one of the stragglers left at Cam & May’s suggested that we eat at Pastizzi Cafe. Pastizzi Cafe is another one of those Newtown institutions that’s been there for years and years. It’s a Maltese cafe that specialises in, uh, pastizzis – fat little pastry pockets traditionally filled with ricotta or peas.

Pastizzi Cafe is usually packed – but we lucked out (on a Saturday night, no less) as they’ve just opened a brand new extension at the back of the restaurant. You get to it via a treacherous alleyway on the side of the building, but the rewards are worth the journey (and slightly distressing smell of the back room).

Our very friendly waiter brought out a selection of 12 pastizzis as a starter for six of us. From memory, the pastizzis we had were ricotta, salmon and dill, curried beef, spinach and feta, seafood and… a random meat one.

These were served with a rich tomato sauce on the side. I had one of the meat ones and the salmon and dill. They were perfect – the filling was nice and moist with a perfectly crunchy outer pastry. Look I’m not gonna mince words here – they were greasy, but it’s the delicious kind of greasy. They’re also v filling so I wouldn’t recommend getting more than one as a starter if you’re getting pasta as your main. This is why:

Good god it’s the size of a schoolboy’s head. I’m trying to stay classy here so I won’t make any ball jokes. I had the spaghetti with beef/pork meatballs and only managed two thirds of it, and even then I really had wayyy too much. It’s one of those situations, you know, when the food is so good that your mouth wants more even though your stomach is at the point of bursting.

My SO had the only non-pasta dish at the table because he’s a rebel like that. This was lamb cutlets in lemon and garlic sauce. The lamb cutlets were slightly overcooked for his liking, but the sauce was delicious and again, the serving was ridiculously big.

This is the only other picture of a main dish I took that night, purely because I had to get stuck into the task of eating my food. I think this was the penne margherita – it has a vodka-based pink sauce. It was a bit sweet for me – I think I prefer to just have the pink sauce and a thing (pint glass?) of vodka on the side.

And because I’m a glutton for punishment, I let Cam talk me into getting a chocolate pastizzi for dessert (I split it with May so the calories don’t count). I wasn’t actually a massive fan of it – the chocolate and ricotta filling made the pastry twice as greasy and a bit soggy. My SO ordered the vanilla panna cotta with raspberry sauce, which I absolutely loved.

I’m not an expert on panna cotta or anything so I don’t know if it’s got the right amount of wobble or whatever, but what I do know is that I ended up stealing a third of it from my SO. He’s going to read that and say, “yeah but you always steal a third of my food ANYWAY” and I’ll be all like, “I HATE YOU can I have some of whatever it is you’re eating?”

Pastizzi Cafe
523 King St., Newtown
(02) 9519 1063

At this point I’m sure a bunch of you are all like “Wtf is this entry not finished yet?” but I swear it’s worth your time!

After dinner, we decided to go to The Moose for cocktails. We’ve gone past it before and thought it looked like a pretty cool place but we’ve never actually ducked in until tonight. I’m so glad we did.

Don’t let my shit photography deter you from coming here! The Moose is a laid back, quiet cafe that transforms into a cocktail/tapas place at night. It’s hip without being hipster and swanky without being wanky. It’s definitely not a place to be seen or to pick up – it’s a great place to chill out and enjoy the company of friends.

The person who took our orders is a lovely Canadian lady who I had a nice chat with about Canadian booze. She said that they make great Long Island iced teas because it’s the bartender’s favourite drink. Fuck yeah! The bartender is an Irish dude who took the opportunity of the lull in orders to take photos of his cocktails as he made them – we love you man.

The cocktails were, by the way, delicious. Also, as if I can’t love them any more, they had to make moose-related puns in their cocktail list – be still my beating heart! I had the espresso martini and “saketini”. I’d tell you what was in them but I was kind of tanked already and they don’t have a website. That’s OK though – I’ll definitely come back for more. For research purposes, of course.

The Moose
530 King St., Newtown
(02) 9557 0072

For Christmas this year my partner and I decided to go on a holiday to Perth. I studied in Perth for 4 years and my bff BusinessClass (who I will refer to often in my Perth entries) still lives there. I haven’t been back for about 5 years so I was pretty excited.

The holiday started with our traditional airport food: Hungry Jack’s. Sure, it was 7 in the morning and starting the day with a slightly suspicious cheeseburger is normally a Bad Idea but these sorts of rules don’t apply when you’re travelling. Also, a $2.50 cheeseburger > $8 cheese and tomato croissant. The burger was fucking delicious.

I was terribly restless throughout the flight – we were on one of the older planes that don’t have individual TVs on the back of seats so I resorted to poking my SO and demanding to be entertained, which earned me the title of Worst Flight Companion Ever. We did a cryptic crossword and solved two clues, then a normal crossword and solved about 6. I heard that cryptic crosswords help prevent Alzheimers, so looking at how we’re going I guess I’ll just need to save up to go to Mexico for barbiturates before it sets in.

I skipped the flight breakfast. My SO got the scrambled eggs, the fool! We landed without incident and my SO managed to get through the 5 hours without strangling me.

BusinessClass picked us up from the airport and we exchanged excited squeals. My SO and I rented a flat in Fremantle (“Freo” to locals), so BC suggested that we go to the Little Creatures Brewery for lunch.

The Brewery is huge – on a nice sunny day though you want to be at the back outside. The inside is nice and impressive and all, but well, it smells kind of like off fish and beer. The Brewery is also connected to the Creatures Loft for the artsy crowd. The Loft regularly features art showings and bands etc. I didn’t go because I only want to get shitfaced.

Speaking of getting shitfaced:

I had a pint of Pipsqueak cider. It was nice and light and fizzy. Not very apple-y, but I don’t have cider very often so I don’t have anything to compare it to.

The three of us shared a bowl of the best chilli mussels I’ve ever tasted in my life. Big claim, oh yes, but well-deserved. The chilli tomato sauce doesn’t skimp on garlic and chilli. I could easily finish a bucket of this. The only thing they do skimp on is the bread. There’s shitloads of sauce left over so make sure you ask for more bread to soak them up.

We also shared the harissa lamb pizza. This was also amazing – the lamb is well seasoned and went exceptionally well with the crumbled fetta. Crust is thin and crispy. I hate that there are burnt bits but I guess you can’t really help that with traditional pizza ovens. I’m picky, sue me. That’s BusinessClass’ thumb you see in the photo. You will be seeing more of it in my Perth entries.

Chips, or frites if you want to be a ponce (or French). These are fried with skin on.

Food is a bit expensive but that’s really to be expected somewhere touristy. Service is kind of meh, since the brewery seems to be staffed entirely by European backpackers. Not to say that all European backpackers are shit at waiting tables, but they seemed overwhelmed and look like they’d rather be at the beach, and who could blame them? Check it – below are a few pics of South Freo beach:

If you don’t want to get on a plane right now and go there, you should.

Little Creatures Brewery
40 Mews Road, Fremantle
08 9430 5555

Next post: gelato and delicious Italian food!

When we got there, there wasn’t much in the way of promotional materials available for this thing, and when we ordered one of the items off the Gastro Pub menu there wasn’t a mention of any recommended drinks. The food made up for the apathy, though.

"Slow roasted pig, caramelised fig, wild rocket, skordalia & PX sherry dressing"

My pick - "Roast barramundi, confit dutch cream potato, cherry tomato, artichoke & prawn salad w/ tomato jam". This was delicious, the barramundi was perfect. This is also the shittiest photo I took of that night.

I forget what this is and it's not on the Riverview website. It's a pizza with three different sorts of cured meat. I'm pescaterian this week and didn't partake (let's not worry about the bite I took off Rob's plate). Ross said it was delicious, though.