The Beaufort Street Merchant, 492 Beaufort Street, Mount Lawley (08) 9328 6299
Monday’s are usually my ‘do nothing’ days. I often rely on coffee to ease me into the working week and it usually ends with a very early night with an effortless light dinner. Tonight I broke the routine.
I was meant to go to my Italian mamma-in-law’s place to have her signature home-made pasta meat balls, but the bomb scare in the city (pic of the coppers with a bomb detonator is featured towards the end of my gallery below) blocked off all access to the trains and I had no idea how to catch a bus to The Vines and traffic was completely banked up around the city. Thankfully, I had walked out of the office with my work colleagues who kindly offered to take me home…it was too late to drive to The Vines, so my colleage and I decided to have a ‘quick’ bite to eat at Mount Lawley. That quick bite somehow turned into ‘fine dining’ at The Beaufort Street Merchant!
[imagebrowser id=34]We shared the Spanish Grazing Board which had chorizos, marinated olives, cheese fondue, garlic thyme crouts, seasoned almonds, zucchini fritters, sticky pork ($32.50) - it was absolutely scrumptious. The cheese fondue fascinated me the most as it was a ‘solid’ version (not the usual melted in the pot type cheese fondue), the sticky pork was very tasty and the chorizo was yum also. The zucchini fritters were ok, but I think The Partisan is the master of zucchini fritters. I don’t eat almonds or olives so I can’t comment on them personally but my fellow foodies sharing the board with me loved them.
For mains, I had the chorizo & calamari $20, the calamari was cooked perfectly and tasted amazing, but the chorizo wasn’t as good as the ones the grazing board. It seemed more salty and perhaps not cooked as long so it felt oilier. The description on the menu for my main was chorizo & calamari, garlic and chilli, potato, lemon dressing, the actual dish was served with a massive bowl of gourmet salad which was nice, but I’m not a huge salad fan so I would have liked more calamari and less salad. I was deciding between the calamari and the pork loin - in hindsight I should have went with the pork. My fellow foodies ordered the Lemon Chicken which was stuffed with lemon, basil and ricotta and served with butternut squash puree and vegetable caponata $24 and the Lamb Ravioli which was served with sautéed summer vegetables $22 - both were rated highly.
Dessert was amazing (I’ve always got room for dessert), we shared the Crème Brulee $14, the texture was perfect as was the taste and the Ménage A Trios Chocolate Platter $22 which consisted of a dark chocolate brownie with a salted butter caramel brittle, milk chocolate fondant with rich chocolate sauce and lavender and white chocolate mousse with peach compote - this was the highlight of the trio, it definitely intrigued the taste buds but it was a very good intrigue.
It cost us $200 for the three of us including three wines and a cocktail (great drinks list) which I thought for the quality, portions and atmosphere (cool music & décor), it was well worth it and I’d definitely be coming back!
31/7/11 - post update
I went back to the Beaufort Street Merchant last night and although we loved the ambience, the food and service just wasn’t the same quality as my first time.
When I initially asked a passing waitress what a Spatchcock was, she just pointed to the menu and said it was as it was described. What we were trying to work out was whether Spatchock was a type of chicken as we haven’t had it before, not what it was served with. This waitress either didn’t know or was too arrogant to tell us. When we asked our dedicated waitress she explained a spatchcock was a chicken pheasant.
The chicken pie we ordered was a bit dry so my friend mushie asked for extra gravy. 10 minutes of waiting later we see that there’s a small bowl at the kitchen bench which we thought may have been our gravy and checked with another waitress if it was ours. From our table, we could see the chef shaking his head and 5 minutes later our dedicated waitress came back to apologise that they were unable to provide us with extra gravy. At this point all that was left on mushie’s plate was a half eaten cold dry chicken pie.
burger boy wasn’t impressed with his meal either, he ordered the shredded duck which had no mention of pasta in the description…what arrived was more pasta than duck.
The only thing which was nice was the Spanish Board which I had last time…
It cost us $220 for the four of us which included a bottle of wine and beers.
