Northbridge has sure ‘funked’ up in the last 6 months or so - for a split second on Wednesday night I thought I was walking into a bar in Melbourne!
Ezra Pound is tucked away within a laneway in Northbridge featuring Melbourne like street art. The crowd was very hip / arty, lighting was dim - the place had a warm / relaxing feel about it and it was perfect for a long over-due catch-up with my buddy from Sydney.
We pulled a couple of stools aside and had a good chat over a couple of ciders in the iced-filled jam jars that accompanied the bottles. The iced ciders in the air-conned Ezra Pound were very refreshing!
We then set about on our search to find dinner, my handy Urbanspoon iPhone app as usual led the way - we wandered up William Street to Thai Gourmet Café. We ordered the Papaya Salad, Phad Thai with chicken, BBQ Pork Skewers and coconut juice. The papaya salad was very authentic so much so that even the mild is pretty chilli - it was worth it though, tasted amazing. The phad thai was delicious, the flavours were really good and the noodles were cooked just right - probably the best I’ve had in Perth. The bbq pork skewers were yum too. For just $40, we were pleasantly stuffed!
The Thai Gourmet Café is what my friend describes as “Sydney Thai”… I’m sure those of you who have been / lived in Sydney will know what he means… I’ve never had “Sydney Thai” before but my favourite place for Thai is Cookie in Melbourne (on my to-blog list) and the Thai Gourmet Café is pretty close! The Thai Gourmet Café seriously blew my taste buds out of this world and I’ll definitely be back.
15/3/11 post update
I was very keen to introduce my family to this amazingly authentic Thai restaurant so we went there tonight for my birthday dinner.
New dishes I tried tonight (featured in my pics above):
- Oyster Omelet - thought it sounded weird but tasted really yummy, nice & puffy and flavoursome (you do need to like Oysters a lot otherwise you might find the taste to overbearing).
- Thai Pork Sausage- omg, this is delicious, a must try. It’s like the Thai version of Italian sausages.
- Pineapple Fried Rice - according to my bro, ex-fatty, this tastes just like what he had in Thailand just a couple of months back, it has a really strong curry /spice flavour to it. Not really for me as I like more savory / plain tasting rice to compliment my dishes.
- Penang Beef Curry -very strong lemon grass flavour which I like but beef was a bit chewy…I prefer tender slow cooked beef better than what was served.
- Spicy Stir Fry Pork with Basil & Chilli- this was nice but very chilli… we went through 2 jugs of water between the four of us. Tasted great with sticky rice.
Everyone rolled out very satisfied and full.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jason Leong, foodiecravings. foodiecravings said: Drinks @ Ezra Pound followed by cheap & authentically delicious Thai in Northbridge… http://goo.gl/fb/jPsGv [...]
[...] their Japanese tapas for ages and by chance we went there for dinner tonight. We were heading to Gourmet Thai Café but were disappointed to find a sign on the door saying they were closed for renovations until May [...]
[...] The atmosphere at Black Cat is very similar to Perth’s Ezra Pound. [...]