Incontro

We met up with a friend of mine and her boyfriend for dinner on Saturday at Incontro Restaurant in South Perth. Rob and myself wanted to try this restaurant because we've been hunting down places that does good paella and I heard that this place served the stuff. Rob had great paella at a cafe a couple of years ago, but when we attempted to try the place for this dish, the cafe changed their menu. I've only had paella once a few years ago at this Spanish restaurant in the Beaufort Street cafe strip nearby our place, but it wasn't that great, which would explain why the restaurant closed down eventually. And guess what? Our search continues, because as luck would have it, Incontro removed paella from their menu only two weeks ago :( I'm quite surprised at the lack of Spanish restaurants around the Northbridge and Perth area. Anyone has any recommendations for good paella?

Anyway, Incontro is situated on foreshore of yuppy South Perth. Undoubtedly, you pay for the view, and we try to avoid places like these because it is the taste of the food and not the view that is important to us (and we like to make certain that most of what we pay is for the food, not the view :P). The quality of the food served at this restaurant was pretty good, but I would expect no less for the prices they ask (actually, I borrowed a friend's Entertainment Card so the bill was less dear than it should be). It is a yuppy restaurant, so whilst the service, presentation and the atmosphere were very good, the serving sizes of the dishes themselves unfortunately left a lot to be desired (literally). You can get nicer food elsewhere for better price and at a quantity that is more pleasing to the stomach.

It was lovely to catch up with Rie and Irwan - I can't believe it was almost a year ago when we last met up. Admittedly, time just goes by so quickly that you lose track of it. Thanks guys for letting me take photos of your food!





Mains

Rie had this dish called Crustacea ($39), and it had various sorts of shellfish, grilled and served on potato mash. Rie thought it was nice, but probably a bit overcooked.


Rob and Irwan both went for the Lamb Tagine ($36), which was accompanied by a lengthy, and probably unecessary, explanation of what a tagine is by yours truly. This was served on couscous which was somewhat dry. The lamb was stewed in a fruity sauce but Rob was disappointed that he didn't find any fruity bits in the gravy. Other than that, he was happy with it. Not a big fan of lamb, I thought it was quite ordinary. It tasted like lamb. Yay.


I ordered Salmon ($34), stuffed with couscous and served on some vegetables. It was nice, somewhat different to the salmon I've had at other restaurants. The skin was left on and crisp-fried. I don't think the couscous stuffing worked very well with the salmon though. The fillet was too thin to put much stuffing in. Innovative idea though.


Desserts

I can't remember the names of the sweets we ordered. They were around $6.50-$7.50 each. I'm not much of a dessert person, so I went for ice-choc with soy milk instead, which was $5.00 - 50c more for soy milk. I don't see why it should be 50c extra. Sigh. Life with lactose-intolerance is gonna be that much more expensive.

Rie had this mangoey, white-chocolatey dessert, which she said was nice, but the white chocolate coating was too sweet and it got a bit OTT after a while:


Irwan went for the 'Oreo' cake. Basically a chocolate cake with a cream-cheesey-cookie-kinda-filling and a thick layer of ganache. It was huge. Irwan had trouble finishing it, so gave maybe 1/2 of the slice to Rob, and even Rob had trouble finishing that portion.


Rob had the 'Cone', which is basically pastry with a custard filling and topped with nuts. He was kinda disappointed coz he thought the cone was nut-filled (a case of misunderstanding what the waiter said). It was nice though.



Overall, it was pretty expensive. If you want the view, you're better off coming during the day rather than at night. If we'd known that they had taken the paella of their menu, we probably wouldn't have come to Incontro. That said, this would be a nice place to bring a date if you want to impress and have $$ to spend. It was great catching up with my friends though :)