... and a week in Perth

A couple of hours after landing in Perth, we had a dinner engagement at Miss Maud's - an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord, which was a great place to have a variety of western-style food that we missed in Japan. And as mentioned before, we had lots of Chinese and Malaysian food when we met up with friends and family. We went to Billy Lee and Hawker's Cuisine, both in Northbridge's Chinatown (if you didn't already know, Chinatown is one of the best places in Perth to try authentic Chinese food), and also to our old favourites like Malaysian Gourmet at the Broadway Shops near UWA (the best hofun and charkueyteow in town!), Penang Foods on William Street, Northbridge (great laksa and nasi lemak) and Hong Kong BBQ. During our trip, Rob frequently commented how he missed flavoursome food. We love Japanese food, but they can be a bit on the bland side. Indeed, we miss having a huge variety of authentic cuisine available to us - multiculturalism in Australia is indeed a blessing for foodies.

Seafood laksa and nasi lemak at Penang Foods in Northbridge:


[First photo] Combination tofu claypot is one of my favourite dishes to order at a Chinese restaurant, and I think we had that dish at least 3 times in the span of 10 days. [Second photo] We had some very yummy (but oh-so-greasy) roast duck, charsiew (bbq pork) and very fatty roast pork at Hong Kong BBQ:


For a change from all that Chinese/Malaysian food, we had good pasta at our favourite Italian eatery Siena's in Leederville, and tried some new places like Reflections in South Perth and The Greek in Northbridge. Reviews of some of these restaurants to follow in the next week.

My favourite dish at Siena's: lasagne. A lil 'Jean' history here - the first non-Asian dish I ever had was a beautiful homemade lasagne at a school friend's birthday party in Malaysia when I was about 8 years old. My friend's mother was from Sweden and she'd made a yummy lasagne for the party. I imprinted in my brain the name of this delicious foreign dish so that I could have it again. I have had lasagne since at many places, but Siena's lasagne is my favourite:


[First photo] With my younger sister Honey. She's not really that much taller than me (she in heels, me in sneakers). She has an amusing shot of me taking photos of food in a recent entry on her xanga. Indeed, I must make a strange sight when I whip out my chunky dSLR to take photos of food.
[Second photo] Enjoying one of my mum's delicious homecooked meals:


It was great catching up with our family and friends. I was kinda sad to leave Perth - I don't think 1 week was long enough, and I didn't have enough time to meet up with everyone I wanted to see but 1 week was definitely better than nothing. I will miss everyone (and the food)!