Brook Garden Restaurant

Helloo faithfull non-readers.

This week we looked at another Parkeville eatery, the Italian influenced Brook Garden Restaurant on Seabourne Street. Let me start this review by saying, if you intend to visit this restaurant, do not believe a word google maps has to say about its location. The reviewing team got to go on a nice tour of the parkeville/mount helena area before we eventually located the restaurant, completely by accident, all the way down the other end of the street google maps claimed it was located on.

Once we did make it there, around 1:30 on a Wednesday afternoon the place was still quite busy, definately a good sign for a restaurant most people would consider is located a fair distance off the highway in the middle of nowhere.

The solo staff member was quick to greet and seat us despite the fact that she had quite a few tables to cover and at first glance the menu appeared to contain a good mix of dishes, particularly pastas and seafood.
This week I went for the Pumpkin and Almond Ravolini ($22) and was pleased to find there was actually a decent range of vegetarian dishes to choose from. This dish came with a choice of Napolitana or Creamy Parmesan sauce and I decided to try the Parmesan.

The meals came out quite promptly and while at first glance the portions did not appear particularly large, the pasta was quite thick and very filling. The pumpkin and almond centre was very very nice, but unfortunately was very overpowered by the Parmesan sauce, which i felt could be quite nice if better matched in flavour rather than used as a generic sauce for a range of pasta dishes (my co-reviewer had the exact same sauce with his meal)

He went for another pasta dish, the Spinach and Ricotta Cannaloni ($22) and had similar feelings about the thickness of the pasta and the suitability of the sauce. Again the filling of the pasta was the standout for the dish, being lovely and flavoursome, soft and moist.

After our Sticky Date success at the Parkerville Tavern the week before we decided to hit up some more amazing looking desserts. This week i had Aunty Rosie's Tiramisu ($14) which, while incredible, was a long way away from knocking amazing $3.50 parky sticky date off top spot on my personal greatest desserts of all time list.

My review partner tried their Strawberries marinated in Sambucca ($14) The strawberries were lovely and fresh, but the sambucca was very stong particularly as you reached the bottom of the glass!

Overall i would personally rate the Brook Garden Restaurant as one of my favourite places we've reviewed so far and a quick google search has shown that many others diners appear to share this feeling, particularly mentioning the quality of the steaks served here. I would definately recommend the Brook Garden Restaurant, open Wed-Sat 10am till late and Sun 8.30 till late

Ambience 3.5/5

Food 3.5/5

Service 4 /5

Overall 3.75/5

Parkerville Tavern “Parky Pub” – Parkerville

Hello excited followers, the Perth Food Warriors have struck again with a new review of a more “local” place, to myself and my partner in food.

Our latest review is of the Parkerville Tavern, or more commonly referred to from the locals “The Parky” or “The Parky Pub”. This pub has been our local drinking hole for the last few years, and we decided it was time we did a review of their food for our extensive readers.


This day, as most other days at the Parky, was a very quiet day for business. Including my co-reviewer and myself, there was a total of 6 people, which also included the barmaid.


First thing I did when I got to the Parky, was order one of my usual drinks. Today I decided on having a pint of Strongbow. Tasty and cold as usual, and as always, reasonably priced.

We then decided to have a look at the menu (though as a local I have most of the menu and prices memorised to heart). The range of food on the menu isn’t too bad for a pub, but the menu could be presented a lot nicer.

I decided on the Chicken Parmigiana for this day’s meal, which is something I hadn’t tried at the Parky before. It was at a reasonable price of $23.50. When this meal arrived to my table, my co-reviewer and I swore profusely at the massive size portion of this meal. I struggled my way through my Chicken Parmigiana and enjoyed some nice flavours from the tomato paste and lovely tender chicken. I would say this would be one of the better pub meals I’ve had around, especially for its price and overly sized portion, which made me feel obese and overly round after.


As I struggled through to get through my Chicken Parmagiana, my co-reviewer had ordered a Vege Burger. The price was very reasonable as well, at $17.50. Let’s not forget that both of these meals, came with a lovely salad and chips on the side too. The Vege Burger had some great flavours and was said to be “humungo” and “tasty”. A few let downs for the Vege Burger was that the pub had run out of eggs, so the Vege Burger was served eggless. There was too much mayonnaise in it too, but overall a nice meal.


Next we decided on having dessert. On a Wednesday, they have half price Sticky Date Pudding. Normally $7.00, we got this lovely dish for only $3.50. Served with ice cream, this dish was definitely the highlight for our lunch review. This warm sticky treat would be a big highlight of our lunch, with it’s orgasmic flavours and great price, definitely something to get if you are looking for a dessert.

As expected, we had a great meal at the Parky and were overly bloated at a very reasonable price.

Service: 3.5 warriors out of 5
Food: 4 warriors out of 5
Ambience: 3 warriors out of 5
Overall: 4 warriors out of 5
STICKY DATE PUDDING: 7 warriors out of 5 :O

Mt Helena Tavern

Hellooo readers, this week we decided to review a smaller local venue, the very charming and traditional Mount Helena Tavern. The indoor area seemed quite small, although there was a fairly decently sized outdoor area. Unfortunately it was pretty cold so we stayed indoors and admired photos of old guys with beards playing guitars at open mic night (every Wednesday evening according to the sign)

The menu consisted of your standard pub style meals, with very limited choices for anyone who doesnt eat meat. This wasn't too surprising however given almost every other patron was a middle aged, often bearded, generally flanno wearing male.

This week i went for a traditional battered fish, chips and salad at $16

The fish was fairly good, but nothing amazing, with the side of chips lovely and crispy and the salad excellently mixed and fresh.

My reviewing partner had the Beef Schnitzel at $21

The servings were both very generous and the schnitzel had a very tasty batter while the meat itself was quite good and not too chewy.

All in all the pub served up very decent, good old fashioned pub meals and the staff were very friendly and laid-back, i would definately recommend this little place to stop off and have a drink and a quick but very filling feed

Service: 4.5 warriors out of 5

Food: 3 warriors out of 5

Ambience: 3.5 warriors out of 5

Overall: 4 warriors out of 5

Kappys Restaurant - Guildford

Thanks for reading our second food reviews, from your local food connoisseurs, The Perth Hills Food Warriors, with the addition of our guest star food reviewer Reg00la.

For our second review we had a look at an Italian Restaurant located in Guildford, named Kappys Restaurant.

Kappys Restaurant is a cosy little Italian restaurant, located in the food district of Guildford, near Lilacs Café (Where we did our previous review). This area is quite snazzy, yet we found it to be very relaxing.

This restaurant has a very enclosed outside eating area, located at the front of the restaurant. Though dark, this lack of lighting gives the place a nice

atmosphere.

First mistake of the day, ordering bottled water. This was a disastarous price of $8.50, and “supposedly” was Italian water. Tasted the same, yet costed thrice as much. We also ordered a bottle of champagne named Prosecco, which was at a fairly reasonable price of $34.50, and tasted quite nice too.

For food, I decided on having the lunch set, which consisted of the following 4 courses: Garlic Bread, Seasonal Vegetable Soup, Lamb Roast Rump with red wine, Coconut and Lemon Tiramisu, and a glass of red or white wine. This set lunch was at the price of $49.00, which was quite pricey, but was very large in servings.

The garlic bread was very tasty and didn’t have an overpowering flavour, which I shared with my two fellow reviewers.

I then ate the Seasonal Vegetable Soup, which was very light but packed with lots of flavour. I discovered once I had got to the bottom, there was a creamy cheese floating around the bottom, which gave the rest of the soup a lovely flavour.

The ramp lamb was served next, along with my fellow judge’s meals. My partner in reviewing ordered Fresh Pasta with creamy garlic prawns and smoked salmon, which was at a reasonable price of $29.50, while out guest reviewer Reg00la chose the chicken ravioli with creamy mushroom, with spinach at the price of $27.50.

I found the rump very moist and soft and a very nice flavour. The serving size was very reasonable, especially with the other large servings with the lunch set. I found the let down for the rump was the overpowering red wine flavour.

My co-reviewer who ordered the fresh pasta with creamy garlic prawns and smoked salmon, received a large portion, which she found very filling and tasted delicious. Though could have used improvement with the flavour in the salmon, as it was very strong and overpowering. Also the creamy sauce was lacking a bit of flavour.

Our guest reviewer found her chicken ravioli to have a very tasty sauce, which brought out the flavour of the mushrooms. She felt like the ravioli was lacking in chicken, but said had delightful flavours.

For my fourth course, I had the Coconut and Lemon Tiramisu. At first there wasn’t too much flavour, but once you got to the centre of the dessert you got the moist expresso flavour. I found there wasn’t much lemon flavour too it, but still not a bad dessert.

I replaced my glass of wine, for a coffee and my two companions ordered coffee too. They were at a perfect temperature, and at the price of $4.00 each.

For a tasty meal, it was quite expensive. The total for the lunch was $159, including the coffee and champagne.

Service: 4 warriors out of 5

Food: 3.5 warriors out of 5

Ambience: 4 warriors out of 5

Overall: 3.75 warriors out of 5

Lilac Cafe Restaurant: Guildford

Hello currently non-existant readers and welcome to the first offical Food Warriors blog review!

This week we'll be taking a look at the small but stylish Lilac Cafe/Restaurant on Swan Street, Guildford. Located near a handful of other cafes, restaurants, interesting art and craft stores and historical sites it could be easily overlooked as from the outside it doesnt seem like much!
Inside however the decor is clean and simple with mirrors to enlarge the space and interesting features such as blackboards running the length of the mirrors to display the daily specials.

Like many cafes and restaurants however they fall into the trap of hanging random crap on the wall for no clear reason, in this case pointless coathooks and...chairs? Here we have a view of the back room, including wall chairs, which i imagine would be used for very small functions or larger tables. Still nice, but lacking the natural sunlight of the streetside dining area.

Now onto the food!

As a vegetarian there were limited options, however this is not uncommon at many restaurants, my co-reviewer went for the set menu, $35 for 5 courses including a choice of two mains and deserts, while i decided on the vegetarian Gnocchi at $26. First up was the warm crusty bread with olive oil.

The bread was tasty enough and smelt wonderful, but in the end....its just bread, not that hard to get right, next came the soup, Pumpkin, potato and bacon. With quite a strong pumpkin flavour, the soup was tasty, but dont be tempted to experiment too much with the interesting red salt....not good for soup!

After this came the parmasan aranchini balls with a lemon aeoli sauce, simply presented and very promptly served after the first two courses, it was a little bland, but nice and soft with a crispy outer layer.

Then came mains, steak with roast vegetables and red wine sauce and gnocchi with pumpkin, spinach, blue cheese and a creamy tomato sauce, but more importantly A GIANT STEAK KNIFE!

The steak had a very strong red wine sauce and the meat, while a nice flavour, was a little tough. The vegetables were lovely and soft and cooked well.

The gnocchi was beautiful and soft with a delicious creamy tomato sauce and well balanced with the vegetables and sauce.

Finally came desert, a small portion of white chocolate mousse which was well presented, creamy and tangy, without being too overpowering.

Overall a nice dining experience, service was fast though not overly friendly even though we were one of only two tables at the time. The only major fault was that perhaps for the prices being charged the portion sizes seemed a bit small, not really leaving you with a feeling of value for money, though we both left feeling well fed without being absolutely stuffed.

Service: 3 warriors out of 5

Food: 4 warriors out of 5

Ambience: 4 warriors out of 5

Overall: 3.5/4 warriors out of 5