Equateur

So, I'm not going to make any secret that I am based in Perth, Western Australia.  Nor are the locations going to be changed all that much.  However, one thing I will change are the names of my friends and those others in my life - I am thinking aliases based on city names might be the best to go with.  Protecting the innocent and all that jazz.

With that in mind, I want to introduce you to Ms Roma, named after The Eternal City, where I spent a few days on a bus trip a lifetime ago.  I look back on that and wonder why I rushed through the entire Vatican museums just for a quick glimpse of the Sistine Chapel.  I was a bit less cultured back in the day.

Roma is one of my best friends, one of the people I don't have to hide my Twue Self from, that I don't have to act with, and hopefully she feels the same in return.  She's amazing.  Yes, I do get a bit gushy sometimes about the important people in my life.

She is also looking like a solid plan for the forseeable future on Wednesdays.  So that is the Girl portion of my blog title ticked off for the day.

Equateur is a brand spanking new restaurant in Subiaco, so new in fact, it isn't on Google Maps yet.  I was scoping restaurants out in Subi over the weekend, and this place got a 98 rating on Urbanspoon, but wasn't quite the right vibe for the friend I was lunching with on Sunday.  Roma is a different story however.  Equateur is also so brand spanking new that it doesn't have it's liquor license, nor eftpos facilities.  It's been an age since I've gone to a BYO restaurant, something almost quite 90s retro about it.  Cute in a way.

Which is also what Roma said about our waiter.  Something about the French accent.

So yes, the cuisine is French, in an Indian Ocean sense, Mauritius and Reunion specifically.  For starters I had the avocado and prawn tartare, with mayonnaise, while my dinner buddy had chicken samoussa.  For mains we chose the creole chicken (me), and the creole prawn (her).  And dessert was ganouche mousse and lime kaffir creme brulee.

We could not fault the food at all.  It was delicious, well sized, and very well priced.  $50 per head for a three course meal, in Perth, is very good value.  Or $39, if we could have resisted a course.  Which we wouldn't have.

Small venue, almost the size of a small lounge room, but I guess the positive word is intimate.  There were eight of us in there at the busiest tonight, and I don't know what the place would have been like any busier.  Perhaps a bit too noisy?  The service was great, and when we left, there was a red carpet outside with candles.  Not quite over the top, but it made the both of us smile broadly.

Then across town to 1907 Bar, which is ultra classy, a bit on the pricey side, but they do amazing cocktails.  Mojito for me, espresso martini for Roma.  It was also exceedingly dead, with we being the only ones in there at 8pm.  I said to my cocktail buddy it may be because Perth currently has a surplus of classy bars and restaurants, and especially in the middle of the week, it must be hard for all of them to be making money.  But, let's just make the most of it while we can.  Not all of them are going to be around by the end of the year, methinks.

So yes, we have ticks in the categories of pretty girls, great food, delicious cocktails (all the sugar in Cuba seemed to be in my mojito tonight).  Cross against the culture mark.  Not bad for a Wednesday night.

Quote of the night - Roma saying 'it's been an age since I've had a good curry.  Oh wait, the Indian I had with you this time last week.'  How easy they forget lol.  I'm all about the food odyssey with my besties.