Bivouac, Northbridge

We love William Street in Northbridge, so whenever a new café opens up we always find some time to check it out. Bivouac is one such place, located opposite Ezra Pound. We love William Street!

Bivouac has two small tables on the street, a large main room and a smaller room towards the back. The café is adorned with artwork - it features different work every month. I like the grass beards! We grabbed a table near the back of the café and ordered our coffees - a soy flat white and a soy long macc. Bivouac do a great job with their coffees, and they are delicious! We waited in anticipation for our meals, hoping they would be as good as the coffee!

Bivouac have four breakfast choices on the menu, so I'm just going to go and list them all:

• Gypsy Baked Eggs - chorizo, potato, red pepper ragú, simmered egg & toasted sourdough ($15.50)
• Salute the Sun - avocado, ricotta & lemon on sourdough ($9.90)
• The Revolution - french toasted brioche, citrus ricotta, strawberries & pistachio ($14.90)
• Canteen Tray - grilled italian sausage, baked beans, scrambled eggs, toasted sourdough ($15.50)

Ross' meal - Gypsy Baked Eggs

Renee's meal - Canteen Tray

Both dishes looked good and we eagerly jumped in. I was looking forward to the baked eggs, but unfortunately it didn't taste near as good as it looked. The potatoes were undercooked and hard, and the ragú lacked flavour. Renee's Canteen Tray came with baked beans, scrambled eggs and Italian sausages. The beans, according to Renee, were too sweet. The scrambled eggs were cooked well but lacked pizzaz. The sausages surprised Renee the most; we are used to spicy Italian sausages served in other places, but the sausages on the Canteen Tray were not spicy. They were more like barbecue sausages.

We were disappointed with our breakfasts. That's not enough to deter us having good food, so to finish off we had some baklava ($6). It was outstanding! It was fresh, full of nuts and spices and rolled with honey. Noone told me I wasn't supposed to eat the clove on top of the baklava, but it still tasted good!

baklava

The Verdict:
Coffee  4/5
Eggs (the meal!)  2.5/5
Service  3.5/5
Atmosphere  4/5
Total  14/20

Baby T's score: 3.5/5 (Heck, Tallulah loves everywhere!)

Would we go again: We returned with friends for breakfast, and confirmed that the breakfast meals aren't that great! The dinners here look good though, and we think Bivouac would be great evening occasions!

Website: http://bivouac.com.au/

Dim Sim Café, Northbridge

BBQ Pork Buns

Sticky Rice

Prawn & Chive Dumplings

Rice Flour Rolls & Steamed Greens with Oyster Sauce

Egg Custard Tarts

I grew up eating dim sum (or yum cha which means 'drinking tea' and is used to describe the whole dining experience) which I guess for a white girl living in the burbs was pretty 'crazy'. My Uncle Jim used to travel to Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore all the time and thought he would culture his super-white niece and nephew by frequently taking us out for sushi (in the 80's kids didn't like seaweed!), Asian noodles and, of course, dim sum. He use to take my family out on a Sunday at 11:30am and my brother and I used to LOVE going, because seriously, what's not to like - lazy Susans, chopsticks and steam baskets - it was novel and totally fun! My brother and I were suckers for the pineapple custard buns and the pork dumplings with the little red blob on top (yeah, we were like 7 years old so we didn't actually know the proper names!)

Ross and I are of course big fans of dim sum! We are always trying different places, so this morning we decided to try out Dim Sim Café (next to Icey-Ice) on William Street in Northbridge. Dim Sim Café is owned by the people who ran Hoi's Kitchen which used to be a renowned dim sum institution until it closed in 2006. I am pleased to report Dim Sim Café is just as amazing!!!

We were a bit early this morning as I had to open the shop so it was quiet and really easy to get a table. Usually at around 11:30am there is a massive crowd out the front waiting for tables! We started with some Chinese tea which was delicious (note: I love their rectangular tea cups...so cute!). We picked the following dishes: BBQ pork buns, sticky rice, steamed prawn & chive dumplings, steamed greens with oyster sauce, rice flour rolls with pork, and egg custard tarts...phew sounds like a lot but its not!

Everything was so fresh and the highlight was the pork which is usually a fluoro-red colour but Dim Sim Café uses a deep rich brown mixture and was quite amazing. My favourite all-time dumpling is the prawn and chive and I am pleased to say it was magnificent!

The service was really professional and since there was only a few tables of people they were really attentive. The decor was simple but really that kind of thing isn't really important as dim sum is a tradition for families to get together and eat and share each other company which I think is really nice :)

Overall we'll definitely go back to Dim Sim Café perhaps with my brother and mum and to try out the squid tentacles- yum!

P.S: I was away in Sydney last week so sorry there was no post! Going out for brekky by your lonesome is just not as fun!

The Verdict

Chinese Tea 4/5
The Eggs (the meal!) 4/5
Service 4/5
Atmosphere 3/5

Overall 15/20

Would we go again?
We'll be back with our families in tow!

Dim Sim Café, 297 William Street, Northbridge WA 6003

T: (08) 9328 9388