Perth Food Review

H aving heard good things about this restaurant from a friend and having also heard (and publicised) their 'Recession Concession' menu I thought that I'd give this restaurant a try for a special occassion - in this case, my 13th wedding anniversary.

Bistro Felix is not just an average eatery. It presents as a very nice and classy place where you would not be too out of place in evening attire. It is situated on Rokeby Road in pretty prime evening real estate. That tends to colour everything that comes after and this review in particular. I went in with very high expectations. For the most part they were satisfied but there were a few things that let it down. Also Masterchef is turning me into an amateur food critic and food snob! ;-)

Right. The lovely wife and I arrived at 7pm as per our booking. We were promptly seated in a booth - very nice. Our waiteress promptly appeared, told us a bit about the menu and the Recession Concession and dropped off our menus and bread. The bread was lovely and crusty. The butter delicious. As we usually do, we agreed to split each dish, swapping over half-way.

To start with I ordered the tortellini and my wife the pork sausage. When they arrived there were three tortellini on the plate. The flavours were very subtle - in my opinion, too subtle. Although it wasn't a bad dish it had no zing. The pork sausage, on the other hand, had some nice hearty flavours. It was accompanied by a spicy jus that really complimented the pork sausage. On a wet, cold and blustery winter's day this was a warming, satisfying dish that I could have eaten all night long. Unfortunately both of the entrees were on the smallish side. We were treated to a palate cleansing sorbet between entree and main. IMHO it was rather too minty and was vaguely reminiscent of the dentist.

For mains I ordered the Beef, my wife the Pork. When the beef came out there was a sizable medallion of harvey beef sitting on the plate. A good two inches high and similar across I wondered how I was going to get through it. I needn't have worried. It was flawless and incredibly tender. Again paired with a lovely sauce it was a perfect choice to comfort and warm against the night's chill. The pork, on the other hand, was a tad dry and tough compared to the beef. It had neither the flavour nor the melt-in-the-mouth satisfaction of the other dish. While neither the tortellini nor the pork were 'bad' meals they were not quite up to the standard we were expecting and paled in comparison to their course companion. We also had the chips as a side dish - hum, could have skipped it. Nothing great and the taste of the oil they were cooked in was the predominant flavour with sea-salt backing up...

Finally we were both feeling pretty satiated by this time but because of the good deal on the three course concession deal (and to report to you Perthfr-ites) we decided to do it for the country and push on for the final course - dessert. I ordered the fondant, my wife the strawberry bavarois. On this course there was no clear winner. The fondant was nice - but the chocolate flavour was not as rich as I was expecting. The bavarois was fine but nothing to write home about.

I should say service throughout the night was excellent. Which brings me to the end of the evening. We called for our cheque and were presented with the bill... 2x 3 course recession concessions = $110; 2x lemon squash = $10; Chips = $can't remember; PLUS Pork Loin = $39 (IIRC)... Huh? I called over the manager (I think) and queried the pork - surely that was part of the three courses, no? He corrected the error straight away and all was fine. To close, it was a lovely restaurant, well located, lovely decor, well finished. I understand they have an excellent wine selection but I can't report from experience. Again, it wasn't that any of the dishes were not good - just that some of them didn't quite live up to the considerable promise that the restaurant otherwise showed. Had they been served up at your local cafe you'd probably think they'd done a pretty good job... The 8s I gave for Food and Atmosphere could perhaps have been 9s... maybe 8.5?
That said, I would recommend it to my friends - but I'd add the caveat that they need to be aware that some dishes are stronger than others.

(BTW, the menu regularly changes apparently, and the website apparently lags behind those changes)

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