EDB13 - Solo Dining in Perth (Guest Post)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tuck-Shop-Cafe-Pie-House-and-Delicatessen/137377653025786
https://littlecreatures.com.au/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bread-in-common/514101252011636?fref=ts
http://www.must.com.au/

With EDB13 being held in Perth, I decided to tag along for the ride and have a long weekend away.  I knew that Saturday I would be on my own, with FoodMeUpScotty indulging in all things eating, drinking and blogging, so I decided to explore a little of the nation's western capital.

I'd hired a car for the weekend, and after dropping off FoodMeUpScotty at the Perth City Farm for his day of bloggy fun, took the trip back to Beaufort Street way for breakfast.  At dinner last night (see post here), I had been recommended the Tuck Shop Cafe as a great suburban breakfast spot, although was warned there may be a queue.  After driving around the block a couple of times (thanks GoogleMaps for the bum steer on a little alleyway), I was able to get a park only a little way down Newcastle Street and was early enough at this Northbridge favourite to score a table without having to wait (dining solo also helps!).  Not long after being seated I was provided with a big jug of water and a menu, and was able to order the usual half strength latte.

There is one thing I can say about Perth - they know how to do a good coffee over there!  Which was a relief, as while its only 2 hours behind Brisbane, my body clock was all out of whack. While I waited for my order I watched the crowds come and go, lots of locals getting takeaway coffees and the tables turned over pretty quickly.  I must admit it seemed to take a little while for my order to arrive, although I didn't really mind, as I had nothing else to do for a few hours and was enjoying reading my book.  Finally I was presented with my breakfast, a big bowl of poached eggs, tomato, bacon and sour dough.  As FoodMeUpScotty was not with me, I could indulge in a simple breakfast, and it was a good simple breakfast.  The eggs were poached well, the tomatoes really tasty and there were heaps of bacon rashers.  Unfortunately I felt I had barely scratched the surface when my stomach told me "enough is enough" and I had to admit defeat. 

EDB13 Perth Trip - Sayers Sister Northbridge

http://www.sayersfood.com.au/

Phew, it was the morning after the night before and we were feeling in need of a top breakfast to re-energise for our long flight home to Brisbane later in the afternoon.  It was hard to believe that Eat Drink Blog 2013 was over, it had been an amazing 24 hours of meeting so many other passionate foodies at the conference.  

The morning before had started nice and early, especially so as I had arrived early to check out the Perth City Farm, which is an organic growers market and a perfect spot to hold a food bloggers conference.  I wasn't the only early bird and it was soon apparent that some of the other Queensland and Victorian bloggers were going to get an early start too.  I'd made up my mind before the conference that I was going to step outside of my normal shy and introverted nature and meet as many of the other delegates as possible, starting off with meeting all of the male bloggers.  A pretty easy first step because there were only about fifteen or so male bloggers!

As EDB commenced and the day progressed, there were so many interesting and relevant sessions from speakers that were well versed in the world of food blogging, I had so much to learn.  I'd actually met my first goal of meeting the boy bloggers fairly early on in the day, so set about the fun task of meeting the rest of the hundred or so bloggers.  I was going to be the networking king!  The breaks in-between sessions and lunch became my opportunities to walk up to individuals and groups and just start talking and I did just that.  You know what?  As scary as it seems to walk up to people that you don't know, it's actually not so bad, on the whole, everyone is feeling just as apprehensive about meeting new people as me!

EDB13 Perth Trip - Cantina 663

http://www.cantina663.com/

We were in Perth with full bellies from a fantastic lunch from Balthazar (see post here) and we had a few hours to kill before we would be catching up with a handful of Brisbane bloggers for dinner.  We had never been to Perth together before, so we had a really good opportunity to explore the CDB a little bit and being honest do a little comparison with Brisbane. 

The first thing we noticed is that the Perth CBD is long and skinny. I mean really long, the main street seems to go on for ever.  Thinking that we would tackle the long walk back to the hotel, we cut through a cool little arcade that transported us to London, England.  It was no wonder, it was called London Court and is a well known spot in Perth and I could see why, it was so cute with great little shops and a very Edwardian feel.

As we continued to walk around Perth, we noticed quite a few similarities to Brisbane, the climate is hot and people are pretty relaxed.  I mean really relaxed, there were more singlets and shorts wandering around the CBD than I have seen in a long time!  There's also not one mall but two, with one of them reminding me of Rundle Mall in Adelaide and the other a little bit like the Queen Street mall back home.  After a few hours of wandering around and finding where the hipsters live (around the hip and cool King Street), it was time to walk back to the hotel and get read for our visit to Cantina 663.

I'd heard a lot of great things about Cantina 663 and when I did my obligatory tweet to WA bloggers for recommendations, Cantina was one of the handful of restaurants that was almost universally loved.  I had arranged to meet Melissa Loh and Aga from A Matter of Taste at the restaurant but Aga had asked if she could bring another blogger along for the night, which was of course OK.  This was how we met Rachi from Le bon vivant who rounded out the six for dinner with Melissa's SO and SC.

EDB13 Perth Trip - Balthazar

https://www.facebook.com/BalthazarBarAndRestaurant

I've just had an amazing weekend over in Perth.  Yeah, I know! Perth is about as far away from Brisbane as you can possibly get, in fact it's pretty much the most isolated capital city in the world.  If you're wondering what would get a Brisbane foodie over to Perth, then wonder no further, I was off attending an annual food bloggers conference called Eat Drink Blog (#EDB13 on Twitter). That's right, a conference dedicated to food blogging, what a freaky concept, what could be more exciting (or scarier) than a hundred or so food bloggers all congregating in the one spot.

Both SC and I had been to Perth before, but never together, so when I found out that my nomination had been accepted to attend this years conference we thought it would be a great way to finally see Perth together.  We both decided to take a long weekend and made the long trip over to Perth on the Friday with a plan to hit a few restaurants and have some fun before the conference.  While I was pretty excited about the #EDB13 conference I was equally excited to be checking out some of Perth's hotspot restaurants and do a subtle comparison to my home town of Brisbane.

Leading up to #EDB13, I had been using the 'interwebs' to size up the best spots to visit while in Perth and a couple of restaurants kept coming up in discussion, Print Hall and Cantina.  The plan was to land in Perth just before lunch, collect the bags and then check out one of the newer and hipper spots in Perth, Print Hall.  Of course the plan went awry immediately, the only session that I could get into was a 12:30pm sitting and there was just no way that we could get from the airport to Perth in time.  I was a bit bummed out, but had to make the most of the situation, so I hit up Urbanspoon to see where else I could go on such short notice.