Valentine’s treat
We were too busy to do anything for Valentine’s Day on the day itself, but as a special treat for ourselves we’d booked a night at a hotel for the Saturday night of the weekend after Valentine’s. And so after my breakfast/interview with Cellobella in Subiaco, I headed back home to help Jac finish getting things ready for our night away. We then headed into the city, to the hotel – the Parmelia Hilton on Mill Street in Perth.
I love checking into a hotel for the first time, and checking everything out. Clockwise from the top row, left picture: the bed – king-sized; the TV, and next to it, bottles of water for $6.00 each! – not surprisingly, we didn’t touch those; we were on the 10th floor and had requested a balcony room if possible – here’s the view from the balcony; Jac took a liking to this chair and foot stool combo. Me, I sat or lay on the bed at every opportunity. :)
There was a mini bar, of course. But I was more interested in seeing what snacks were for sale in the top drawer of the cabinet the TV was on. I forgot to note the prices, but they were pretty standard hotel room prices. The Pringles were $4.50 each. At our hotel in Newcastle on our recent holiday, the packets of Arnotts biscuits were free – here, they were $2.00 each. No biggie, of course.
We went for a walk before dinner – we walked around the Perth Convention Centre and along the river. We’d been contemplating going into Northbridge for dinner, but we couldn’t be bothered with worrying about getting there and back again at night, so we decided to just have dinner at one of the hotel’s restaurants – the Adelphi Steak House and Bar.
After perusing the menu, we realised that neither of us felt like eating a great big steak – yeah, I know I know, we were in a steak restaurant! But Jac rather liked the sound of Hilton’s Favourite Club Sandwich (AU$17.50) – a triple-decker toasted sandwich with bacon, turkey, cheese, lettuce, ham, fried egg, tomato and mayonaise, served with chips.
The boneless chicken thigh sandwich (AU$15.50) was most appealing to me – the grilled chicken thigh with melted cheddar cheese was simply bursting out of the toasted Turkish bread, which had been spread with mayonaise and tomato chutney. From reading the menu, I’d assumed that the sandwich included sundried tomatoes, lettuce, tomato, onion and marinated eggplant as well, but those items were served outside of the sandwich, next to the pile of chips. A little unusual, but not a big deal – I just opened up the sandwich and piled on the bits I wanted in there on top of the chicken. The chips were fantastic – they had a light seasoned batter coating which made them extra crunchy, and they were absolutely delicious eaten with tomato sauce, which was brought to us in little side dishes. I think my overwhelming chip lust came from having deprived myself of hot chips and fries for a number of weeks before this.
They’d used two plump and juicy chicken thighs in the sandwich – my brother The Chicken Boy would absolutely love its mega chickeny-ness. This is one serious chicken sandwich.
This being our special treat weekend and all, we wanted to really indulge and have dessert but were just a little too full after our sandwiches and chips. Jac got full sooner than me and stopped eating before I did – I just couldn’t stop devouring those crispy chips, and even had some of her leftovers! But then even I had to admit defeat. But we hatched a grand dessert plan – we’d go back to our room, watch a little TV and chill out, and a little later, order dessert via room service!
We’ve stayed in hotels before but had never ordered room service, and so this was a bit of a thrill for us. The food and drinks cost pretty much the same as if we’d consumed them in the restaurant downstairs, plus a $5.00 room service fee. We thought this was most reasonable. To go with our desserts, Jac ordered a chocolate milkshake and I ordered a pot of English breakfast tea for one, with soy milk. “Your order will be ready in twenty minutes”, I was told, and exactly twenty minutes later, there was a knock on our door! The staff member who delivered our order staggered in with this heavy tray of goodies.
/div>
Jac ordered the creme brulee topped with Chantilly whip (AU$14.00). The Chantilly whip was served on the side rather than on top, which was probably a good idea as it would’ve melted from the heat of the creme brulee during the journey from the kitchen to our room. The creme brulee was lovely – the brulee gave a cracked satisfyingly under the spoon, and the gorgeously yellow eggy custard was silky smooth.
I ordered apple crumble with vanilla ice cream (AU$14.00). It was an individual crumble, a little pie enclosed in a pastry crust with stewed fruit (not just apple) inside and the sweet crumble on top, with a light dusting of icing sugar. Next to the scoop of vanilla ice cream was a sprinkling of crushed pistachio nuts, and there was a delicious butterscotch sauce squiggled on the plate. We ate our desserts while relaxing and watching TV in bed – Jac began with brulee and I began with crumble, but we kept swapping plates until there was just a mouthful of brulee left, which Jac finished, and just a mouthful of crumble left, which I polished off. Thumbs up for room service!
The deal I’d booked under got us a room and buffet breakfast for two the next morning. I love a good buffet breakfast and was really looking forward to this.
Upon arrival, we were warmly greeted and seated, glasses of orange juice poured and tea and coffee offered.
I love little jam jars! There was marmalade, strawberry, blackberry, honey, and one other I can’t remember. I didn’t end up eating any of the jams, which I would’ve spread on toast. You could select from a variety of breads, croissants and bagels and toast them to your liking, but I was just 1) too lazy to stand there waiting for my bread to toast and 2) way too excited by everything else there was to eat – toast wasn’t really one of the more compelling options at the time!
Jac started with bacon, swiss cheese, sauteed mushrooms, scrambled eggs, a single roll of smoked salmon and one of each kind of the chipolatas that were on offer, with barbecue sauce.
I loaded my plate up with bacon, chipolatas, scrambled eggs, grilled tomato, sauteed mushrooms, hash brown and pikelets with maple syrup. A fry-up two mornings in a row? No problem for TFP! :-P The hash brown was commercially produced rather than homemade (an interesting shape though, like a giant guitar plectrum!), but it had wonderfully crisp edges, fluffy insides and was not at all greasy. The chipolatas were surprisingly meaty – the darker one was beef and we think the lighter one was chicken and herb. The sauteed button mushrooms had been cooked with pine nuts and bright red cherry tomatoes and were delicious. The pikelets were the low point. Presumably they’d been sitting under the heat lamp a little too long, because they were rock-solid on the edges – literally impossible to cut or gnaw through. I heard the lady sitting at the table next to me complain about this as well.
Jac moved on to a selection of fruit next – papaya (Aussies call it paw paw, but I grew up knowing it as papaya), plum, water melon, pineapple, rhubarb and prunes. The rhubarb hadn’t been cooked enough and was quite hard. Everything else was good though.
Jac also got a yoghurt parfait for us to share. The yoghurt was really quite sweet and creamy. I wasn’t as keen on the fruit in the parfait because it was mostly stone fruit, which I’m not a fan of.
I went back for a few more hot items before moving onto my fruit course. I got myself another beef chipolata (they really were really tasty! I could see myself eating these nonstop, like the chipolatas I couldn’t stop eating at Christmas) and another of those crispy hash browns. The chef had placed a new batch of pikelets at the buffet, and I decided to give them another go with more maple syrup, which I decided would go very well with the sausage – hence the deliberate placement of chipolata in a pool of maple syrup. There was also a tray of fish cooked with onions in a cream sauce that looked interesting, so I got some of that to try (pretty good!). And as I walked past the display of homebaked mini danishes they looked so shiny and delicious I just had to try one! By the way – this third pikelet also had hard edges. I ended up filling in one of the hotel’s customer comment cards before we left, and as well as rating our room service experience as excellent, mentioned the hard-edged pikelets. It’s not a major complaint by any means, but I hope they’ll address it.
Topped with fruit, icing and flaked almonds, the mini danish had custard in the centre and was really lovely. I’m a fan of most things with custard inside – profiteroles, eclairs, custard horns, custard tarts…
I then moved on to fresh fruit – oranges, watermelon, strawberries and papaya.
We checked out at 10AM and then headed home. It had been a short stay, but we really enjoyed it. Next time maybe we’ll do the Sheraton. :)
For dinner that evening we decided to end our weekend of Valentine treats with Dominos pizza home delivery – this was the new Chicken Italiano pizza on Thin n Crispy crust. The mushrooms, garlic and sliced fresh tomato really made it tasty. An indulgent weekend, wouldn’t you say? But you need those once in a while. Though for food blogging purposes, indulgence makes for great content. ;-)
