Beard Papa has come to Perth! (and some stupid story about fridge shelves)
I’ve been reading about Beard Papa on other food blogs for ages now. My friend MK and I have been drooling over the posts and photos, wishing and hoping that Beard Papa would come to Perth. My younger sister Juji and I have talked about how good Beard Papa’s custard puffs look. Recently I found out that Beard Papa has opened in Chatswood, in Sydney. And then last week I stumbled upon photos by the Abstract Gourmet that made me very excited – OMG! Da da da dum! Beard Papa has come to Perth! I emailed MK and my younger sister Juji right away, telling them the good news. Now how/when could I get to Galleria? Jac and I never have any reason to go anywhere near Morley, so I didn’t think I’d be able to convince her to drive me out there just so I could try these custard puffs. When I told Jac about the Beard Papa store in Galleria she didn’t really react at all. I think in her mind it was just another one of those nerdy food blogger things I sometimes get excited about. Hmmm. I’d have to find the time one day during the week to catch the train and a bus to Morley.
Anyway, yesterday I checked out the Australian Samsung website to find out if we could buy replacement shelves for our fridge. NEVER EVER buy a fridge with plastic shelves. We learned this the hard way – two out of the three shelves in our fridge are cracked/broken, and we’ve had to stick them together with masking tape. I have to constantly reorganise the contents of the fridge so the heaviest items (stuff in jars, mainly, like pickles – Jac loves her pickles) aren’t sitting on the dodgy shelves, which tend to sag at the taped/cracked sections from the weight.
Hey, tfp, you were telling us about Beard Papa! What’s all this crap about fridge shelves? This is related to Beard Papa, I promise. It’s just one of those seemingly random events that triggers or enables another apparently unrelated event to happen (like the episode of the Simpsons called “Simpson Safari”, in which Homer hassles the bag boy at a supermarket and manages to incite a bag boy walkout. This leads to a supermarket strike, and soon everyone runs out of food. The starving Simpsons dig around their house in search of anything to eat, and Santa’s Little Helper discovers a forty-year-old box of animal crackers in the attic that just happens to be contain a solid-gold giraffe, winning the Simpsons a trip to Africa, where they just happen to have some wacky adventures). Anyway…
At the Samsung site, there actually was a FAQ related to broken fridge shelves (Hey Samsung, if that’s a frequent problem for your customers, maybe you should make stronger shelves for your fridges!). Here, I was able to get the phone number for the parts supplier in Perth, WA Appliance Parts. I rang them to see if replacement shelves were available, giving the woman on the phone our fridge model number so she could look up the availability of the shelves. She said the shelf above the vegetable crisper was available, but the other shelves weren’t – apparently Samsung don’t make those any more. Damn damn DAMN. I suppose I wasn’t that surprised as we bought the fridge back in 1997, but it was rather annoying to know we’d be stuck with at least one cracked shelf. Anyway, they had only one of the crisper shelves in stock, and it would cost $33.85. The WA Appliance Parts woman gave me the part number (read it out twice) and told me I’d have to quote that number when I came to the shop. No, she wouldn’t hold the shelf for me (“We don’t hold anything unless it’s been paid for”). Yes, they are open on Saturdays. I asked where they are located, and when I heard “3/135 Russell St Morley”, my Beard Papa Alert Alarm Bells went off in my head (ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!).
When Jac got home from work, I mentioned that I’d found out a replacement crisper shelf was available from a spare parts supplier and it was open on Saturdays.
“Great,” she said, “Where are they?”
“Russell Street in Morley,” I said casually, trying not to smile.
“OK. Let’s go tomorrow.”
(A pause)
“Since we’ll be in the area, could we go to Galleria and try out Beard Papa?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, grinning. “I assumed we’d do that when you said the spare parts place is in Morley.”
Isn’t she great? Hee hee.
Unfortunately, our trip to WA Appliance Parts was a bust. I gave the guy at the counter the part number I had been given. He looked it up on the computer and confirmed that they had one left in stock and went out the back to look for it. When he returned, the shelf he had matched that part number but it appeared to be for a completely different fridge – it was the wrong width and didn’t resemble our shelf at all. We’d brought along our old taped up shelf for comparison; he took it to the back of the shop where the stock was kept and searched through their stock of plastic fridge shelves. None of the shelves they had were the right one. I hadn’t thought to bring in our fridge model number with me – I had the specific part number for the shelf after all (well, I’d thought I did), and I didn’t think it would be necessary to bring the model number as well. I’d thought I’d just tell them the part number, they’d grab the shelf for me and I’d pay for it. You know, easy-peasy. That’s why I rang them up in the first place, to check that they had what I wanted and to avoid crap like this happening. Stupid me, right?
The guy (Rob) was very apologetic about it and asked if we’d driven from very far away. When we told him where we lived (which wasn’t all that close to Morley) he apologised again and gave us his name and told me to ring back with the fridge model number so he could chase up the right part for us. He said he’d drop it off at our house and save us making another trip. We got home too late from Galleria for me to ring him today; I’ll have to do that on Monday. I was very peeved but decided not to be “the angry customer” as the guy had done his best and had offered to deliver the shelf to us for nothing (and of course, he wasn’t the person who gave me the bogus part number on the phone). I’m feeling kind of pessimistic about our chances of getting any replacement shelves now, but we’ll just have to see.
EDIT, 13/09/2006 12:32pm: Rob from WA Appliance Parts just rang me. He’s got both shelves we need and will personally deliver them to our house this evening! He said he didn’t expect us to drive all the way out to the shop again when it wasn’t our fault a mistake was made the first time. How’s that for service? I do understand that mistakes can be made (no one’s infallible after all), but how they are dealt with is what really counts. A big thumbs up to Rob from WA Appliance Parts! :) I’ll update again when the shelves have been delivered. Sorry to interrupt. Back to Beard Papa…
EDIT, 13/09/2006 7:56pm: see the next post, A happy ending to the fridge shelves story.
We left the parts shop and headed straight to Galleria, just up the road. We hadn’t had breakfast. We were both hungry and wanted something savoury, but I had to find Beard Papa before I could contemplate eating anything else. I had eyes for nothing else but the yellow signage, and was thrilled when I saw it!
Only the vanilla bean flavoured custard puffs are available at present: 1 puff for AU$2.50, a box of 6 puffs is $12.00 and a box of 12 puffs is $20. The “specialty flavours” that are coming soon are chocolate, coffee, caramel, strawberry and green tea.
Standing in front of Beard Papa, I rang MK. Our conversation started like this:
MK: Hello?
Me: Hey, it’s tfp.*
MK: Hello! (brief pause) Are you at Beard Papa?
Hahaha, how cool was that? I’ll have to ask her how she knew. Perhaps it was the unmistakable shopping centre noise she could hear in the background. Perhaps it was the note of excitement in my voice that screamed BEARD PAPA! Perhaps she has ESP. Perhaps I’m just so predictable!
I picked up a box of 6 puffs for MK and her family, which Jac and I will drop off at her house soon. Jac had said she wasn’t interested in custard puffs, but when she saw the Beard Papa staff in action, she said she had to have one too.
The staff didn’t seem to care that I took lots of photos as they worked. They probably thought I was one of those snap-happy asian tourists who takes photos of everything. They were really friendly and smiley and seemed to be having fun injecting the puffs with the custard, dusting with icing sugar and wrapping them up in paper. I suppose I’d find it hard to keep a straight face if I had to wear (and look at people wearing) one of those funny hats all day. Jac is convinced that these two girls are sisters. What do you reckon?
So here’s MK’s box of 6 puffs. MK, I opened it up just to photograph the puffs inside, but I was very careful and I didn’t nick any! Heheheheh.
My Beard Papa puff before the first bite:
That first bite was fantastic. As I brought it up to my face ready to chomp down it smelled like baking and sugar and vanilla (I had to be careful not to inhale too enthusiastically and snort up that icing sugar! Hahaha). As my teeth bit down, clouds of icing sugar came off the puff and went everywhere (don’t eat it without a bib if you’re wearing a black tuxedo! Heheh). The shell was a perfect crispiness on the outside, crispy to the bite yet chewy and moist, and the custard inside was thick, velvety, soft and sweet, REALLY sweet. The combination of the different textures of pastry and custard made a very satisfying chew.
It was really good. Jac and I were still full from our brunch at Fast Eddy’s (that post will be coming up later this evening), so we shared one. We have another puff sitting in the kitchen in a paper bag for later. Did Beard Papa live up to all the food blogging hype? Well, we both really enjoyed our shared custard puff, and thought the custard was really delicious. If you have a sweet tooth, definitely give them a go. If you can rope in friends or family and buy them by the box, they work out much cheaper. They are most definitely worth a try though, especially if you’re a fan of choux pastry or custard! I’m looking forward to trying the other flavours when they become available. I like the sound of caramel and strawberry especially. Edit: Jac has declared she’d definitely eat them again!
Well, it’s taken me ages to write this post, and now I have to get ready to go out and deliver the box of 6 puffs to MK. I’m continuing my good hockey wife phase tonight, and will be going with Jac to watch another match. I hope to post more when I return.
*Of course I don’t refer to myself as tfp to my friends, I used my real name.
Edit, Sunday 10:58am: for those wondering, Beard Papa is near Miss Maud’s. Let me know what you think of the puffs if you try them!