Twilight Hawker Markets in Forrest Place

Perth's Forrest Place is home to the Twilight Hawker Markets, a weekly event for some of Perth's food vendors to gather together and showcase their menu's to a rather diverse audience, from city office workers on their way home, to dedicated food travellers looking for a fix before their next overseas journey.



Kate, Mikah and myself headed to Forrest Place on Friday night to see what all the fuss was about. Kate and I have tried a few different foods on our journeys in the past, including deep fried insects and catfish cooked on a stick on our recent journey to Thailand, so we thought we'd head in to see if we could find something a little out of the ordinary to get us through until our next adventure.



We ended up choosing 3 market stalls to visit, starting with a chicken and seafood paella, followed by a serve of satay sticks and then topped off with some asado (or beef ribs).



While in many countries, the appeal of the Hawker stalls is in the price and the variety of foods on offer, the usual Perth price and serving creep has hit here too, with slightly smaller than usual portions for slightly higher than usual prices. One of the things Kate was looking forward to at these markets were the spiral spuds she'd tried in Thailand, but at $6 for a serve, as opposed to $1 for the same serve in Thailand, they got skipped over.



I've included a few photos of the asado, as the were probably the food I was most looking forward to while waiting in the queues (and they were all that I took photos of). While overall I was very happy with the asado, I was a little disappointed with the toughness of the meat. I don't know if this is the standard for beef ribs, but with the delicious selection of spices and some very tasty and meat juice soaked fat, if the meat had been more tender it would have made it perfect. I don't feel I can lay all the blame at the chef though, as the space and time available at these markets must make these one of the hardest meals to get just right. I have a feeling that if they'd cooked these ribs low and slow enough to have the meat falling apart tender, there would have only been a handful of ribs actually available to sell, and even at the $10 a serve price, they wouldn't have been able to sell enough to make it worth while turning up.



If you want to see some photos of some of the food we ate and the markets we visited in Thailand, check out the album on flickr

Pick Ten: Perth Motorplex 2012 Season Opener

The Perth Motorplex's 2012/13 Drag Racing season kicked off in style on the 27th of October. Here are a selection of 10 of my favourite photos from the night.

Pick Ten: Perth Motorplex Pre-Season Test and Tune

This season's pre-season Test and Tunes at the Perth Motorplex were scheduled as a Saturday - Sunday affair, however rain over the course of the weekend ended up giving us a much reduced session, with Saturday cancelled and Sunday shortened by a couple of hours.

Here are 10 of my favourite shots of the day, in chronological order.



Rhiannon Allison was licensing in her dads dragster. At this stage, Craig will be back in the car for the regular season, but this is definitely not the last time we'll see Rhiannon in a race car.



The name Pete Veersma is well known to Western Australian drag racers, Pete made a return to the sport last season to help out Jeff Clarke in his final season, and is now running a car for his son, Luke Veersma.





Another car from the Hort racing stable, I believe this is Ethan's girlfriend Jayme behind the wheel of the teams third car.



Sam Treasure had a very busy couple of weeks getting the Cleveland Express back together with a new motor. The work paid off when the team ran their first ever 7 second pass on their first full track pass with the combo.





Kyle Putland has a new car this season, and had brought a tuner from the USA to help out for the weekend. In his first hit out with the new AMA deal, Kyle ran under the national record with a 6.85 second pass.



Simon 'Gonzo' Travaglini was out testing 'BA Baracus' and laid down a 6.44 second pass during the afternoon. With a previous best of 6.41 seconds, Gonzo was happy with the way the track and car performed in testing.



Supercharged Outlaw racer Ian Foster has a new Funny Car on track.



Mosman Park racers the Champan Brothers have a new Saratoga Doorslammer on track this season. This will also be a car to watch this season.