MEEKA RESTAURANT

Spectacular is a word I don't throw around lightly, but this is one of those rare instances where it's almost an understatement. Meeka Restaurant, tucked away on a quiet Subi corner, is a Perth 'must-try'. I'm almost annoyed at myself for not having found it sooner!
Meeka have really nailed their niche, and there was nothing on the Saturday evening we dined there that that could fault the experience. Like, at all. The food is a Middle Eastern/Moroccan-Australian fusion, with a section of the menu devoted to tajines - spice enriched stews. The menu is quite diverse but we finally settled on the stuffed dates and duck pastries to start, before moving on to baked eggplant and a lamb tajine for mains.
Everything was presented beautifully and executed with finesse. Patterned crockery and ceramic tajines were a nice flourish, without that kitschy/contrived feeling you sometimes get at 'themed' establishments.

Dates stuffed with cheese and almonds

Duck pastries

Tajine vessel

Baked eggplant stuffed with cheese, nuts and prunes

I have to compliment the staff on the service - it was attentive and helpful but not overbearing. The eggplant was cooked to perfection - I love eggplant and the balance of the creamy house-made cheese and candied walnuts was delectable. It's obvious that someone has put a lot of thought and consideration into every menu item.
Even at restaurants normally I skip dessert, but so far highly impressed, decided to give Meeka the benefit of the doubt..

We were not disappointed.

Turkish delight stuffed doughnuts - pistchio ice cream - fairy floss

Dark chocolate mulberry tart with a gold leaf garnish

Meeka seems like a great place to go with friends and share a few plates/tajines - enough variety here to satisfy customers of all palates, from the cautious to the intrepid. There's even a glossary in the menu to help patrons decipher traditional ingredients like za'tar and kataifi.

OFFALLY GOOD

No recipe this time, but a question: what’s the strangest/most adventurous/outlandish food you've tried?
Offal (which is confusingly also called ‘sweetbreads’) generally takes out first place on the oddity radar in Australia, where prime cuts are a national obsession and the average Aussie probably consumes all the leftover parts blissfully unaware, in bakery items disguised heavily with sauce.

I'm on to you, Mrs Mac.

Anyway, I didn’t start this just to slag off our cultural icons (though I did learn that the Food Standards code requires a pie to be at least 25 percent meat to be legally sold as such). My memorable offal moment happened earlier this year when Greenhouse were serving ‘brain nuggets’ – a.k.a deep fried lamb’s brains. My boyfriend, along for the ride as always, gamely choked one down. The burghul they came with helped texturally, but the best description I could use to describe how they tasted is grey. And soft. And well..brainy.

Definitely not something I’d be hurrying back to again, though well worth the experience for sh*ts and giggles (as they say), also to pat ourselves on the back later for sampling brains.

Entrails, intestines, pate, blood pudding ...do you rate them as gourmet or garbage?