We are here to bring Home Cooking to Northbridge. It aint fancy, but its real, and whole and delicious. We are your home away from home for a home-cooked meal for a fair price.
We beleive in PPN. Prioritise Proper Nutrition This means you should eat a combination of the following, allowing for your dietary preferences:
- Raw vegetables
- Cooked vegetables
- Fermented vegetables
- Wholegrains and Pulses
- Nuts and seeds
- Dairy products and eggs
- Meat in moderation and combination with other proteins
So this is what we serve.
Below is the internal food guide we are currently using to plan our dishes and guide our chefs:
General notes on food:
· “Bringing Home-Cooking to Northbridge” is painted on the sign and this is what we do. This means small batch cooking, fresh everyday.
· Quality food using fresh, sesoanl and local WA ingredients. We barely use imported produce.
· Make a point of using farm direct meat and vegetables and work closely with the suppliers
· Everything is cooked from scratch. No canned beans here.
· The food has a retro filter. Or is it retro food with a modern filter? In any case, we are not afraid to dive into old cookbooks and copy their naff and tacky garnish ideas.
· Garnish is important – everything needs a garnish!
· This sets us apart from the crowd and suits the tone and aesthetic of our restaurant
· We apply modern techniques to ancient methods. Like brining chickens before roasting them in a tandoor (ancient) and then using an instant read thermometer to temp them (modern)
· Our food has a heavy Eastern European/Balkan/Central Asian influence either conceptually (e.g. using cumin and coriander in a western setting) or literally (like making kotletki) but this is not a thematic pastiche novelty restaurant filled with homages and literal interpretations of old dishes. The food does not need to be only explicitly eastern European though – the odd vege moussaka is fine!
· Wherever possible when labelling dishes, Australianise it and make it clear what it is. E.g. – rather than labelling kotleki, say ‘rissoles’
· Label dishes so that people understand ‘the point’
· Peoples food is fresh, vibrant, exciting and healthy. This means a balanced mix of flavours (salt, spice, acid, sweetness), textures, colours.
· Our cooking uses lots of fresh herbs and spices (ground, fried, toasted as required) to lift the dishes
· We have a heavy focus on wholefoods and nutrition without making a big deal about it.
· The mix of buffet dishes always provides for vegan, GF and vegetarians. This means they should be able to get a nutritionally balanced plate regardless of dietary requirements
| Legume/pulse | A simple prep of beans/chickpeas/lentils dressed lightly with lots of herbs, oil, acid. Can add a vege/spice for variety. E.g. beans with roasted tomato, berlottis with roasted peppers and parsley, chickpeas with turmeric and dill and toasted cumin. |
| Cooked vege | A dish that is focussed on one or more cooked vegetables. Could be roasted, baked, grilled, steamed. Can combine with other veges for colour/texture, variety E.g. roasted carrots with ginger spring onion sauce, fried eggplant slices with sweet and sour chilli sauce, roasted peppers tossed with fresh spinach |
| Carby/substantial | A dish that is vege carb focussed/more ‘substantial’. E.g. Paddies potato salad, Caesar, curried roast potatoes with endive, sweet potato with kelp and tofu, quinoa/rice/kasha |
| Raw veg/fresh | A dish of raw veges. Can have a cooked element but should be mostly raw. Focus on colour, crunch, flavour, herb. E.g. Asian slaw, tomato/basil/cucumber/basil/onion, pickled crunchy cucumbers |
| Kraut/fermented | We should always have a kraut or other laco-fermented vege available because it’s delicious, good for your guts and fits with our theme. Kraut could also swap out/be alongside a fermented beansprout, radish, beetroot or anything else. |
| Peoples | ‘Peoples salad’ is a ‘mum style’ fresh green salad. It is mostly a mix of lettuces: oak leaf, endive, cos, red festival, raddichio, chicory – as they are available, garnished with other raw veg e.g. sliced tomato, salad onion, cucumber, rings of peppers. Can include chopped or picked herbs for additional garnish or variety. Layout and arrangement should be kind of naff and tacky. |
| Pickled veg/dip (optional) | As an extra we can include a tray of a dip or other puree (e.g. hommus from BLFB or Russian style eggplant cavier, or Blitva). OR it could be a pickled veg or something extra. The idea of it is that it can be a bit of an ‘added extra’ to make your plate a bit more special. |
| Rice/potatoes | A carby base dish – brown rice, roasted/boiled/mashed potatoes. This can be plain rice but can also be a more substantial thing in place of a vege dish – e.g. a rice pilaf could fulfill the rice dish and the vege main. |
| Dal | A hot lentil or pulse dish. In Hindi, ‘Dal’ is simply the word for lentil – our dal can be any of the massive variety of lentils available and should be labelled as such. It is often an Indian style dal (which does not fit our Eastern Euro vibe but does fit all our other characteristics) but can also be a more Eastern dish. E.g. Mung bean dal with spinach and lemon. Yellow split pea with a tarkha, red split lentil dal (as we have been doing) or a chickpea stew |
| Vege bake | A dish made from roasted/steamed/boiled veg, covered with bechamel or tomato sauce and (usually) cheese and baked. It’s a delicious, rich side dish and people love it. The bakes should rotate around seasonally and can be used to ‘use up’ leftover veg and salads etc. E.g. Pumpkin, spinach, bechamel; turnip, swedes, bechamel; eggplant moussaka or vege lasagne; |
| Vege main | A hot vege main dish. This is an optional dish but good to have. e.g. Roasted peppers; sauteed courgette with pesto or tomato sauce; roast mushrooms with tofu |
| Meat dish | A main meat dish. E.g. Rissoles; beef or chicken curry; roast chicken; roast pork belly; roast beef; roast pork hocks; any kind of stew. Make sure the meat is in small bits so that people don’t take too much |
| Other/special | Feel free to add in any other dishes we need to use up/leftover from the day before/as a small trial. |
