Cranked, Leederville, Peth

I love Leederville, the permanently busy streets, the girls and guys dressed ready for a night at the Leedy or the Garden. I love the tiny boutique style shops with their expensive clothes and interesting and beautiful gifts. I am lucky to live in walking distance and am finding my trips to Cranked more of a weekly occurrence.

Their coffee turn around seems to be much quicker compared to Sayers and I actually prefer their coffee, perhaps it's because I adore their chocolate syrup they use in their mocha's. I can't help spooning the rich heavenly syrup into my mouth after I've finished my mocha.

So on a spir of the moment Saturday night myself and my partner decided to go out and grab a bite to eat, full well knowing that in most places in Leederville you have to book. We checked out Monza, but it looked pretty empty, which is always a bit of a put off for me, plus there was nothing that much on the menu that really grabbed me. Next on the list was Kalis Brother - full of course. My back-up plan being Ria (one of my favourites) or Cranked which I hadn't eaten out in the evening before.

We headed into cranked which had a guy on a guitar playing beautiful Spanish style music. If it hadn't have been so freezing outside with the plastic shutters down I could have closed my eye's and been in Spain. What I hadn't realised was that Cranked only serves Tapas in the evening and to be honest I'm not much of a fan of Tapas. None the less we decided to give it a try so ordered a glass of The Riddler and settled down to view their Tapas menu, it wasn't extensive but there were plenty of dishes to suit most tastes.

We ordered Chorizo and Chicken Paella, Lamb Kofta with a yogurt and cucumber dressing and Turkish breads with a trio of dips. The restaurant at this time had been quite empty but was slowly filling up with groups of young ladies, we waited a fair amount of time, not enough to be worth complaining, but a little to long that made us notice. When our dishes finally arrived one was wrong...oops, our Turkish bread had been replaced with Empanada (small pastry parcels filled with sweet potato and chickpea served with harissa and a yogurt and mint dip).

The waitress was apologetic and went off to replace the dish, she returned minutes later once again apologising and still brandishing the Empanada, offered us them for no charge whilst our Turkish breads were prepared. I thought that was a lovely touch, the waiter who was had taken our order came out and also apologised explaining it was all his fault, exactly what you would want from a restaurant who had made a slight mistake. Our breads arrived shortly afterwards, the lemon infused olive oil served with the breads was light and fruity and delicious as were the two other dips of hummus and blue cheese, the breads served warm with a crispy top were light and soft in the middle, plenty of salt on the outside of the bread added extra flavour. The paella was as to be expected warm, with very spicy chorizo and the chicken had a smokey flavour which added to the overall taste of the dish, cherry tomato's added a freshness which pulled it all together and took the edge of the spicy chorizo. Our free dish of Empanada had a smooth almost sweet tasty filling, the pasty on mine seemed a little well done on its edges and feel apart when I cut into it - perhaps it would have been better eating it with my fingers. The harissa was sharp and spicy and added a fantastic kick to the dish and with the added yogurt dip to cool your tongue made a surprising accompaniment to our dinner. Our final dish of lamb kofta lost its heat quite quickly, and was less spicy than I had expected but none the less was tasty and enjoyed, it was just not a remarkable kofta.

I like Cranked; the easy going waiters, the live music, dinner and wine served by candle light and delicious coffee. We both enjoyed our tapas more than we would have expected and will no doubt be returning there again soon.