Night Out at West End

More Monkeys' Cakes and Char Char Yiros
Cnr Russell and Boundary Streets, West End



Cakes at the Three Monkeys have become an unfortunate regularity in my life now. I say unfortunate not because I am against the delicious sugary creations or have anything against the cozy/quirky interior of the cafe but because slices of cake = diet killers. I've already blogged the Monkeys twice now and there's not really much point in me continually writing new posts just to upload fresh photos of what I order.

Having said that, I find that food photography is a habit I've developed that's almost addictive/compulsive in nature. When I'm at a restaurant and I've forgotten my camera, I feel like someone's chopped off a limb and that the whole experience is 'wasted' because I can't capture and blog it. Also, when I return to places I've already blogged, I can't help but rephotograph the food even though I know it's unlikely that I'll have any use for the photos.

This happened at Three Monkeys the other night so I'll put the piccies here (thus avoiding wastage).

Latte brownie cheesecake and black forest cake

I got a latte brownie baked cheesecake (have you HEARD of anything more amazing?) and Hien got a black forest cake. The flavors of the cheesecake were lovely and it had a gorgeous brownie base but I thought the texture was a bit too soft. We didn't like the black forest cake much. It seemed to be just sponge with some chocolate. Where was the cherry? Or decadence?

Edith Piaf (huge coffee) plus a cappuccino

After our coffee and cake, I got smacked in the brain with a craving for giros. A couple of weeks ago, we were in West End and the guys got late night cravings. Byron wanted to stop at this giro store but Hien said he had enough of giros from over-eating them in the States and pushed for kebabs instead. When we asked him 'what's the difference?' he said 'giros have thicker bread', which sounded like a good thing to us.

I was intent on trying the giro store, called Char Char Yiros. I guess yiro is an alternative way of spelling giro. I don't know which is more 'correct' so I'm going with the spelling that doesn't create a little red line in Blogger.


The shop front is small but at night, very welcoming. They sell a variety of Mediterranean-inspired fast food. I chose a small lamb giro. It comes with a garlic yogurt sauce. I'm not 100% sure but I think other sauces cost extra. No worries since garlic yogurt was what I wanted anyway. The standard salads are tomato, lettuce and onion.

Small lamb giro

The giro didn't take very long to prepare (which is good) and the size was perfect for me, i.e. hungry guys should get a large.

Juicy interior

It was a bit hard to eat because the bread doesn't wrap around the entirety of contents that well. But only wusses complain about making a mess! I do it routinely :D. There was an adequate proportion of lamb and the garlic yogurt... well, I'll just say that there was an ABUNDANCE of garlic.

I'm one of those who get really 'affected' by garlic so it was too much for me. You have been warned. Still, these would really hit the spot after a night out on the drink.