Searching for a Caesar Salad

A classic Caesar Salad, as it was created by restaurateur Caesar Cardini back in 1924, is made of Romain Lettuce and croutons and dressed with a creamy dressing, Parmesan cheese and a coddled or poached egg. There are lots of variations, bacon, anchovies, chicken are often added to the original recipe. For a good Caesar salad the lettuce leaves should be big and chunky, not shredded into tiny pieces.

Where’s the best Caesar salad in Perth? We set off to find out.

The first stop was Riffo’s on Eight Avenue in Maylands, while their version of the salad came in  a large bowl with home made croutons that were big a chunky and large lettuce leaves it had so much dressing it almost moved into soup territory. It also had no egg.

Over the Dome Cafe in Victoria Park the offering was worse. The salad was tiny, the lettuce was brown, the crutons were clearly prepackaged and you had to pay extra for the egg. The waitress also kept trying to up sell us, offering chicken, pesto, salmon – she had so many things to add to the salad. Maybe the pesto was meant to disguise the brown leaves.

While attending a function at the State Theatre Centre an unexpected tiny Caesar Salad came our way amongst the canapes. Served on a spoon this ‘deconstructed’ version of the salad featured no lettuce at all but chick, Parmesan and dressing with a tiny crispy wafer of bacon placed on top. The challenge was the large spoon was bigger then anyone’s mouth. It was amusing watching guests trying to push the tiny meal into their mouths while maintaining decorum.

Over at the home of ‘dude food’, The Merrywell, we came across the best yet. The leaves were big, the dressing was used sparingly and the only change they had was rather than bacon the dish featured chunks of chewy pork which made it quite a filling experience. The egg had been poached, crumbed and deep fried. This was a pumped up take on a Caesar Salad.

We still haven’t found the perfect Caesar Salad, so we’ll keep searching. Feel free to add your suggestions on where we should have lunch next.

Graeme Watson