I’m sure most people in Perth know about the popular Ciao Italia Restaurant which doesn’t take any bookings. Now, don’t get Ciao Italia in South Perth on Millpoint Road confused with Il Ciao in Applecross which is found on Canning Highway…

I’ve been to Ciao Italia and Il Ciao a couple of times now, and I found them to be quite different from each other. Where Ciao Italia is small, buzzing and friendly, Il Ciao is big, busy and not so casual.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve grown up on the buzzing and crowded atmosphere, perhaps I like South Perth better than Applecross.. There’s a lot of ‘perhaps’ but at the end of the day, you can’t go wrong at Ciao Italia if you want amazing Italian food. And yes, I am saying that Ciao Italia’s food is better than Il Ciao!

• The smoked salmon pizza had slices of salmon which you could actually SEE (unlike some other italian restaurants)

• The cream sauce in their Ciao Italia Fettucini had the perfect texture, not too runny and not overly thick either. Not only that, it actually had flavour.

• Garlic bread is always good at Ciao Italia. Hard to believe but I’ve had some pretty crappy garlic bread in my time (rock-hard, stale, soggy).

• I can’t say much about the Risotto because I rarely order this when I go out, but their Risotto Marinara has got to be the best around. It sure beats the risotto I had at Dome though, both by the portion and the taste.

• Staff there is always friendly and easy going, no matter how busy they are.

• Portions are always more than enough and the atomosphere is always buzzing

There’s a lot more on the menu which I have yet to try, you can view their take-away menu on their website here.

I took my Lumix FX36 out and was pretty pleased with the camera.
• First of all, I forgot to put in an SD card (I haven’t received the 4GB SD, extra battery and warranty yet) but could still take photos because of the 50mb internal memory!
• The food scene setting worked like a charm
• Intelligent Auto mode is AMAZING!!
• I totally love the 24mm wide angle lens because I regularly take photos by holding it an arm length away. Usually I can only get 3.5 heads in the picture but now I can fit 4 heads with shoulders as well as some background!
• Downside would have to be the noise, I need to take more photos to clarify but I fear that there’s a bit more noise found on the images compared to the canon ixus (when taking photos at night).