Hello~

So instead of reading about the wonderful desserts of Sydney, we thought, what could be better than taking you guys out there and show you guys N2 Gelato! :) For additional fun, we decided to play a little game of guess the flavours... It was a great day and i hope you guys have fun watching out vlog!

Until next time, take care! ♥

 

Taste of Shanghai

Desserts+friends= wonderful break from the stress of uni. That is my equations for a happy day :)

During the catch-up with my besties, we decided to visited a modern Chinese restaurant called Taste of Shanghai on the lower ground level of World Square, next to the dollar shop and florist. 

Mango handrolls 

Price: $8.80

Mango hand rolls have been a favourite dessert of mine due to the freshness of the mango, cream and crepe and when i saw it on the menu, i had pointed at it straight away! hahaha

The mango hand rolls turned out to be a big dissapointment as there was no fresh mango in it! ): instead, it was replaced with a jelly-like substance that looked like mango. They may have been made this way because it isn't mango season, but it really gave the whole dessert a different taste and texture of it. 

Usually, the fresh mango provides the sweetness to the fresh cream and thin crepe, balancing out the flavours giving it a sweet creamy texture. Because there was no mango, me and my friends all agreed that not only was it bland due to the absence of the fresh mango but also the jelly substance gave a weird taste to the overall dessert. There was no sweetness to it so i have to give this dessert 3/10 ): 

Red Bean Herbal Jelly with Ice-cream 

Price: $4.50

Ice-cream again? YES! As you may know my love for ice-cream from my father's day blog, when i saw the waitress bring this over, i already had my spoon ready to dig in to that scrumptious bowl of goodness. 

This dessert is similar to the signature herbal jelly i had at Meet Fresh, except instead of tapioca and taro balls, it had red beans! The use of red beans gave the whole dish a new taste and i must say it was delicious! The addition made the dessert chewier and of course - the red bean taste. OH and for the flavour of this dessert to be perfect, your spoon needs to contain ALL the different ingredients of the dish because when you eat it, it just comes together to give you that fresh, sweet, chewy, crunchy taste. 

I would give this 8/10 :) it was wasn't too sweet and was a nice chilled dessert.

Deep Fried Chinese milk dough 

Price: $6.80

Sounds weird right? but omg this is so yummy! This dough is also called mantou or known as chinese steamed bun - in this dessert it is fried, giving a crispy outer layer yet still containing the softer parts inside. The sweet condensed milk is given on the side for dipping. As the bun does not have any strong taste to it, the condensed milk provides the sweetness to the dessert. This dessert is really simple and only has 2 elements to it so it can be made at home too. 

I would give this dessert 9/10 because the condensed milk and the fried dough just work perfectly together and taste really delicious together! Trying the new dessert would have to be one of the yummiest dishes i have eaten this year and I most definitely will be heading back to the restaurant for more!

Taste of Shanghai do not specialise in desserts like the other restaurants i have visited, but i have to say it did give me and my besties some of the tastiest food we have eaten this year. So i do recommend going to try this place out, maybe just don't order the mango handrolls until it is mango season? but definitely try out the unique deep fried chinese milk dough dessert!

Until next time, take care!  ♥

  

MSM Dessert Cafe

Hello sweetlings, your dessert fairy has returned again with some wonderful food to share: and this time it's from that exciting Asian dessert cafe: MSM

With many convenient branches all across Sydney, I have stumbled upon the one on Bathurst st in the CBD. After taking forever at the counter to decide what to order between my friend and I, the verdict was:

Chocolate Waffle

Blended Ice Tea

Berries Bombonfire

You might ask me: What's the big deal about this cafe that differs from all of the other ones?

Well, the fixtures inside delivers a pretty good vibe, and if you're into K-Pop, this place is always playing the latest hits, and MSM also serves as a novelty store for adorable Asian stationary shop, similar to Morning Glory.

Now let's get to the food.

With quite a few options to choose from, I decided that an order of chocolate waffles is a staple item and though I have heard many wonderful things about their Green Tea Latte, it's really not my cup of tea.

The chocolate waffles were okay, if it were on a scale of freshness from 0 to 10, it deserves a 7, but on a flavour scale from 0 to 10, it'll only get a 5 from me because I couldn't tell the difference from their waffles and the homemade kind. However the vanilla ice cream is worth mentioning because it was mixed with cinnamon dusts. I'm sure most of foodies will agree with me when I say, it's the little extras that counts.

For a cafe that's know for their beverages, again, their drinks only gave me an impression of 5 out of 10. The Berries Bombonfire was just an ordinary berry frappe, and the Blended Ice Tea tasted like a Green Tea Latte on ice. With all the hype and word-of-mount, it didn't exceed my expectation, nor did it meet my expectations.

Stay tuned, my loves, perhaps when I come back from Guylian Cafe on Darling Harbour, will I have something nice to report back to you.

Xxxo.

- C

FROYO

It used to be all about ice cream... and now it's all about frozen yoghurt! (aka froyo)
This is a better alternative for those who don't want to gain too much weight for the coming Spring/Summer. There are a lot of places selling frozen yoghurt now... the first one I went to was Wowcow in Newtown. 

doesn't this place look cool? :)

 I ordered a chocolate flavoured froyo with strawberry topping. It was really cheap too!! They have a student special every Monday-Friday before 5pm - a small froyo with 1 choice of topping only $4.95!! :D

My other friends ordered green tea froyo with mochi

 "Noggi" and "Moochi" are also very popular for their froyo! You'll be able to find them both in Strathfield - from what I hear, they've both very similar... so I went to visit Noggi.
They have various sizes suitable for one person or even for a group of 6. The one my friends and I have ordered (on the right) is a maxi (suitable for 4) with green tea and biscotti flavoured froyo with strawberry, cornflakes and m&m's as toppings! 
The cornflakes give the froyo a very nice crunch while the sour-ish strawberries balances the sweetness of the biscotti froyo. The m&m's were out of place IMO. Didn't go very well with the froyo, or maybe because I'm not used to eating chilled m&m's.

Above are waffles we ordered! It came with a mini froyo (we got biscotti again). What made this dessert very sweet was that we got it for half price! why? because it was raining! haha
Like I said, Noggi and Moochi are very popular - mostly among university students. Students, who mostly procrastinate and feel the need for more um... energy, for, you know... to study! haha 
Often the queue will be way out of the shop and onto the streets. so, to encourage people to visit, they offer some desserts for half price to compensate for the fact they have to wait in the rain. ;)

Noggi offers a few other flavours like original, pomegranate and blood orange too! If you haven't been, then go grab a few friends and head down to Strathfield and try some froyo! There's also a Noggi in Macquarie Park! :)

Lindt Chocolate Cafe

If you missed out father’s day last Sunday, it is never too late to show how much you love him. I have an excellent idea for you. 

I believe everyone in Australia knows Lindor which is one of the famous chocolates produced by Lindt and it’s easy to find in supermarket. Of course, I’m not telling you to just buy some chocolates in supermarket for your dad.  That is not enough!! I have another good idea, which is taking him to a wonderful place, sit down, have a chat and enjoy some chocolate desserts. 

The place I recommend is Lindt chocolate Café in Cockle Bay Wharf Darling harbour. It is a wonderful place that you can spend some time with your dad. You can choose to sit outside enjoying the sun and the harbour view or you can choose to sit inside to enjoy the conform seat.  I’m not a sunshine girl, so I like to sit inside and have some quiet time with my friends.

My favour dessert is Lindt Famous Waffle. This dessert served warm with fleshly made waffle top with vanilla white chocolate ice cream. The most exciting thing to do is to watching pouring the hot chocolate fudge sauce over the ice cream. When the hot sauce hits the cold ice cream and the sauce spread all over the waffle, your saliva is building and cant wait any longer to have a bite. When you put all three elements in your mouth at the same time, the taste of cold and hot combined together is incredible. I love this dessert so much. You should try it as well.  Also, there is a winter special flavour for this dessert, which is Hazelnut Waffle. I tried it as well, but not as good as the original one for my own taste.

Also, there are variety of cakes chocolates and macarons available as well. My friend ordered a chocolate Lava Cake.  It is a warm rich chocolate cake filled with hot melting chocolate sauce and vanilla white chocolate ice cream. It’s a nice cake as well.

If you not into cake and waffle, you can try some drinks. The hot/ cold chocolate is very good. There are 2 flavours of chocolate. You can either choose white chocolate flavour or dark chocolate flavour. Also, you will get the experience of mixing your own chocolate to your like. I personally love the dark chocolate which is rich and have a taste of bitterness.  

Before you leave, check out the retail chocolate section. There are lot of different type of chocolate block for sale and they are exclusive to Lindt chocolate café. You can not find them in any supermarkets.

Adriano Zumbo

Recently, I have been to Adriano Zumbo Patissier in Balmain. There is one of my favorite dessert shops in Sydney. Every time I go, there is always surprise waiting for me.

 If you watch Master Chef, I believe you would know who Adriano Zumbo is. He is one of the famous aussie pastry chef. I remembered when I first saw him; he was carrying a huge macaroon hill towards the contestants in Master Chef. Those macaroons look so very yummy and colorful. I can not stop thinking of it for the whole night. So I decided to find his shop and went there the next day.

The shop locates in the main street of Balmain. It is a small shop but easy to find. There are so many varieties of cakes and macarons to choose from. You may not see all  the flavours at the same time, because there are always different varieties available in different time. So this is the surprise and I never feel bored when I go there.

 Today, I tried a cake called “Happy Birthday”. This is one of the new flavours for this year. This cake is an ultimate chocolate brownie with flourless chocolate biscuit, chocolate sabayon mousse, white chocolate and passionfruit glaze. The balance of sweet and sour is just at the right balance It is so gorgeous and absolutely delicious. You are going to love it. The price may be a little expensive for some people, but worth to try.

Another famous sweet of this shop is macarons and they are my favorite. There is no excuse not getting any to try. I bought 6 flavours this time, which are blackened vanilla, salted butter popcorn, peach ice tea etc(can't remember them all). As you can see the picture on the left hand side, they are colourful and taste so wonderful. The sweetness of each macaron is just at the right balance. Love it!!! Also, if you love fruit flavour, you should try watermelon macaroon. It is so yummy!!! Also, just tell you the secret, those fruit flavour macarons are only available in certain time. So let’s go next time and test your luck! You may be the lucky one!!!

If you want to know more about the shop and deserts, here is the website: http://adrianozumbo.com/

Although Father's Day was yesterday, if you forgot about it! Don't worry, Go and grab some cakes or macarons to spoil your dad today!!

meet fresh!

Meet Fresh!

- a taste of traditional Taiwanese dessert.

So today was fathers day, and what better way to spoil your dad then to take him out for desserts? :)

So after the nice dinner in Hurstville, i took my dad to meet fresh - a cute little Taiwanese dessert shop at 236 Forest Rd, opposite the Commonwealth Bank.

My familty isn't a big fan of hot desserts so we decided to order cold ones, yes, even in this cold weather :)

Herbal Jelly (Cold: Herbal Ice+Taro Balls+Cream)

Firstly, do not get put off by the word HERBAL and think that it'll taste like medicine or something weird, because it turns out to be quite refreshing and sweet and does not have a herbal taste to it at all!

Settled at the bottom of the bowl is the herbal ice which acts as a sweet base to the toppings - chewy taro and tapioca balls. After adding the cream to it, the sweetness of the herbal ice is reduced to give a more rich taste that balances out the sweet chewy balls. Overall, the dessert is not extremely sweet, but has a natural sweetness that will have you craving for more. I would give this dessert a 8/10 - a great dessert for a laid back day where you don't want a sugar rush after pigging out :)

This also may be one of the desserts that can be classified as being slightly-healthy for you, so don't pass this opportunity to eat dessert as a healthy snack!

Supreme Mango crushed ice

Well, isn't this a beauty, not only to look at, but to indulge in!

This dessert has the best of the best ingediiants - Fresh mango pieces and infused with cream on top of crushed ice and a GIANT dollop of vanilla ice-cream on top. What more can you ask for? maybe more ice-cream? There is never too much ice-cream. haha. So for this dessert, the plain crushed ice gives the dessert the cold and crisp base in which blends with the sweet mango and creamy ice-cream to even out the texture and sweetness of the overall dessert. This dessert is quite rich in cream and doesn't have that natural revitalizing effect that the herbal jelly dish had, but nevertheless the fresh mangos and chewy tapioca balls makes the dessert fun and vibrant, giving a energising effect to those who eat it.

I would give this dessert a 8.5/10 - this is because ice-cream on any dessert will win me over :)

The desserts come in quite a large bowl and can often be shared by 2 people... if you are not hungry. The cost of these desserts range from $5-$7 which is considerably cheap for such quantity given - therefore i reckon is a good deal! 

Meet Fresh offers both hot and warm desserts as well as beverages and i will definitely be heading back there to try more of its sweet traditional desserts - possibly the tofu pudding dishes or Taro red bean crushed ice during the upcoming hot summer.

OH, and my dad loved the desserts as it was simple and not overly sweet. Because of this wonderful meal, i have come to the conclusion - i have secured my spot as his favourite child!... until next fathers day at least! hahahas.

Until next time, take care! ♥