Sydney Winter Holiday 2014: Adriano Zumbo Patisserie ~ Review

I may have went a little overboard on this...

A bit of a background story, the number one on my list of place to visit in Sydney is actually - Adriano Zumbo. My initial plan is to stop at their Star City branch and that's it but in the end, I went to visit all these: QVB, Bondi, and finally, Star City.

I came across his pastry shop a couple years back through a friend's Instagram in which she posted a photo of Adriano's Zonuts. It looked so good and, from that moment on, I made it my mission is to try this place the moment I land my first step in Sydney. On top of that, my sister's colleague has been pestering her about the goodness of Zumbarons.

It's branch at QVB is formed by 4 glass shelf in a rectangle shaped located conveniently in a middle of a pathway on the ground floor. It served limited number of pastries and macarons.

Let me just tell you that out of the many macarons I've tried in Singapore (including Laduree), nothing compares to Zumbarons. The texture of the shell is so crunchy and moist that the moment you bite into it, everything just crumble and melts in your mouth. Now I don't know if weather plays a part in it (like humidity and stuff), but, as of now, Zumbarons top my list as the #1 best macarons ever. 

The four flavours we got were:

Salted Butter Popcorn (left) and Salted Butter Caramel on Toast (right)

These two are my favourite. Period. The salted butter popcorn has this airy taste into it, like a whipped-cream kind of airy feel if you get what I mean. It has a hint of saltiness and mild sweetness to it. I thought turning popcorn into macaroon will make it taste so weird but I was wrong, so wrong. I am in love with this macaroon.

The Salted Butter Caramel on Toast is also just divine. The caramel filling is so sweet, thick and rich. This is how salted caramel should taste like - the salt should bring out the sweetness even more, not make the pastry taste salty. Bite into it and the caramel just melts in your mouth along with the shell.

Berry Brulee (left) and Toasted Marshmallow (right)

Berry Brulee marks number 3 on my list for awesome flavour. If you ever tried Adriano Zumbo's Tim Tam in Raspberry White Chocolate then you'll know how this taste like. Berry Brulee taste just like it. The berry essence with its slight sourness combined with the sweetness of white chocolate makes this into such a flavourful pastry.

Toasted Marshmallow is also quite good. The filling definitely has that sticky consistency and slightly airy taste of a melted marshmallow. A plus point on this one is that is not too sweet.

That's our first affair with Adriano Zumbo.

A few days later during our drive in Bondi, we came across their branch and just had to stop.

And voila... The damages made are these macarons and that Milo cake at the top..

Hmm I will say the milo cake is a so-so for me but the zumbarons.... well that's a different thing altogether :)

Among all those flavours, I still have to say my fav still goes to the salted butter popcorn, salted butter caramel on toast and the berry brûlée..

YUM!

Will be getting these when I'm there again!

A Year Journey

It's approximately a year since I started blogging and youtube-ing on and off...

I'm definitely not good at keeping up with my posts on both and am definitely been lazying around which is not good at all..

Things have been crazy but I'm just glad I still have people who constantly remind me of what I have started..

Hopefully there will be more constant flow of posts from now on..

If you wanna know more about my reflection, check out my video below..

For those who have been following and supporting me, thank you!

Adelaide Winter Holiday 2014 (Day 3): BBQ City Restaurant (Chinatown) ~ Review

For late lunch, we headed off to BBQ City Restaurant. We've been eyeing this place for a while after seeing the place being so crowded every evening.

As we enter, we were directly greeted and directed to our table. The staff attending to our order was very patient with us changing our minds here and there. Kudos for that. 

The food arrived shortly I found myself eating watching some game show and news from a few TVs pasted on the ceiling of the restaurant.

We decided on 4 dishes that day (with 1 I totally forgot to take picture of).

Braised Chicken Fillet with Seasonal Vegetables

The chicken was very tender and sweet while the vegetables are cooked just nice - still crispy and green. The sauce has some white wine infused inside it which makes the dish taste sweet and savoury. Eat this with rice to balance out the flavour.

Shredded Beef in Peking Style 

Of course I had to order this for comparison. The BBQ city version really good. The meat is tender and crispy. The sauce covered every inch of the beef and shredded carrot. The carrot was crunchy enough. It was as comparable or even better than those I had in Kam Fook.

Ma Bo Tofu

Another really great dish. The dish was very flavourful thanks to the spicy savoury sauce that covers the vegetables and minced meat. The tofu was smooth and tasty, the mushroom was soft and chewy while the carrot and baby corn adds crunch and sweetness into the dish. Will recommend this dish if you're looking for a nice hearty vegetable dish.

One dish that's missing a picture is their Yang Zhou Fried Rice which can actually be found on the right corner of the Ma Bo Tofu picture. I haven't had a very savoury, rich and flavourful fried rice like this in a while. The BBQ pork bits in the rice add some sweetness into the dish while contrasting the saltiness from the egg and the crunch from the shallots.

I can totally understand why BBQ City is a favourite among the locals. They offered really tasty, nice Chinese food. The taste is really close to the food I have here in Singapore's Chinese restaurants.The location is very strategic and there are ample seating spot as well. The price was quite affordable too. A good place for dining-in or even takeaway.

Adelaide Winter Holiday 2014 (Day 3): Taste Baguette Rundle Street ~ Review

My sister decided to start the day a little late and head out for brunch and shopping on Rundle street. To fill up our tummy, we decided to stop on Taste Baguette which looks like a really nice place to hang out. 

As we were looking through the menu, a friendly staff came over and was patient enough to wait for us to settle our order. She also pointed us to the rear seat, which is a more comfy place to chill.

Besides seating on the outside and a two-seater on the alley, they have more seating options at the rear, which is where we were seated.

I must say the food is quite affordably priced.

I'm loving the rustic, wooden, industrial-inspired design in this place. The place looks messily put together (is that how you describe it?) Anyway, this place just have a really cool vibe into it. Turn left before the white door at the end and you'll find more seating spot.

This is the seating area at the rear and there I was seating in the really cool corner (call me cheesy, weird or whatever but I like my seat). I'm loving the unfinished touch they put here with all the bricks, woods and cement details. It's a pretty cosy and comfy place to chill. 

My seat corner

And my sister on the opposite side

Below are the dishes and drinks we got:

Coffee: According to the cup, seems this branch is serving coffee from Toby's estate. I am not a good judge of coffee and I am jumping into conclusion because I feel that all the coffees I had in Australia are awesome. I must say that Australia can do no wrong with coffee. They taste smooth and the ingredients accompanying them taste fresh (milk, chocolate and etc). 

I think once you had coffee in Australia, you can never go back. Enough rambling. 

Latte. I really like the milkiness of this latte.

Cappuccino. Love the sweetness from the chocolate. Probably the sweetest cappuccino we had. 

These two coffee were very smooth and very nice. 

Now for the food:

After having that super awesome Lamington in Bourke Street Bakery, I've been yearning for another slice of it so when I saw these on the window, I had to get it.

Unfortunately this was an utter disappointment. The cake is so dry and so not fresh. Seemed like it has been sitting around for at least a day. The coconut flakes had a rough texture, the chocolate coating seemed to have seen better days and the sponge cake inside, OMG, so dry :( Everything in this just spells dry. Total disappointment.

Before I jump into the dish, let me tell you what happened the moment it came. So... I found an eyelash on the edge of my wooden plate. Was kinda disgusted to take a picture of specifically for it. The wooden plate though from afar look appealing, it didn't once you look closely into it. There were so many cutting marks and it looked like the plate was really difficult to clean properly. As cool as it looks, I was thrown off by the hygiene aspect. Maybe it's time to change to a plate?

Anyway this is the Scrambled Egg and Smoked Salmon Baguette with Rocket Salad.
This scrambled egg is by far the best among all scrambled eggs I've tried along this trip. The texture was very moist, soft and eggy. The salt and pepper seasoning was also pretty decent. The smoked salmon and the rocket salad were quite fresh too. Combined together, the runny eggy scrambled eggs contrast well with the crisp of the rocket and the cold salty smoked salmon.

Let's not forget the baguette because they were really the star of the show. The baguette taste very fresh. It had a nice hint of sweetness to it. The bread was perfectly baked - so crispy and crunchy on the outside and warm and soft on the inside. These people do know how to make good baguette and this is probably the best baguette I've tried as of yet.

Poached Egg Baguette with crispy bacon topped with homemade hollandaise. The dish is completed with some baby spinach leave. I honestly prefer this dish compare to the scrambled eggs. Really like the combination of the runny poached egg, sweet and sour hollandaise sauce, salty and savoury bacon plus the freshness of the spinach and the baguette. This bacon was definitely more crispy that the ones I had at Cafe etc. The baguette here, again, was awesome. awesome. awesome. 

So, in conclusion, will I recommend this place? Well I wouldn't mind going there again but I will stick to a cup of coffee and a baguette dish that will not require me to use any utensils. And I will skip all the pastries and stick to the baguettes. Please work on the hygiene part, I love your location, interior design, coffee, and baguette. 

From further research, I just found out this place is Vietnamese cuisine inspired. Now I really wanna try their twist on Vietnamese banh mi. 

Adelaide Winter Holiday 2014 (Day 2): Sammy's on the Marina ~ Review

My brother has been recommending me this place non-stop since he discovered it last year. In his opinion, this place by has the best fried calamari he has ever tasted. My brother has, I think, an even better palate than me so I gotta trust him on this on. So after an afternoon of nostalgic moments, we headed to the Marina.

The place is located at the end corner of the marina and it has a great view of the ocean. Sadly we went there on the evening and we can see nothing but darkness and dim lighting from the outside. It was a rather quite weekday evening with only 3-4 tables filled. I suggest you made a reservation, especially on the weekends, before heading there though since it's kinda like a fine dining place. 

We were the first to arrive and was greeted by the Manager. Seems that he cannot speak English properly hmmm.. 

 Here are the dishes we got:

Trio House Dips (AU$16.00 + AU$2.00 (for add sauce))

We were all obsessed with this. The pita was very warm, soft and well seasoned. It was well toastead as the outer layer was slightly crispy. The dips were also very, very yummy. Our favourite was the onion feta dip which we asked for additional of. We were surprised that they charged $2 for an extra tiny sauce plate of this dip. Usually in Singapore, if there's additional cost for anything, we will be told before hand so we were quite surprise about this.

Salt and Pepper Calamari (the one my brother has been talking non-stop) (AU$17.50)

Okay I have to say my brother was right about this. This fried calamari is definitely something. It had the softest, most chewy texture ever. It is so easy to bite and sink your teeth into. I've never had anything like this. The batter was also well seasoned and evenly coats the calamari pieces. This dish beats every fried calamari dish I've ever tried. So so chewable. So so soft. It did not lose that calamari texture at all. Seems that the secret behind this is that they steamed the calamari before frying it.

Sammy's Seafood Taste Plate (AU$44.90)

Sammy's specialty is suppose to be their seafood platter but it's so huge and kind of steep so we decided on the taste plate instead. Not a fan of this though. Skip this.. The oyster, the prawn and the whitebait are not fresh. The whitebait is the worst, it tasted so fishy and it's not crispy at all. This plate is a total disappointment. The only highlight is the salt n pepper calamari which u might as well order separately.

Cone Bay Barramundi (AU$35.90)

This was a pretty okay dish. The combination of the potato, steamed vegetables, carrot puree and the spicy salsa was a nice compliment to the fish, giving it a spicy and lightness feel into the dish. The fish was pretty soft but you can taste the smelly un-fresh-ness in it. Had only the fish is more fresh, this dish would’ve been perfect.

Aussie Favourite (AU$38.90)

This dish came with crumbed King George whiting, prawn, calamari, and fries all deep fried. It's pretty so-so for me. The squid was not fresh at all, it tasted really fishy. This squid was a total opposite to the awesome fried calamari. The Whitings and the prawn were not fresh either. What saved this dish was how the batter and breadcrumbs were well seasoned and coated the food perfectly. According to my dad, the crumb "cleanly" coated the seafood.  

Final verdict: Will I recommend this place? I only recommend it for the Trio House Dips and Salt & Pepper Calamari, especially the Salt & Pepper Calamari. Skip everything else. The quality of the seafood was bad, I mean almost all the dishes served were not fresh. Seafood is not good if it's not fresh. Not good at all.  Was it because it was on a weekday evening where they were not expecting guest? Then again, that's not a decent excuse.... 

Work on the freshness of the seafood please. There's just now way (or super difficult) to conceal bad seafood. Oh and for the price we pay, this is unacceptable. We paid a total of close to $160 dollars.

A sunset view you can expect around Sammy's

Adelaide Winter Holiday 2014 (Day 2): Dad's Old Dorm and Glenelg Beach

Day 2 is also filled with walking down the memory lane moment for my dad. He went to uni here so long ago and today he showed us the places he frequent.

I'm not sure if I'll get flagged if I showed too many details so I'll just share some bits to you all.

So this is my dad's old dorm and I just think it is so cool. 

This is the view near the area.

And I'd like to show you what I wear on that day. This is a Sportsgirl sweater that I found on sale with Giordano buttoned up collared white shirt. Jcrew jeans and Wittner Boots.

After a short trip here, we head to Glenelg beach where my dad supposedly rent a beach house along with his friends for the next couple years of their uni life. Okay, I must say I am beyond jealous right now because my uni life consist of 4 years living in SG with my family -.-

Though I don't think I should show you where it is since there's a tenant at the place now, at least I can show you the beautiful Glenelg Beach's sunset.

Tell me this doesn't look like cotton candy in the sky

Off to dinner at Sammy's

Adelaide Winter Holiday 2014 (Day 2): Cafe East Terrace Continental (etc) ~ Review

A long morning walk calls for a hearty breakfast. 

So here we are at Cafe East Terrace Continental or etc in short.

It was a public holiday and the place was so packed despite the ample seating they have. This is probably the largest cafe I've seen so far in my trip. They have 2 storeys indoor seating and a row of seats on the outside (seen above). 

Despite the chaotic and busy day, the waitresses are very helpful in assisting us to find seats and reserving it for us while we made our order. How this place works is you order at the counter and the food will be served to your table regardless of where you're seated. The staffs definitely know their table numbers because when I mixed up my number, they still know which one I was talking about and send my food straight to my table. Thumbs up for that. Despite the chaotic-ness, we'd probably spend just around 10-15 minutes for our dishes to come. Pretty good. 

This place is suppose to have Wi-Fi but unfortunately on that day they were having some issue with it. 

An overall view of everything we got: 2 glasses of orange juice and 3 main courses.

So here's the details: 

The Works. Really really generous portion. The spicy, salty flavour from the chorizo sausage, the super generous portion of bacon, the warm crispy and soft toasts combined with the perfectly poached eggs are just divine. The bacon can be more crispy, but I am so not complaining because I kinda like the ham-like texture on this bacon. The plate was also really full with sautéed mushroom, unfortunately I do not like this kind of mushroom. Now I'm not too sure what kind of mushroom is this but it's definitely not button mushroom. If you're a lover of all kinds of mushroom, you'll be really with the amount of mushroom given here (because I like that). The roasted tomato is also really really tasty with the nice balance of sweet and salty. This is a huge deal coming from a girl who dislike tomatoes. Oh and kudos to the hash brown :) I wish all breakfast dish have this crunchy warm potato stuff. Sadly, out of all the breakfast brunch dish I've had throughout my trip, this is probably the first I have hash brown in my plate. So happy about this because the hash brown is not disappointing :)Two thumbs up for this dish.

The Royals, an off-of-the menu dish written on the blackboard that day. This dish comprises of chorizo sausage, chilli oil, poached egg, rockets, and toast. Now I don't know if this is my Asian roots talking but I must say this dish probably beat The Works in terms of tastiness. I'm guessing they fry the chorizo with some of the chilli oil which brings out the salty, spicy taste of this sausage even more. Topped this off with the gooey poached egg, pepper-y taste from the rockets and eat those together with your toast = you have a perfect combination right there! Make this dish permanent please :)

This is Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Salmon. I seem to have this trend of ending food reviews with the so-so or skip dish -.- While the poached egg is perfectly cooked, I have a different opinion about the scrambled eggs - these are quite dry and bland. In fact, I can see some of the small bits stuck together. Seems like this scrambled eggs has been left in the heat (aka pre-cooked) for a while causing it to be dry. The smoked salmon on the other hand feels fresh and taste great.

Ah the freshly squeezed orange juice - really applaud them for the freshness. How do I know if this is legit? Well, we ordered two and 1 is sweeter than the other. The sweet taste definitely comes from the fruit itself; I don't taste any artificial sugar. On and a random claim, I really like the thick sturdy spiral silver straw :)

Entrance and exit door for the second floor

If given the chance to visit Adelaide again, I will definitely stop by this place again.