happy mothers' day

Here are 2 recipes that always remind me of my Mum.

Curry puffs

These are deliciously moreish, particularly fresh out of the oven. So typically there was a huge dent in the number that we planned to take to get-togethers (often along with another family favourite, mango pudding).

You'll need:

500g beef mince
2-3 medium sized potatoes
1 small can of coconut cream
1 onion, diced
3 tablespoons of your favourite curry powder
3 sheets of puff pastry
1 egg

1. Boil potatoes until soft, then mash to the consistency that you like. I prefer my potatoes a bit chunky still for that added texture, but a smoother consistency would make the puffs easier to fill.
2. Brown onion on the stove until fragrant.
3. Add mince and stir until cooked.
4. Add potatoes, coconut cream and curry powder and stir to combine.
5. Simmer mince mixture or 5 minutes or so, or until thick.
6. Place mince mixture aside to cool until at least room temperature.
7. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
8. Cut puff pastry into squares (either 9 or 16 is fine - 9's will hold more, 16's are, in my opinion, cuter but trickier to fill).
9. Place approximately one teaspoon of filling into each square and fold into a triangle (rectangles, like tiny sausage rolls, also works well).
10. To prevent the filling bursting out of the pastry in an unattractive fashion, use a fork to press down each of the open sides of the triangle/rectangle. I was too lazy this time round.
11. Brush each puff with egg.
12. Bake for approximately 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.
13. Cool on a wire rack and watch them disappear!

You'll often end up with more than enough filling for 3 sheets of pastry, depending on the size of the potatoes and how full you make the puffs - the leftover filling is delicious with rice.

Rice crispies - adapted from this recipe

You'll need:

3 cups of rice bubbles
1 packet of marshmallows (I've used packets of varying sizes and they all turn out ok)
50g of butter

1. Melt marshmallows and butter in a pan until combined.
2. Pour over rice bubbles and stir to combine.
3. Press mixture into lined lamington tray and refrigerate until set.
4. Cut into fingers and enjoy.

You can add some nuts and/or Milo for variety, but I find that the Milo makes it overly sweet.

Hope you all have a great day :) Thanks for everything, Mum!

lindt chocolate cafe, martin place, city

How good does this look?

This is apparently a new dessert at Lindt (according to their website) - the Mousse Trio. I experienced a serious case of food envy on this dish's arrival. Jealousy never lasts long though between true friends, and a get-together with high school buddies was the reason why we were at the Lindt Cafe late on a Saturday afternoon.

Not as photogenic, but just as delicious - the chocolate eclair

Which also features in the background of this shot of the hot fudge sundae. Amongst our other orders - hot chocolates (both milk and dark), a Rosella declice (mmm, ginger cream) and some sort of cake that I've now forgotten the name of... sorry!

So now that we've got the niceties out of the way, I have to have a word about the service. I never remembered it being quite so bad (having been a regular there when I was studying down the road). The waitress, faced with the prospect of having to seat 6 of us, snapped, "6 people? That's a large table", as though we were really putting her out in some way. Then she recommended a cake to my friend which turned out to be sold out. Lastly, she brought 4 cups of water when there were clearly 6 of us at the table, and it wasn't even as though 2 of us had ordered drinks and the others had not, so that only 4 of us didn't have anything to drink. Yes, it was a busy Saturday afternoon and maybe (a) we were taking the waitress' comment way too personally; (b) the last serving of the cake that she recommended to my friend got snapped up just as my friend ordered it and (c) we could have easily asked for more glasses of water, but I was quite disappointed considering that the place holds itself out as such as classy institution. The icing on the cake was when she plonked down the bill without any form of ceremony (and without us asking for it, and without there being any form of queue at the door waiting for a table)... to her credit, she did say "whenever you're ready" (probably because she saw me make a face. Yes, I don't hold back if I see something I don't like).

I'm open to being convinced otherwise, but I don't think we'll be heading back in a hurry.



Lindt Chocolate Cafe
53 Martin Place
Sydney NSW 2000

(02) 8257 1600


Also at George Street, Darling Harbour and Miranda Westfield

Open 7 days - Mondays to Fridays 7:30am to 6pm, weekends 10am to 6pm

chat thai, haymarket

Fish and chips? A chiko roll? Or an even more cliche take-away?

My friend Z and I met up today for lunch at one of my old haunts, the food court below Woolworths at Park Street. I used to work in a building nearby, and the beef noodles are just as I remember. As is the minimalist setting of what my old workmates used to call the place - "Salmonella City". In all the times I've eaten there, I have to say I've never got sick. Touch wood that that isn't about to change now!

After finishing lunch, my friend said, "let's get dessert!" I responded with predictable enthusiasm, and we started heading towards Mizuya where they have 50c green tea ice cream cones at lunchtimes (at least they did about a month ago, can someone confirm if they still do?) Then, suddenly, my friend said, "what about Chat Thai?"

That girl is a genius.

I've been to Chat Thai once before (after making a booking) and it was very good. So packed though. We tried to go once more (without a booking) and decided not even to try waiting it out. I still remember my soup-based dessert from the first (and until today, only) visit though - utterly delicious. I know one of my regular commenters here (in fact the only commenter!) loves soup-based desserts, but unfortunately for her I can't remember exactly what was in it. Tee hee.

Now, my friend had her heart initially set on some sort of fried dough to be dipped into kaya (coconut jam), which she said she'd thought about getting once before when she was by herself, but had decided it was too big for one person and got an egg tart from Ho's Kitchen Dim Sum instead. This is where I beg to differ from my friend - how can one dessert ever be too big for one person?? :)). But it turned out they only sell those between 10am to 12 noon. We got there at around 1:30pm so had a choice of about 5 different desserts (which change again at 4pm! So make sure you turn up at the right time to get your choice!). It appears that the website menu doesn't include desserts, so I can only give you the number of what we eventually chose - this is the number 2 dessert on the 12 noon to 4pm  dessert menu, which was described as some sort of coconut dessert crisped up on a griddle. It cost us $6 for a box of 8 and came packed in the cute little box as above.

"Can you smell it?" my friend asked as we squeezed our way out of the restaurant onto the street. "Mmm, coconut..." I responded. We opened the box up and it struck me that they looked a lot like 雞蛋仔 but slightly larger and in separate pieces. Then we each took one and bit into little pieces of heaven. Imagine smooth, silky coconut cream encased in crispy, crunchy shells of slightly charred goodness.

Only problem?

"Hot! So hot!" We made our way back towards my friend's workplace waving our hands in front of our mouths as the coconut cream scalded our tounges. But it was so worth it. It's good I don't work any closer, otherwise I can imagine ducking out at 10am every morning to get a dessert from the 10am to 12 noon selection, then dropping in again at 12 noon to try something from the 12 noon to 4pm selection, then just after 4pm for something for afternoon tea. Despite the distance, Chat Thai, and your slightly distracted waitstaff (we asked the waitress at the counter about 3 times to place our order... but to their credit as soon as they actually acknowledged it, our order came very quickly), I'll sacrifice my work hour (and my waistline!) for you.

Chat Thai

20 Campbell Street

Haymarket NSW 2000

Also at Galeries Victoria (where chapflap said he once got dessert from, but it wasn't as good as the Haymarket one), Randwick and Manly

You can find more information here, but there don't seem to be dessert menus unfortunately

We saw a sign there that said it was going to be 20% off on Monday 26 April I think because it's their 20 year anniversary. So get prepared for it to be even more packed (if that's even possible?!)

recent happenings

I've recently re-discovered origami.

I blame it on this acquisition from our last trip to HK. I've been consulting Pangu's source in preparation for further acquisitions during my next trip in August.

Now, I'm working on flowers that you can learn to make too here.

Otherwise, we had this lovely orange and fig cake from Black Star Pastry which I dragged chapflap to after reading this. $36 and utterly delicious, we'll have to head back another time for the watermelon cake and the ginger ninjas. The garden gnome chair featured in NQN's post is also still there. I would recommend taking the train there though as the parking there is a bit hair-raising, with cars parked on both side of very narrow streets so that they are effectively turned into one-way thoroughfares. Definitely worth a visit, both for the sweet treats and the writing on the wall on a wooden fence back from Black Star admonishing passer-bys that it's not a trough.

Black Star Pastry
277 Australia Street (just behind where the Newtown markets are held)
Newtown NSW 2042

(02) 9557 8656

You can possibly find more information here - as of the date of publishing this post the site was still under construction

kakawa chocolates, east sydney

A return trip to Kakawa for mango and passionfruit pralines, as well as green tea. Mmmm....

A gift box for chapflap. Apparently the macadmias and meringues from last time were a big hit with his colleagues. From left to right, he's getting a mango and passionfruit, a green tea, a bluberry and yoghurt (I'd be intrigued to find out what this tastes like!) and a raspberry. The blueberry and yoghurt and raspberry pralines are milk chocolate.

A gift box for me :) From left to right, mango and passionfruit, green tea, thai basil and lychee. Both the thai basil and lychee are in dark chocolate, otherwise I would've got the lychee for chapflap as well.

I've just had part of the thai basil one (I confess it was because I didn't remember what the 3rd one was that I chose!) and it is divine. Gift boxes of 4 pralines are $8 each, otherwise you can get pralines individually (unboxed) for $1.80. The people there are lovely, and I read a SMH clipping that was in the front window which describes who they are.

Jin Sun slipped me a bonus peanut butter treat in the bag for me as well, which was delicious. The next time I'm back (which I inevitable will be... so close to my office, and so yum!)  I've got my eyes set on the salted caramel praline, after still having lingering memories of the salted caramels at Rockpool (even though I went there for a work Christmas lunch... what, 2 years ago now?).

Kakawa reminds me a bit of Boon Chocolates - it'd be dangerous though if they too had a seating area for drinking hot chocolates, because I mightn't end up spending much time in the office during winter. I'd really like to see boutique chocolate places like these succeed, because it's obvious that they're really passionate about their product and work their butts off to deliver.

Kakawa Chocolates

147 William Street

East Sydney NSW 2011

(02) 9331 8818

Open Mondays to Saturdays

You can find more information here

accidental brownies

Mum made Almond Roca the other day. Well, not the trademarked-comes-in-a-box almond roca, but a toffee-almond-chocolate concoction that tasted remarkably like the addictive stuff.

Upon my return to the big smoke, I thought I'd give it a try too. I found this recipe and thought, "right, a stick of butter, does that mean the whole 250g pack that we get in Australian supermarkets?" If only I'd checked this out first...

So after putting the entire 250g pack in, I was left with a fudge-like substance that didn't resemble my Mum's creation at all. Oops.

Solution? Turn it into brownies! 

I usually use a brownie recipe from my ever-trusty Kid's Cookbook - this is adapted from the Donna Hay Modern Classics cookbook.

Ingredients

250g butter

1 and 3/4 cup brown sugar

1 packet of Coles slivered almonds (125g?)

1 packet Old Gold dark chocolate (400g)

1 cup plain flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1. Line a lamington tin with baking paper.

2. Melt butter in pan and stir in brown sugar until it dissolves. Stir continuously for 7 minutes, just like the about.com recipe says, and then ask Mum "why doesn't it thicken?" Mum then says, "no! My recipe said to leave it alone and wait until it thickens." Sigh in over-exasperated fashion.

3. Melt chocolate in microwave. It took my microwave about 2 minutes on medium power.

4. Leave butter and brown sugar mixture alone. Create glass of ice-cold water on Mum's instructions. Drop tiny bits of toffee mixture into water until it forms a droplet rather than dissipates into the water. Get excited.

5. Stir almonds into toffee mixture.

6. Pour toffee mixture into lined lamington tin.

7. Pour chocolate over toffee mixture. Wonder why the toffee seems to be separating into toffee and butter.

8. Place lamington tin into freezer as per about.com recipe instructions.

9. Retrieve lamington tin from freezer 20 minutes later and present to Mum in dismay.

10. Find Donna Hay cookbook and stir eggs together with flour and baking powder in medium mixing bowl.

11. Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius.

11. Pour in mass from lamington tin into mixing bowl and stir until combined.

12. Pour mixture into lamington tin once again.

13. Wait until little red light switches off on oven, meaning oven is ready to accept foods. Place lamington tin into oven and hope for the best.

14. Bake for approximately 40 minutes or until skewer comes out clean when inserted into centre.

In the end they turned out ok. Lesson to learn? Mother knows best...

adriano zumbo cafe, balmain

We've been a little behind the rest of the Sydney foodblog crowd in making it to Adriano Zumbo Cafe, but it's been worth the wait. The first time we went was Valentine's Day (awww), when we had the chocolate brownie and orange hot chocolate, both of which were delish. Picked up 2 lovely boxes of macarons from the Patisserie too. Speaking of macarons, chapflap picked up a box for me recently from St Germain Patisserie in Redfern on this recommendation. Yum.

Recently we headed back after a leisurely lunch at the Oaks in Neutral Bay (cook your own steak! Fun!) with friends. I had the 5-6-7-8:

Chapflap had Miss Marple Deconstructed:

While the Serial Monogamist enjoyed the La Vie En Rose (Antioxidant's Weekend in the Cross in the background... sorry, no photo of the trippy watermelon dust!):

And the Washingtonienne, It's Not a Hamburger:

If only parking in Balmain wasn't so expensive :(

Oaks Hotel
118 Military Road (cnr Ben Boyd Road)
Neutral Bay NSW 2089

Adriano Zumbo Cafe
Shop 5, 308 Darling Street
Balmain NSW 2040

Adriano Zumbo Patsserie
296 Darling Street
Balmain NSW 2040

St Germain Patisserie
88 Rosehill Street
Redfern NSW 2016

sweet infinity, woolloomooloo

I will miss this beautiful bakery when I finish at my current job next year. Just wanted to alert everyone to the fact that they've started making one of my favourite things in the world - arancini, aka delicious rice balls. They make bolognaise, chicken and spinach and ricotta, all for the bargain basement price of $5 each. Haven't had the chance to try one yet because they were all sold out when I headed back to get one for lunch after spotting them on a morning macaroon run. My workmate liked her bolognaise one so much though that she went back for a chicken one in the afternoon!

Update 2 December 2009: finally got my hands on a spinach and ricotta arancini on my third attempt! Went at 10:30am on a Wednesday morning after being told at 11:30am on Tuesday that they didn't make them that day. It was worth the multiple attempts at procurement! Delicious!

Sweet Infinity
53 Riley St (near William Street)
Woolloomooloo NSW 2011

(02) 9331 2448

Open 7am-4pm Mondays to Fridays
7am-1pm Saturdays

Get more information here

While you're there, check out the scrumptious cakes like the chocolate honeycomb cake (so want that for my birthday next year) and lemon meringue pies (available in snack and meal size...!) And they're donating all profits from sales on Saturday 5 December to the Sydney Children's Hospital (I read it in the Sun Herald, there doesn't seem to be anything up on their website about it). All the more reason for a visit :)

the chocolate room, city

Do we really need another chocolate cafe in the city? I would have to answer that with a resounding "yes" - we can never have too much chocolate, right? Spotted this place on the corner of Sussex and Bathurst Streets on our way to a movie. Apparently it's only been open for a week, and is the second Chocolate Room in Sydney (the other one's in Parramatta).

We had waffles for 2 ($14) and a iced hazlenut chocolate ($6) - 3 cakes of waffley goodness smothered in chocolate sauce and strawberries washed down with a frothy ferrero rocher-like drink. The iced chocolates come in 20 flavours, and I'm intrigued to find out what the difference is between iced chocolates and chocshakes (apart from the price - chocshakes are $7). Next time, I suppose...

Also picked up 3 individual "Spark" chocolates for $2 each. The shapes of the individual chocolates remind me of Boon, but the patterns aren't as fine.

Update 2 December 2009: the Spark chocolate lived up to its description of "an explosive finish"! It had pop rocks/ wizz fizz or something in it. Nice. The chocolate was a bit gooey though despite the weather cooling down recently - low melting point perhaps?

The Chocolate Room
298 Sussex St (corner with Bathurst St)
Sydney NSW 2000

(02) 9269 0004

Find out more here

Open 8:30am - 11pm every day

Also at Shop 11/15 Phillip St, Parramatta NSW 2150 (and in India!)

boon chocolates, darlinghurst

Boon Chocolates was recently featured in SMH and I've also seen it mentioned elsewhere on the web (for example on herecomesthefood). We went early on a Friday night before a late dinner and enjoyed the cosy atmosphere. There are only a few tables upstairs for eating in - it almost felt like sitting in someone's lounge room.

Hot chocolate is served with a deliciously light chocolate mousse and a praline. It was fairly dark upstairs so I didn't bother trying to photograph the drinks, but here's some shots of what we brought home:

Gift box of 5 pralines. I remember the pralines individually were $1.75, but I don't remember how much they were with the gift box and everything. Gift boxes of 8 and more also available.


One of these two chocolates is the Schubert, which features Earl Grey Tea. The other is the Jasmine, which has jasmine tea in it. Alex, who runs the place with his sister, told us that there's also a Mahler chocolate for the other classical music lovers out there. He named the Schubert because of how the flavour stays with you after you've finished it, just like Schubert's music.

Arabica, with coffee.

The gorgeous Janne, with rose.

Kurobiko, with rice crispies!!

The passion that Fanny has for the chocolates is really evident, especially in the elaborate perfume bottles made with chocolate that sit in the display drawers. It's worth dropping by just to see them.

Boon Chocolates
251 Victoria Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010

(02) 9356 8876

You can find more information here

Open Tuesdays and Wednesdays 12 midday to 8:30pm
Thursdays to Satudays 12 midday to 10:30pm
Sundays 12 midday to 7pm
Closed Mondays

Street parking available close by; note that the section of Victoria Street that Boon is on is a one way street

sweetness the patisserie, epping

Look where we went this weekend :)

Sweetness the Patisserie was recently featured in the Good Living section of the Sydney Morning Herald (you can see a reproduction of the article in Beansprout's Cafe), but we discovered its sugary goodness earlier at the Rouse Hill markets. I was so excited to find out at the North Sydney markets that Gena planned to open a retail store in Epping. It's now open for business, and was quite a hubbub of activity on the Saturday afternoon that we dropped in...

Hazlenut and cranberry nougat (150 grams) - $7.50. Also available in 300 grams ($13.50). Gena cut a new batch of this while we watched. So fresh, so delicious...

The ever-popular mallows. In 385 gram bags ($15)...


And 150 gram bags ($7.50). Flavours vary from season to season - chapflap was disappointed to find they weren't making mango at the moment, but we did enjoy the strawberry, raspberry, passionfruit, lime and vanilla mallows currently available.

I would've loved there to be a cafe on site to try the biscuits and cakes straight away, but at the moment the premises is mainly an open kitchen with a small retail section at the front. You'll just have to tear open your packages in the car, like we did!

Sweetness the Patisserie
38 Oxford Street
Epping NSW 2121

(02) 9869 3801

Open Mondays-Wednesdays and Fridays 8:30am to 5:30pm
Thursdays 8:30am to 8:00pm
Saturdays 8:30am to 5:00pm
Closed Sundays

You can see more information here

Street parking available in front of the store. Epping station is about a 5 minute walk away.

hiatus

As you can readily see, this blog hasn't been updated since January - basically when I started full time work. Apologies.

Here are some highlights from the past couple of months:

Green tea marshmallow, Tetsuya's, Sydney - chapflap and I went for Valentine's Day; it was a lovely night capped off by 4 courses of dessert. My kind of restaurant...!

Macarons, Sweet Infinity, "East Sydney" - continuing the dessert theme, these gorgeous pink temptations lure me into this patisserie on a regular basis. Sometimes they're fluoro pink, sometimes they're a baby girl pink - I've been told that it just depends on the mood of the baker on the day. Delicious with a coffee and a sure-fire way to make the afternoon just a bit more bearable. East Sydney is in quotations because according to Australia Post it's not a real suburb; despite that we use it for all our work correspondence with no problems.

Eggplant with honey, Soni's, Newtown - an unusual combination which worked. The other big hit of the night was glasses of rosé; I went with the Madame Special cocktail instead. Yum.

Hummus, Sultan's Table, Enmore - "Sultan's Table?" my cousin asked when I told her where we were going for dinner that night, "isn't that where all the foodbloggers go?" Nooo, I exercised a completely free choice in selecting where to head before seeing Shane Warne: The Musical (see it before the season finishes, it's great!) The mixed plate of dips was colourful and flavoursome - will have to head back soon for more hummus (my favourite dip of the night) and to try some baklava (was too full that night). Definitely book ahead - we saw so many people get turned away (it was a Saturday night) - but if you can't get a seat, you could always get take-away...

Mother's Day lunch, Athol Hall, Bradleys Head - this function centre located just beyond Taronga Zoo has wonderful views and delicious food. We attemped to walk off our 3-course feast afterwards by wandering around the boardwalk just below the restaurant. Even though it's mainly a function centre, the place does serve lunch/afternoon tea Tuesday to Friday and Sunday. Highly recommended, but call ahead to double check that they're not closing for a function or fully booked (as the balcony where they serve lunch/afternoon tea is fairly compact).

Graduation dinner, Zilver, Sydney - after 5 long years, I was very grateful to be joined by family (including relatives from overseas) and friends in celebrating my graduation. There's a minimum charge of $650 if you want a private room, which we easily met because we had a table of 14, as well as a karaoke room if you're into that kind of thing and mahjong tables available for an additional $50 (the restaurant opens at 5pm for dinner, so you can get in a couple of rounds before you eat). Above average Cantonese fare matched by good service, this is also nice for yum cha because it serves more interesting dim sum than your typical prawn dumplings and siu mai. You can see a rather trippy photo from the dinner here at my cousin's blog :)

Now, here's hoping I won't make you wait another 4 months before another post...

guylian cafe, the rocks

Can a city have too many chocolate cafes? After reading posts by grabyourfork, herecomesthefood, the delectable delight and eat like a cow, we eventually made it to the Guylian Cafe at the Rocks. An iced mocha and chocolate set us back $7 each, although I was a little disappointed that you couldn't choose to have milk or dark chocolate. There are specialty drinks that feature milk or dark chocolate, so I suppose you have to go for them if you want the choice. I liked the coffee beans on my iced mocha, and the iced chocolate definitely tasted like Guylian seashells. Yum!

Guylian Chocolate Cafe
91 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000

(02) 8274 7500

Also at Shop 10, Opera Quays
3 Macquarie Street
Sydney NSW 2000

(02) 8274 7900

Open 7 days from 8am until late

mango pudding

This is a family favourite that we often take to bring-a-plate get-togethers. I think its popularity has something to do with the fluorescent orange-ness of it, combined with the smooth texture of the jelly and of course delicious mango sweetness. Once you try the home-made version you'll stop ordering it at yum cha!

You'll need:

2 medium-sized mangoes (you can try using tinned mangoes if you're desperate, but they don't quite taste the same)
2 packets mango jelly powder
500ml hot water
2 eggs
180 ml (1 small can) evaporated milk or 2/3 cup normal milk

To make:



1. Combine the two packets of mango jelly with the hot water. We like the Aeroplane Jelly brand - somehow the mango flavoured packets only appear sporadically at our local supermaket, so we stock up when we can!



2. Chop the mango into small cubes.



3. Combine the eggs and milk. The evaporated milk is more traditional and gives a slightly different flavour, but normal milk is fine (and some people prefer the taste that the normal milk gives).



4. Wait until the jelly mixture cools to at least body temperature, and then add the egg and milk mixture and mango into the jelly mixture. If the jelly mixture is too hot you'll end up with bits of cooked egg in jelly, kind of like a Chinese egg flower soup. Not really the look you're going for with mango pudding.



5. Pour entire mixture into a container and put in the fridge for at least 4 hours. This is our trusty mango pudding container which has been around as long as I can remember - but any container is fine.

Enjoy!