Zumbo

I'VE FINALLY BOUGHT SOME ZUMBARONS! so happy (: i've been wanting them since i first saw them on masterchef in 2009. first time buying macarons from a patisserie which featured on masterchef (: 

i earned some money today helping with some psych research, and i paid them with my own money, so it feels even more satisfying! 

the star wasn't as far as i thought it would be, it's just next to darling harbour. i never knew there was a patisserie there until about 2 years ago. maybe back in '09 he didn't have as many patisseries, so i used to think, how do i get to Balmain?

i was so scared to cake would melt/macarons would crack before i got home. 

didn't realise how pixelated my touch camera is, oh how i love retina display on iphone. don't like to spam my phone camera, and my normal camera has better focus/better at night, so i still use it.

yum! i didn't notice before (as in a few years ago), but he trade marked "zumbarons"

macarons are still $2.50, just like they were 4 years ago.

from left to right: almond and pear, blackcurrant, salted butter popcorn, caramelised banana and balsamic vinegar, bread and butter pudding, finger bun

so colourful! at the same time, they're not fakely coloured like i've seen some cafes/shops which have neon coloured macarons...

i was going to get salted caramel on toast, but i already have something salted and something bread-ish, so i guess i can imagine the flavour. didn't get passionfruit/salted caramel since i've had the packet mix flavours before and i presume it would be something similar since it's the same brand. bitter said the lcychee and coconut had a very overpowering coconut flavour, so didn't get that. not a massive fan of chocolate, pecan danish looked nice and pineapple seems kind of plain-even though it's my favourite fruit, so i settled for the above flavours (: 

i've only had three, i don't want to have them all in one go, and when i mean "have three" i eat half then the rest of my family shares the other half, since my dad is internally fat ie can't have buttery/fatty foods, my bro doesn't have a lot of interest, and my mum loves them, but it's late-ish at night and she didn't want too much sweet stuff. texture wise, they could have a tiny bit more of a "crunch", it did have a crunch, don't get me wrong. 

wanted to try the banana and vinegar the most. yeah bitter, i couldn't really taste the banana, it was there in the biscuit, but super subtle. the ganache was the most butteriest, but the balsamic vinegar balanced it out, luckily there wasn't a lot of vinegar since it was very strong.

then i had the finger bun, it was the biggest of the lot, so fat i accidentally squished a tiny bit when taking it out since i took it out at a weird angle. yes, it tasted like finger bun, except it would have been better if there was a tad less coconut. the biscuit didn't have a real distinct flavour, just a tiny bit of sweet stuff, but that ganache was good.

third for tonight-almond and pear. it was fat as well (: this one was the sweetest, but i didn't mind. you could smell the almond, but you could definitely taste the pear, and i really liked the pear. nice combination, and it had an almond inside (: 

FOURTH MACARON: bread and butter pudding. the ganache was so good! it reminded me of gingerbread, and it had cinnamon and other spices. the shell kind of tasted like bread, but it was super, duper subtle. again, the ganache was gooood.

blackcurrant had a hard jelly-like centre, so not a butter based ganache. it reminded me of this lolly. the layers of purple were quite pretty when you cut into it. the flavour was prominent. the shell was sweet and the filling was sour like a natural/un-ripened blackcurrant

last one-salted butter popcorn. yum! tasted exactly like it sounds. the ganache was very buttery, but hey, a good box of popcorn is heavily salted and buttered (even though its super unhealty. hk people like their pop corn sweet, we like it salty). it had the right balance of saltiness, and the pop corn on the shell was quite cute. 

favourite ones? i love all of them (:

i really liked the ganache/flavours he has to offer. another good thing is that he has boxes for 2, so you don't have to buy 5/6 macarons just to get a box. it's also good since if knew flavours come along, you can just buy 2 to satisfy those cravings (: (although i try my best to "spread out" my eating macarons from more "well known" patisserie experiences...)

wunderbar $9-sable biscuit, raspberry compote, pineapple cremeaux, vanilla creme fraiche mousse, fresh raspberry slices & red chocolate.

it's really good. the sourness of the raspberry perfectly balanced the pineapple and vanilla mousse. the cremeaux and it had real bits of pineapple! mousse/cream was so good. it looks like cream (btw, i'm really picky with my cream, i don't like chinese cream/cheesecake shop cream/cakes which overdo cream), but this is mousse and creme friache, so it wasn't creamy at all, and not as dense as mousse, so good balance again. you could also see the vanilla beans! the red chocolate is just white choc, but hey, it's pretty (: you cannot cleanly cut the sable biscuit (it has some nuts in it) even if you got your sharpest knife, which means each biscuit had to be made individually, well i guess they used moulds. so it's not like they make a massive cake and cut it down to slices, doesn't work like that, which makes the $9 more worth it.

how could i not buy a slice after looking at his website? it's worth the money. like at lindt cafe, a slice of cake is 9.90, and it's just lindt chocolate, pretty boring tbh since you can buy their choc anywhere, and i bet they don't even make it themselves, probably from a different location, then delivered to their cafes. when i was there, i saw about 6 people brushing massive sheets of pastry with egg yolks, so i assume they do most/all of their cakes on site. also, many cafes these days have slices of cakes for at least 6 bucks, and they're pretty normal cakes which they probably didn't bake on site, so $9 isn't way too overpriced, especially if you rarely have this type of stuff, like me. the idea of the "dessert train" is cool, but i think dine in is $10 a slice, so i would rather take it home. with these more expensive slices, i prefer to share them, since i want to taste it, but not feel guilty for eating the whole thing which is kinda expensive. sharing is good.

that ice cream cake on masterchef, no idea what i had two years ago, but damn, i kinda regret not going with Bitter for her bday to try that cake. i still haven't had messina before. the first "bite" i want is from there mini cakes, so until they re-open then, i'll try to not have any of their gelato, despite passing it many times now.

what cake to buy this year? the choices are endless. only factor i'm scared that if i buy it far away, i'm scared it will melt. last year for my cake, i got it from my local patisserie which is about 2min drive, and i had to rush home (carefully) with the air con on since i was paranoid it would deform.

view from level 10, library.