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.

Souffle

first time making souffles! i've never ate a proper one before. i've had frozen souffles, cake-like souffles, fondant-like souffles, fake souffles (places claim they're souffles but they aren't).

i've had the opportunity to have real souffles at higher end restaurants, but there were other desserts which were more appealing.

pistachio and vanilla souffles

they actually rose up like they do in pictures! except they deflated quicker than expected once they were out of the oven. the texture and consistency was what i imagined, however it tasted more eggy than i would have liked. the recipe said to use 1/4 cup and 1 vanilla bean to serve two. taking off the shells of the nuts aren't hard, it's getting rid of the layer of skin which took forever, so instead of using 1/2 cup, only had 1/4 cup. i don't have a mortar and pestle, so i improvised by jjust finding something hard and crushed the nuts against a chopping board. also, i don't think i infused the vanilla bean properly in the milk, so i felt like i wasted the bean. maybe i'll just add some essence next time. if i was to follow the portions, i would have to use 2 beans, which is a waste. maybe that's why people do savoury souffles since you have the eggy flavour there already. i didn't want to use chocolate because chocolate is boring.

Aroma Festival

first time going. wow, so packed, well more people went than i imagined.

i knew there weren't going to be many samples, but i didn't know that for all the coffee stands (and there were heapsss of them) there were at least 15 people. most coffee stands had 20-30 people lining, and even food stands had around 20ish, well it's really hard to tell since there are just heaps of people pushing/shoving/crowding around, and it's not even free. the mosaic was pretty cool. reminded me of the mole, one team had to a pixelated image of dame edna like the coffee mosaic except with paper of 5 different shades. coffee cups are so much cooler, but what if someone chucks something in the middle, or something falls into the middle, how would you get to it? couldn't take nice photos since the sun/shadows didn't match and lighting was weird.

ended up sharing a Chai latte with Bitter, the milk was frothed nicely, except that brand wasn't that strong, like Lipton packet chai latte is pretty weak, Tetley is the strongest out of packet chai lattes. there was this other brand, except their chai lattes came from tea boilers, so no freshly frothed milk.

got free nespresso coffee. i tried the intensity 4-volluto. it said it had some biscuit/fruit notes, but i could not taste anything. also, the milk frother took forever to froth the milk, and the milk wasn't even frothed/silky/hot enough compared to frothing it yourself/on other machines. i know i chose one of the milder coffees, i had it without sugar like normal, yet there was nothing special and kinda bland to what i was expecting. the flavours look so much cooler on the website, but i am turned off by nespresso machines for a while.

freebies: some tea samples, some ginger drinks samples which were pretty strong with ginger but quite nice at the same time-you're supposed to mix it with coffee/ice cream/ice to create your own drinks, a packet of fair trade tea bags, fake sugar (ie sweetener), bite sized treats (biscuits)-i realised where i've had them before! when i helped out at the easter show 2 years ago, our stands' boss made friends with the biscuits' boss, and they would trade their products, and then my boss would share the biscuits or i would sometimes take a few boxes home, yeah, i've had all their flavours (but i'm pretty sure in over two years they would have created new flavours that i have yet to try...). also, got a coffee cup =D yeah, i collect random things. i will do a proper list one day.

walking through the rocks today, i realised i've been to the La Renaissance cafe before and had a meal, but that was back in primary school where i didn't have a camera and i didn't associate the name with the cafe, but today i walked past and glimpsed how they had the seating at the back and i'm like yes! i remember what i eat (even as a kid), and i remember my cousin took my relatives/my fam and I to the rocks to eat, and even though it was a tad bit more expensive than other places back then (not sure about prices now), i remember it was a super good and satisfying experience, and their hot choc was sah good. might re-visit that place some time.

so far every plate i had has been $10 or less (except for chefs gallery but that was the week before break officially started and yum cha, where it's impossible to be super duper full with only $10). oh the irony, didn't want something fried or rice for lunch, but ended up getting that. ended up getting cheap $1 macarons from a place i don't even remember, so glad i only got 2. they were so small, and the watermelon tasted artificial and wasn't made properly. the rose one which had 2 different sized shells (which i couldn't see when looking at the display). baroque had a "special" today, 3 for 7.50 so you save 60c, but it was only coffee, chocolate, and salted caramel. coffee and chocolate by itself in a macaron doesn't appeal to me, so i would rather save that money for flavours i want.

The Seat and Panna Cotta

finally went to The Seat today! it's a south eastern/thai restaurant in pennant hills. everyone in my area said it was good and definitely worth going, so i decided to go with my mum today or else i'll never have time to go until after next sem.

we went at around 2, and there were still quite a lot of people dining in and take away. so glad their lunch special, which includes a drink and a dish for $10 also applies to weekends.

"house special drinks". on the left-lemon ice tea, on the right-thai style milk tea.

both drinks were really sweet, which explains why there was so much ice. since ice melts, after a while the drink doesn't become as sweet. couldn't really taste a lot of the lemon until some of the ice melted. with the milk tea, it actually is orange, the lighting was too bright so it washed out a lot of the colour. it's an interesting taste, but still sweet.

top-thai fried rice w/ beef, bottom-pad thai w/chicken.

the fried rice was pretty normal, couldn't really distinguish any "thai" flavours. the pad thai didn't use thin rice noodles, it used rice noodles but in a really thin cylindrical shape, so kinda like spaghetti but made out of rice noodles. this dish was pretty good, a lot of people around us also ordered it. there was a sweet chilliness and the acidity of the lemon balanced it well (: there also wasn't this lingering oil feel on your lips which is good. it doesn't look big, but the plate actually has depth, so we both didn't finish our plates and went back home with one filled take away box.

i think i took too many big bites, now my stitches are gone, and i think i ate the string, and i'm scared that it is more infection prone =/

going grocery shopping by myself is kinda wierd. yes, even though i've had my p's for ages, i don't buy groceries myself.

first time buying vanilla beans! my heart broke when i say the price: $10, and turns out there were only 4 beans. i earned the woolies voucher, so i let myself off this time and bought a packet. later i went to this other store, which stocked Spice and Co, and they had 2 beans for $4.50, and they were softer as well. no wonder why masterchef has ditched MasterFoods spices and gone with spices/herbs etc from Spice and Co.

cutting vanilla beans is not as easy as it looks on tv. on masterchef, their beans are straight and they have super small sharp knives for easier control. i only found a small sharp knife after i finished cutting it...and curved beans are very hard to cut/split in one go.

first time attempting panna cotta!

decided to use powder, since the leaves were even more expensive than the vanilla beans! like what!? there was some leaves in the fruit shop which were a bit cheaper, but i also saw that after i bought the powder. doesn't matter, powder lasts longer.

i know why the skin forms, but why does the vanilla seeds float to the top/bottom? i guess people serve it upside down so you can't see the skin...in some pictures, you see the seeds throughout the dessert, but in my one, you only see it on the outside....

they tasted pretty nice (despite it being half milk and cream). i only used a tiny bit of sugar, since i wanted to taste more of the natural vanilla taste rather than sweetness. served it with some passionfruit (: ceebs making a coulis, will do that tomorrow...i have yet to have restaurant quality panna cotta/souffle, but i used the Taste recipe, and it was exactly what i imagined panna cotta to be. should use my silicon muffin trays next time, according to the person who commented on the website, the desserts just slip out. couldn't be bothered to oil the glass ware. i also liked this recipe since it tells you to use the bean/pod. other ones tell you to discard it, but me being asian and hate wasting food, especially expensive stuff, i used it. (i also tried to eat the pod, unfortunately it's like a leaf).

came third again at dance eisteddfod with the same dance. this eisteddfod was made/created by my dance teacher, didn't know that was possible. i saw my old dance teacher since he was adjudicating. i really loved is dances.

i had two cakes, panna cotta, cheese on wafer crackers for dessert. feeling so unhealthy.

Baking Day

thanks Dandelion for hosting! hopefully we didn't trouble your dad too much (:

next time, we should defs get there earlier, and start baking earlier. the rainbow cake didn't have that vibrant colour, but the pastel colours looked so pretty. i haven't dealt with 1kg of butter at one time before. in our house, we never use butter in cooking (and only for baking if it's necessary). that rainbow cake was more than a half butter. ceebs uploading pics.

the zumbo cake actually turned out pretty good. too bad we didn't have time to do the "mirror glaze". i'll make another cake and use that on top hopefully before next sem starts.

i always want to make so much stuff, but half the time i don't have the equipment or the ingredients, so i just stick with basics since it's cheaper and i have basic equipment. really would love to attempt some cool stuff, but then i'll need kitchen scales, proper pastry brush, more moulds etc. so many things/holes that prevents me from making things. i guess i'll really have to think imaginatively and substitute stuff.

bought $10 worth of crepes from group on. i think i had mother's crepes once in Japan, even in Japan, they were kind of expensive.

Yoli

accidentally woke up really late today. last week, i woke up at 11, then got out of bed by 1, and in those 2 hours i was just contemplating life since i had no motivation/energy to do anything. today, i just woke up super late.

went to get froyo at castle hill. yes, i said no more froyo, and no, i didn't go out of the house just to get free froyo. this store is run by an indian guy. it's not great, no offence or anything.

normally $3.50. i got taro, lychee and watermelon-look at that artificial colouring! 

it melted straightaway as soon as i stepped out of the store, which means it doesn't have enough yogurt/milk and too much ice. it was pretty watery, and saying they had to give out heaps at one time was no excuse. first time didn't have to line up for free froyo. their formula and machines are just not up to scratch. yogurtland gave out heaps of free self serve froyo, and their ones didn't melt as fast. 

flavour wise, all of them were pretty sweet and you could hardly taste the flavour. lychee was the most decent, watermelon tasted like artificial watermelon and taro-could hardly taste any of it. also got my mine to get a cup. i tried her mango, nup just tasted sugar.

finally bought some hairspray! and it was half price so win (: every time my dance teacher tells us to "groom ourselves" for eisteddfods, i bet she was telling me off haha. finally returned my library books, but not enough time to borrow more. 

so much has changed at towers.

Cargo Bar and Lindt Cafe

yay for $10 steak! i've been looking at what other people have been eating, and then going "i want to eat that"

medium rare 150g rump steak, red wine sauce with mashed potatoes and salad. steak was good but not great, but you can't expect it to be superb for the price. on their website, they were saying how good they were...mashed potatoes were better than the chips. it wasn't too buttery (: i only got half a cherry tomato in my salad though. red wine sauce was nice. i tried some of my friend's mushroom sauce and it wasn't as mushroomy as hurricanes/riibs and rumps.

that redness! =D

first time going to Lindt Cafe, at darling harbour. i've thought about it, and i wanted to have a hot choc the first time i went to a Lindt Cafe, but it was sooooo hot today, like well over 20 degrees, so i opted for an Iced Milk Chocolate for $8. i like it!!! it looks sweet since you can see the chocolate sauce. but it's not. they also didn't add ice, so i feel i've got more worth out of my money. chocolate wasn't too heavy/rich (: good balance, definitely try it if you haven't already. if you go to cafes, even in castle towers, a large ice choc is about $6, so $8 with good quality chocolate/ice cream/choc flakes is more worth it than heaps of ice and super sweet choc syrup. really nice today (: we literally sat at the cafe for 3 hours just chatting. luckily they had a lot of seats there so they couldn't force us to leave.

they had 2 macarons for $5, was going to get them, but their flavours weren't that interesting and they gave it to you in a plastic bag, so no protection for taking it home...

took sticker photos. it's been over 2 years. that machine was super fast =/

had dinner at 10. then dad brought home some sushi, so i had then at 11. i don't really like eating that late...

he also brought home cake!

i see the box in the background everywhere, and i really want to know where this cake came from (someone gave that cake to him...)