Black Star Pastry

I have heard so much about black stay pastry. From Stella who said: have you tried black star? at newtown, really good. From Ja, her blog says it all. From the magazine: new kid on the block, currently most exciting pastisserie. From Rowena: these puny little cakes cost a bomb, but they are gorgeous!

So here I am, after about 20mins of aimless walking (up and down Newtown) then finally realising black star is actually just across the train station. Black Star Pastry, a hole in the wall bakery with tiny stools and tables that you would probably find in a kindergarten, serving a small selection of very fine pastries.

Looks so beautiful! But I didn't try this. Too full from lunch for a solid cake.

I went for the watermelon cake instead. Watermelon! Can you imagine? I can't when I first heard about it. Almond and probably hazelnut dacquoise, super light buttercream, sandwich in a slice of watermelon then top with generous halved strawberries= Sweet, slighting crunchy (from the crisp dacquoise and watermelon) and super refreshing (thanks to the presence of summery fruits and airy buttercream). Wow, man.

Pistachio macaron. The meringue layer is made the way it should be (and the way I like it); dense, slightly chewy center, crunchy top. Elise and I were wondering how did the chef stick so much pistachio bits onto the meringue without causing it to go out of shape. The filling though is urghh. I do not like pistachio paste. The chef used pistachio paste for this, it tastes the same as the one we used in school. urghh, taste like medicine..

Cute, tiny place.

Enjoy the sun while it last.

Black Star Pastry

277 Australia St. Newtown 2042.

Tel : (02) 9557 8656

End.

自家客家酿豆腐

Elise said niang tou fu is the traditional food to eat every 7th day of Chinese New Year. Funny, I have never heard of even though we are family.

Celebrating Chinese New Year away from your family can be quite an experience. Things that I usually do with my family during Chinese New Year like visiting, collecting red packets, staying up till mid-night to welcome the new year, were denied to me. Feeling really pathetic about it, I decided to indulge in whatever chinese new year activities I can get my hands on.

1) I gorged on Chinese New Year cookies, readily available at Elise's place.
2) I traveled to really far places to get ingredients to recreate chinese new year dishes.
3) I celebrated chinese new year eve with chinese chinese, got a culture shock with it.
4) I went to school, to say Happy Chinese New Year! to my friends.
5) I made niang tou fu despite feeling extremely extremely lazy that day...

Elise and I had different ways of making niang tou fu. Which was surprising really, since we learned it from our mothers who are sisters. (presuming they learned it from the same person, their mother) Being professional chefs that we are, we co-operated well, discussing to add or not to add things that we usually would, discarding all that rigidness that comes with tradition (we are easy-going people afterall). And we produced some really really good niang tou fu. =)

End.

Bourke Street Bakery

I am always excited to go to Bourke street bakery. It's because I don't get to go there often, this may be my third time only, having stay so far away. Also because this is such a good place for breads and pastries, the best they say.

9am, and the tables were all taken, with a queue .

Breakfast for 2. I secretly wished that I had the stomach of two people so that I can also try that delicious looking ham and cheese croissant and hazelnut twist too...

Lemon curd tart. The smoothest lemon custard paired with the awesome flaky tart, really simple yet so delicious. I am still amazed by the flaky tart base despite my eating it a number of times already. It surprises me still when I eat it. How can flaky and shortness co-exist so happily in a tart base? I cannot get around it.

Ginger brulee tart, $4.40. This has got to be one of my favourites of Bourke Street Bakery. I love love love the flaky tart crust, the thick luscious, ginger tinted custard, and the generous brittle burnt sugar.

Rhubarb almond tart, $4. It there anything that is not appetising in Bourke street bakery? Even this little humble tart is so good. The rhubarb is nicely sweet and sour, like the sour plum jam. It gives good colour contrast and keeps the almond tart moist. The almond tart, needless to say, is really fragrant. Together with the flaky tart base, again wow.

Carrot cake, $4.50 a slice. Can I say, best carrot cake in Sydney? and Singapore? Good thinking to sandwich the cream cheese frosting in the carrot cake instead of slapping it on top of the cake as frosting like the normal ones. It evens out the flavour, so that when you put a forkful in your mouth, you don't even one side carrot cake, one side cream cheese. chomp chomp chomp, all in my stomach now. =)

I am in bliss.

633 Bourke St

Surry Hills NSW 2010

(02) 9699 1011‎

8am-5pm

My Longest Bus Ride Ever

I did not go to school today. As to why I did not attend lessons today, I have to explain events from yesterday. You see, Thursday, yesterday, I went over to E's house early afternoon to make her examination cake with her. A vanilla bavarois frozen-style. After that was completed, we took off to Adriano Zumbo for lunch, where we ate open sandwiches and pastries. We came home after to taste the bavarois. It was beautiful. Then we decided that we were too full for dinner. So I went to bed without dinner. The next morning, I woke to a very hungry stomach. My breakfast staple for the past week was fruits with yogurt. Therefore, as per normal, I prepared a huge bowl of ice-cold fruits with three large soup spoon of yogurt. And I went off to school.

On the bus, the moment I got on the bus, my stomach felt terrible. I need the toilet. Badly. The bus ride took about 20mins. It was the longest twenty minutes in the entire of my short life (I'm twenty-one this year). As the bus inch ever so slowly towards the school, my resolve to at least hang on till I reach the school erodes. At one point, I even thought I would not make it to the school, and I would die of embarrassment by doing it on the bus. ._. Thankfully, I did make it to school. I rushed to the toilet to do whatever was needed to relieve the pain in my stomach. Then I went home; to recover from my trauma. haha. Any excuse to skip school. The lesson I learnt: cold food and really empty stomach don't mix. I still feel uncomfortable now...

Adriano Zumbo Cafe Chocolat

My mission: Pastry hunt. First stop: Adriano Zumbo, the best patisserie in Inner West of Sydney. (Gourmet Traveller review)

Adriano Zumbo Cafe has sure expanded. Not in size, but in the additional chocolate display that wasn't here the last time I visited. As a result, the tables have to be shifted outside. But they sure have alot more chocolates now. As a side note, Adriano's macarons are so cute. They are heart-shape, left-overs from Valentine day no doubt. So cute! and big too.

I had cappuccino. Beautiful heart, but not so good coffee. I was surprised at their coffee. I didn't expect it to be so mediocre. Bitter cappuccino, not good. Right is the !Yeop! open toast. It is bread stuffed with cheese, chili, capers, toasted and topped with avocado and tomato. These three slices of sandwich took more than half an hour to arrive at our table... I found it a little too peppery. I'm not a pepper person so I might be biased. Yeop! is kind of normal, unlike what its name suggests.



Sticky date danish. I haven't tried, but sure looks good. It is still sitting in my fridge.

Choux pastry with a sable top. Inside is filled with a delicious pistachio cream and fresh raspberries, with an injection of dijion mustard creme anglaise in the center. This would be a seriously good pastry if not for the mustard cream. Too over the top weird for me. We dug out all the mustard cream and ate the rest.

Passionfruit tart, my all time favourite. Simple tart base, filled with smooth passionfruit custard. Yumm. Beautiful colours too.

Adriano Zumbo Café Chocolat

308 Darling St. (inside Balmain Mall),

Balmain, Sydney

End.

Nazimi

Nazimi was the first Japanese restaurant I have eaten in in Sydney. It was with Stella at that time. Now that I am back again, I think it is quite romantic to go back again for my first dinner in a year with Stella and Kimmy. After all, their maki rolls are so so good. =)

Wakame salad with tofu. There was two kind of seaweed. The dressing was to my liking, the sour, sweet and salt was well balanced. Tofu is soft and silky! though I thought it would be nice if they could drizzle abit of soy sauce over the tofu.

Pan-fried gyoza. This is normal. Thank god it is really pan-fried like it's said in the menu. I do not like deep-fried gyoza.

Volcano rolls. I remember having this the first time I went there. I remember falling in love with it and vowing to return to savour it again. there, there, I'm back. The volcano roll really is just california roll topped with a mash of avocado and salmon, accompanied by thai sweet chilli sauce.

Sun mont blang roll. The name is weird. I suspect the spelling in the menu is off. Mont blang should be spelled Mont blanc right? Anyway, I highly recommend this dish. (Sorry volcano roll, I have a new favourite now.) Let's see if I can still recall correctly. It was a crabmeat and avocado maki, topped with crabmeat tempura and mayonaise and torched. It is crunchy and yet melt in your mouth at the same time.

Grilled marinated wafu steak. Had this the last time too. hmmm, I think it taste normal now. Still good though.

We also had the chilled sweet soba noodle. It tastes like the korean buckwheat noodle. Quite nice actually when you dip it in the salty soya broth. The picture was blur so I threw it away. Heh.

Conclusion: Shall return for the other new maki creation. Who wants to join me?

Nazimi

Opp QVB Level 1, 141 York St.,

Sydney, NSW 2000

Tel: (02) 9283 2990

End.

Chinese New Year Dinner 2010

With E's housemates, we each contributed a dish, thus came up with the holy trinity.

My contribution: 鱼生 "yee sang". It was really good, even for me. I was up chopping and slicing at 12pm. Everything was made from scratch. Let's see, it has carrots, cucumber, purple cabbage, pickled ginger, pickled seaweed, pineapple, pickled daikon and mandarin orange peel. The sauce is real simple mixture of good plum sauce, lime juice, sesame oil and lots of toasted sesame seeds. Last but not least the sashimi! I cannot imagine yee sang without fresh, raw, sweet, thick slices of fish... We even took the extra effort to head to the fish market just to get this sashimi. It was worth it. =)

Left: W's chilli prawn. You know the Singapore chilli crab (W does not agree with the Singapore part though), this is the prawn version of it. It's good, except that there was too much of it. W bought 1 kg two days prior for this dinner. Then, C brought another 2kg of prawns back from work. So right now, there is 3kg of prawns sitting in E's fridge (I reckon about 800g was used for the dish)... There is still a whole barramundi sitting in the fridge that was supposed to be cooked for the dinner but canceled since there was too much food! Right: E's braised pork with taro. Really really delicious. She is a wonder with pork dishes. The pork belly slices and taro slices are first fried to golden, then steamed till soft with a marinate of fermented beancurd, garlic and chilli. E says this is a traditional hakka dish.

Thus complete the holy trinity of vege, pork and seafood, the must-haves during Chinese New Year.

W kindly provided drinks for the night. 1 and 1/2 bottles of white wine. After which the conversation went like this:

C: No more wine for me, I'm going to sleep now. (C exits the kitchen.)

W: Elise, you are so red. hey Heidi, let's put your cousin out on the street holding the ong lai piah (pineapple tarts) on her right and a sign on her left that reads: Welcome! Cai Shen! (welcome, god of prosperity).

H: Yeah, good idea (while pouring Elise her 3rd glass of wine)

W: then she must keep saying: HUAT AH! (發啊!)

Yeah, and Cai Shen will give us 4D numbers...

End.

My Chinese New Year Eve 2010, Cafe XXII

Never quite thought about what to do during Chinese New Year this year, knowing that I will be spending it away from my family, in a foreign land called Sydney. I imagined it to be like every other day, school, cafes, restaurants, home. But surprise surprise, I did have a good Chinese New Year after all.

Morning of the Eve: Had 1/2 dozen pacific oysters for breakfast at the Fish Market. Really fresh, really sweet. We actually came to the Fish Market with the single purpose to buy some sashimi back for Yu Sheng, but due to mis-planning (on my part), we didn't buy the sashimi. We ate lots of fresh oysters.

Then we walked from the Fish Market to Pyrmont. I have always wanted to try this cafe out, seeing how it is always packed in the mornings. XXII. That's the name of the cafe. I can't read the roman numerals.. They have quite an impressive menu for a cafe. Wagyu steak sandwich, sounds yumm. Shall try it next time since I'm still quite stuffed by the oysters.

Cappuccino. Excellent coffee and milk. Beautiful latte art.

Toasted Muesli with fresh fruits, yogurt and passionfruit jelly. It looks gorgeous with all the different colours from the fruits, and sounds real healthy. On my first bite, I thought I could eat this every day for breakfast, it was absolutely wonderful. Then I looked at the spanish omelette and toasted brioche on the next table, well, maybe not.

Toasted banana bread with marscapone and honey. Banana bread is very light and banana-y, though I doubt they used real bananas in this; I don't see the banana fibres at all. Tastes alright though. But when you lather marscapone and honey on it, tastes real good.

XXII, union street, pyrmont, Sydney,

After abit of window-shopping in the city, E and I headed down to West Ryde, to her friend's place for the New Year Eve dinner. It was a large dinner, 16 people. Only one chef though, the one in the chef jacket.

We all helped out in making dumplings, chinese style, pork and beef. I learned how to properly wrap a dumpling. It was fun! 200 dumplings was made in all. =)

Afterward was a blur. There was so much food! Mabo tofu, chilli pork belly, steamed fish and ofcourse, hotpot. wow. Thank you Fiona for inviting us!