Lindt chocolate cafe - CBD

Looking for a chocolatier in the city so after wandering around the CBD, we ended up at the Lindt chocolate cafe.

This one was located near Martin's place, so away from the flood of tourists and screaming children. This place was still surprisingly busy for a Saturday afternoon.

The display of chocolates were scrumptious, though slightly pricey. I guess at the end of the day you can't beat handmade chocolates.

I spent ages hovering (and drooling) near the window. CJ was buying two boxes of chocolates for her colleagues, and was debating between buying prepackaged boxes or selecting from the display counter.

I persuaded her to go for the personalised counter experience, as the price per 100g does include watching a man-in-a-white-glove carefully package your selected little treasures in a box. You can even choose your own ribbon colour.

CJ picked 14 chocolates (7 per box) and it ended up being around $15 per box, so me being a clever mathematician, that works out to be $2 per chocolate...

Time to wander over to the macaroons. Macaroons are a new offer by Lindt, and its about time... these colourful beauties are so pleasing to the eye. Looking at them I felt transported to Barbie land.

I spent a while debating which ones to get and settled on the passion macaroon - its suppose to be of (artificial?) passionfruit flavour! CJ got tempted by the extreme chocolate, which I suspected ended up the better choice.

Seems like as good a time as any for dessert. We sat down at the table and I got myself a iced mocha. Not normally a mocha drinker I would have ordered coffee, but being in Lindt I though we needed at least a bit of chocolate taste...

The macaroons were lush, biscuity in texture yet soft and not overtly sweet, they were definitely a genius new introduction by Lindt.

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Mamak - CBD - Revisited

Today met up with CJ and Peter for lunch in the city. I didnt know where CJ planned to go, so was pleasantly surprised they wanted to go to Mamak, one of my fav places.

We went early at 12pm to avoid the queue, which was horrendous by 1pm. Today we tried something different than my normal selections, which has led to some pleasant and not-so-pleasant surprises...

The fish curry (Kari ikan) was surprisingly yum, not too spicy but the fish falls apart nicely when you apply a bit of pressure with the fork. It could do with more okra and aubergine, as we had one pieces of each. Of course I shotgunned the aubergine. The fried rice (Nasi goreng) was also really nice - at first we ordered steam rice, but switched to this after seeing it arrived at our neighbouring table.

We had the standard roti canai and also roti telur, which is the version with egg. Personally I think the classic canai is much better - with the egg not adding any flavour to the roti and instead weighing it down so it loses its fluffiness.

The fried chicken with malaysian spices (Ayam goreng), which looked so good on the table closeby, ended up being a major disapointment for all of us. The chicken was tender and skin nice and flaky, but all in all it lacked flavouring. The chicken didn't seem to be marinated at all, and the plain batter missing the promised spices did not help its case. We ordered 4 pieces between the 3 of us, and left 1 uneaten.

We also ordered a portion of chicken satay (half a dozen) which seemed a very popular dish judging by what was being transported around the restaurant. However, it never arrived. As we were full from all the food - once we confirmed that the kitchen did indeed 'missed' our order, we decided to cancel it. Maybe next time.

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Concrete - Pyrmont

A lazy Sunday morning. The sun is shining with a nice, cool breeze. Its time to head to my favourite cafe in Pyrmont: Concrete.

Located a block away from union square, Concrete has a very laid back vibe and is the perfect place to sit and watch the world go by. It is popular with the locals because of the friendly service, good food and not to mention the kick-ass coffee.

It has a indoor and outdoor section, both of which gets plenty of natural light due to its clever design. Even

though its always busy, in all the times I've been to Concrete (and there have been plenty), I've never had to wait for a table.

Today Simon and I sit outside to enjoy the arrival of Spring (feels like summer) and I help myself to some water conveniently place on the stairways. I was keen to order as its about to turn 12 and I didn't want to miss the breakfast menu.

Service was prompt, and I ordered my favourite Italian fried eggs, and Simon his classic breakfast. As we asked for our respective skinny latte and capaccino, the European waiter went to Simon, "why skimmed? are you trying to lose weight?" to which Simon replied he was lactose intolerant. That was a good answer, as the waiter then proceed to complain to us that there are too many varieties of coffee with people asking for soya milk, weak/strong, no froth... "coffee is coffee", he concluded. We think he may be Italian.

As we wait to be fed, noises across the road made us look over - it appears there is a marathon! What I love about Sydney is there are always so many things happening and just by being outdoors I am constantly seeing events I otherwise would have missed.

Our breakfast arrives... and its a LOT of food. The Italian fried eggs come with fried potatoes, bacon, sweetcorn pattie, fried eggs and topped with sweet tomato salsa. It's not too greasy and packs a lot of taste, although today I found it a bit on the dry side. I had to drink two glasses of water with it just to finish. Simon's is lovely, the eggs are poached to perfection, the sausage crispy yet tender.

Simon ordered a Pineapple and Mint whip, which is a great thirst quencher. Its basically pineapple juice blended with fresh mint, and technically not a hard thing to make - it does taste so good that I want to go home and see if I could make the same thing myself... Or easier yet, just come back to Concrete.

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Kana Express - Snack - CBD

I was walking home from work, feeling peckish and this hawker-styled stand suddenly stood out to me like an oasis.

I may not understand the korean words on the tags that's been put against the food, but I could tell what they were offering and it looked so good I was almost visibly salivating.

Corn dogs I've had before, and was something I didn't expect to see here. Happily, I ordered it to revisit the memories of eating it in my childhood years. Even though the batter wasn't as fluffy as I liked and the coating strangely crispy (almost similar to a Chicken Katsu coating), corn dogs are corn dogs and for 3 bucks I'm not complaining. One thing I would ask for next time is some ketchup or chilli sauce, otherwise it's a bit dry.

Now something I haven't tried before was deep fried sushi. I bought this also for novelty and the truth was I didn't know what to expect. It looked pretty good as they put some chilly sauce on the batter and it looked nice and moist.

With a bit of hesitation, I bit in. Yummmmmm. My misconception of deep frying something fresh and not to mention healthy like sushi was totally put aside. As a matter of fact, it tasted pretty damn good. Similar to deep fried ice cream, the batter added texture to the soft and gooey rice. And the chilli sauce definitely was pleasant kick to accompany the sweet pickle, egg and crabstick inside. The fact that the sushi was so fresh meant that it covered up some of the grease-factor from the deep fryer and made me feel (slightly) better about eating this.

I just needed to ensure that this being such a cheap and tasty snack, I don't get hooked...

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