Gelato Messina, Darlinghurst

Previously, I wrote about my brother B's birthday dinner at Ume Restaurant (link) and what's a birthday without a cake? Being only 17, the inner kid in him can't seem to get away from ice cream cakes. We had a couple of options to pick from, the ones from Baskin' Robins, Ben & Jerry's.. But we decided on Gelato Messina instead just because their gelato cakes are not decorated with cream. There's just something about the cream on cakes that really annoys me to death. Anyway, so we took a long slow walk to their Darlinghurst store to pick up a cake after looking it up their website (link).

Because B's birthday was ages ago in May, it was still autumn then and I managed to snap some photos of trees that are about to shed. Just gotta love autumn for the postcard-like photos #seriously.

We walked past this cafe on Palmer Street which caught my eye, loving the ceiling to floor glass panel doors #anotherseriouslymoment. 

We arrived at Gelato Messina and  met with their doors shut on us #boohoo, it was only after I googled their opening hours that we realized that they start at 12pm. So we got to walk around for a bit and decided on Forte' Cafe for some food, which I did a photolog on (link). 

Slightly before noon, we made our way back to Gelato Messina and hooray, they were opened! Pardon the nasty shots, I was in a hurry because I had to get myself to the airport before noon to meet with a long-time friend #badplanning. We actually looked up their website to see what sorta flavours of gelato cakes they offer and decided that we were to get one of their gelato cakes and one of their monoporzione. Seriously, we were spoilt for choices. The cakes looked so yummy, we wished we could have gotten all of them. But no, in our opinion their gelato cakes were pretty pricey, ranging from $20 to $90, while their monoporziones were slightly cheaper at about $10 each. 

The last I checked, they had new monoporzione flavours while the older ones had to go so you may not see the flavours that are featured here. I didn't managed to try all of the older flavours but I guess I'll never get that chance again. 

Two of their gelato cakes featured here - Dr Evil's Magic Mushroom (top) (link) and Tiramisu 'Smash) (bottom) (link). I reckon Dr Evil's Magic Mushroom is really a classic Gelato Messina cake, just look at how cute it is! It will definitely be talk of the town to be able to celebrate a birthday with this cake, but alas it was pretty pricey at $85. 

So we picked their Mini Me (I believe it was $9.90), which was the miniature version of Dr Evil's Magic Mushroom (unfortunately they don't sell Mini Me anymore) and a bigger Hazelnut Zucotto ($28) (link).

And nope, this isn't optical illusion. Our Mini Me came like it was toppling over and we didn't notice it till we decided to take it out for candle lighting. If you refer to the picture above, which displays some of their Mini Me, you can tell there are a couple which weren't standing very well. It was a pity really, it doesn't look as cute slouching and I'm not sure if that affected the taste of it. We didn't enjoy the Mini Me as much. The entire "cake" was made up of Dr Evil's gelato, with caramel and peanut butter cookie, also with a layer of flourless chocolate sponge cake to surround the gelato (refer to this link for a pictorial description of the cake). I felt the entire "cake" was a tad too bitter. There was nothing sweet about this cake, other than the popping candy crushed with biscuits. Despite it being a single serve, it was enough to share among the three of us just because we didn't quite like the overall taste of it. Nonetheless, it was interesting to have this Mini Me for phototaking.

We decided to have a bigger gelato cake as well because one Mini Me wasn't enough to justify as a birthday cake. We chose Hazelnut Zucotto ($28 for a small serve) which had a mixture of chocolate and hazelnut gelato (refer to this link for the pictorial description of the cake). This was amaaaazing! Despite it not being as fancy as the mushroom cake, this was indeed a better choice because of the combination of flavours and us wanting more. There are hazelnut gelato and gianduia gelato, which was a perfect match. It's like having chocolate with hazelnuts in it, who doesn't like that combination? The gelato was light enough that we didn't feel that guilty for already having so much food and of course, it left us wanting more. I highly recommend this, even though it doesn't have an outstanding appearance. 

We had another birthday celebration last month for K. Him being a big kid himself, he wanted to have ice cream cakes too and where else to get some but Gelato Messina!? We didn't wanna have too big a cake this time (also because we didn't have space in our freezer), so we picked two of their monos. It was also this time that we discovered they changed out their mono menu, so we were left to pick their newer flavours as much as we really wanted to try their older flavours, like Bitty Bitty. 

One of the mono that K picked was their Gula Melaka ($12), which had gula melaka (aka palm sugar) gelato, rosewater praline fudge, hazelnut feuilletine and raspberry gele (link). I was particularly attracted to the flavours of gula melaka and the hazelnut feuilletine. I imagined the sweetness within the gelato and the texture of the feuilletine, which sounds like perfect. But nay, it was far from it. The raspberry gele was way too sour that it doesn't balance with the sweetness of the palm sugar gelato - pity. We didn't enjoy this at all, despite it being a rather refreshing taste. And $12 for this tiny piece? Money is better spent elsewhere. 

Another interesting flavour we decided on was Pop Porn ($10) - wildflower honey gelato, gianduia gelato, dark chocolate fudge and caramelized popcorn. This one looked fancy on their website (link), but somehow it looked really different from what we had even though ours gave way a little. The spilling chocolate fudge wasn't meant to happen but it did, which made it look ugly as a cake. Oh well. 

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I like the soft texture of this cake, which resembles slightly like a fondant. You pierce a spoon or fork into it and the chocolate innard just spills out like no one's business. There are caramelized popcorns at the base of the mono as well, which makes it difficult to cut through. Unfortunately, the honey in the wildflower honey gelato was so faint that I couldn't even detect any honey in it. Everything about Pop Porn was sorta ruined by the chocolate fudge because of its bitterness. 

If there is one thing I am allowed to pick on, I would definitely say the packaging. No dry ice was given to ensure that the cake doesn't wither. You'd have to bring your own cooler bag if you're walking, or.. just bring a cooler bag no matter what or you'll end up in a sorry state like we did. It's also a pity that the monos are becoming increasingly pricey for their size. I may end up buying the gelato cakes rather than the monos the next time, but I don't think I can resist the idea of trying more flavours rather than having more quantity of something. 

Gelato Messina (website)

Shop 1/241 Victoria Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Opening times - Sun-Thu: 12pm to 11pm / Fri-Sat: 12pm to 11.30pm

Ume Restaurant, Surry Hills

People always splurge on special occasions, be it Valentine's Day, Christmas Day or any other day you feel like it. For me, I splurge on my family (even if it means not using my own money hehehe) on their birthdays. I will always pick out a restaurant that could cater to all of us because we're always such a big group and we usually spend hours just eating and chatting. I haven't been able to celebrate most birthdays with my family in a couple of years now, so I'm really glad to have my brother B with me in Sydney at least for this year.

We finally decided on Ume Restaurant, hence the title of this post. This is my first time to a one hat restaurant and I was really excited how it will turn out :) We visited them at the end of May (oops, what a belated post) so they might not be serving the same menu anymore, but do check out their website (link) for more information! Also, if you're into photography like me (I'm still a noob at my newly received hand-me-down Canon EOS) or instagram like B then be sure to have more patience for the shutter because we ended up with so many blur photos that I need to apologize for them, sorry!

What's Japanese food without sake? Haha well, the paradox is we don't always order sake when we have Japanese food, especially sushi. I prefer green tea anytime because of its health benefits, but a special occasion calls for sake. Do you prefer a warm or cold sake?

We ordered two miso soups to share, the first one was scampi miso soup ($9), which was a sweet miso with shiso, shallots and of course, scampi! I'm not one who loves miso soups, I seriously dislike them for their extreme level of salt content as much as I love Japanese cuisine. To be real honest, I've never had sweet miso before and this sweet miso is the bomb! This was a favourite among all three of us, that one bowl just wasn't enough. Alas, we didn't order one more of it because we had to save our tummies for the extravagant amount of food afterwards. 

The other miso soup we ordered was their miso shiru ($7), which was koji miso with tofu and wakame. On the contrary, this miso tasted like regular miso you can get in other Japanese sushi places or restaurants. There was nothing special about it, it was just as salty as other miso soups and regrettably, it was a bad decision. 

Sorry this photo is a bad one!

Being Asians and being really greedy Asians, we could not go without rice ($5.50). There is really something nice and sweet about Japanese/sushi rice, it just makes me crave for more. But at $5.50 for a bowl of rice, I could really do without.

One of the entrees we had was their carpaccio - seared scallop ($21), which was highly raved on Urbanspoon (link). It had soy brown butter, finger limes, young sorrel and dulse, and of course scallops! I was quite excited about their scallops after reading so much about it, but maybe the anticipation got me way too excited that I thought they were a slight disappointment. Each scallop was sliced so thinly that it melts in your mouth, but they didn't have much of the flavours that were stated on the menu (the flavours in italics mentioned above). It was nothing less than fresh, but not quite a must-have in my honest opinion. 

Another entree we ordered was on their specials board outside the restaurant! Pardon me, I don't remember the exact name for it but it was pork dumplings with rice crisps. The description got us anticipating cute dumplings that don't look like the regular, so on first thoughts these dumplings fall short. I like how there was so much meat within the dumplings even though the skin was rather average. They (the skin) weren't like the melt-in-your-mouth kind, which makes this dish rather forgettable. 

The next dish we had was their butaniku no kakuni ($22), which was soy braised free range pork belly with fermented chinese cabbage, karashi and crackling. For the portion, $22 was rather expensive. There were only four pieces of pork belly and each piece was so tiny you can finish it off in a mouth. I guess this is the price to pay for a fine dining experience. 

I thought this was gonna be my favourite dish of the night, but unfortunately it's not. I'm not someone who is conscious about fats and meats, I eat almost anything unless I choose not to. Some people might dislike pork belly because of the amount of fat in it, but I absolutely love it. This pork belly wasn't to the extent that it melts in your mouth, however there was so much flavour in it that I enjoyed it very much. The charred sides of the pork was well done as much as the meat was a little too tough. Now you know why this isn't the favourite one..

The other main we had was the charcoal roasted wagyu ($42), which was David Blackmore wagyu 9+ with house made yuzukosho, zucchini, shiso ponzu and rice crisps. Again, for the price the portion was a little tiny. Nonetheless, it was recommended on Urbanspoon (link) that we had to try it for ourselves and it definitely didn't disappoint. 

I love the rice crisps! It isn't something you can buy from Asian supermarkets or find elsewhere. Ume does their crisps really well (you'll see one more below) and they're just so good. I know, I know, they are just rice crisps. But if they can do simple stuff well, I think it earns a brownie point from me :) According to K, the yuzukosho went really well with the beef, which he suspect was slow-cooked. I'm not a big fan of beef, so I wouldn't be able to differentiate the grades of beef in the market. But to me, a good dish of beef is good beef. Does it make sense? The wagyu is definitely really tasty and can be awarded the must-try!

The last main we had was their Cone Bay barramundi ($34), which had a poached barramundi in shiro dashi butter, with Jerusalem artichokes, crisp wakame, soy and yuzu dressing and sea herbs. This was the hottttttttttttttt favourite of the night, it was that awesome. The fish was fresh and sweet, there's nothing to doubt about that. The shiro dashi butter gave the fish a nice coat, while the soy and yuzu dressing complemented that coating really well. There was really nothing to pick about this barramundi, so it definitely is the must-try!

The last item of the night has to be desserts! We were so full after two soups, two entrees and three mains, but we just could not miss having the desserts, either desserts take up space in another stomach or for review sake. We decided on their dark chocolate 'terrine' ($15), which was Michel Cluizel 70% dark chocolate, white chocolate crumble, matcha soy ice cream, quandongs and soy milk crisp. This is the other "crisp" I was talking about earlier! There's just something amazing about the soy milk crisps that three pieces to share among three just weren't enough. I was tempted enough to order another of this just for the soy milk crisps! Otherwise, I think this dark chocolate dessert is rather forgettable. I had no idea what quandong was or the taste of it and I haven't never seen them before, apparently it is a native Australian fruit! #ilearnsomethingneweachday It was sour, which kinda went wrong with the bitter 70% dark chocolate, but something about it we just didn't like. I also reckon that the soy matcha ice cream didn't go well with the dark chocolate at all, they probably added it to give it a Japanese touch? I don't know, but I don't think it agreed with our taste buds. 

It was a good experience dining at this one hat restaurant - the service was attentive and friendly, the food was generally good and we enjoyed our dinner there. I'm currently craving for their sweet miso soup and their rice and soy milk crisps! It's always the little things that makes me wanna go back to Ume, I'm just weird as that. It costs us about $70 per pax, if anyone wants to know, and it was worth while.

I took such a long time to complete this post that I'm really glad that I've finished it #phew.



Ume Restaurant (website/urbanspoon)
478 Bourke Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010

Homemade: Pancakes Breakfast In Bed

Looking through the folder containing all my edited photos, I realised how extremely lazy I've been, with regards to blogging. I should totally spend my time (now) wisely. Typing is somehow pretty therapeutic too.

Time is passing by real quick. Can you remember what you were doing this time last year? I most definitely still remember every bits of it.

Anyhoo, just because we just celebrated my little brother B's birthday almost a week ago (more food posts coming up!), I was reminded how I spent my birthday, in the quiet way that I like. Homemade breakfast in bed, lovingly made by K.

I love sleeping in but hate missing the lovely breakfast offered by cafes all around. Lucky I get to enjoy two of my favourite things on this special day :)

x

Citizen Corner, Surry Hills

I looked up some restaurants a couple of months back when my friends flew into Sydney for a few nights. One of those that I did my googling on was Citizen Corner. Unfortunately, my friends decided to have something else instead so we had to skip it then. But, I managed to visit them anyway, because I had an option to pick on my birthday :) We visited them in August, but it appears that they have a different menu now.

For starters, we decided to have their bread with balsamic and olive oil ($7). It would have been better if the bread was toasted, but it's a personal preference.

There was a bit of a mix up and we were served their pan-fried barramundi, served on mash and gravy. It looked really good and I wouldn't mind having this pan-fried barramundi, if not that I was keeping away from fried food. So glad that my first instinct when food is served is to grab my camera to snap a photo. 

One of our other orders was this raved wagyu beef pie. Many reviews on Eatability talked about this and we definitely need to have a go at this! We were surprised though because the pie doesn't quite look like a pie at all. It was served with mash, with the wagyu beef beneath the puff pastry - Interesting. The beef was pretty strong in flavour and it got pretty jelat (jelat is a word in Malay that describes how after you've had so much of the same food that you got quite sick and full from it) after being halfway through. But I reckon it was pretty popular since it would be sold out if we were to arrive even later for dinner. 

This was the accompanying salad with the beef pie. Nothing fancy but very refreshing to be served with the beef pie. 

After quite a wait, I was finally served what I originally intended - barramundi risotto with mushrooms. I had pretty high expectations of their risotto since many reviews raved about their range and flavours of risotto, but I was slightly disappointed. Don't get me wrong, this barramundi risotto is nice and delish but it just lacks the 'omg I'm in a sea of food' reaction *cues that scene from that anime* 

The staff were very apologetic towards the wrong order and they very kindly insisted on giving me a dessert on the house. It was a nice gesture, though I wasn't angry or exploding, so I agreed anyway. All of their desserts were going at $10, where else can you find such deals? I ordered their creme brulee ($10), which I reckon is a pretty safe choice. I was pretty amused by the waitress who took our dessert order. After we ordered two desserts to share, she continued to ask which dessert was mine (since mine was on the house). I thought that was pretty amusing since all desserts were $10 and it wouldn't matter which dessert was mine since either or is free anyway. But anyway.. The creme brulee, if I must, was slightly disappointing as well. The burnt caramel on the top was so hard and thick that I could hardly break through it without using heaps of strength. Well, if I had to go through such strength to get to a yummy custard base I would be satisfied but I wasn't quite either. The custard was bland and ain't sweet at all, the biscuit didn't make up for it either. 

The other dessert we order was their apple pie served with vanilla ice cream ($10). I was very keen i

The ambience at Citizen Corner was really pleasant and cosy. It is quite a small restaurant, but still able to cater, say about 20 people when it's full house. The staff are friendly and always smiling, it was definitely a very kind gesture to offer the dessert on the house for the wrong order. However, the food wasn't all that satisfying for me because I felt like my stomach was pretty empty after a two-course meal. Nevertheless, glad that I've tried and would probably visit them again since they've got a new menu up. 

Citizen Corner
118 Devonshire Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Australia

O Bal Tan, Sydney

O Bal Tan

363A Pitt Street

Sydney NSW 2000
Australia

Sydney has quite a number of good Korean restaurants. I reckon it's easier to be a good Japanese restaurant than to be a good Korean restaurant, because of how consumers have a more peculiar taste towards things not easily available? Well I'm sure it's easier to find a Japanese restaurant than a Korean one. 

O Bal Tan is located next to the famous Madang Sydney (look at previous Madang write-up here). The birthday boy requested for Madang since he's such a big fan of it for his birthday treat, but alas Madang is packed on a Friday night and we will prolly never get our table until perhaps 9pm :/ We turned to O Bal Tan, looking at how there weren't people queuing and perhaps another try at a possibly good Korean restaurant? Lucky we persuaded ourselves to give this place a try, it's worthy. 

They seem to have the widest variety of side dishes (which are free of charges and free refills) among all other Korean restaurants I've been. Usually, restaurants would give the exact number of side dishes for the number of patrons present, like we would be given only two sides given that there were only two of us. O Bal Tan is definitely generous in their side dishes, I had a good time snacking on them despite not having GamJa JoRim (I think it's soy honey potato) which I absolutely love.

I guess this side is pretty common, I've seen this around in most Korean restaurants.

The other varieties they offered - the regular kimchi, spicy tapioca (?), onions in soy sauce. 

Interestingly, there was also Western pasta salad in our set of side dishes. Adds a little bit to our carbohydrate intake, nice. 

They also had miniature pancakes (can't remember what the filling was, sorry!), which were a little too cold. So we heated them up using the bbq grill, then it was all good. 

For our bbq mains, we usually have pork (either pork ribs or pork belly) and beef. I can't remember the cut for the beef, but I remember the meats that we had were pretty good! The marinated pork was tasty and the beef was slightly on the chewy side (maybe we bbq-ed them for too long). 

The must-have to order in Korean restaurants - Seafood pancake. You can tell the standard of the restaurant from the most common dish. I reckon their seafood pancake wasn't very nicely done, there was a very little seafood taste in this and I felt like it was just dough with little bits of seafood. 

I would definitely visit O Bal Tan again for their bbq meat because they were really nicely done. Might give another try at their seafood pancake again, maybe it was just my luck that I had to have dough pancake that night. 

PS Typing this entry makes me crave so badly for Korean food. 

PPS I have final exams coming up, I really shouldn't be blogging. 

bills

Last week was my housemate's birthday, so the usual would see us going out for a meal together. The birthday girl wanted to do brunch at Surry Hills or Newtown, then we decided on bills at Surry Hills. Prior to visiting a new cafe or restaurant, it's definitely and always my habit to look it up, google it and see what's recommended by cyber-ians. Apparently bills doesn't really have a very good reviews on.. The waiting time T__T

bills
359 Crown Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Australia
(16 October 2010)

Upon arriving, we registered our name and was told to wait for 20-30mins for our seats. So we went for a short stroll and went back promptly. But our seats were only ready after another 15-20mins. So total wait for seats was... 35-50 mins >.< Having nothing to do standing outside, waiting for our seats, we started staring hard at the menu to spot any fancies.

It was extremely windy that day, wind that brought really cold air, so not many people sat outside of the cafe. I saw a group of girls sitting outside some of the other cafes, and their hair were in a mess and some stuff sticking out of it. I think they were leaves :P

Finally, we were seated. We took a bit of time trying to decide what to eat and the food took ages to come. Definitely about 30mins! :( So I started entertaining myself with shots, so I can post something here. I really like this ceiling light because it rotates! Maybe I can get this in my new place :)

The busy cafe, with a line at the far corner. I think the waiting time is really terrible :/

We had two rounds of disappointment before our food came. I guess everyone ordered their bills classics, so we kept seeing the same stuff coming out of the kitchen. But sadly, they weren't ours till the... Third round :(

So finally, our food came and there goes the non-stop camera shutters! I'm proud to be a food paparazzi :D This was what I ordered, pretty yummy, generous amount of corns! I think I got quite scared of corns after that, I thought the tile floorings along the roads looked like these corn fritters!

Sweet corn fritters with roast tomato, spinach and bacon - AU$18.50

This was another of their specialty -- Hotcakes! I tried a little, they definitely don't taste like Macca's hotcakes. Pretty yummy, but I don't see why some reviewers really like their honeycomb butter :/

Ricotta hotcakes with fresh banana and honeycomb butter - AU$17.50

While we were waiting outside, we saw many people had these fries on their table, so I told my housemates that we should try it. On the top, they were really bland though. I guess they didn't mix up the fries, it got salty towards the bottom. Good try, but well they're just fries.

Herbed French Fries - AU$8

This steak sandwich was really good imo! I really liked the bread, it was toasted really well :)  Good to have a second time!

Fillet steak sandwich with caramelised onion, rocket, fresh tomato and horseradish cream - AU$18.50

Lastly, we also had scrambled eggs on our table, one of bills classics. I don't fancy egg, so I don't have much to say about it. But I reckon there're other stuff which sounds awesome to try on second visit.

Scrambled organic eggs with sourdough toast, extra fresh tomatoes - AU$13.50 + AU$4.50

This is just a snapshot on how my corn fritters look like on the cross-sections. I still remember the taste of it, yums.

So after we were done, I went to meet a friend for coffee :) On the way, in the strong winds, there was A SHOE in the middle of road. Of course, being fascinated kids, we had to stop and have our photos taken. My hair looked so messed up with the huge winds >.< I would love to be in the shoe in that weather, away from the annoying cold wind. The weather in Sydney is really erratic and emotional. It could be really cold and windy in the morning, then hot in the afternoon. Makes me sick pretty easily *sniff sniff*

We had a surprise for our housemate in the evening, with her friends who popped by with all the food and cake! They've got a chocolate truffle cake from Buzzzbar Cafe, it was so so so rich in chocolate. It was a little wet though, when we tried to slice it up for everyone >.<

That's all, folks! I've got heaps of work to catch up before exams start in.. Two weeks! Omg :( But I've been eating out lately and I've got so much to share. When I have time, I'll definitely be back.