The Rocks Aroma Festival 2011

This is way too long overdue, given that Aroma Festival happened during winter (and it's already spring now). But better late than never, this just serves its purpose of a record of memories. Blogging at my own pace - well this is just an excuse for being lazy. 

The Rocks Aroma Festival happens yearly at The Rocks during the winter period. It was my first time at the Aroma Festival this year, even though I've already been in Sydney for the past 3 years. Finally my chance at the festival this year. 

Aroma Festival boasts coffee and chocolate and indeed, it is sort of a one stop venue for all good coffees and chocolates for all coffee and chocolate lovers. There were many stalls and the crowd was massive. I'm making a note to self here - arrive early so we don't have to queue for such a long time. We didn't exactly try all the stalls (it would just be insane and extremely fattening), but the intake was enough to last till dinner :)

Bite size cookies? 

The entire area we have to cover. We actually squirmed through some areas because there were just too many people and almost all the stores were alike? 

Evidence of the massive crowd. This was just one of the many parts of the entire area. 

Huge cherries, anyone? It's amazing how cherries grow so huge like this, I hope they are naturally grown into this size anyway. 

We tried one of the coffee stalls, it was really good. Didn't catch the name but here we have their pamphlet as queue number. Good way for us to remember the stall I reckon! 

Beside it was Green Bean Coffee, many people were queuing for this coffee. Exactly what it says, its coffee made from green bean. Bumped into a friend there, she said it had an interesting taste to it. Too bad we didn't wanna get caught up in the queue. Note to self - Try this. 

I'm a bad coffee drinker, I need to have two sugars or I'll detest coffee. 

Had some good cravings for chocolate coated strawberries, so got a cup off this stall! Unfortunately, the strawberries weren't sweet and the chocolate wasn't enough :(

They should be generous with chocolate, shouldn't they? This kinda looks miserable. 

A recommendation by a friend, turned out very well :)

Barista hard at work. 

Skimmed cap. 

I would very much appreciate it if there were shorter queues, but if it weren't for the long queues would anyone wanna try? That's the irony when I visit such festivals. As much as I judge certain stalls by their queues, I don't really wanna queue for too long. I should make it a point to go for next year's Aroma Festival in the morning, so I can grab a table, sit around, sip on my coffee and just watch crowds go by. It's a good way to just enjoy.. life :)

Löwenbräu Keller, Passionflower

Been there, done that on 30 September 2010.

Löwenbräu Keller
Argyle St
The Rocks, NSW 2000
Australia

A good friend from home was telling me about Löwenbräu Keller and how I must must must try it. Of course, I didn't doubt her words and so I told my homies about it and there, we set our monthly dinner at Löwenbräu Keller! It was also timely because we also wanted to try out Passionflower's new product -- Spanish Hero Dipstix. What a sinful day we had, with all that meat and dessert. But it was awesome :)

So for our dinner + night out, I was asked to set an outfit theme to make things more fun. I was fretting over what the theme should be -- it can't be too hard, nor too easy -- I decided on colours! I actually took much effort in trying to think of one, felt stressed over whether it was a good theme. But all's well, even though you prolly can't tell that it's colours :P

I wasn't in my most colourful outfit definitely, but I was dreaming all day about wearing my hot pink tights (that looks like purple here because the sky was really blue that day). That was the most striking colour I had on me and my nails had the most colours, sorry no photos on nails!

So I made my homies pose for a photo with Sydney Opera House in the background. I must say, the photos turn out really nice!

Then we asked someone to take for the three of us. Timely wind that came by, I like how there was like a studio effect :P

So, we walked on from Circular Quay Station to The Rocks for our dinner. Very nicely, we were greeted by this really ethusiastic old boy. I overheard that he told a couple that he was a young boy no longer, so that makes him an old boy -- How cute. Didn't manage to take a photo with him, wasn't in time with the camera bag on my shoulder and my new Sportsgirl cluth in my hand.

So we looked through the menu and of course, German cuisine means pork knuckles and sausages! We definitely couldn't read the German names on the menu, so we just randomly ordered a platter. I asked the waitress how I would read the name of the platter, but she said it in such a fast way I couldn't catch. I reckon it's "Schh-lark-platt" or something. We upsized the platter too, and we honestly couldn't finish it because it was sooooooo meaty.

We were just in time for Oktober Fest, everyone's been talking about it! But I didn't manage to order any drinks because my homies don't drink. It wouldn't make sense for me to order drinks when my dinner partners don't, but I'll definitely drag someone to go to Löwenbräu with me again, well someone who drinks that is.

The decor around the restaurant, super festive feel. But like most restaurants, dim lights and photos were so hard to capture :(

We didn't have to wait long before our platter came! Look at the overwhelming pile of meat *drools* I should have taken a vegan meal for lunch, so it balances with the meaty dinner meal.

The sauce right in the saucer (that looks like it's from Aladdin! :) ) was actually the bier sauce. I actually was able to taste that it was bier after my homies tried to guess what sauce was it. At that instant, I actually felt smart, like for once (on the wrong issues though!).

To capture a clearer photo of what food there are, I grabbed a little of everything and placed them on my plate. It was so hard because the girls have already started eating and I was still trying to fix up my plate for a photo, aaah. There was red cabbage and some other veggie which I don't fancy. They had a little sour taste, so I would presume they're appetizers or just some greens to neutralise the meat. I really liked the mashed potato, chicken schnitzel and the pork belly (but without the huge amount of fats). The mashed potato had like a buttery taste, but I know it's just ordinary mashed up potato. The chicken schnitzel was really awesome though, like it was wet inside and crispy on the outside -- Perfection! Pork belly was really fat, but I had a couple with the entire chunk of fats anyway. The pork wouldn't be pork if the fats were taken together anyway. If anyone is super conscious about fats, skip the pork belly and pork knuckles or take the fats out. It defeats the purpose anyway, like eating the meat without the fats. So, try it once with the entire chunk of fats!!! *Sniggles*

Then came two guys who started playing music for us, one was on the euphonium and the other on the accordion. I really felt like I was in Germany or somewhere European for a moment, I think I'll really like being in Europe such friendly people!

There were two extra sauces that were on all tables. One's mustard and other's unknown. All of us couldn't make out what the other one was, but my friend really liked the unknown sauce. I don't fancy both actually. Oh, but the pork knuckle was best with the bier sauce. It kinda neutralises with the saltiness in the meat and together, it was perfect!

Then we got this really cute, tall and super skinny waiter to take a photo for us. We started wondering if German guys are all that skinny and tall, their figure is what we all want. We also concluded that ladies would have to be of a certain figure to be able to work there :P

This lady went around to take photos for everyone, the photos taken would actually be put up on the website!! Hahaha, like a moment of fame there. Check these links for the photo #1, #2 and #3. We actually had the most photos on that page, haha I know cheap thrill.

After dinner, we took a quick walk over to Circular Quay Station to catch the free shuttle 555 back into the City. It was sooooo windy and freezing like mad that we wished we had worn more layers! This spring is really odd because it's been so cold lately it feels like winter again. But thank goodness it's turning warmer, now it's like 24deg!

We took the free city shuttle to Capitol Square for Passionflower! I've been there a couple of times and their desserts are really yums.

Passionflower
Capitol Square
730-742 George Street
Haymarket NSW 2000
Australia

I would totally confess I'm a icecreamholic if I'm already not a chocoholic :D

We ordered Secret Treasures because we were all craving for something black sesame, red bean and green tea! Passionflower has many jappy flavours and it's totally worth going if you wanna have some jappy dessert fix!

Secret Treasures - Azuki red bean with fresh bananas sandwiched between two freshly baked crepes sided with our original ice cream flavours of sticky rice and japanese green tea (A$ 15.50).

I couldn't really taste the red bean though, like together with the banana and crepe. The banana was really strong :( We didn't know what that white syrup was, but we reckon it was coconut milk? We didn't do anything with it anyway.

Spanish Hero Dipstix with a selection of two sauces (pandan creme, caramel sauce, black sesame creme, milk couverture chocolate and whipped cream) -- A$ 8.80.

My friend had a discount coupon for the dipstix (which are churros actually), so we ordered one set of that. It wasn't anything fancy, I don't really have much liking for it. The dipstix was cinnamon flavour and it was best with the milk couverture chocolate because it was melted hot chocolate. The black sesame dip wasn't good though, it didn't taste like sesame at all :( We were actually kinda disappointed, lucky we had the coupon!

Conclusion: I would definitely go back to Löwenbräu again, they seem pretty famous for what they have! Also, Passionflower because there's always room for desserts. It's a pity that Passionflower only has two outlets in Sydney and that being said, both are in the City. But nevertheless, they've only recently opened a new outlet in Melbourne so I guess it's still good to say that it's a MUST to visit when you're in Sydney! Well, exclusive to Sydney means a must right? I'll show a couple more photos of what I had at Passionflower the next time, till then!

That's all for now, thank you for reading! Hope this write up is an improvement from the previous ones, for the photos and descriptions and prices too! I've been forgetting to put in the prices, but mainly because some of the visits I made has been a while back. Keep reading, and keep your comments coming. Cheers!