zenq @ victoria ave., chatswood

Ok, so nothing really new here. We've seen Meet Fresh and the queue for that is humungous if you go to the one in the city and well, now there's ZenQ; a dessert place offering a very similar menu. To their credit, ZenQ do offer a wider menu selection but in the end, if I were to compare the hero dishes at both places, I'd have to say that Meet Fresh do it slightly better.

Signature Dessert No. 1 - Grass Jelly with ZenQ signature q balls and pearls. I'm slightly sad that there are more q balls in there; don't ask me why, those balls hardly taste like anything but I love them and can't stop eating them.

On this particular day, the boy wasn't too impressed that I was taking yet another photo of him. Actually you can even see me in the reflection of the mirror; I'm as happy as ever!

This dish when it came to the table looked nothing like the picture on the menu - Black Sago with green tea pudding and vanilla ice cream. Would probably recommend you order with the regular sago - the black sago just reminds me of little fish eyes and doesn't really go very well with the rest of the items in the dish.

I'd been waiting awhile to check this place out (as every time I'd gone, there was always a queue). Have to say though, from what I've tried, I'd probably stick with Meet Fresh. Everything just looks sad when it comes to the table (nothing like the pictures on the menu). Maybe better luck next time!

zumbo dessert train @ the star (take 2)

So I know I said I'd wait another month before I headed back to the Zumbo desert train but chance had it I was in the city, I was grabbing dinner and just happened to be grabbing dinner at the Star. It only made sense to pop back into Zumbo's to see if there were any new additions. And I can excitedly say, yes there are additions and improvements! First of all, there was no queue to get a seat on the train (but we were there at about 8pm, earlier than my previous visit), there were individual cakes on the train (making the train a lot fuller) and overall, a much larger variety of desserts on the train to select from. I continued to work my way through the list!

Peach Melba - Fresh raspberries, blood peach compote, vanilla creme Chantilly, vanilla emulsion, raspberry pistachio cake. 

Ssnowmanorr - Pate a choux, bubble tea custard, lychee coconut creme legere, lychee gel, coconut crunch. Hands down my favourite Zumbo creation; such a great mix of Asian flavours and none too sweet either - I thought I would need to abandon the necktie of the Snowman which was made out of fondant but actually very palateable.

With my favourite dessert of the day!

Chocolate Coffee Brulee - Chocolate coffee brulee, chocolate sacher cake, milk emulsion and expresso melt. The shards of brulee topping ended up being to thick to eat so I left them on the plate, otherwise the coffee brulee overs a real coffee kick for the coffee fanatic.

And something for the road - a box of Macaroni Road! (available from the retail store next door to the dessert train)  You will probably fall off your chair if I tell you how much it costed (well my jaw did drop a little when I asked at the counter and they told me it was $19.50, was thinking it would be closer to $10) but as you can see, curiousity killed my wallet and I bought it. Though I have to say, its awfully tasty and I'm savouring every bite!

So I've only been  to the Zumbo dessert train twice but embarrassingly it seems that some of the staff recognise me from my last visit. Perhaps I'll need to prolong my next visit to keep a bit low key; I don't eat that many desserts and anyway, the record I believe is still 8 plates on the dessert train, I don't eat that much (I don't think). Anyway, great to see that the dessert train is responding to the feedback that is cropping up across the blogosphere. Look forward to my next visit and next installment of tasty delights!

shanghai stories 1938 @ victoria ave., chatswood

Can it please stop raining?! Why is it even raining at this time of year?! It was on a rather rainy weekday that Mashi and I made our way over to The Concourse at Chatswood to try out one of their restaurants - Shanghai Stories 1938 (next door is a pizza place called Gusto which I'm certainly keep to try - anyone up for it?) The occasion was a belated birthday celebration for Mashi and it actually worked out to be quite a nice place for the occasion; unbeknownst to both of us, Shanghai Stories leans towards the upmarket but still being affordable and being a school day, the two of us dined like royalty on their upstairs floor which is decked out quite nicely (certainly not your average Shanghai dumpling house)

The menu features a mixture of the familiar (dumplings, pancake, noodles) but also has its fair share of fusion items (pringles, Peking Duck and Osmanthus Jelly is one of them but I had this on my second visit), family dinner dishes as well as seafood sold at market price. There's definitely all sorts to suit different budgets so assume this is what the restaurant owner has set out to offer. According to the boy, their wine list is also quite extensive and very reasonably priced too.

Snowy River Sweet Pork Ribs - this dish features on the front page of their menu (and which we also missed until the waitress kindly recommended it to us as we were having trouble deciding); it was definitely too pretty not to try and ended up being a very tasty choice.

Mixed Cold Cuts Platter - the tomato is definitely the highlight of this dish (well for me anyway, it was something new and different and the sweet taste of the tomato was not something I was expecting from eating Shanghainese food)

Sesame Pastry. Despite looking at the menu and reading about what this item was (as it was one of the highly recommended items), neither Mashi nor I were prepared for the sweet inner of this pastry, we both thought it would be savoury and personally, I do think it would've tasted better if it were savoury.

Braised fish fillet and fungus in wine sauce. I actually love this dish for the fungus and could do with it just being fungus only - but that's because I love fungus.

Soy sauce Pork Fried Rice.

Panda & Panda buns! We knew that we were going to order these ones even before we started the meal - they're too cute not to. The inner is a red bean paste and yes, they are really too cute to eat!

With a pot of tea to share between us also, we wrapped up the meal for $90. Admittedly, not the cheapest fix of Shanghainese food in Sydney or even just in Chatswood where you actually have several cheaper options. Being a special occasion and with the level of service we had that night, it was a great school night dining option. I've actually already been back for a second visit (though we sat downstairs this second time and the atmosphere is actually quite different; actually more laidback), well I guess it speaks for itself, food is solid and with such an extensive menu, it will bring you back.

coffee cake

I secretly love birthdays; it doesn't even have to be my birthday, it can be anyones and I still love it. I love celebrating, I love giving presents (and of course receiving them) but most of all, I love birthday cake. For years, I've vowed to bake everyone a birthday cake for their birthday but so far I've managed in two instances, the first was for my best friend's 18th birthday and the second instance was just the other Friday where I had the day off work and baked dad his birthday cake. I'm promising myself once again that I'll make more of an effort; it really is worth it in the end.

This recipe comes from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook; the very place which I'd love to visit!

Start by making a coffee essence. Put 2 tbsp instant coffee granules and 170mL water in a small saucepan and bring to the boil over medium heat. Boil until reduced by half, then remove from the heat and leave to cool completely. Set aside a tablespoon of the essence to use in the frosting.

Preheat oven to 170 degrees. In a large bowl, combine 450g softened unsalted butter, 450g caster sugar and cold coffee essencewith a hand held electric mixer. Add 8 eggs one at a time, mixing well until incorporated. Beat in 450g plain flour, 2 tbsp baking powder and 2 tsp cocoa powder and mix well.

Line a ring mould as per below.

Pour the mixture into the prepared ring mould and smooth over with a knife. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes or until the sponge feels firm to the touch.

In the meantime, prepare the coffee vanilla frosting by beating 250g sifted icing sugar and 80g softened unsalted butter with a mixer. Combine 25mL milk and a couple of drops of vanilla extract in a separate bowl and then gradually add to the butter and sugar mixture. Once all the milk has been incorporated, add in the reserved tablespoon of coffee essence and turn the mixer up to high speed and continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy (at least 5 minutes). Prepare the shaved chocolate shaving by grating 60g dark chocolate with a cheese grater.

Here's the cake after 40 minutes!

Place the cake on a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

When the cake is cold, put on a serving plate and cover the top with the frosting.

Decorate with chocolate shavings.

As I was making the cake a day in advance (and with it being extremely hot!), here's the contraption I made to store the cake in the fridge. Had both the mum and boy laugh at me which wasn't particularly nice - especially cause I had to keep cutting away at the skewers until it managed to fit in the fridge!

We had a big extended family dinner the next day and everyone came back home to eat the cake. Despite taking it out of the fridge for a good hour, it hadn't quite defrosted so the texture of the cake was a little hard but smelt absolutely divine. On my second piece, I actually microwaved the slice which returned the cake to its soft and spongy texture, but unfortunately the icing did melt a little. So yes, had I more time that morning of the birthday, it probably would've been better to make it then but otherwise a very lovely cake which ended up being gigantically big (nothing like the pic in the book!)

Happy birthday dad! Hope you had an awesome birthday!

chocolate rum-raisin muffins

We're just a mere 3 weeks away from Christmas - what does everyone have planned? I'm reasonably organised this year, Christmas cards are being written (some have even made it through the postal system!), most presents have been bought and only a handful still to shop for, you can say that Christmas this year is in a reasonably good place for a change. This week I might even tackle our new Christmas tree and well, the Christmas baking has already started with this rather boozy special - chocolate rum-raisin muffins!

The recipe I used comes from The Golden Book of Chocolate. The recipe didn't actually specify the type of rum to use, usually it would be a dark rum for baking but in the absence of dark rum and a bit of Bacardi left over, I figured it should work out ok.

Had to take a snap of these cute cupcake liners found at the local supermarket - very pretty!

Plump 150g raisins in 90mL rum in a small bowl for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Line a 12 cup muffin pan. In a large bowl, mix together 375g plain flour, 75g cocoa powder, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt. Stir in 200g caster sugar. Stir in the raisin mixture, original recipe asks for 375mL cream (but I substituted this with 200mL buttermillk and the remainder in soy milk), 2 lightly beaten eggs and 90g melted butter. Stir until combined.

Spoon the batter into the prepared cups.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean, approximately 20 minutes.

Cool the muffins on wire racks.

These muffins had a quite a dense texture (which I'd attribute to the soy milk) and were delectably chocolatey but at the same time, not all that sweet. As a special treat, there's just that hint of rum taste to it  which I think I'd prefer over using a dark rum which can often be a bit too overpowering. Who knew you could use Bacardi Rum for baking!