Sunday, July 22, 2012

Bondi sunset

So now that uni holidays are almost over, I should make the most of my remaining days~ And nothing is better than visiting Bondi beach~


(bondi @ 2:30pm)

Originally I wanted to have lunch @ Hurricanes but it wasnt opened.... dilemma... Now I didnt know what/where to eat @ Bondi. Come to think of it, for a monday arvo @ Bondi, there arnt many places decent  open for business...


After strolling up and down Campbell Parade, we finally settled for Il Puntino. It looked quite old and warm inside but we chose to sit outside. better view of the beach.

We sat down, had a look over the menu. I chose the chicken Caesar salad and bf had the T-bone steak with vegetables. then we waited...


we waited for quite a while... and considering that there was only 1 other customer sitting near us, was it necessary to wait THAT long.... 
finally some garlic bread came out. we didnt order it but was told that the garlic bread was on the house.
toasted focaccia bread spread with garlic oil on top. was quite nice and aided some of our hunger in the meantime. 
( toasted goodness)

Our meals came out 15-20mins later... boy was the wait long... when my Caesar salad came out, it was drenched in dressing... when placing my order, i asked them to put it on the side... i guess they forgot that...
( $16.50)
The egg was the yummiest part of the salad. Not too firm, not runny but soft. 

The bf's steak was too much of a disappointment to bother taking a picture of it... think of a simple home cooked t-bone steak with steamed broccoli, potato and carrots on the side, along with a little pot of packet mushroom sauce... Even I could cook up a better steak than that... and the t-bone steak wasn't medium rare nor was much of the meat edible... definitely was not worth $26

We finished our meal while gazing at this
When we stood up to go pay, a waiter came out and insisted me stay and have a coffee, on the house. After pausing a moment, we decided to stay since we still had time left on our parking


I think the best thing about this cafe/restaurant is not so much the food, but the service and hospitality. The coffee was really nice, even better than some served at Gloria Jeans~ But overall, I dont think I would bother returning here again.

Next time I'll have to google what time Hurricanes opens~

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Adriano Z{yum}BO

So since I am so bored with studying, I thought I post about our trip to Adriano Zumbo that is well overdue.
I think it was one of the worst days possible to go out.... rain rain RAIN :( only thing motivating us to actually go to the ct, to The Star, to Zumbo's, were the sweets~!

Us girls being girls, and lacking much direction, we got out our iPhones and GPS'ed the location of Zumbo's store even tho we were outside the Star. None of us knew that the new store was actually inside the Star, but slowly and eventually we found it.... (and also found out that we walked in a circle to get to it T_T)

Loved the front of the store. Full glass window with cakes on display. PINK led sign lights~ we coudlnt wait to get in and have a look thru the small store. Unfortunately the seating area was closed off during the day.

some macrons on display



watermelon flavored macrons~~

macron flavors for the day. behind the counter, ppl were busy mixing and baking more macrons~

 The flavor's i chose in order from the green macron is: milo, passionfruit, redskin, lychee, salted caramel, and raspberry caramel.
Milo was so true to its name~ so yummy and i actually thought i was eating a milo drink~
passion fruit was nice but nothing great
redskin was too sweet for my liking but it really tasted like the lolly
lychee had such a subtle flavor to it, almost non-existent but it had a clean simple sweetness
salted caramel was creamy, sweet and you could taste a hint of salt to it. loved this one the most because you get a little bit of bitterness, saltiness and sweetness to eat bite
raspberry caramel was quite nice, sweet raspberry jam in the middle and creamy caramel macron shells.
overall i like milo the best~
Now on to cakes, each of us bought our own individual cake to eat. each cake was around $9-$9.50
 i bought burnt caramel and pear wafer layer cake.
the top piece (brown) was a burnt caramel wafer. you could definitely taste the burnt to it. next layer was a caramel cream, followed by a layer of cake, then fruit (brown), then caramel cream, fruit and finished on a wafer slice. each individual layer itself was really nice and the cream wasnt too sweet. I love the fruity layer. I think it was pear inside. altogether, a really yummy cake that didnt make me feel sick after eating :)

The white cake in the middle, V8 cake, was bought by Von. It was like a cherry ripe/black forest kind of cake. Inside you could see 8 distinctive layers. cream, cake, fruit, jam etc. I personally didnt like it that much. It had a distinct taste to it, that I couldnt name == but Von enjoyed it a lot.
The 3rd cake (top left corner) was like a large cream puff. the inside was lychee cream with lychee bits. I had a mouthful of the cake and it was quite sweet. My friend couldnt finish it because of the sweetness to it.

Ugh, us 3 fatties had to sit for a while after our desserts... couldnt stand... coudlnt walk... but we felt happy because we satisfied our sweet cravings on such a crappy rainy day ~ woot woot

I would definitely recommend to go to the Zumbo store at The Star for your sugar fix instead of the one/two stores @ Balmain. Those ones are too small, and have more of a variety in breads~

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Guylian Cafe @ the Rocks

Some some weeks ago, while waiting for friends to arrive at the rocks, I thought to myself, instead of waiting around alone like a loser I might as well go and get a coffee~ (I, stephanie, am very addicted to my coffee)
So I walk into the cafe and am confused. Do i sit and wait for someone to come to me? Do I order and pay at the counter? Where is everyone? Eventually I walked to the counter, saw the staff and "Please take a seat and we'll come to you"...

I went and took a seat outside where a nice view of the water was~
Finally a waiter came out and took my order. Of course, I ordered a regular cappuccino.
As I sat there waiting for my coffee I got bored and went on facebook :)

The presentation is very similar to that @ Oliver Brown how your drink is accompanied by some chocolate. The flavour was a mystery to me and as I bit into it, the flavour of cherry oozed out and when I look at the insides, there was a whole cherry inside it. The chocolate was quite nice but didnt really match the coffee.

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3 hrs later after dinner, me and the girls went back to Guylian for dessert.
Without a doubt I order another coffee, but since it was night time, I ordered a mocha instead of a cap, just so I can get some sleep at night :)


I ordered pistachio and salted caramel flavored macron.
Amy, my friend ordered the white dessert in the background. I forgot what it was called though. I think it was lychee flavored? Overall the macrons were true to their names. I especially liked the salted caramel :)

It was a lot better being at the cafe with other people because its so quiet inside, kind of awkward...

I give the overall experience alone, 6/10 and the by the second time round, I give it 7.5/10


Oliver Brown Cafe - Top Ryde City, Sydney



First food review of our favourite food, chocolate.

Chocoholics like us tend to be attracted to cafe which serve up chocolate in all different changes and forms so when we heard about Oliver Brown we had to try it and we finally got around to doing just that. From high school, chocolate has always been our comfort food (or maybe its coffee, can't decide). We loved to sit in a cafe for one or two hours just to chat and catch up with old friends so we frequent them.

Stepping into Oliver Brown, in the furtherest deepest corner of the shopping centre, the atmosphere was entirely different from the bustling traffic beyond the glass windows. You were sucked into the comfort of the decor and the wondrous smell of chocolate. I couldn't help jump a little in glee.


Being our first time at the cafe, we looked a little lost browsing through their menu. The pricing the and choices on the menu wasn't anything different from standard chocolate cafes.

I ended up choosing the waffle and a Cookies and Cream frappe while Steph picked the crepe and a simple cappuccino. We sat snuck in the deepest corner of the cafe. maybe the sweet chocolate smell attracted them, but tiny fruit flies were our company but they didn't distract us from the chocolate, much.


A mountain of melted chocolate on top of waffle, strawberries and banana? What more could a girl ask for? There was definitely enough chocolate to satisfy my cravings. The waffle, however, was more chewy than the ones I usually have but I could get by. The drink definitely tastes like oreos, a plus in my books and there was so much of it!



Steph's crepes unfortunately didn't fair as well. Though it pleasantly presented Steph said it tasted like pre-made packet crepes. Not really worth it for a meal over $10, however, the strawberries were definitely fresh and not to mention the chocolate.


The cappuccino was relatively standard. What really won our hearts was the small accompaniment chocolate melts served up in the teaspoon. It had both of us going 'Awww'. We're a sucker for miniature anything!

All in all it was a pleasant first time  despite the flaws. We will probably see ourselves frequenting Oliver Brown whenever we feel like chocolate. Can't wait till I try out their pastries! ;)

Von's Rating: 8/10
Steph's Rating: 7/10


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Friday, January 20, 2012

A first post to get the boring introductions out of the way.

Basically, the tagline of the blog says it all.

As university students, Steph and I, without much bills to pay (yet) and being sick of eating the same old junk in the same old places, we decided to refine our taste buds (sort of - it was mainly to rid ourselves of stress from school). Being rookies at 'food spotting', we turned to food blogs for inspiration. Since our first exposure to food blogs, we've took on 'food spotting' as a hobby (or a sport depending on which way you look at it), trying and failing at various recipes and finally become inspired enough to start a food blog.

Sugar and Spice will, hopefully, help us document to sort though the various places we've been and eaten at  and with that inspire whoever comes across this blog to explore the available foods around them.

We mainly base in Sydney, though we never know where our taste buds will take us, reviewing cafes, dessert bars, restaurants and food stands. Basically anything goes as long as it tickles our fancy. So, here we go... :)