Chocolatesuze - Sydney Food Blogger

Aqua S, Sydney

25 January 2015, 16:33

My love for ice cream beats my love for fried chicken and for cheese so when new kid on the block Aqua S opened up in Regents Place (Shop 27, 501 George St, Sydney), I was eager to fulfil my dessert stomach’s cravings. This beauty is the sea salt soft serve with caramel popcorn, popping candy, toasted marshmallow, dark chocolate cone and a cloud of fairy floss!


Aqua S is directly opposite Chanoma and it’s crazy to see how popular they’ve gotten these past 2 weeks! I’m sure the highly Instagramably presentations don’t hurt either!


So first, pick yo flavour. Currently the flavours are Lemon Tea, Sea Salt and Biscotti. The sea salt flavour with stay as a permanent flavour and every 2 weeks there will be new flavours. It’s $3.80 for a chocolate cone or a small cup, $4.30 for a large cup.


Then toppings time! There’s popping candy, fairy floss, caramel popcorn and grilled marshmallows. It’s $1.50 for 1 topping, $2.50 for 2 toppings or the All You Can Eat for $4.20 which is all the toppings though I find the name misleading cos I would totally just pack on a heapload of marshmallows until the marshmallow to ice cream ratio is whack. Oh and yeah, you don’t have to get toppings, whatever floats your boat!


I loved watching them make the fairy floss! It’s my dream to one day own a commercial fairy floss machine. The itty bitty ones at the shops take too damn long to heat up for the amounts that I can consume.


Swirls!


I fricken love toasted marshmallows!!! There’s just something about the caramelised edges and oozy innards that makes me feel like I’m eating my childhood dreams…


The lemon tea soft serve is my fave because it’s sour, refreshing and zingy! It didn’t need all the toppings but hey it sure is purdy :P


On another visit I had the biscotti but in a cup and they’d put the popcorn on the bottom which was impossible to get to but since then they’ve sprinkled the popcorn on top which is ace. I wasn’t as keen on the biscotti flavour mainly because when I think of biscotti I think of biscotti packed full with nuts and this soft serve didn’t really have a particularly strong flavour? I still ate it though because, ice cream.


Oh and if you can’t decide between 2 flavours you can get them twinned!


Though personally this is my all time fave combo- lemon tea with 2 toasted marshmallows :D The soft serve melts incredibly fast so as soon as you’ve taken a photo I’d recommend staying put!

Brewristas, Glebe

18 January 2015, 01:49

FOOOODS! So one fine day a bunch of us kicked off the new year by meeting for brunch at newly opened Brewristas (73 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe).


We spy Kevin, part owner of Brewristas tending to his cold drip towers, syphons and pour over station and know we’re in for a caffeinated treat.


We order 3 bottles of Brewrista’s hand crafted cold drip coffees- Cold Brew ($9), Brewmonade ($10) and Brewtea ($10). I’m not an expert of coffee by any means, I know what I like and don’t like so Raff has been slowly teaching me the different methods and importance of the beans sourced. I liked the Cold Brew which tasted clean and sweet, the Brewmonade (cold drip with home lemonade) was refreshing but I found a tad on the sweet side. I loved the Brewtea the most (cold drip coffee with cold drip tea), although I’m not sure if it’s because Malaysians always drink Cham, a combo of coffee and tea so I thought this tasted familiar. Anywhos check out Raff’s post here for more detailed descriptions on the coffee :P


On another visit with Toan, I couldn’t resist the Vietnamese Ca Phe Sua Da ($5), iced coffee served over condensed milk and it’s bloody good, as is anything with condensed milk.


Kevin’s Balls ($10) are filled with roasted pork belly, tofu, spicy kimchi, sweet potato and encrusted with shin ramyun. I was worried it’d be too much novelty and no taste but was pleasantly surprised with how (dare I say this..) MOREISH the balls were! The noodles provided the glorious crunch factor and housed the juicy pork belly within. I didn’t really taste much sweet potato which was a shame because I heart sweet potato but it was probably used more as a binder for all the ingredients in the ball than for flavour.


We order the Grilled Eggplant Stack ($14) with grilled zucchini, roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, basil, thai pesto, sweet potato puree and bocconcini with additional Chorizo ($3) because hey, CHORIZO EQUALS HAPPINESS! The eggplant was totally the star of this dish though (I REFUSE TO SAY HERO), each slice was fat and juicy with a nice smokiness to it. I loved the itty bitty bocconcini scattered around but would’ve loved more mainly because cheese is awesome.


Porky Pig’s Hotteok ($15) is a honey jam pancake sandwiched with crispy bacon, a poached egg, spicy guacamole, rocket and a mango & habanero mayo. The honey jam pancake is more of a muffin stuffed with honey jam, I know some people aren’t quite on the sweet and savoury combo bandwagon but as for me I’m firmly in that wagon and happily driving away.


Innards shot of the pancake! It kinda reminded me of this fried lotus paste bun desserts I used to eat growing up, I’m attempting to access my memory with the name but am failing and google isn’t helping for once (edit: Heong Peng!). The dish doesn’t really need the mango & habanero mayo once the gooey egg yolk is pierced and smothers everything in sight with its golden river of happiness. It does get a bit rich but hey you’re worth it.


Coconut Poached Chicken Salad ($16) with spinach, fennel, coriander, watercress, topped with fried shallots, drizzled with a pomegranate infused lemon dressing. Truth be told we ordered this salad out of a feeling of guilt because we all knew that our nutrient intake could always use a boost and for a salad this was pretty tasty especially with the juicy pops of pomegranate seeds. My tastebuds were super confused with the tender strips of coconut chicken because I’m so used to the flavour of coconut + chicken to be in a laksa!


Ultimate Nutella Frappe ($7) is made with heaps of Nutella, vanilla ice cream, a double espresso shot and ice, all blended together. I was buzzing from all the caffeine I’d already consumed so opted for the frappe minus the espresso shot because I’m weak haha and ohhh boy is this drink rich! Definitely one for the nutella lovers!


Of course what’s a meal without dessert? The Tiramisu Pot Plant ($10) is cute as a button and equally delicious. Layers of ladyfingers are soaked in Brewrista’s espresso with sweet mascarpone mousse and topped with chocolate biscuit crumbs for the ‘dirt’.


A lot of the cafes in Glebe close quite early but Brewristas is open from 1pm to 10pm on weekdays, from 10am to midnight on Saturday and from 10am to 9pm on Sunday. I’ll definitely be back for my next caffeine hit!

Terrigal Ice Creamery, Terrigal

11 January 2015, 19:19

I love ice cream. My increasing sensitivity to lactose has not put a damper on my adoration of ice cream and if you opened my freezer right now you would see containers and boxes all wedged in tetris style to fit in as much ice cream as possible. I have been lusting over this incredible ice cream sink from Terrigal Ice Creamery (6/18 Church St, Terrigal) for about 2 years now as the boy refused to let me order this to eat just between the two of us pfft!


Luckily the rellies have migrated over from Malaysia to Sydney and we introduced them to our favourite beach in Terrigal before I convinced them that they needed to partake in the age ol Aussie tradition of ice cream by the beach. I just didn’t mention how many scoops they were about to consume :P Terrigal Ice Creamery is 1 street away from the main beach with plenty of street parking available.


Wall of flavours!


The ice cream sink is $35 for 15 scoops, I was given an order pad and instructed to write the 15 flavours we wanted in our sink.


I’d first heard of the ice cream sink from @ffichiban, eater of all things epic and at last! My preciousssss! My selections were: maltesers, death by chocolate, hokey pokey, rainbow, salted caramel, oreo cookies & cream, white chocolate & raspberry, cookie dough, hazelnut, Ferraro Rocher, pecan caramel, macadamia, strawberry summer, apple sorbet, lemon sorbet and the whole shebang was topped with wafers, flakes, chocolate fudge and whipped cream.


The staff come out and take a photo of everyone who orders the ice cream sink and it’s displayed out the front which I think is a nice touch.


ATTACK! I loved the hokey pokey the most, followed by the Ferrao Rocher and then the salted caramel. These 3 were rich and sweet but not in the teeth-decaying-cloying way. The nieces had never heard of rainbow ice cream before and went silent as they attempted to extract that crazy neon hue. I’ll wait a couple of years before I ruin it for them and tell them what flavour rainbow really is heh.


School holidays means another trip to the beach and another visit for ice cream!


More chocolate was requested so we ordered: cookie dough, hazelnut, New York chocolate, Ferraro Rocher, pistachio, Bacio, chocolate, watermelon, chocolate chip, death by chocolate, milk chocolate, rainbow, pecan, snickers, cookies & cream aaaand of course the whipped cream, fudge, flake and wafers!!!


That Ferraro Rocher is the bomb! We weren’t too keen on the pistachio which had more of an almond extract flavour but eh 1 dud out of 15 is ok. One by one we ate as much ice cream as we could before slumping down in our seats with defeat. Except for Noods. He likes a challenge.