Manly Eats: Hemingway's and Adriano Zumbo

My friends love book cafes, and one has a goal to go to all the Sydney book cafes. Therefore, as a group we went to Hemingway's for lunch. Heminway's is located on the main road along the Beach. It has a bar, and an upstairs for more people to dine and enjoy some nice drinks.

Gin...I mean water

All the table water is served in Hendrick's Gin bottles! 

Kids these days won't know what an encyclopaedia is.

Creaming Soda

vodka, chambord, lemonade, cherry bitters, wild berry foam

Fried chicken with corn bread, potato salad and tomato sauce

The fried chicken was cooked through, but isn't the type of fried chicken I was expecting. There was a strong dill taste in the potato salad, even when combined with other components. The tomato sauce was a load of tomatoey goodness, but I feel that it didn't work well with the chicken. It went great with the corn bread, and when I see corn bread I always think of the movie The Green Mile. 

 Home made gnocchi with king prawns, garlic, chilli and prawn emulsion

This was a lovely dish, just not enough of it. The use of garlic and chilli added the extra hit, without being overpowering. 

Roast pumpkin salad with rocket, goats curd, seeds and grains

This was the most simple of the dishes, and the tastiest. A pumpkin based salad is always a hit, and this definitely was. The goats curd was soft like yoghurt, which added that extra bit of freshness.

Now, a visit to Manly means dessert at Adriano Zumbo. So we grabbed some treats and headed to the bay to sit and enjoy our delights!

Zumbarons!

Berry Brioche

lip # smack ! whack
cream cheese mousse, biscuit cuillere, olive oil mousse, mixed berry compote, cheesecake base, white chocolate, seasonal berries

Hemingway's was a bit of a hit and miss with our dishes. It was also quite a trek for people from South West Sydney. However, their current breakfast and dinner menu sound delicious. Adriano Zumbo, never disappoints.

Good food, good times!

Zumbaron Day 2012 @ Adriano Patisserie, The Star

 Haul of macarons by myself and 3 of my closest girlfriends.

That time of year had come again when Adriano Zumbo invited Sydney siders to all of his patisseries to try different flavoured macarons, specially made for the purpose of a Zumbaron Day - 6/10/2012  (it used to be on his birthday). This year the list was composed of 62 flavours, comprising of whacky flavours, and flavours that he has made throughout the years. Some of the whacky flavours that I did not purchase included duck pancake, pork belly and hamburger. 

My friend and I decided to get 24 macarons, and split them so we were able to try as many flavours as possible without having a massive macaron overload (if that is possible). From the list of 62 flavours we chose:

Box 1 (left to right):
Blue cheese, beer, blueberry & lavender, beetroot & raspberry, carrot cake, caramelised hommus, cola, fig with burnt honey & red wine, gin & tonic, lychee, milo

Box 2 (left to right):
Olive oil & salted truffle, passionfruit & basil, PB & J, peach ice tea, mojito, pineapple &ginger, redskin, salted gianduja caramel, wasabi & ginger, palm sugar & coconut, pear + pistachio & fennel

Of the above macarons, my favourites were olive oil & salted truffle, blueberry & lavender, carrot cake, red skin, passionfruit & basil and pear + pistachio & fennel.

I didn't like the macarons that had alcohol in it, or taste of alcohol. Furthermore, the blue cheese macaron was memorable (not in a good way). I am not a fan of blue cheese, and since this macaron had the EXACT taste of blue cheese, I took a small bite and ran for water straight away. However, if you are a fan of blue cheese, go for it, you will love it (as my friend did)! 

Along with the normal macarons, we decided to buy a few fried ones which included fried doughnut, fried chicken and custard fritter. There was also a special chocolate marshmallow pop macaron (the one on the stick). The fried doughnut macaron contained a raspberry macaron inside, so it tasted like a raspberry jam filled doughnut covered with cinnamon sugar ABSOLUTELY TASTY! The fried chicken tasted exactly as a fried chicken crumb, we waited to get back to my house to eat the macarons, and the fried chicken was still extremely crispy. The custard fritter macaron had a subtle taste which was slightly disappointing, but was still nice. I would definitely get all the fried macarons again.

Special macarons and cross section of fried chicken macaron

  

Fried doughnut cross section

Looking forward to next year, and more whacky and interesting flavours that Adriano Zumbo comes up with.

Good food, good times!

Zumboron Day 2011 @ Adriano Patisserie, Balmain

Every year Adriano Zumbo has his macaron day, which is usually on his birthday but this year it was held on 27th November. It is a day composed of all different flavours of macarons, and so a few of us went out and bought all the flavours we had not yet tried. 

Pandan	Cinnamon doughnut	Milo	Vegemite
Raspberry short bread	Choc mint	Maple syrup pancake	Toasted marshmallow
Cheese cake	Eucalptus	PB & J	Salted milk chocolate caramel
Bloody mary	Green apple pie	Peach ice tea	Salt and vinegar
Cherry coconut	Margarita	Pecan danish	Strawberry bubblegum
Buttersctoch caramel	Mandarin and tonka bean	Raspberry	Salted butter caramel
Choc banana	Mango black pepper	Raspberry & beetroot	Redskin

28 macarons in total were bought, and the list had 60. I wanted to try other strange flavours but I was disappointed to find out that the Balmain store didn't have them. These flavours included banh mi (bread), ramen, calamari and fried chicken. 

My favourite of the flavours that I did try were cinnamon doughnut, raspberry & beetroot, redskin, strawberry bubblegum, peach ice tea, pandan and green apple pie. 

Good food, good times!

Adriano Zumbo Patisserie @ Balmain

There is no better way to start a long weekend (got to love having no uni on Fridays) than to enjoy it with some good company and awesome treats from Adriano Zumbo Patisserie - Balmain (296 Darling St, Balmain, NSW 2040) http://adrianozumbo.com/.

And the feast begins!

Before digging into our lovely desserts we thought to start off with something savoury. So we decided to get the chorizo stick. It was like a chorizo pizza but on sour-dough bread. The bread was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, just how bread should be. All the flavours of the chorizo stick fused together perfectly. It was so good, that our jaws started to hurt from all the chewing. =D

Chorizo stick - Chorizo, capsicum, olives and caramelised onion $6

Now for the desserts!!! =D

My friend purchased 'what a great pear' which has choux pastry, pear & vanilla creme patissier, almond crunch, pear mousse, pera gel, chocolate square and marzipan. It was amazing! From one spoonful, you could taste everything. The pastry was soft, yet had a slight crisp. It had a light and pleasant taste, so it didn't make you feel heavy after eating it. The almond crunch at the base added a great change in texture from the soft pastry.

What a great pear $9

Inside of What a great pear

I love passionfruit in all desserts. A lot people find the taste to overpowering but I think with the right chocolate it provides a perfect balance, and this was a good balance. The passiondor contains hazelnut dacquoise, praline feuilletine noisette, passionfruit milk chocolate ganache, passionfruit milk chocolate chantilly. There was an intense flavour of passionfruit with every spoonful, and each time it touched your tongue it just melted. 
NOTE: IF YOU DON'T LIKE PASSIONFRUIT YOU WILL NOT LIKE THIS!

Passiondor $9

My sister purchased 'My Low in Life' which was definitely the most exciting of the all the desserts. It is a Milo based dessert (My Low - gotta love puns) composed of 3 layers. The first layer was a malt mousse under a dome of chocolate which was delectable. Followed by a milo milkshake, which you drank using the straw that was inserted. Only zumbo would be able to create airtight layers where such a wonderful experience could occur. Underneath the milo milkshake there was a chocolate disc, which you snap through to get to the chantilly cream where zumbo fused bits of milo into it. This dessert was just full of surprises and something that is very fun to eat. It is definitely a crowd pleaser.

My Low in Life $10

And of course you can't leave Adriano Zumbo's patisserie without some macarons. I had already tried the most of his latest range as seen here but I still had a few missing, and luckily for me they had the ones I hadn't tried were in the patisserie!

Coffee creme brulee, chocolate pop, lemon and olive oil, pear & vanilla and fig & burnt honey $2.30 each

My thoughts on the flavours:
**Coffee creme brulee - It was a macaron that was coated in sugar that was slight burnt, just like a real cream brulee. I am not the biggest fan of drinking coffee, but I enjoy coffee flavoured treats. The sugar coating added a nice texture and the coffee ganache was lovely. A coffee lovers dream.
Chocolate pop - Nothing can go wrong with chocolate, and that statement still stands. The inside didn't seem to be ganache but rather a chocolate mousse. It had a nice smooth texture and very light compared to ganache. With the name of chocolate pop, i thought there would be bits of popping candy in the macaron, but even so it was still good.
Lemon and Olive oil - It sounds strange but it wasn't that bad, the ganache tasted like vanilla with a hint of lemon and olive oil. It didn't have the oily texture, which I thought it would.
**Pear and vanilla - At first I couldn't taste the pear but half way through the flavour just burst out. I could eat a whole box of these.
**Fig and burnt honey - I have never tried a fig, so I am not quite sure what it was supposed to taste like, but I have tried honey and that flavour came through very well. I am not the biggest fan of honey, but I was a big fan of this macaron. The honey flavour wasn't to overpowering, when I thought it would be.
Note: The ** were my favourite ones.

Adriano Zumbo never fails to disappoint, there were so many more desserts I wanted to try but didn't want to get to greedy.

Good food, good times!