flour and stone

flour and stone
53 Riley St
Woolloomooloo
NSW 2011
Ph : (02) 8068 8818
Hours : Mon-Fri 7am to 4pm. Saturday 8am to 2pm.

For fans of Nadine Ingram's Cookie Couture gingerbread (made, for years, by her husband Jonathan, chef at Verandah), the news that she was about to open flour and stone in the old Sweet Infinity space was eagerly anticipated. 

When we visited at lunchtime on their first day, there was clearly a lot of baking going on in the kitchen. Cookie Couture’s wares are now being made in Woolloomooloo, so if you buy your gingerbread there, it’s not only likely to be incredibly fresh, but you’ll be able to buy them in single portions, which is now impossible to do at their retailers, who seem to only stock gift packs. As well, there are giant gingerbread designs available, for those days when you really need a giant piece of gingerbread.

Margaret's Cafe e Nata

Gum Loi Building (Edificio Kam Loi)

Rua Almirante Costa Cabral (it's in a small square off Rua Comandante Mata e Oliveira)
Macau

Ph : +853 28710032

Open daily

Bakeries selling Portuguese egg tarts are a dime a dozen in Macau. Everything I'd read pointed to two bakeries as being 'the' ones to try, so I decided that I would try the one easiest to get to when one is time poor and trying to fit in as much as possible on a day trip from Hong Kong.

The most well known of the two is Lord Stow's Bakery. Located on the Southern tip of Macau on Coloane Island, Lord Stow’s Bakery was opened by Andrew Stow with his then wife, Margaret Wong in 1989. 

Post divorce, Margaret established her own Portuguese egg tart shop in the middle of the city. More easily accessible than Lord Stow's, it still required some assistance to find the exact location, as the descriptions of  "behind Hotel Sintra" were not, oddly, sufficiently descriptive.

This, I believe, is indicative of the normal state of affairs at Margaret's. They actually serve a lot more than the tarts, including sandwiches and biscuits, but the tarts dominate, and it's a tourist trap. They are very effficient and the queue moves quickly, but it also means that the pressure is on for people to eat and leave, so as to allow others to have the table. This is not the sort of location to linger for a leisurely afternoon tea.

Azuma Patisserie & Cafe

Azuma Patisserie & Cafe
Address: Shop 10.01
Level 10, 501 George St
Sydney, NSW 2000
Monday - Saturday: 12pm - 10pm
Sunday: 1pm - 8pm


An unexpected phone call, a brief GTG at Azuma, the first visit for one of us.

Was this photo tweeted by @initialjh?

Tableshot : the Rolex is self-explanatory. On the right is a LE Stowa B-Uhr Flieger.  

The two small tarts are Cheesecake and Matcha Green Tea Ganache Tart, at $2.50 each.  With cheesecake filling in the Japanese style, the first was probably my preferred one. The Green Tea tart, its texture of a slightly chewy consistency, had a sweet, strong green tea flavour but the taste was of a more ordinary quality green tea powder, lacking that component of green tea aroma that comes with good green tea.

Azuma Patisserie & Cafe

Azuma Patisserie & Cafe
Address: Shop 10.01
Level 10, 501 George St
Sydney NSW 2000

Monday - Saturday: 12pm - 10pm
Sunday: 1pm - 8pm

The Tarts seem to drink a lot of coffee and eat a lot of cake. Strangely, our eponymous tarte au citron doesn't seem to be feature as much as it used to, though this is something that some of us are attempting to rectify by means of a Sydney wide trawl for lemon tarts. 

The above, for example, contains no lemons of any type.

The reason for this impromptu coffee and cake was the birthday of Tom, one of the co-founders of the Sydney Tarts.  Rather than going to our regular weekly haunt, we headed instead to Azuma Patisserie (previously known as Cafe Azuma). 

Guylian Chocolate Cafe

Sydney Guylian Belgian Chocolate Café
91 George St
The Rocks
Sydney NSW 2000
Ph : +61 (02) 8274 7500

A sudden flurry of SMSs lead to three of us meeting up for an impromptu coffee. Two (G-Man and AP) had already had lunch together and parted ways to run errands, but P's unexpected availability lead to the triumverate meeting up at the Guylian Cafe. The location was chosen for no reason other reason that it was the nearest place to our meeting point.

Strangely enough, despite the fact that there were several people waiting, the Cafe chose not to open the upper area (which is in fact a more pleasant place than the lower one) until we turned up.

 Olympus E-P1

Two lattes were ordered.

Sugarloaf Patisserie

Sugarloaf Patisserie
37 President Ave
Kogarah NSW 2217
Ph : (02) 9553 4933

Kogarah seems far away to me. I've only ever been through the suburb, as opposed to having it as a destination. However, I had two reasons to head there, and convinced a trusty chauffeur to join me in an expedition to Pino's Delicatessen and Sugarloaf Patisserie, conveniently situated only two shopfronts away from each other.

An unassuming suburban patisserie with an Argentinian bent to its offerings, there are some half a dozen tables in this simple but welcoming space.

Sugarloaf covers a wide range of comestibles, from empanadas to traditional sweets, to pies and even sandwiches, which were sold in in a rather unexpected "layered" form (I forgot to photograph them).

Without further ado, the reason that I was here - to try the empanadas.

First up was the large meat and olive ($4). 

The combination of pastry and filling is one that is close to my heart, whatever its culinary and cultural roots. This one was a happy execution, with the filling chunky, generous, the olives diced into small pieces, and with a slight chilli kick. I enjoyed it so much that I purchased a few more to take with me.

Naturally, it was eaten with generous lashings of hot sauce.

The second empanada was the Small Cheese & Spinach ($2.60).

Unfortunately, this was not as much of a hit with me. It wasn't so much that there was anything wrong with it, but rather that when I ate it, I was left waiting (and wanting) for something. It was a little plain; unexpectional, I suppose you could say.

Sweets were next on the agenda. Unfortunately, the lunch companion was a smaller eater than I, and for some reason I just wasn't in the mood for too much sugar that day, so I only tried two items.

First up was the classic Alfajores Alfajores de Maizena ($2.90). 

These are small Argentinian corn starch sandwich cookies commonly filled with dulce de leche, but  also jams, peanut butter, and even chocolate mousse. 

Dry and crumbly, it wasn't as sweet as it looks. I enjoyed it, but nowhere near as much as I enjoyed the next item, the churros.

Two Churros with Chocolate cost $5.50, and what amazing churros these were. Light, and tasting wonderfully of that addictive sugary fresh doughnut taste, I would go so far as to say that these might be a contender for the best churros in Sydney.

They were so addictive that I had to be forcibly stopped from ordering an extra one so I could use up the generous supply for rich unctuous chocolate.

That left me with no choice but to drink the rest of it from the glass.

I realise that it is now post Xmas, but this is the first time I have seen such a sign, and I wanted to share it. How good was this?  You could get your Xmas meat cooked by them!

As I write this, I realise that I am having a craving to return, both to have another empanada, and to try some more of their sweets......

After visiting Sugarloaf, I headed down to Pino's Dolce Vita.

[AP]

Eating not so Carnivorously in Paris 

Part 4: Angelina

The fourth segment of our Eating Carnivorously series takes a little detour, and what a detour this is!

Founded over a century ago by an Austrian, Antoine Rumplemayer, Angelina is a Belle Époque tearoom named after his daughter-in-law. This tearoom, situated in the busy centre of Paris, is surrounded by the city's wonderful boutiques and haute luxury establishments. For those who love to name drop (and you know who you are), Angelina was the daily hang-out of Coco Chanel in the later years of her life and always sat at table number 11 in the main tearoom.

As a tearoom, Angelina serves up some amazing pastries.

 

They also serve a fine selection of chocolate and other typical Parisian sweets like macarons.

My long suffering wife and I dropped by Angelina for lunch after a morning of exploring the haute couture district of Paris. It would be good for the watch geeks to know that Camille Fournet, the famed leather watch strap maker, is just around the corner. The lunch time crowd is rather busy, mainly Japanese tourists and wealthier Parisian women wilding away their time with girlfriends and gossiping.

After our feasts of flesh, we opted for a healthy lunch of salad.

The house salad consists of smoked salmon, a generous helping of avocado and the usual suspects of a salad – greens and tomato with a simple vinegar dressing, an excellent choice by my wife.

My salad on the other hand, was far from healthy.

What I thought was a simple salad of lettuce, anchovies, turkey and shavings of cheese turned out to be a salad of an entire turkey and blocks of parmesan cheese.

There was simply too much cheese and turkey, making the salad overly salty and meaty (which I guess kept to the Eating Carnivorously theme that I had established). Overall, it was an over glorified Caesar salad with lots and lots and lots of parmesan cheese and turkey slices. The anchovies were nice, though.

With that disappointment, let’s pause for a watch break. I wore my Panerai Mare Nostrum 5124-301/A and realized I had never taken too any pictures of this watch.

Now, besides the grandness of this tearoom and all its pastries and French chic, Angelina is well known for its hot chocolate. Angelina’s hot chocolate is by far the most decadent and luxurious hot chocolate I have ever had, period.

We ordered a pot of Chocolate African, which is made with 75 per cent pure cocoa and served with fresh whipped cream.

I must say that the hot chocolate is an assault on the senses. The aroma was intoxicating, while visually, the viscosity of the chocolate when poured stirred up anticipation and desire. And finally, the taste of the hot chocolate is pure heaven – smooth, rich, bitter, sweet and, when had with the whipped cream, redefines sensuality.

Being a man, I can’t say that this is better than sex. As for men, sex is like pizza, even when it’s bad it’s good. Some food for thought, perhaps.

Overall, the experience of Angelina was good. Perhaps the lunch time crowd and the formal tearoom setting make the place a little too busy for a casual lunch. If you want something a little more casual and less rushed, best try the breakfast at Angelina. Regardless, you must order the hot chocolate.

 

Angelina

226, Rue de Rivoli

75001 Paris

+33 1 42 60 82 00

 

See also :

- Eating Carnivorously in Paris Part 1

- Eating Carnivorously in Paris Part 2

- Eating Carnivorously in Paris Part 3

[Gaz]

Adriano Zumbo's Birthday Macaron Madness

6 November 2009

Really, when it comes down to it, the blame is shared mostly between Adriano Zumbo and Grab Your Fork. On and of course Twitter as the "enabler", and all those folks who tweeted from the macaron queue last Friday.  In the end, the lure was too great, and I succumbed, though not as early as some dedicated bloggers who were there at 730am!

I arrived at just past noon, and there were still plenty of macarons for one and all. The queue was also quite manageable, numbering only about ten or so people.  It only took me about 10 minutes to both queue and buy the macarons.

The blue ones in the bowl standing upright are the Chupa Chup ones.

I started counting the flavours.....

.

.....and kept on counting.....

....until I realised that it was probably impossible to stick to any predetermined number....

....and that it was best to just let myself go.

This is one of the lists that were handed out to help the macaron fans. There were some flavours (e.g. French Toast) that weren't on the printed list. Helen at Grab Your Fork has the full list here.

Which macarons did I end up buying and who would be my macaron eating partner in crime?

Someone with a Manometro S from Giuliano Mazzuoli. 

Unfortunately, one of the boxes of macarons (ten in each box) did not travel terribly well.

It made an odd type of sense, this unexpected pairing of macarons and Giuliano Mazzuoli.....

The Manometro S, from the Manometro Sport range, has a case made entirely of carbon fibre. 40 layers of black carbon fiber in fact!  It has a diameter of 45.2 mm and a 14.8 mm thickness, a titanium crown positioned at 2 o’clock, and a rubber strap inserted directly into the case. The watch is water resistant to 5 atm and its caseback is inscribed titanium.

This one has a lizard strap instead, with what an ardillon stainless steel buckle.  "Ardillon" means an articulated metal catch that is inserted in a hole in the leather strap and secured by the buckle.

Mr Manometro S doesn't have that much of a sweet tooth, and I can only eat so much sugar in any given day, so by the next day there were still some macarons left.....

How many left?

Oops! Half of them!

Mr Manometro S has been busily preparing for the Australian Antiquarian Book Fair.  I'll be there, will you?

Oh and the remaining macarons? All gone. The last one eaten was the the Chocolate & Salted Caramel.

I wasn't keeping as close tabs on each of them as I should have but the flavours I purchased were - French Toast, Chocolate & Salted Caramel, Lamington, Mango & Tonka Bean, Finger Bun, Pink Grapefruit, Burnt Butter, Fig & Blackcurrant, Mastic Yoghurt Cucumber & Mint, Turkish Delight, Olive Oil & Rosemary, Carrot Cake, Chocolate & Passionfruit, Green Tea, Beer & Peanuts, Chocolate Citrus, Cheesecake, Popcorn and I can't remember the remaining ones!

Happy birthday Adriano!

Now pass me something savoury, I think that I'm all sugared out.

[AP]