Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio

Last weekend, while lunching at South Yarra, I went down to Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio to get some cakes.  

When we got there, it was quite full of people, which was never the case when we previously went there.  

When we looked a little closer... Surprise! Surprise!  Hey! Aren't those two girls there from MasterChef??  Kylie and Julia, I think.  Apparently they were, well, doing something there.  Kylie seems to be talking to people around, offering tasting ice-creams, which unfortunately, I didn't get to taste.  And Julia, seems to be making some desserts in the kitchen area.  But there were so many people there, we decided we didn't want to stay long to see what they're doing, so we picked our cake, and left.  

This is the Smoked white choc, coffee, aniseed, lemon cake.  

As always, it came with a sheet of paper with the description of each part of the cake.  To tell the truth, I have always loved B&P's cake, but this one, I did find it, well, good, but not that good.  Maybe it's the sour components of the cake too overpowering for me, but I just didn't enjoy it as much as I did with the previous cakes I had there.  

This is the Salted Caramel & Chocolate Eclair.  

I really liked this Eclair, but with the salted caramel cream filling inside, it was actually quite filling, especially when you try to finish it all by yourself.  Also, I did found that the salted caramel cream filling seems to be too buttery in taste.  The butter taste kind of overwhelmed the whole cream filling...

I have always wanted to try this meringue thing they put on a stack on the counter, and this time, I decided I am going to try it.  This is called the Strawberry cloud.  The outside is crispy and the inside is kind of chewy.  It's a bit sugary, so a bit sweet if you eat it alone, but if you have it with coffee or tea, it's actually quite a good match.  

Chez Olivier

This saturday, we went to a French restaurant in Prahran for our weekly lunch, and to celebrate my sister's birthday, which, was back in May...

Chez Olivier is very closed to the Prahran market, only a few minutes walk.  It's a nice little cozy restaurant.

The decorations are simple, but with a french touch.  The waiters also all spoke with a french accent, which was interesting.  I think we even overheard them speaking in french amongst themselves.

The complimentary bread was very nice, had a crisp outside with a very soft center.  The butter was a bit hard and difficult to spread, but otherwise tasted very good.  And the sea salt that came with the bread add a very nice touch as well.

For entree, I had the Seafood Bisque Soup.  It was very thick and creamy, and full of seafood flavour.  This is the first time I had bisque soup, and sure this won't be the last time if this is what bisque taste like.  Pity that we had already finished the bread, or else I would definitely have used the bread to soak up every little last drop of the soup.  The soup also came with one mussel and one large prawn.  The mussel was quite small, but the prawn was large and cooked perfectly.  Cooked, but still very juicy.  Loved that prawn.

My mum and my sister both had Soup a l'oignon aka Onion Soup.  I had a little taste from my sister's soup, and it was quite nice, but a little to the sweet side.  It's still very good, but I have had better else where.

After the three serve of the entree came out, the waiter then bought us something we didn't order.  He explained to us that because the cheese souffle that my dad had ordered will take a little longer (which was only another five minutes), they are giving us this little dish for free.  I forgot what exactly this dish was, but I think it was sardine on red capsicum with a piece of biscuit on the bottom, and some greens on the side.  It was fresh and simple.

Dad chose the Entree of the Day, which was a Goat Milk Cheese Souffle with Pumpkin coulis and greens on the side.  OMG!  This was MAGNIFICENT!  It was very cheesy but without the goat milk taste that I dislike.  And sooooo soft, fluffy and light.  Absolutely what souffle should be like.  ARGH! I should have had this!!  I should have had BOTH!

For main, I chose the Boudin Blanc - Chicken Sausage with caramelised apple and creamy mash potato.  I had always wanted to try boudin blanc, but never had the chance.  The dish didn't disappoint. The boudin blanc was very moist and soft, unlike normal sausage.  It's a little like those japanese fish sausages I had when I was small, only more moist and even softer.  The mash, oh the mash.  It was so soft, so creamy!  I always love a good mash, and I love this mash.

Dad picked the Main of the Day, which was braised lamb with vegies and creamy mash potato and bread.  I didn't taste this dish, but it did look very good.

Mum had the Brochette de Boeuf Grille - Grilled beef skewer with pomme frites and Salads.  I tried a piece of the beef, and it was quite nice, but I suppose, not really special.  And it did seems that, although the overall serving was not small, it would have been better if there were more meat.

My sister had the Salmon of the day, which was seared salmon with capsicum on a skewer with Cauliflower coulis.  I tried a bit of the salmon, and it tasted very nice.  But the highlight of the dish was definitely the cauliflower coulis.  It was very creamy and tasteful.

For dessert, dad once again picked the Dessert of the Day, which was poached pear in chilli red wine sauce.  It looked very amazing, but the pear seems to be not poached enough.  It wasn't as soft as I would like it to be.

I have never had poached meringue before, and this Ill Flottante definitely made me want to have it again.  The meringue was light and fluffy, absolutely amazing  And the sauce, the vanilla custard sauce was such a perfect match to the poached meringue.  Not too sweet, but just right, and not overpowering.

Overall, it's a very nice restaurant that I would go back to.  We had the set course lunch and the price and serving size was a good match.  Not extraly expensive, but definitely enough to make you full.

However though, next time we go there, we must remember to have tap water rather than mineral water...  We did realise that we do need to pay for the mineral water, but no idea it was $11 for a bottle...and we had two...  And probably we would do fine without having extra sides as well, since the set lunch is already quite enough.

Movida Next Door

I have heard of a lot of things about the Movida series of bars and restaurants, but never had the chance of going to any one of them.  Last Saturday, finding Hardware Societe already pack full, and didn't want to wait, we decided to wait a little longer for Movida Next Door to open and dine there.

Knowing that this is a place that will be packed soon after it opens, we decided to more or less wait outside its door for it to open at 12pm.  Looking into the alley way, between Movida Next Door and Movida Bar De Tapas Y Vino, there are around 8-9 people waiting around for both to open.  So I guess we made to right move to be there early to make sure we do get seats.

More or less right at 12pm, we walked into the place and were greeted and lead to the seats facing Flinders street in the corner.  After briefly looking at the menu, the waitress came by, and introduced us to the lists of specials from for today.

There were so many options!  And she speaks so fast that after she finished, I can only remember those few ones that I thought we might order...

Rather than just having water, I decided to go for something different, and went for the Grapefruit drink  the waitress suggested.  It was not too sweet and very grapefruit-y.  It's a shame that the photo didn't do the drink justice.  It was actually a very beautiful pink colour.  But because the lighting wasn't quite good, it came out quite light and dull in the photo... Oh well.

This is the complimentary bread that was served after we ordered our meal.  To my surprise, it came out with olive oil rather than butter.  Well, Spanish place, I suppose.  It was a nice way to start a meal, since we were so hungry by that time.

The first of our tapas to come was the Croqueta - Fried Croqueta of Wild Mushrooms.  This, is ABSOLUTELY the highlight of the meal.  I so wish I had order more of this.  One each was definitely not enough...

It was so crisp on the outside and so smooth and rich of mushroom flavour on the inside.  Ah, I can still taste of the flavour even at this moment.  The mushroom filling inside was just, so smooth and creamy and... just amazing!

Then there was the Bomba - Chorizo-Filled Catalan Potato Bomb with a Spicy Sauce.  This came out so cute, with its round shape and the blob of sauce on top.

Basically, it was a potato ball with a bit of mashed chorizo in the center with a bit of spicy sauce.  I must admit that when it came, I had already forgotten that it's filling was chorizo and did wonder what the filling was.  Like the Croqueta, it was very crispy on the outside and the potato and chorizo mash is absolutely lovely on the inside.  And the sauce!  I made sure I use the fork to scrape every bit of it and ate it all.

Interestingly, it seems everyone that came to the place will either order at least one of those, or both.  I guess this must be the most popular dish of the place.

The next to come was Pollo - Chicken Skewer Grilled on Charcoal.  This came as a bit of a disappointment.  Taste-wise it wasn't bad, but the meat was too dry.  We were glad that we only ordered one rather than one each.

Then came the special, Gamba, which are pan-fried(?) Tiger Prawn with some kind of aioli...I really don't remember.  The menu was actually for three prawns only, but the waiter, seeing that we have two person sharing the meal, suggested that we can increase it to four prawns so that we can have two each.  The aioli sauce was very creamy but seems to lack a bit of bang to it.  The prawns also feels like they lacked a bit of salt.  But it did taste fresh and it was nice.

The other plate we ordered from the special menu was the Pato, which was a confit duck leg with some sauce with some vegetable...again, I really don't remember what it was exactly.  The duck leg was very nice, with crispy skin, and very tender meat that is literally off the bone.  The sauce, although I don't remember what it was, had a bit of a plum taste to it, kind of sweet, but not overpowering.  It was a very nice compliment to the duck meat.

Last to come was the dessert.  I was torn between this, or Churros Con Chocolate - which is Spanish Doughnuts with Rich Drinking Chocolate.  I was SO tempted to order the Churros, but thought that it might be too much with the rich chocolate.  So instead, I chose something lighter, the Blood Orange Sorbet.  I forgot what exactly it was called, I think it was something like Sorbet Sanguine.  Basically it was Blood orange sorbet, with Orange gel, mandarin, and Almond crumble.  As I imagined, it was a very light dessert, a very good finish to the meal.  The sorbet have a blood orange taste to it, but not too sweet or overpowering.  And oh I loved that almond crumble.

Overall, it was a satisfying meal.  I think I will come back for more, especially the Croqueta and the Bomba.  But one thing to keep in mind.  Better to come early than late.  Movida opens on Saturday at 12pm, and it was already packed full by 12.30pm...

Cacao Macaron

From reading foodie blogs, I heard that the macarons from Cacao is just as good as those from Le Belle Miette, and the price are around the same.  So, since I was in the CBD area on Saturday, I decided to give it a try for a change.  

Shown in the photo above are, from left to right, Peanut butter and Chocolate, New York Cheesecake, Cookie n Cream, and Passion Fruit.  

The second box, which has two macaron in it, are Creme Caramel and Salted Caramel.  

I had great expectation for the Cookie n Cream flavour, since I always loved Cookie n Cream ice-cream, but to my disappointment, I found that while it is nice, it really did lacked a bit of a "wow" to it.  You can taste cream, but not really any cookie flavour.  The Passion Fruit was, well, passion fruit.  Nice flavour, big sour bang, but I guess it's not a very unique flavour.  New York Cheesecake! Wow!  That really did taste like a piece of rare cheese cake.  Nice and creamy.  I really did enjoy this one.  The Creme Caramel, umm, I don't really remember what it tasted like, other than it wasn't bad... However I must note that this particular one, was obviously smaller than all the other macaroons......bad quality control??  The Salted Caramel, was nice, but in my opinion, not as good as the one from Le Belle Miette.  I think it's not "salty" enough.  

HOWEVER, the absolute highlight, is definitely the Peanut Butter and Chocolate.  It tasted like, well, peanut butter and chocolate, but when it mixes together, it reminds me of a drink back from Hong Kong that I hadn't drank for many many years......ah, brings back good memories.  

So, taste-wise, I agree that it does taste quite good and is of the same kind of quality as Le Belle Miette.  But I personally like Le Belle Miette more, but I will definitely come back for more Peanut Butter and Chocolate and New York Cheesecake.