assortment of cakes from Woden Westfield

It was my supervisor’s birthday and I bought several hand-sized cakes for a communal and low key afternoon tea. Making the most of this opportunity, I scouted Woden Westfield to find the most delectable assortment of cakes - something chocolaty, cheesy, floury, gluten-free and something fancy. Done!

And my amateur review:

Flourless chocolate cake from Pie Face – What? I purchased a present from a franchise which sells pre-packaged food? Well, the chocolate cake was a hit. It wasn’t too sweet and had a genuine (dense) flourless cake texture. It was drizzled with chocolate which made the cake a bit pretty.

French Vanilla Slice from Edelweiss café – Yum, I love vanilla slices. Reminds me of when I was in year 12 and used to walk up the street after school and stuff my fast-metabolic body with this sugary, creamy and flaky goodness. This French vanilla slice was nice – the custard was smooth and decent (didn’t have a disproportionate amount of gelatine), the pastry was still flaky and the icing was thick. Together, it was probably one of the sweeter desserts, but it was still delicious.

Hummingbird cake with cream cheese icing topped with shredded coconut and crushed pistachios from Edelweiss café – one of my favourite cakes of the assortment. It seemed home-made and inspired me to get back into baking myself. This would be perfect at a picnic or as a treat with a cup of tea. The texture was real (and chunky) and every bite was a surprise – what’s the next delicious ingredient in this cake?!

Orange poppy seed friand from Edelweiss café – From my experience, a friand is only bad when it’s stale and this fit into that category. It was great compared to plain sponge cakes, delicious for a friand, a bit ordinary and commonplace compared to the other cakes in the assortment.

Baked passionfruit cheesecake from one of the cafes in the woden courtyard plaza – Creamy goodness. The passionfruit compote was adequately tart and sweet. Same case as the friand – there are so many of these cakes that it’s hard for one to stand out from the crowd. Still good nevertheless.

being a tourist in sydney

It's not everyday that people from overseas visit you. I made some really lovely friends when I was doing student exchange in the UK and travelling in the USA. However, Australia is so far away from where they live so, realistically, I imagine that they’d come here if they had a good portion of time and enough money.

When one of my friends from the USA told me that he is visiting Australia, I was very excited! I decided to meet him in Sydney – it was the perfect opportunity to visit iconic and touristy restaurants/takeaways.

Löwenbräu Keller

First, we went to Löwenbräu. I know tourists probably don’t expect to come all the way to Australia to have German food. But we were exploring The Rocks and it was one of the few places that I knew and didn’t entirely rip you off. I had a mushroom pizza – the (german) difference is that it’s on a thin and light pastry, rather than a hearty dough. Although I usually avoid eating pastry due to my cholesterol levels, this wasn’t too bad. The pastry was less buttery than puff pastry but more dense and stable than filo pastry. I loved how the pizza came out on a chopping board and baking paper – it gave it a homely and country aesthetic.

My friend got the Nürnberger Würste, which had 6 traditional Nürnberger sausages, served with Sauerkraut, Mashed Potatoes and German Mustard at $26.50. According to Wikipedia, this pork-based sausage is one of the most popular in Germany. As I’m not a huge fan of meat sausages, I thought the Nürnberger sausages were okay. They weren’t as heavy as Australian sausages, which was nice. But they weren’t as flavoursome and hearty as the ones I had in Germany. Is food always better from where it originated? Or do I subconsciously think that ‘authenticity’ makes something better?

Löwenbräu Keller

Corner of Playfair & Argyle Streets

The Rocks

Sydney

Sydney Fish Market

I googled the walking route from Darling Harbour but we mindlessly tripped down an incorrect road and took a 30 minute detour. Whoops. As always, the Fish Market didn’t fail to impress me with its fresh seafood, people who prepared sashimi in front of you and the number of Asian tourists. I paid around 7.50 for around 10cm of sashimi and it filled me up for the whole afternoon – was thoroughly satisfied.

While there was fine and delicate sashimi, there seemed to be overwhelming masses of other stuff. One bain-marie had galores of deep fried stuff (ew or yum?). Also the fresh fish store had a large portion of king fish with a carving knife - this scared me because a) the king fish was huge and looked like it'd be half my body weight; b) it was confronting to see meat like this. I'm going to take a mini break from eating it.

Sydney Fish Market

Bank Street
Pyrmont

Sydney

Pie Face

Over the few days of my friend’s visit, we walked past Pie Face way too many times. I’ve never been game enough to go to this fast food joint but I got down my high horse and finally did it. I got the minestrone soup – it was okay. It was clearly thickened with cornflour or a similar thickening agent. But I love the idea of take away soup – it reminds me of the great takeaway joints in NYC which had a menu of 20+ gourmet soups.

He got the Steak and Cheese pie, which was decent. There was a good portion of what seemed like real meat and the pie didn’t just taste like lard. It would definitely be good for a snack out in the town when you are a bit tipsy or drunk.