Nutella and Peanut Butter French Toast – Rustica Sourdough

Rustica Sourdough Cafe

I’m such a stalker, I am always stalking my foodie friends on Instagram to see what new cafe/restaurant they have recently visited and Rustica Sourdough is one that has been coming up on my feed quite frequently. But my ever growing ‘to-go’ list, it simply slipped my mind. Hence, that’s why I jumped up in joy when I received the email from ID Collective to visit Rustica Sourdough cafe.

We were very lucky and found parking just around the corner, and that’s where we realised Rustica Sourdough is actually opposite from Hammer and Tong another popular cafe 🙂 The cafe staff were all very friendly and welcoming, immediately showing us to the table they reserved for us.

Flat White $3.8

Mr Bao has been working quite hard so dragging him out on a Saturday morning (it was closer to midday 11am!) isn’t easy. So a lot of bribing and coffee is required to wake him up. He’s recently changed his preference and opted for a flat white, he found the coffee to be very floral in taste and with a softer body.

Monsieur Truffe Hot Chocolate $5

I would never pass the chance to have a hot chocolate, but when it’s using Monsieur Truffe chocolate I will definitely order it! For those who don’t know Monsieur Truffe is a boutique chocolate maker in Melbourne, and seriously their hot chocolates are one that should not be missed! This one did not disappoint and I found the native flowers in the background to be so pretty too.

Grandmother Ham, heirloom tomatoes, avocado crush, Merideth feta + Sweet basil sourdough $16.50

I already had my eyes and heart set on the french toast, so I tried to choose a healthier dish as my brunch and it was this sweet basil sourdough topped with Grandmother ham, heirloom tomatoes, crush avocado and Merideth feta. As the name of their cafe/bakery suggests their sourdough is absolutely scrumptious, lightly tense with a slight tangy aftertaste. I particularly enjoyed the moist and flavoursome Grandmothers ham which wasn’t too salty. I know I am being greedy but I would’ve perhaps like an egg or two on top of my sourdough, only because I am an egg yolk addict!

Beef brisket burger with Chipotle mayo, herb slaw and pickles on Brioche bun $17.50

Mr Bao wanted something substantial so nothing beats a beef brisket burger with pickles, herb slaw and French fries with Chipotle mayo. The beef brisket was very tender and flavoursome, only needed some more Chipotle mayo inside. Great lunch dish and highly recommend if you like brisket!

Would you like a bite? Hehe

We had a short break before we moved onto dessert and that is the French Toast using brioche topped with fresh peanut butter, Nutella, strawberry jam, ice-cream, chopped hazelnuts and chocolate cookie crumbs. Now please tell me that sounds AMAZING!

Brioche French Toast with peanut butter, strawberry jam, Nutella, Chocolate cookie crumbs and hazelnuts $16.50

I simply can’t get over the fact, how pretty this French toast is and it has all my favourite ingredients! Especially the peanut butter, Nutella and fresh strawberries! Everything just worked so well, and the brioche was so soft and buttery, the texture resembled a little bit like pancakes! I can’t recommend this enough so please do yourself a favour and try! Because it’s so good had to share another photo hehe

Too pretty! Another shot 🙂

We had such a lovely time at Rustica Sourdough, blown away by the service, food and more importantly the bread and pastries. Look look! I already need to plan a revisit and not eat anything but the croissant, cronut, and fig + peanut butter tart!

As we were heading out one of the friendliest staff stopped us and said they had a little goodie bag for us to take home. We were completely not expecting anything and it was definitely not a little bag, there were so many things in the bag – sourdough, pastries and doughnuts!

Profiteroles, Cronut and Chocolate Croissant

All that flakey pastry just staring at me and telling me to ‘Eat it, Eat it’! But I was unfortunately too full, so took a couple of quick snaps and saved it for later.

Chocolate Croissant

The chocolate croissant was super flakey with thick chocolate and crushed nuts nom nom perfect with a cup of coffee.

Lemon Curd and Jam doughnut

The lemon curd doughnut was tangy and a slightly dense texture and the strawberry jam was also delectable.

Profiterole with cream cheese filling and freeze dried raspberry

Last but not least was this profiterole with I’m pretty sure cream cheese, raspberry ganache and freeze dried raspberry. Phew, that was a lot of food to get through in this post haha but the pleasure was all mine!

 

Daisy@Nevertoosweet and Mr Bao visited Rustica Sourdough as their guest and ID Collective

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Up In The Woods – Piggery Cafe

Piggery Cafe, Shannon Bennett’s newest venture up in the Dandenong Ranges. I visited in late September with Sarah (Sarah Cooks), Sandra and Ashley (I’m So Hungree) and have been meaning to write about the event for the longest time.

Sarah visited Piggery Cafe a couple months ago and has been raving about the cakes and also the $25 afternoon tea. So we promptly organised a girls day out and Sarah kindly offered to drive which is probably a great idea, as I am horrible with directions 😛

Piggery Cafe is only one part of the Burnham Beeches a historical mansion built in the 1930s and is now divided into different area such as the Burnham Bakery and also an Emu enclosure. There are also plans to open a Burnham Beeches hotel and steakhouse.

We chose one of the best afternoons to go, as it was lovely weather not too hot or cold and we managed to grab a nice table outside. Ashley and I took a walk inside the cafe and was immediately mesmerised by the table full of scones, mini tarts, cakes and other sweets! I was in dessert heaven!

Lemon Tart

I honestly couldn’t take my eyes off all the baked goodies! I wanted to try EVERYTHING the scones, lemon tart, mini chocolate cake! I’m practically had to drag myself out back to the table and waited patiently for the waiter to take our order. He explained to us that for $25 per person, includes a selection of savouries, sweet and unlimited flow of coffee, tea or hot chocolate.

Valrhona hot chocolate

They use Valrhona chocolate to make their hot chocolate here, so Ashley and I decided to get one each. It had great chocolate flavour, however, wasn’t the thick European type and was rather light and came with a little house-made marshmallow.

Savoury platter

Next up was a large platter of savoury items, it was a huge shock the amount of food on the board. From the left was a puff pastry filled with mushroom, smoked salmon, seeded sourdough with some addictive garlic spread and also a little quiche. Everything was great and I enjoyed it all but the mushroom pie was definitely a winner with the super flakey and buttery pastry!

Scones with jam and whipped cream

This was followed by these dainty scones half fruit (dried cranberries) and plain served with jam and whipped cream. I am determined to make my scones smaller at home next time they just look so much more refines and so damn cute when they’re small like this!

I slathered a very generous serving of whipped cream and I think it was apricot jam with a light citrus flavour which may have been orange. Scones had a good crust, but was still moist and fluffy inside thumbs up from me!

Chef’s selection of sweets

The food doesn’t stop coming, it was then a full plate of Chef’s selection of sweets! A wide range of cakes such as pistachio canele, almond cake, mini macarons, chocolate tart and macaroon. The cakes did not only look good they tasted fresh and nothing was dry or felt like it has been left out for a long time.

 

We then finished up with another round of coffee and tea. The afternoon tea here at Piggery Cafe is such a great value for money and I still can’t believe we got all this food for only $25! I guess it is a great way to attract patrons to visit in the afternoon which is usually quieter for the Dandenong Ranges when people are making their way home. I heard that Shannon Bennett wanted to create a space where he would like to visit with his kids on the weekend. He’s definitely done a great job to make Piggery Cafe very kid friendly and also pet friendly which is very important to me 🙂

Apple Danish and Lemon Merengue Tart $9

Before I left, I went back inside to grab an Apple Danish and also Lemon Merengue tart for Mr Bao as he got quite jealous he wasn’t invited to come hehe I can’t wait to take Mr Bao and Cupcake with me next time and I’m tempted to try the Burnham Beeches picnic basket next time 🙂

Instagram Friends – Millstone Patisserie

Through my 2.5 years of blogging, I have met so many friends through Facebook, Twitter and mainly on  Instagram. Sometimes I feel like I am closer to my new met friends because we all have the same interest and passion about food, they really understand me! Oops…I hope my non-foodie friends won’t take this the wrong way, because you guys are still important to me 🙂

Millstone Patisserie

Today’s blog post is about an Instagram friendship I started with Alice Wright, owner and the very talented pâtissier of Millstone Patisserie. Alice and I have been following each other on Instagram for about a year or a little more than that, we like each others photos and leave comments for each other. And sometime last year, we messaged each other and decided it would be nice for us to meet up, have a coffee and put a face to an Instagram account ~

Unfortunately, due to some personal reasons and time constraints we weren’t able to meet up. But Alice promised me that she was working on a new project and once it was ready she will let me know. She also said ‘Don’t worry there will be a LOT of cakes for you to indulge in!’ 😀 Fast-forward 10 months later – Millstone Patisserie is born! And even though I haven’t known Alice for very long, I was and still am so excited and proud of her!

Cappuccino $3.8

Millstone Patisserie is a cafe/bakery, in the more residential area of Malvern on Claremont Avenue. Here they are serving breakfast and lunch dishes but most important Alice’s creations from croissants to amazing 5 layered cakes. Mr Bao and I got to the new cafe at around 11am on a Sunday morning and it was already packed with locals and people coming to buy takeaway coffee and cakes. We had our boss hahaha I meant our puppy Cupcake with us. So we were lucky to get the last table outside. Mr Bao wanted something different today and ordered a Cappuccino. They use Proud Mary coffee here and the house blend never disappoints.

Latte $3.8

I ordered a Latte and thought it was lovely not too warm or cold, however, I would’ve preferred if it was a little stronger as it felt slightly weak. Excuse my nails hahaha I have been experimenting at home 😛

Slow roasted pork belly $11.50

I wondered into the cafe to find Alice and say hi to her in person. Because I’d never met Alice before, I had to ask one of the waiters and he pointed that the girl behind me talking to a table of customers was Alice. I waited politely for her to finish, but Alice quickly noticed I was standing next to her and first thing she did was threw her arms around me and gave me big hug! We both said ‘It feels like I already know you!’ because it does feel like we’ve known each other for a long time!

Grain fed Beef fillet $11.50

I was a little surprised that Alice was so young, because she has so much talent and already have her own cafe! I commented on the very reasonable price of her brunch dishes especially the slow roasted pork belly and grain fed beef fillet, and Alice said she wanted a cafe that was affordable to everyone and for locals to be able to revisit on a regular basis and not have to overspend. I think that’s very thoughtful as brunch is getting rather expensive with many dishes over $20.

Zucchini and Sweet Potato Fritters $16.5

We had a dinner party at our place the night before, so I wanted something lighter for brunch the next day. I chose the Zucchini and Sweet potato fritters with poached eggs and homemade beetroot relish. I really enjoyed this dish, the fritter had the perfect ratio of vegetables versus flour and wasn’t too dense. The beetroot relish also gave the dish additional sweetness. Now I want to steal this idea and try making these fritters at home ~

Baked eggs with chorizo and capsicum $16

t was a chilly winter morning so Mr Bao opted for the Baked eggs with chorizo, capsicum, shavings of manchego cheese and servers with toasted Baguette. Flavours were wonderful and very comforting which is what he wanted.

Cakes!!! In front Hazelnut Dome $8

Alice was very kind and set aside 3 cakes for us to try on the house. In front is the hazelnut dome with salted caramel, rhubarb and chocolate with a biscuit base. This was definitely one of my favourite, as I’ve a hazelnut fanatic and the slight sourness and the saltiness from the caramel really helped cut through some of the sweetness and flavour of the chocolate and hazelnut.

At the back we have the raspberry cheesecake with rhubarb and topped with raspberry and caramel macadamia. This cheesecake is exactly the way I like it, lightly dense with a more New York Cheesecake texture with that delicious macadamia cookie base. Thumbs up from me!

Tarte Tatin $6.5

This is a unusual shape for a tarte tartin but the flavours are all those that we are familiar with mascarpone creme patisserie with caramelised apples and a walnut crumble in a tart shell. The tart shell is baked very well and definitely no soggy bottom 🙂 Filling was nice and sweet perfect for someone like me ~

Mork Hot Chocolate $4

To wrap this lovely brunch up, I ordered a Hot chocolate they use Mork hot chocolate here and I loved the way they served it in a little milk bottle and you pour it into the mug yourself.

So good it deserves an action shot 😛 For those who haven’t tried Mork before, its not a rich tasting hot chocolate which might make you sick after drinking it. It’s a lighter more refreshing hot chocolate that doesn’t skimp on the chocolate flavour.

I don’t want to sound bias, but I truly enjoyed Millstone Patisserie and can’t help but repeat am so proud of Alice for opening up her own store and be so successful in such a short period of time. I am so lucky to have met you through Instagram and I’ve gotta come back again and try the cruffins, croissants, Snickers tart and many more! If you’re looking for a new place for pastries, cake and coffee you’ll definitely need to pay Millstone Patisserie a visit!

Hydrangea Cottage and Stefano Cafe Bakery – Mildura Part 1

As promised my Dearest Readers 🙂 I’m sharing with you part one of our Mildura weekend away, work has been absolutely insane, leaving me no time to do what I love most and that’s blogging but I’ve managed to squeeze some time out because we had such an amazing time.

Mr Bao and I have traveled quite a bit together, however, this was Cupcake’s first trip and he was going to go on the plane with us! I was actually quite nervous because I’ve never had a done before let alone organise his plane ride, fortunately it turned out to be rather simple and Virgin Airlines was really helpful. I won’t go into too much detail but if you would like to know more, please feel free to drop me an email 🙂

After a short one hour flight we have arrived in Mildura! Oh yes before I forget, for overseas Readers Mildura is a rural city on the boarder of New South Wales and Victoria, it is known for their local produce especially oranges, wine and of course FOOD! That’s one of the main reasons why we decided to visit ~  I was so happy to see the blue skies as we walked onto to the tarmac.

We picked up our rental car, punched the address of the house were staying into the GPS and off we went. We were welcomed by more perfect weather, this photo has not been filtered or edited in any way, I love the reflection of the blue skies in the Murray River ~

Source: Hydrangea Cottage

This is our home for the next 4 days, a self-contained two bedroom cottage only a short 5 minute drive from the city centre of Mildura. Once again, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be difficult to find pet-friendly accommodation, so I was glad when Hydrangea Cottages allowed dogs to stay and also inside the house. The pets are not allowed on sofa or beds as it is hard to remove pet hair, but there is a large pet sofa right outside the toilet. The cottage had everything we asked for, clean bedsheets, tidy kitchen, TV in lounge room. But what really impressed us was the bowls and toys for dogs. Our only complaint was the house only had heating in the lounge room, and our room was a little cold at night. Electric blankets were provided yet I think it would’v been better if there was a portable heater available.

After settling in, we were all feeling a little hungry so off we went to our first food stop! I did some research and knew Stefano De Pieri was the name in Mildura ~ we managed to go to all his food outlets but missed out trying the food at the Mildura Brewery at least we got some nice beers.

With Cupcake with us, we decided to take a seat outside, but you can see that the restaurant is rather spacious inside. The weather was still lovely with blue skies, but it was a little chilly and probably colder than I expected. Because I was told by friends who have lived in Mildura before that it was supposed to be warmer than Melbourne.

Latte $ 3.8

When travelling I can never go without my 3 essentials and that’s my sunnies, coffee and camera (which I was obviously using to take this photo :P). I forgot to ask what coffee they use here but I’m going to make a wild guess and think it’s Genovese because I’m sure I’ve had this coffee before, it was probably a tad too warm for our liking but great full bodied flavour.

Beef cheek lasagne with salad $16.90

I chose the beef cheek lasagne as I felt like something comforting, it came in a small Tapas bowl and served with a little garden salad on the side. Between the lasagne sheets was a thick Bachemel sauce sandwiched with slow cooked beef cheek and topped with tomato sauce and parmesan cheese.

The beef cheek was cooked until it’s so tender, flavours were wonderful and definitely filled me up. While Mr Bao said that the serving size was a little small and slightly cold, however, this may because we were sitting outside and I took my time taking photos ~ Either way great idea to use beef cheek as the meat inside a lasagne.

Pulled pork burger with coleslaw and sweet potato chips $23

Mr Bao chose the pulled pork burger with coleslaw inside and sweet potato chips on the side. The brioche bun was lightly toasted, with the soft pulled pork. I found it wasn’t as tender as the beef cheeks, and lacked a little seasoning. The sweet potatoes were a favourite of ours, it was the thick cut type with the soft centre. We did find it to be a little overpriced for a small burger at $23.

I think Cupcake wanted a bite of the burger too hahaha but too bad puppies can’t eat human food. I nearly gave in to those eyes!

Coffee cake with cream cheese frosting $7

Couldn’t leave without something sweet especially since it was close to 3pm, and I haven’t had my sweet fix. We chose two, first being this coffee cake with cream cheese frosting because I knew Mr Bao would appreciate it. It was three layers of coffee sponge caked with cream frosting in between and cacao powder sprinkled on top. A very moist and lightly dense cake the way I think coffee cakes should be ~

Vanilla Slice $7

The waitress also recommended the Vanilla slice which is one of their best sellers and I grabbed the last slice before it was sold out 🙂 I’m so glad I did, because this became the high light of the mean, the crisp puff pastry on top and bottom with a luscious rich vanilla custard between. I definitely wouldn’t mind having this again or getting the recipe!

Overall, we enjoyed at visit to Stefano Cafe Bakery, surprisingly though the sweets outshined the savoury, can’t wait to share with you our visit to Stefano’s restaurant which will soon be renamed as Jim McDougall soon ~

With our sunnies, matching leader jackets (even Cupcake!) we were ready to go and explore Mildura! Until the next post have a wonderful day and even better weekend 😀

Tiffin Afternoon Tea – Langham Hotel, Hong Kong

It’s no secret that I love high teas 🙂 So if you’re a fan like me, you’ll have to make a trip to Hong Kong because so many places offer it and I find them to be relatively cheaper than the high teas we have in Melbourne ~ I’ve visited the Langham Hotel in Hong Kong before and dined at a couple of their restaurants and would recommend the Main St Deli for their burgers. I’ve also had drinks at the Palm Court before but wasn’t aware that they offered high tea there.

Palm Court, Langham Hotel HK

I was definitely surprised and slightly overwhelmed when I received an email from the Langham hotel in HK inviting me to try their afternoon tea set. I was also asked to bring a friend so I invited Win Win because she loves high tea as much as I do 🙂 Because we couldn’t find a baby sitter we decided to bring my little nephew Aden with us, thankfully the staff at Palm Court were very understanding and made us feel so welcomed.

Smile Aden!

Here’s my naughty but nice nephew Aden 🙂 I’m sure regular readers would recognise him, he’s grown up quite a bit and I can’t believe he’s actually turning 4 this year! Time honestly flies by without you knowing! Perhaps because he was so well behaved he was also given his own mini afternoon tea set for only $98HKD ($14AUD) which is basically a smaller version of the one you’re going to see in this post ~

Win Win and I really like the ambience of the Palm Court it’s got the traditional Victorian feeling to it, with light music playing in the background and I really liked the silver that they used it was super shiny giving that regal feeling ~ I can imagine sitting here all afternoon chatting to my girlfriends.

Starting with some champagne

Another surprise from Langham, they organised for our afternoon tea with some champagne and not only that it was Veuve Clicquot which I absolutely adore. I use to really like Moet and Chandon but lately, I’m starting to find that I enjoy the Veuve Clicquot more ~

 

Hot Chocolate

Of course Aden is a little bit too young to start drinking! So they offered him a hot chocolate which he kindly accepted. We had to keep telling him to slow down and not scull the drink! For blogging purposes 😛 I took a sip of his hot chocolate, and was warm milk lightly flavoured with chocolate, I personally would have preferred it with a richer chocolate flavour. However, this is probably great for little kids as it’s not too sweet.

Tiffan Afternoon Tea $428HKD ($62AUD) for two +10% Service Charge

Now that we’ve settled in having a drink, staff then came to explain that they offer two afternoon tea sets – Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and The Beast. The first being more fruit based and the latter has more chocolate and sweeter desserts. Both sets come with the same savoury items as you can see on the bottom layer with selection of sandwiches such as slow cooked chicken and foie gras warp and smoked salmon with horseradish cream. I’m a simple person and enjoyed the sandwich with the egg perhaps quail egg the most ~

They were very attentive and decided to split the afternoon tea set and to allow me try both sets. From the Sleeping Beauty desserts (on the left) there is mango coconut tartlet, raspberry brioche, passionfruit fruit quark cheesecake. I was particularly impressed with the crisp profiterole with green apple even though the filling was a little sour the pastry was done very well. On the right is the desserts from Beauty and The Beast with hazelnut and chocolate chip cupcake, Opera cake and bitter chocolate and vanilla cream tartlet. Hard to pick my favourite but it’s probably the little tarlet because the flavours complimented each other so well.

More sweets!

Then there were more treats on the top layer, definitely my type of high tea. With three types of chocolate bark in the shot glass on the left, followed by the lemon ‘marshmallow’ macaron, panna cotta and the last was a chocolate mousse with a berry jelly filling topped with fresh cream.

Scones with clotted cream and preserves

I was so naive and thought that because we already had too much food, we won’t get scones hahaha but that’s not true we got some scones to share which came with clotted cream and strawberry jam and I think it was rose preserves (please correct me if I’m wrong).

Cream first? Jam first?

I always have this argument with my friends, is it cream first or jam first? I’m definitely a cream first sort of girl but decided to conform and do it the ‘right’ way according to my friends hehe ~ No matter which way you eat them, scones are always good and these did not disappoint with a slight crust and still slightly warm inside.

English Breakfast Tea

To finish up and help with digestion, I got an English Breakfast tea 🙂 Can’t help but thank Langham Hotel for their generosity Win Win and I had a wonderful time at Palm Court and really enjoyed the high tea. Would definitely recommend it for other high tea addicts out there, and don’t forget the Langham Hotel is in a great location. Right off Canton Rd in Tsim Sha Tsui, trust me it’s every girls dream there! They have literally all the brands you can imagine ~

Daisy and WinWin@Nevertoosweet dined at as guests of Palm Court, Langham Hotel HK