Paris in Melbourne – Entrecote

Good morning my Dearest Readers! I wish you all a very belated Happy Easter and hope you’ve all been well. I wish I didn’t have to apologise all the time for not blogging but life has just been getting in the way but this time I hope my excuse is valid and you will forgive me again. And that is because we’ve been moving into our new apartment which is a two bedroom apartment meaning more room for my baking goods and props! Hopefully will be able to share with you more baking recipes 🙂

Anyhow, I have been wanting to blog about this new restaurant for the longest time since the first time I visited for breakfast. But I knew I had to wait until I tried their famous steak and fries before I did! So you see Entrecôte has recently opened up on Domain St, South Yarra. If you remember, I posted about the Le Relais de L’Entrecote in Paris a few years ago. Well Melbourne now has their own version, with a little more variety on their menu they serve breakfast until noon, and then offers steak and fries along with a few more items for lunch and dinner.

Newly Adopted Bro 🙂

The first time I went with my newly adopted Brother (Richard) and friend Q for breakfast. He was acting all shy when I asked if I could take a photo of him and post it on my blog haha So of course I started with a latte as I clearly needed caffeine to wake me up 🙂

Latte $3.8

Bro had a quick look at the menu and decided to get the Croque-Monsieur with hand carved Bill’s ham, three cheeses and thyme béchamel. I most definitely tried a little and thought it was lovely and actually not as rich as I thought it would be.

Croque-Monsieur $16.9

Q had trouble choosing what she wanted so I suggested the Le Petit Dejeuner which is the Parisian continental breakfast. For $19.9 it included many items such as orange juice, tea, coffee or hot chocolate, croissant and baguette with Bonne Maman jams, 63c egg, brioche and bacon ‘crumbs’.

Le Petit-Dejeuner ‘Continental’ $19.9

I think the 62c egg with the bacon crumbs looked wonderful and I can’t wait to come back and try myself. Just the feeling of sitting outside on the patio with a croissant just makes it feel like you have been deported to Paris.

I decided to go for the omelette of fine herbs and Gruyere and soft leaves, it was exactly the way I imaged it to be, soft and fluffy with just the right amount of Gruyere cheese oozing out. If I was to be really picky I would add a little truffle oil to it 😛

Omelette of fine herbs & Gruyere $16.9

Brunch wouldn’t be complete without dessert so I forced Bro to share the French toast with lemon curd ice-cream, lemon verbena poached etches and buttered almonds. This dessert reminded me of bread and butter pudding as it was very soft, it wasn’t very sweet and I thought the poached peaches were actually quite tart.

French toast with lemon curd ice-cream $15.9

We all had a great time having brunch at Entrecôte but I think the happiest would have been Cupcake as it is such a dog friendly cafe with the large patio and the fake grass. He got many pats and compliments too from the waiters and other patrons 🙂

 

A couple weeks later, after rescheduling 3 times, I finally managed to drag Mr Bao out for a date night back at Entrecôte. I wanted to get there between 4-6pm as this is when they had their happy hour, with $2 oysters and $7 champagnes.

House red $8

We started our early dinner with a house red for Mr Bao which was a dry shiraz and complimented the steak to come very well.

Hot Chocolate $4.5

I was feeling a little under the weather, so I stuck with a stomach friendly drink, a hot chocolate which was warm and comforting and exactly what I wanted. We bought Cupcake with us again and he got himself a dog bowl for water 🙂

Freshly shucked Oysters $4ea (happy hour $2ea)

We started off with a dozen of shucked to order with ‘Mignonette’ sauce and lemon, I’m not quite sure where the oysters are from, but they were quite salty and was great with a few drops of lemon juice. Mr Bao was so happy, he ordered another dozen and immediately devoured them.

French onion Gougere $5ea ($3ea)

Ash (Im So Hungree) recommended the French Onion Gougere which is essentially a profiterole with French onion and cheese filling. The choux pastry was made very well and the filling was so wonderfully cheesy and paired perfectly with a dry red.

Steak Frites with soft leaves $39.9

The reason why I come back to Entrecôte and visit again before I could do a blog post is because I simply HAD to try the Steak Frites with soft leaves and see how it compares with Paris. The steak is from Hopkins River and we ordered it to be medium rare, just looking at the dish it looks very similar to Le Relais de L’Entrecote.

I found the béarnaise sauce to look more limey and didn’t taste as strong. The shoe string fries comes with complimentary refills so forget about calories and eat till your hearts content.

 

The steak itself was cooked to medium rare, keeping a pink centre and even though it was a very big piece with the creamy sauce and the fries I found it to be a good serving. Compared to the Le Relais de L’Entrecote in Paris, I found the steak itself to be of better quality, thanks to our great Aussie beef 😀

Soft leaves with radish, walnut, Dijon vinaigrette

It also comes with unlimited soft leaves with radish, walnut and Dijon vinaigrette, admittedly not as exciting as the steak and frites, but the tangy Djion vinaigrette does make it a little more interesting.

Entrecôte cheese burger with frites $22.9

I wanted to try something different and since we were siting out on the patio we had more options, I ordered the Entrecôte cheese burger with frites. A black angus beef patty with melted cheese and the same Paris bearnaise sauce on the steak. Even though I found the patty to be slightly under seasoned the cheese and sauce definitely made up for it.

Been a while since I’ve posted a photo of myself haha and Mr Bao insists this is a good photo of me just before I was going to shove the burger into my mouth 😛

Lemon Tart, creme fraiche $16.9

I honestly wanted to try all the desserts – creme brûlée, apple tart tat in, mille-feuille and profiteroles. But we settled on the Lemon Tart because I had cravings and once again Ash recommended it and I trust her judgement. It was one of the best lemon tarts I have had in a very long time, with a sweet shortcrust pastry and that luscious lemon curd filling that had the right about of tartness and paired with creme fraiche. Personally I think I would have preferred vanilla ice-cream but both are fine by me.

No doubt Entrecôte has become a new favourite of Mr Bao and I with its great dishes, friendly staff and most importantly for us dog friendly. I think it’s also a great brunch spot for a brunch of girls to try to be Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl…ok sorry I got carried away haha I’ve been rewatching the series. Anyhow, we will be revisiting for sure! Have a great weekend!

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Matcha Delights – Miam Miam + Some News :)

Happy Chinese New Year my Dearest Readers 🙂 If you celebrate I wish you all a prosperous horse year!! Mr Bao and I celebrated Chinese New Years with our friends and I will be sharing that story with you soon ~ But today, I want to share with you a new French-Japanese restaurant that has recently opened in Chadstone Shopping Centre – Miam Miam.

Miam Miam is originally from Tokyo and have now opened throughout Asia including Singapore and have now ventured into Australia and landed in Melbourne 🙂 As soon as I saw photos of of the matcha lattes and desserts, I knew I had to go check it out ASAP! You know how much I love my matcha hehe

If you’re not familiar with Chadstone, Miam Miam is in the area with the other restaurants such as Pappa Rich and close to Aldi and Colonial Markets. I really like the decor of the restaurant with the aluminion chairs and bright lights. They have a no booking policy, so I arrived early to get a table for 6 as I was meeting up with Jana, her husband and some of her friends ~ The waitress was friendly and even though they didn’t have a table for us, they were willing to shuffle the tables around to accommodate us.

Matcha latte with softie $8.8

They had a whole section on the menu dedicated to matcha goodies! You should’ve seen the smile on my face 🙂 A couple of us ordered this matcha latte with matcha soft serve, I must say I was quite impressed! Because it is quite hard to find matcha lattes that have a strong matcha flavour and the soft serve had a nice creamy texture and good matcha flavour. I would have preferred if it had an even stronger matcha flavour, but its already one of the better ones I’ve had in Melbourne.

Matcha smoothie with red bean $7.5

Mr Bao ordered a matcha smoothie with red bean, I couldn’t really taste the red bean but it had the same matcha flavour and had a more icy texture as it was a smoothie. I think I prefer the matcha latte a little more ~

Miam Miam Spaghetti $16.8

The menu is a little small with only a handful of savoury dishes, it was made even more disappointing when a few dishes were sold out at 7pm and we were only left with either the Miam Miam spaghetti or the squid ink risotto. 3 of us got the Miam Miam Spaghetti with tomato, eggplant, bacon and a soft boiled egg. The pasta was cooked to a nice al dente texture and with good flavour, we did find it to be slightly salty.

Squid Ink Risotto $20.8

The rest of the table ordered the Squid Ink Risotto with omelette on top, once again cooked to al dente and with squid pieces through it, flavour was great and the egg top was creamy and soft. For such a small portion I find it a little overpriced for $20.8, the boys were definitely not full and wanted more food ~

Matcha Souffle

Sorry I can’t find the prices for the desserts, of course all the desserts we ordered were MATCHA 😀 Starting with the matcha soufflé, I don’t think I’ve had this before. Unfortunately, it was a little bit of a disappointment, it was very wet inside and felt a little uncooked, while matcha flavour wasn’t very strong. I think it would make a great soufflé if a few improvements were made.

Matcha soufflé pancake with soft serve

The other dessert we got was the matcha soufflé pancake with matcha soft serve, coffee jelly, matcha jelly and red bean. The pancake is thicker and dense in the middle but remained soft, once again lacked some matcha flavour but the coffee jelly actually complimented the matcha in general.

That’s the first meal I had at Miam Miam, I enjoyed some of the dishes but would’ve have liked more options no the menu and stronger matcha flavour for some desserts. However, still really glad that they have now opened up and serving so many matcha desserts.

Iced Matcha Tea

Because I am a true matchaholic, I couldn’t hope but go back two days later with my colleague and we had afternoon there. This time I had the iced matcha tea as it was quite hot and I wanted something to quench the thirst. It’s very different from the matcha latte as this iced version has no milk and not sweetened either, it had quite a lot of ice which watered down the matcha.

Matcha parfait with matcha jelly, coffee jelly, red bean and rice crisps

I didn’t get to try the parfait last time so went back to try the matcha parfait with matcha jelly, coffee jelly, red bean and rice crisps. Pretty much the same toppings that was on the matcha soufflé pancake, all matched quite well but I think I would’ve liked some other topping on the parfait to make it a little different. 

Cookie N Cream Parfait

They made a mistake with our order and brought a Cookie N Cream parfait when we ordered another pancake. They were kind enough to offer it to us so yay for us we got to try this as well. Similar to the matcha parfait it had a vanilla soft serve base chocolate rice crisps, sliced banana, chocolate syrup and some crushed Oreo cookies. Not bad but I think I prefer the matcha more hehe maybe I’m bias!

Spiced Apple soufflé pancake

Last but not least was the spiced apple soufflé pancake topped with vanilla soft serve and crushed corn flakes. I found the pancake to be slightly overcooked this time, and would have preferred if the apples were a little softer.

After two visits in 3 days, I definitely like Miam Miam especially their matcha soft serve and all their other matcha drinks and desserts. However, I find the quality of the food to be a little inconsistent and the same elements used again and again. I have also heard from others that they find the menu to be limited and for some dishes it is overpriced. I think Miam Miam needs more time to improve and expand on their menu but other than that it is a great addition to our food scene ~

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Now time to share some exciting news 🙂

My little CUPCAKE!

Mr Bao and I are very happy to announce that we are now proud parents to this gorgeous little silver toy poodle 🙂 And his name is CUPCAKE! I have actually Instagrammed some photos before so those who follow me will know about him hehe we are both so in love with this little puppy! But I do understand not everyone likes dogs so I have created a separate Instagram account for him to share his daily adventures ~ His account is @My_Mr_Cupcake

I totally underestimated the time and effort required to train a puppy, between working full-time, going to puppy school twice a week, toilet training, feeding and playing with Cupcake. It hasn’t left me with a lot of time to do my own things like blogging! But please bear with me Dearest Readers, I promise to get my act together as soon as possible! Thank you so much for being so patient with me!

Casual French Bistro – La Cassolette

I’m not sure if I’ve asked My Dearest Readers before, but what’s your favourite cuisine? 🙂 Mine would definitely be French! I mean of course I would love French food because of their pastries, cakes and desserts. But I also like their slow cooked and comforting meals like a beef bourguignon.

Mr Bao and I recently visited La Cassolette on Rebecca Walk, it might look familiar to some because it use to be a Roule Galette. The well known crepe store which I have previously blogged about here ~ The owner Michel Dubois has decided to transform Roule Galette into a modern casual French bistro serving traditional dishes at affordable prices.

I definitely appreciated Michel’s efforts because even though I love French food, I find most of my favourite restaurants are quite expensive and its hard to find casual bistros here in Melbourne. They have fully refurbished Roule Galette, with new tables, chairs and I feel it’s also brighter letting a lot of natural come through. Rebecca Walk is a quieter side of the city which I think many people forget, but the view is actually stunning overseeing the Yarra River and also Crown Casino.

Sparking water and marinated olives

We got there at around 6:30pm and were the only table, we were offered some Sparking water and marinated olives to start our meal. I’ve never seen this brand of sparkling water before called Cape Grim where they collect the water from Tasmania, Mr Bao liked the water so much saying that it was the best he’s had ~ I think it’s because it wasn’t over carbonated, and didn’t have that aftertaste some sparkling water has.

Crab salad and quinoa taboule $16

We were suggested to order a three course meal, for my starter I chose their recommended dish which was a crab salad and quinoa taboule. I wasn’t expecting a square shaped bar, on the bottom was the quinoa and on top was the crab salad severed with baguette and some greens. I really enjoyed the crab salad with the mayonnaise dressing and the quinoa made it a rather filling dish and probably didn’t need the baguette bread 🙂

Smoked salmon with French dressing $15

Mr Bao is a fan of smoked salmon so he ordered the entree size with French dressing and baguette for his starter. Another generous serving with quite a few slices of smoked salmon, don’t think we’ve had it with French dressing before, but was a nice addiction and helped cut some of the saltiness from the smoked salmon.

Scotch Fillet Black Angus 220g $25

For his main, Mr Bao ordered a Scotch Fillet Black Angus that was 220g for $25 which we think is quite reasonable for a good piece of steak. It was nicely cooked to medium rare but we found it to be a little tough and paired with a spicy Cajun sauce.

Mash Potato $6

We also added a side of mash potatoes to go with the steak, it was fluffy and butter topped with herbs and cracked pepper. I probably shouldn’t have ate so much of it!

Seared scallops and creamy sauce $25

For my main, I chose another one of their speciality dish, seared scallops with creamy sauce. These dishes are cooked in front of customers where the scallops are cooked in a hot pan with Cognac then seasoned with salt, pepper and herbs.

It’s so nicely plated with the seared scallops arranged around mashed potatoes, parmesan cheese and a green salad. Scallops are one of my favourite types of seafood and these were cooked perfectly, not at all chewy and still soft inside.

Nearly forgot we also had some white wine to pair with our meal. It was particularly nice with my scallop dish. I found it to be more on the drier side and prefer sweeter wines, but Mr Bao really liked it.

Who says you can’t have a drink on a Thursday night? 😛

I already had my eyes on the ‘I Feel Sweet’ section which is their dessert, I got the chocolate pear fondant cake. I was surprised to see it served in a tea cup, a great way to serve fondants and makes it less messy, will need to try this next time at home ~

Chocolate Pear Fondant $12

On top of the fondant was vanilla ice-cream, I really enjoyed the oozy centre this is definitely my type of dessert!

Maki Roll sorbet $14

We were intrigued by the Maki Roll sorbets on the menu, when we asked the waitress she said that it’s a fun dessert that their chef has created. They were shaped like sushi with a sweet fruit syrup centre sorbet on the outside, the thin slices of sorbet melted quickly and reminded me very much like the Sugus lollies which are chewy lollies quite famous in Hong Kong 🙂

We really enjoyed our meal at La Cassolette, food was made well and comforting and service was warm and friendly. It’s nice to know of a new place to get casual French food at very affordable prices. Would recommend it to anyone who likes French food and haven’t been able to find a casual place in Melbourne ~

Daisy and Mr Bao @Nevertoosweet dined as guests of La Cassolette

Winter Break – HK Summer 2013

My smart clever Readers 🙂 Have you noticed once again I have gone quiet? Less posts and definitely slower at replying to your lovely messages? I’m terribly sorry! But I’ve actually flown back to HK for a Winter Break and spend some time with family and friends! This post is more of an update of what I’ve been doing lately ~

Grab n Go!

There’s a few reasons why I’m back first is to celebrate my Dad’s birthday! It’s been a couple of years since I’ve celebrated his birthday with him, as I’m usually in Melbourne during this time 🙂

Dad’s birthday cake

How pretty is this fruit cake! The base is an almond sponge cake then topped with smaller sponge cakes, fresh cream and covered with loads of fruit! My nephew and niece and were excited and kept asking for more hehe

Birthday Boy

Then two days later was Aden’s 3rd birthday party!!! His favourite character is Buzz Lightyear so that was the theme of the party ~ I rarely go to Kid’s parties but this one was fun with loads of games and food for the kiddies! Hahaha I love this picture of him and the rainbow afro!

I’m a proud Auntie!

I don’t post many photos of myself…but I’m a super proud Auntie so a Selfie with Aden is most appropriate 😛 Wished I had more time to spend with this little man!

I have also been doing a LOT of EATING!!! Something I do very well 😀 oh and don’t forget the shopping hehe! Starting with the first meal was Chinese with my family and we always get steamed fish! I’m not a fan of rice but can eat a bowl when its drenched in the soy sauce ~

Steamed Fish

I’ve had Japanese with my Uni friends 🙂 Hong Kong people really like Japanese food so there’s quite a lot of establishments and some are really quite good!

Japanese for dinner

I’ve revisited Tim Ho Wan and took Mr Bao for the first time 🙂 Of course we couldn’t leave without getting their BBQ Pork Pineapple Bun! Love the contrast between the sweet bun and the salty filling.

Tim Ho Wan – BBQ Pork Pineapple Bun

I’ve also managed a few fine dining lunches with Win Win 🙂 We had such an amazing lunch at L’atelier de Joel Robuchon. Look

Seared Hokkaido scallops with crunch diced vegetables

The dessert was even more impressive! It’s a surprise chocolate ball where hot chocolate fudge was poured over to sightly melt the ball and the vanilla ice-cream. Of course it tasted wonderful and absolutely blew me away 😉 If it wasn’t such a high end restaurant I might’ve licked the plate clean!

Surprise Chocolate Ball with crunchy pecans

Afternoon teas are one of my favourite activities, and managed to try their new tea set at The Lounge (Four Seasons Hotel). I nearly always pay them a visit, their desserts are always so pretty, and I have dubbed the little petit for a flower as the ‘Daisy Lychee Cake’!

Afternoon at Four Season Hotel

I’ve also gone on a bit of a Japanese green tea ‘Matcha’ phase and been searching high and low for the best MATCHA desserts in Hong Kong 🙂 That’s how we ended up at Sin Mei Tea House in Sheung Wan, everything we was Matcha! Can’t wait to blog about it!

Green Tea Cheesecake at Sin Mei

I also visited my Grandma who’s in her mid 80’s but still just as strong and fit, she’s an amazing cook and made all my favourite dishes when we went for dinner. My grandma is from Ning Bo the Northern part of China so her dishes are heavily influenced from those region and very different from Cantonese food. Just wished I was back more often and get to spend more time with her and eat her delicious dishes.

Grandma and Me

That kind of sums up what I have been doing for the past week or so 🙂 I also made a short trip to Taipei with Win Win, but I’ll tell you about our adventures that next time! Hong Kong is still an exciting city and definitely my home away from home, especially with all my family being here ~

Hong Kong my home away from home

I hope you have also had a great week 🙂 And looking forward to coming back and sharing the stories with you all xox

Macaron Maddness – Ladurée VS Pierre Hermé

I think it would be a crime if I went to Paris and didn’t try the macarons from Ladurée and Pierre Hermé 😀 I have heard so much about these two patisseries and even though I have tried macarons from Laduree quite a few times as they recently opened in Sydney and Hong Kong. It’s the first time I tried macarons from Pierre Hermé so excited! Just wanted to do a little comparison between the two macarons masters 🙂

Laduree in Paris

Starting with Ladurée, I’ve had their macarons from their store in New York, Sydney and also Hong Kong. Even though their macarons are quite delicious, I found there to be inconsistencies with the texture of their macarons.

Laduree macarons from NYC

Laduree from NYC

Like the macarons, I had in New York to be more on the softer side, with a softer shell and the ganache in the middle was also creamier. I really enjoyed these macarons from the Laduree in NYC, I think they’re the best ones I’ve had even better than Paris 😦

Laduree macarons from NYC

I was very excited when Laduree opened in Sydney and when I found the chance to visit I was over the moon 🙂 But then I realised the macarons were very expensive $3.2 take away and $4 dine in wow…

Laduree prices in Sydney

But then I found these macarons in Sydney to have a much tougher texture and very very chewy. I have heard that this may be because, they freeze the macarons and import them from Switzerland. I’m not sure if this will change the consistency, but I wasn’t too impressed with them. Even though flavours were fantastic especially their salted caramel and pistachio macaron.

Laduree in Sydney

I’m not sure if this will change the consistency, but I wasn’t too impressed with them. Even though flavours were still good especially their salted caramel and pistachio macaron. They are my all time favourite!

Laduree macarons from Sydney

I have heard from HK Epicurus that only the macarons in the Paris Laduree is actually made there, the rest are made from a factory in Switzerland and both HK Epicurus and Tina both agreed that their macarons are best in Paris. So I was quite excited to finally get to try the ‘real’ deal 😛 I actually didn’t get to try that many Laduree macarons this time, as I was going around too many patisseries hahaha but I did get to try a few when I visited their Laduree restaurant on Champs-Élysées.

Laduree macarons from Paris

My sisters and I tried these macarons as part of the Brunch set we had there, which I will blog about another time 🙂 We could choose 3 macarons of our liking, so we got the salted caramel, chocolate and dark chocolate flavour. I immediately found a difference once again in the texture in the macarons, they were definitely softer and more delicate than the ones I got in both Sydney and HK. But they were slightly firmer than the ones in New York. In terms of flavours they were slightly sweeter and probably the best, I really liked their salted caramel it was sweet, salty and just heavenly! I suspect its the use of the French butter 😛 There wasn’t a vast difference between the chocolate and dark chocolate macaron, except one tasted slightly more bitter.

Pierre Herme in Paris

Now moving onto Pierre Hermé macarons, there are quite a few Pierre Hermé stores around Paris, but I failed and only got to their store in the Galaries Lafayette deparment store on our second last day. I was slightly disappointed as it was a rather small store with only macarons and other dry packaged goods such as chocolates.

Pierre Herme macarons

From memory I think Pierre Hermé had a more diverse range of flavours for their macarons and ones that I found most interesting was the chocolate and foie gras 😛 Yup I tried it and I’m not sure whether I like it or not lol it had a rich chocolate ganahe but then the foie gras flavour. The rest of the macarons I chose more traditional flavors such as dark chocolate, salted caramel, rose water and of course pistachio 🙂

I found flavours of the ganache simply too hard to resist, once again just like the macaron shell they had the perfect consistency and also balance of flavours. I think it is safe to declare ‘Pierre Hermé’ makes the best macarons I have tasted! Now I just wish I could take a whole cargo ship full of them back with me…and I really wished that they would last longer so Mr Bao could try 😦 Oh wells… I guess that’s just a good excuse and reason to go back to Paris don’t you like?

Pierre Herme Macarons

Clearly in this battle ‘Pierre Hermé’ has won just everything about them size, texture and flavour was all spot on! While Laduree had some good flavours, overall, I was quite disappointed by the ones I have had in Sydney and Paris and surprisingly found the ones in New York to be better. Now my lovely Readers I would like to ask have you tried Laduree and Pierre Hermé before? Which one do you like more? 🙂

Laduree 
75 Champs-Élysées 75008 Paris, France
PH: +33 1 40 75 08 75

Galeries Lafayette
40 boulevard Haussmann 75009 Paris
PH: +33 (0)1 43 54 47 77