DDT is BACK! Hello, Newtown!

Divine Dessert Tour is back!! "I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide...." ahem no sorry not Gandalf, but I reckon it's equally exciting (and more satisfying!) Though I must confess, we DID have a DDT event in February, in Rio de Janeiro; attendees included KT, CS and (first timer!!) Carol - welcome to the world of sweet indulgence!!

KT, CEO extraordinaire, cherry picked a handful of locations to satisfy us gluttons - Hoochie Mama's Cafe, Black Star Bakery, Satellite Espresso, Pastizzi Cafe, Dolce & Gelato.... Life of a hobbit... gladly!!

Breakfast at Hoochie Mama's - KT had already been eyeing the french toast with strawberries and lemon ricotta, the enthusiasm of which infected CC (first time DDD who habitually licks her laptop screen when looking at my blog + photos - Welcome!!) so I thought, what's the point of everyone eating the same thing... so I went with an old favourite of ricotta hotcakes with berry and yogurt.


The dishes were both gorgeously presented. French toast was made with thick-cut raisin toast, which would be lovely if it was served as just raisin toast with strawberries and lemon ricotta... what was our problem? French toast needs to be soaked through with egg, but it wasn't soaked enough to give it that rich eggy flavour. However my ricotta hotcakes were PERFECT - good enough to rival that of Bill Granger (see DDT launch at Bills Woollarah)! Hot, fluffy, moist, light... and the generous portions meant 3 thick hotcakes later I started to worry about the rest of my dessert day. Hoochie Mama's coffee - bitter and not very aromatic.... was disappointed.

Dragging our heavy bottoms away from Hoochie Mama's, we proceeded towards Black Star Bakery, famous for their signature dessert chocolate caramel tart (among other things). The chocolate tart oddly has a sprinkle of salt flakes on top, but if so many people vouch for this dessert despite the salt, there's got to be some good reason behind it.

And there was. The chocolate caramel 'GOO' was decadent, smooth, rich, and for some reason the salt actually cut the richness and gave it that extra dimension, so I understood why people come back to this, and why this gets sold out quite quickly (I bought the last one... it's now sitting in my fridge!) We had to spoon the 'goo' in order to share it, as cutting the tart into quarters meant the chocolate lava goodness was no longer contained in the crispy tart shell.

Dimmed in comparison was the custard flan. It would be lovely but after the chocolate goodness, everything tasted bland. Its crusty pastry (not short-bread biscuit base that could be quite heavy) reminded me of the pastry from Bourke St Bakery's creme brulee tart.

Other items sampled - canelle with rum & lemon, a traditional French pastry, I wasn't impressed with the way it looked (how superficial of me) but it had a very fragrant flavour and I enjoyed the caramelised crust. Saffron mango biscuit - couldn't taste the saffron, but enjoyed the dried mango (not candied) on light crispy biscuit base (not bad); then later, lovely waitress provided us with a freebie of a lemon curd biscuit 'tainted' by a blob of chocolate sauce. Deliciously tangy custard - hard to find a tangy lemon curd nowadays, for some reason. And I now have 2 of these sitting in my fridge too, waiting to be consumed.

Coffee - OK drinking, quite strong, more on the acidic side.

By now our bottoms were REALLY heavy, and our feet dragging as the post-feed lethargy kicks in... but we move on and found ourselves in the bright teal and fuscia interior of Satellite Espresso. It's time for a break (much needed, in fact) and lucky for us they only had one sweet on offer (!! surprised that I'd actually say that). Lemon lime (baked) cheese cake, with passion fruit pulp and a big handful of blueberries. It was deliciously rich and smooth, fantastic blend of tang and the rich cheese cake, very mouth watering.

A gem find - lychee and boysenberry soda - very refreshing, a simple mix of tinned lychee, lychee syrup, soda water and boysenberry - gorgeous. Woke me up better than the coffee! (Satellite coffee - ok initial palate, bitter towards the end, and left my mouth bitter and tart..)

My last stop (but not KT's last) was the Pastizzi Cafe, no prizes for guessing what they sell. But they also do very lovely meals - as we sat there we saw plates and plates of tantalisingly good pasta being served. Also last sunday of the month they do rabbits - traditional Malta dish. Pastizzis are these baked crispy pastry with an assortment of fillings, sweet or savoury. Being a dessert tour of course we'd opted for the sweet options - chocolate and ricotta, cherry and cheese, and apple. The apple pastitzzi was somewhat average - just like standard apple pie fillings. Cherry and cheese was lightly sour, kind of like a cherry and cheese strudel; chocolate ricotta was our favourite, then again we could be biased because we like chocolate :p.

As I rolled myself away from Newtown, KT and MB had the following experience:

Dolce & Gelato: the "best" chocolate ice cream - dark chocolate with tiny bits of melting chocolate... mmm...

Gem find: Chilli Chocolate - sooooo nice... the burn at the back of the throat is so addictive :P Pistachio, although not as impressive as that from Gelatissimo (personal opinion), was a welcoming break between each spoonful of chilli choc - Very yummy... :D~~

There you have it, the return of DDT - in style!

CS

Comments

Christine Chuang - 31/03/2009 5:35:27 AM

Thanks CS and KT! Despite the fact that I missed out on the best bit of the DDT tour of the day but I had a great breakie (nearly disqualified by wanting to eat my eggs benedict!!!! phew!!!) See you guys again!
P.S CS - can I steal the above french toast+hot cakes pics so that I can link it to my blog? You may get an influx of readers from Taiwan :P