Kick off your heels in Surry Hills!

There are just so many places worth visiting in Surry Hills - this suburb is dotted with everything from fancy restaurants to hole-in-the-wall cafes. To survive Surry Hills, each of these establishments will have to do their very best to satisfy the sassy customers who, like us, will find no shortage of convenient replacements just 2 doors down.

We were always ambitious with Surry Hills - first DDT here we planned 8 places and struggled to get through 9 (because we could not resist the temptation of an unplanned stop!!) Today, we planned to visit, say, 7. Let's just see how many we end up with!

Reuben Hills Cafe gets busy. We had to wait about an hour for a table for 6, while jealously looking at couples walk past while we try our best to soak up the morning sun. Patiently we (and others) waited our turn ... for the lovely affogato, the hearty rice pudding, refreshing poached plums. Oh and the ice cream sandwich with gorgeous raspberry mousse!

The selection of jams and honey on the shelf added excitement to our foodie conversation; the brioche with "dulce de leche" was disappointing as it wasn't dulce de leche... just a slight brownishly tinged sweetened condensed milk. Jam went much nicer on the brioche though. [KT: The Argentine says it wasn't dulce de leche, so it wasn't!]

Next stop just up the road - Bruschetteria - we were mostly drawn to its Nutella coffee. Apart from that, the "dirty chai latte" (chai coffee) which was interesting but ... well, not quite right. The Nutella coffee really was just a mocha. Nice, but not quite the espresso I'm used to drinking. The Nutella hot chocolate was uber sweet - possibly a hot chocolate with an extra dollop of Nutella.

Beautiful little cafe with character, might come again next time for their breakfasts... and I'll skip the Nutella coffee, thank you!

A quick stroll later, we arrived at Mint, where I consumed a whole delicious dessert tasting plate (for one, not two, thankfully) on my last visit .... alone!!! This time around I have company! So we had a few more desserts -  a decadent chocolate halva cigar with honey chocolate mousse, and a gorgeous kuneffeh (baked shredded kataifi pastry with ricotta and fruits).  And of course, the tasting plate which consisted of a malaba (rose water pudding), chocolate brownie, dates, walnut, dried apricots, Turkish delight, nougat, and baklava.

For those of you who like middle eastern desserts - don't be jealous. Those of you who don't know about middle eastern desserts - you are missing out. This was the place I first had a real Turkish delight (as opposed to the artificially-flavoured, overly sweet concoction from supermarkets). The kuneffeh was so light, it's easily consumable by one person (but we share, because we care). That chocolate mousse was so dark and devilish, generating a "mmm" from everyone who had the pleasure of tasting it.

So what happened to the other stops? Books Kitchen, Bang Bang, FourAteFive, Bourke St Bakery?

We sheepishly confess that we didn't make it to these stops. We however stopped to check out Kurtosh (Hungarian pastry) and Cafe Sicilia (Italian pasticceria) for our future visits.

Another glorious late autumn day, enjoyed by those who cared to be out and about. Now, a nap to help the digestion .... zzzzz