Chocoholics, anonymous. Welcome to the Smooth Festival of Chocolate!

Welcome to the best city in the world!! 

And this was made even better with lots of velvety delicious chocolatey desserts. With brilliant weather like this, The Rocks gets incredibly busy - but thanks to the forethought of the organisers, the event was spread out to avoid heavy crowds at any one spot. 

However, queues are not avoidable... Especially the popular stalls like Black Star and of course, Zumbo, whos endless creativity had fattened up who knows how many sweet tooths like myself. 

Two out of 4 Zumbo goodies here. After consuming so many items, it was really hard to remember what they were... one with chocolate mousse, pastry, passionfruit custard; the other was chocolate, raspberry, caramel, custard... Something or other. Both yum, not over sweet, classic Zumbo! Thanks for existing.... 

The most popular Zumbo goodie however was the reinvention of the Golden Gaytime. And I believe that was the most popular dessert of the event!! Ice cream + caramel sandwiched in chocolate macaron shells, coated with chocolate and nuts. It was Golden Gaytime on steroids. Amazing was not enough of a word to describe it! 

If I had to find fault in it... It was not easy to eat. Too big for a mouth, and it was quite ready to fall off the meager popsicle stick. Thankfully the chocolate and nut shell stayed put so we were able to hold on until they were consumed!

There were of course plenty of other goodies - some I managed to devour, like the Profiterole Project's freshly piped creme patissiere that lured me to their stall and the crunchy toffee didn't disappoint; Others I could only look at while my pancreas protested.... I stared at the gorgeous creations from Black Star and Textbook Patisseries and could only say, NEXT YEAR ... At least the watermelon cake (this year it's white chocolate watermelon cake) should still be available from Black Star. But the other desserts? Hopefully they will stay on in their respective patisseries for at least a little longer. 

I did have one of these colourful croissants - how beautiful are they! It was a cherry ripe croissant - chocolate croissant with cherry custard. Flaky croissant, light tang of the cherry, excellent breakfast :D

From a distance, that smoke was a tantalising advertisement for something savoury! We could spot the smoke from Circular Quay! This was a very welcome break from all the sweetness - charcoal chicken/pork skewers with a deliciously thick and sticky sauce, which was gloriously sweet and savoury and finger licking good (better than KFC, by far!!). And with that, we soldiered on for more sweetness....

However apart from having to queue to get my food (and these food stalls were really quick so the wait was minimal), I refused to queue to enter the chocolatiers' hall or the Lindt Lounge. But it was a great idea having chocolatiers indoors - the sun wouldn't have been too kind to the delicate chocolates!

This year unlike the previous two, I missed out on the blogger/social media special treatments because I didn't check the emails early enough. Oops ... So I missed out on VIP passes to the dessert demonstrations... but my trusty camera zoomed in to one of the goodies just to say, yup I was there.... even if I was on the side line, watching other VIPs eat what should also have been mine :p

Thus passed another glorious Spring weekend at the most beautiful place of the most wonderful city in the world. One never grows tired of it.... <3

CS

SugarRush 2015 - Let's fly away at Flying Fish

With a view like this, we don't really need anything else. But a bit of sugar and a little alcohol certainly adds to it! This is the third instalment of our Good Food Month antics and, having wanted to visit Flying Fish, I looked very much forward to this event!

A comfortable fish out of water

What's on offer? An exotic, modern Japanese fusion with fresh flavours - just what we would expect from Flying Fish. Chef Elliott Pinn had created a gorgeous palette of yuzu curd, mandarin furikake (Japanese flavoured sprinkles for rice, but of course, it's a different mix for this dessert), matcha sorbet and shiso. But to add to our dessert experience, something off the (bar) menu took our fancy - we are what we eat - so had to try their blueberry, chamomile and violet tart.

What a work of art. To those who despise the food photographers at restaurants, take one look at this dish and you will be tempted. And the flavour? Not normally a fan of matcha ice cream, I found the sorbet much more appealing as it is more lively and fresh. The curd was silky smooth, and we loved the sesame coating to it.

Our petite tarts were bite sized - perfect mouthfuls - with a lush smooth curd that is refined and beautifully presented. We washed it down with one of our favourite liquors - Pedro Ximenez Gran Reserva 1983 - a sweet sticky with the most deliciously rich fruity flavours much like a drinking prune or sultana. At about 212g/l sugar, it's one of the rare sweet drinks I love. 

Must return for more goodies - next time I will aim to sample their actual menu items!

CS

SugarRush 2015 - Bistro Mint

As if we haven't ingested enough sugar this month, let alone this year, an invitation from Bistro Mint arrived and who can resist chocolate?

Balmy spring evenings are the best in Sydney. Following some stomach-lining at the Night Noodle Market, we strolled to the oldest public building in the CBD. Sydney Mint was built in the early 1800s, once known as the "Rum Hospital" due to the contractors having been paid with 45,000 gallons of rum! A different kind of alcohol was served on the evening of Sugar Rush, part of the Good Food Month.

Seated on the balcony overlooking Macquarie Street, glasses of Yalumba Museum Reserve muscat were served. Tawny-coloured, it's plumy, chocolatey, a little spicy and very much sticky!

The dessert plate arrived with a dark chocolate dome, its contents in suspense, and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream topped with honey foam. A hot dark chocolate sauce, with extra vanilla stirred in, was poured over the dome as the show began.

While the chocolate dome melted, the ooh's & ah's were quite audible in the otherwise placid surrounding. The big unveil consisted of a chocolate fudge coin (geddit!) and Merlot gel - rich and tangy all in one hit. Crushed peanuts at the base of the plate gave the liquidy dessert an extra texture kick, as well as adding its nutty fragrance.

It was another beautiful evening to appreciate our wonderful city, made even better by a sugar high! Thank you Bistro Mint for a lovely sweet indulgence!

**Sugar Rush at Bistro Mint is available from 7pm Tuesdays to Fridays until 30 October 2015. For more information, please visit their website.

Hsinner ;)

SugarRush 2015 - Signorelli Gastronomia

Our much anticipated month of sugar injection is here! One of our favoured joints - Signorelli Gastronomia - has put up an offer we could not resist, so on the opening night of the October Good Food Month, we went.

Nico the lovely manager greeted us like we're family and exchanged some good humoured banter throughout the evening as he butterflied about, making everyone feel at home. Immediately our sweet whites arrived followed by the gorgeous dessert of the month - "Under the Sea" - inspired by the Aussie coastline, the centre piece was hazelnut semifreddo adorned with caramelised popcorn, passionfruit and blackcurrent jubes, banana and orange croutons and spicy pineapple with nougat coral and crisp salted 'waves'. Intricate and beautiful, we took our time photographing. Did I say it was beautiful? We had to do it justice! And it tasted as it looked - gorgeous. Visually the plate looked like waves hitting the seashore, with the salty waves it brought me to Bronte.

We weren't kidding when we said many photos were taken .... 

And we followed this with an enormous cheese platter! Nico was most amused the first time we visited that we'd started with the sweet stuff followed by our main course. We have our priorities and it's sweet. The platter was incredible, with truffle pecorino, gorgonzola with truffle honey, a gooey taleggio, and delicious sides of fruits and nuts and quince paste. And glasses of shiraz to wash them down with... but I had to have my Pedro Ximenez - a deliciously plummy and sultana'y sticky sherry-like red wine. L. O. V. E.

And because we're gluttons, we had to have another dessert off the main menu - Sicilian Citrus - citrus posset with orange cake, crispy meringue, black currant and orange jelly topped with ruby grapefruit granita. Very refreshing, very pretty (of course), and we loved how easy it was to eat.

We were all on a sugar high, the wine made us laugh at just about everything, plus Nico popping over to make sure we were having a spectacular evening ... The night could not have been more fabulous. And we were still eyeing the goods in the cheese room, and contemplated one day organising a dinner at the red wine room....

CS