I don’t mind being proved wrong at all. I had cruelly passed by this cafe many times. Why? Well, there are so many options in the neighbourhood, for coffee and lunch, and when it first opened, it was so empty (albeit shiny) that to me, something seemed a bit out of place. It wasn’t homey enough for Surry Hills or Darlinghurst, I thought.
But then, my pal Davy ignored my recommendation to meet him at The Goods, and I saw him sitting there instead. Why not? There was a nice buzzy crowd on a Saturday afternoon including a very cute small Asian girl with cat ears and a cat t-shirt. With people there, it didn’t look sterile at all.
My coffee was perfectly fine, and D seemed fine with his tea. I suppose coffee would be my only strike against the cafe, as the lattes only come in one size (I’d wanted a large) and then to follow my first, I wanted a decaf (as 3pm is too late for me to drink a regular coffee). But no decaf.
Luckily, the rest of the items made up for it. Check out the beautiful presentation on this open-faced sandwich which D had. He said it was delicious and everything was very fresh.
And then… the desserts. So, I was obsessed with pastries during my time in Paris, and I made a point of treating myself to them. Even the neighbourhood bakeries had such high quality fare, so beautifully presented. There are no many coffee and pastry outlets in Sydney where the pastries in the display case don’t even look appealing.
And then, all over Paris, there are luxury pastry shops, where individual creations by well-known chefs, sparkle like little jewels in their cases, each with a tempting description. In Sydney, so far, there are few of these, Adriano Zumbo, certainly, with his modern creations, but I can’t think of one fancy pastry place in Surry Hills/Darlo.
Until now. Davy had a beautiful grapefruit mousse concoction, light and airy, a crunchy bit on the bottom, a gel, a beautiful light pink covering. And I had an earl grey tea chocolate concoction, super rich, with different textures, and really, really pretty. Plus, they were only $8 or $9 each; I think the equivalent in Paris would be 1.5 or twice the cost. I was very impressed. They’re advertised as made in-house, and there are a lot more varieties, of which, I will be trying them all…
In fact, I went back about six weeks later, and discovered that the upstairs is a lovely area, open and light, and we particularly liked the passionfruit pastry (though opted again for the rick and delicious earl grey tea chocolate one, see the photo at the top of the post). We had both had a heavy lunch at White Taro though, and should have split one pastry between the two of us. We were that full.