Sydney - Sweetery & Coffee Hunts.

Dessert has always placed a big part in my eatery interest.

Moved back to Sydney since July, I have been exploring the city and found a few places for dessert that I would recommend you to try. It could be a bakery shop, a restaurant with delicious dessert dish or a little cafe in a corner.

- Kurtosh (Surry Hills), a nice cafe with good coffee and cake serves in weight. http://kurtosh.com.au/
- Black Star Pastry (New Town) with its Strawberry and Watermelon cake
- Cupcake on Pitt Street (CBD)- http://www.cupcakesonpitt.com.au/
- Messina with its favourite ice cream (various) - I love the salted caramel but when you visit them, don't forget to check their special board. - http://www.gelatomessina.com/au/find-us/
- The sandwich shop - (Surry Hills) I used to go here for their chocolate brownies, the size is generous, the flavour is rich and the shop has a nice woody bench outside for a pleasant stop-by. http://thesandwichshop.com.au/

As having some sweet, coffee is the best "partner in crime"to treat your savoury demands, and I found there are few nice coffee shops around Sydney that are worth for regular visiting.

- The Single Origin - http://singleoriginroasters.com.au/, this trendy cafe is very busy in the morning, as it situated in the vibrant-young suburb Surry Hills and near a number of creative/design studios. It has the best exposure to demanding coffee drinks who appreciate, not just a dose of caffein but also an aromatic cup of delicacy.

- The Workshop (Outside Gallery building near Townhall) - this shop offers great coffee, just one negative thing is that it locates at the middle of one of the busiest intersection in Australia.

- Lot No.50 (North Sydney) - can not miss out mentioning this cafe because I go there pretty much every day (near my work). http://www.ragandfamish.com.au/lot-no-50/

...and many more places to explore.

Have you been to any of these places, want to share your opinions, please leave a comment. Or you have a favourite place to share with me, let me know.

Sweet - Dessert Porn

As a big fan of dessert, I love to visit my favourite restaurant/cafe/dessert places for my sweet treat. I have been exploring a couple of places and immerse in dessert-time with friends.

I just realised that there is a big gap in Melbourne culinary market, such a pity there is not a good place for dessert at night time. Seemingly, everything I have tried have some good and bad points but mostly dessert are eaten in the most spontaneous moment and those places would be shut by the time I had made the decision. Anyway, I would share with you guys a couple of my favourite places to get my sweet tooth satisfied... please share this writing if you like and comment if you know some other places.

1. Don Vincenzo
- 301 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy - http://www.facebook.com/donvincenzofitzroy?ref=stream&viewer_id=1121997426
- I love this place with their awesome dessert menu, which surprised me sometime. Lately I have come twice for their Creme Brulee - my favourite dessert. Back in my childhood time, I have creme brulee pretty much every afternoon after my lunch, as there was a vendor who pushed his trolley pass my house around 1pm. The vendor sold (and is still selling) his signature creme-burlee and the one thing I have been impressed by him is that after he retired, the business was tranfered to his son - who is the vendor creme-burlee during day time and a part time motor-cylce taxi at night.

2. Misschu - Melbourne CBD
- I personally think this place is a very interesting food-bar (not as a wholy truely restaurant when they do prefer to fast serve, fast pace etc... but their COCONUT ICECREAM is worth to have and I do like their CUSTARD BUNS
- http://www.misschu.com.au/

3. Siglo bar
- 2/161 Spring street Melbourne
It will be a miss if I do not mention STICKY DATE PUDDING at Siglo, serves with icream.

4. Dessert Story
- With its famous Taiwanese sweet soup - an authentic asian way of sweet taste. My favourite is Mango Sago and Coconut.
- Swanton street, oppostive QV building, near Melbourne Central

5. Passion Flower
- A great place for dessert, ice-cream and its aesthetic names of dessert. This is "HAPPY ENDING" and surely I will come back another time for it.
- Corner of Russel and Bourke Street

I do have a place in my head that I want to go soon, so anybody want to join? It is Urban Garden on Swanton street (basement next to Arrow on Swanton) and I know they do Durian Creme-Burlee

;))

Bonus some other desserts I have eaten

Orange Cake - With cream

Home made Apple pie with cream

Chocolate Devil 

Green tea sponge cake (In Thailand)

Passionfruit Cheese Cake - Hoi An, Vietnam

Chocolate Brownie - Sydney Paddington 

Pancake with banana (I guess!)  - Forget what it actually is

Carrot cake, Sydney

Berries Sponge Cake - St Kilda

Thank you for reading this blog... 

Put your request on what you like me to write. I will try my best!

Sushi - Melbourne Central Level 3

Davids' Shanghai - Prahran

Sourdough kitchen

My friend told me to change my blog to - "Eat likes a pig" and he is very interested in giving me accompany to eat around Melbourne like 2 pigs. I do like eating and enjoy eating aesthetically so I refused to change the name of this blog " Eat likes a pig". However, I would put a nickname for this blog and hope that you may not find it too extreme or offended... "Eat me instead"

You could eat this blog for instead of going to the place I wrote and eat their food... From pictures to words, from smell to the feeling of touch the keyboards, typing your comments on my posts... You can simply eat this blog at anywhere you will be, through your phone or your computer... or give me a hint, I can print these posts out and send to you by post (well, I assume that you don't want me to waste some trees, but I like you to read my words anyway!!! Limited, condition applied*****)

:)) Just joking.

Last week, I have dinned out a few places but been a bit stress from a few things so I couldn't do much on the blog. As schedule, I try my best doing 2 posts in a week. The first one of this week, I will show you what I have done at Sourdough Kitchen in Seddon.

This is a bakery shop, they sell breads, sourdough and cakes... But their sausage roll is so yummy. I have made myself there one breakfast and had this Chicken and Leeks sausage with homemade coleslaw salad. It costed me $9 and I quickly named it as "the wonderful hangover treatment" after my most favourite "the best hangover treatment" - Pho (Vietnamese beef slided noodle soup). Haha, as you could guess, I had a couple of drinks the night before so it was really good for that morning.





The big tables, very simply deco... I like how they put tables away from each other with enough spaces for people to come in and out. Lot of local residencies bought breads from this shop. Their pastry is fresh. Felt like a treat from a village bakery in country Victoria.

I found that my limitation is that I am not a big eater, so not "eat likes a pig" I can just do one meal per place I have visited. If I had someone join me, surely I would get to swap meals, share meals and drinks share...

Hope you enjoy what I am writing.

Ceres Cafe for Families - Brunswick East

I have made my trip up North today to a place called Ceres Community Environmental Park for a late lunch with my mate. We took the 96 tram from Bourke street and stopped at the last stop which is corner of Nicholson street and Blyth Street, Brunswick East. The trip took around 15'. Then we walked toward the centre, we saw this sign, and we followed it.

I have heard about this cafe before. Infact, I knew this centre Ceres which is a good place for "green people". For a beautiful 23 Celsius degree which chill wind, I have no excuses to not making a visit, especially with a support from my friend Bi. We had a really walk from the tram station to the centre. We found our way down to the cafe which is located near the end of the centre. You must walk through all 'the nursery', 'the dam', see some chickens in the 'chook area'. We kept following all signs and push through a gate to go through the 'Ed Office' and found a beautiful court-yard cafe area. 

I have ordered myself a $10 'soup of the day' and a Ceres organic chai which is so beautiful. The soup is made from roasted pumpkins with carrot, onions, potato, coriander and other lovely herbs which I can not tell. The tea was such a good choice to go along with as the herbal flavours from the drink has added on the soup which is still lingering on my toung on the trip back to town.

 Despite of their 80% of the ingredients are organic produced, also cooked straight from their kitchen, there is not any other places can beat their unique ambiance. It is a very peaceful place for city slickers to get away from all car's horns, tram bells, train track's sound. Simplicity, we can  step away from the modern designed cafe and have a nice and comfortable place to take our kids with us (there is space for them to run and play) safely. Quitely we can listen to the birds and feel the chill from the wind treat us in a warm day. Such a unique experiences which I have not had before. (There is another garden cafe near the end of Alexandra Venue - Toorak which I have visited before, but the crowd, the food hasn't made the ambiance the same as how I feel here. At Ceres Cafe, it has brought my memories back to the old time when I visited the country of Victoria and see things are in 2 colours - green from the trees and blue from the sky)

Ceres cafe staff have stated that they will compost all organic waste, recycle plastic and paper waste and send waste water to an on-site grey water treatment system. The kitchen uses solar eletricity and rain water, collected off the roof, which is stored in the tanks before being heated by a solar hot water system for use in washing up

Ceres is a friendly community centre, they has cafe, and there is an organic market on Wednesday and Friday 9am to 2pm; and a Bike Group workshop on Friday, Sat from 11am to 5pm. So if you are a local around the area, take a bike ride to Ceres, stop for a cafe, fix your bike, shop all the gourmet organic fruits and vegies in this Spring. 

For those who likes to know more about Ceres here visit their website www.ceres.org.au

Zero Waste Cafe in Hardware Lane

I had heard about 'Zero waste cafe" in Melbourne about 3 months ago since I had been working at ECC NSW. One of my collegue, Pilar Angon she has visited this cafe and told me how awesome and cool they are.

I made my way down to Hardware lane this arvo with a friend of mine, we were talking about all clothes and designed, but we were both thirsty for a beverage, we didn't feel like to hit to the usual cafe and we decided to try this place.

It isn't so hard to find the place with its address 123 Hardware street Melbourne. However, I was in surprise that the cafe isn't named "zero waste" as people talk about. It is actually called "Silo by Joost".

http://www.tourism.vic.gov.au/piecesofvictoria/august_2012/index.php?page=melbourne_wining_and_dining_hotspots6 - you can find tourism victoria has written for Silo by Joost here.

The place is quite light-ful with big windows, a long tall-table with chairs are upcycled from a big gas bottle (I don't know how you call it but it looks like a beer gas chunk we usually see in the pub) with a piece of wood (as the chair seat).

The table is long and big enough for up to 10 people who can sit in 2 rows parallel oppositely. Interesting, the other side of the table where I sat, is actually next to the kitchen where the staff can make juice and prepare the food.

Zero waste means they don't have a rubbish bin. And without asking for that information, I have been told when my friend left a bottle of lemonade on the table, she had to leave for work that they don't have a bin so they could not disposable the bottle. I wouldn't make it too hard for them to deal with a single bottle so I took it with me.

The tea was served nicely in a tall glass and a glass pot, my friend has a freshly squeeze organe juice with a bit of pink-grape fruit. We didn't have a chance to try their coffee as my coffee addiction would not be able to carry more than 2 cups of latte within 4 hours. Melbourne coffee surely is strongly than Sydney one (which I have suffered from drinking Sydney coffee for the last year before moving back here and still adjusting to the favour. I remembered in 1 year prior my move to Sydney, I could have up to 3 cups of coffee continually without a problem.).

I will definitely go back there again so I can spot out their nicely arrange cupboard on the wall, fancy cakes they have at the window and check out their no-waste eco-friendly breakfast/lunch or dinner..

The place is so cosy and I would recommend for someone who would like to check out the behind bar work, you can just sit close to the dish-washing machine and see how gentle they do their dish-washing. Nevertheless, you can share your own recipes to the staff how to do a homemade beverage (well just to let you know they already have home-made lemonade!!). Need only to remember that do not bring any waste into the cafe.

I will absolutely be back another time to explore this place better and tell you more about Joost vertical garden. If you like to check out Joost's work, click here to his website http://byjoost.com/silo/

P/s: All the information are written on my personal opinions and the links are collected through the internet. English is my second language. I only knew a few words and keep counting.

;)