The Journey to Zumbo's Part 1

Adriano Zumbo of Masterchef fame - famous for his crochembouche, making the humble macaron every cook's fantasy, the chocolate mousse cake, the V8 cake, his certain sexy-foodie appeal... Okay, okay, I'll stop there. Last week marked a milestone of a day. She-wears-skirts, The Omelette and I traversed the Gladesville and Iron Cover Bridges, cruised along the traffic-ridden Victoria Road and found our way to Adriano Zumbo’s Lab Café.

Zumbo’s new café is located on Terry Street in Rozelle, which is in the next suburb, but really just 2 streets over from his old café. Having been to the old café, I have to say I was a little disappointed. This “lab” was indoors, unlike the old lovely oudoorsy setup and extremely, and when I say extremely I mean can’t-breathe-in-here-I-feel-so-squished, small. Okay, maybe not that small, but once the more customers started arriving, people were squishing in to see the counter and we were being squished into the wall on our stools (which were almost too tall for She-Wears-Skirts haha). On the plus side, the staff are really friendly, the food is fantab, I love the little chopping boards as plates, and the window into the kitchen – and Adriano – is very cool.

Shall we follow with one of the few (only few!) stalker shots of Adriano Zumbo? Yes please! Courtesy of She-Wears-Skirts and my little brother.

Adriano doing his pastry thing

Along with She-Wears-Skirts and The Omelette, we also brought my little brother and cousin, so between the five of us, we managed to have (and share discretely) five pastries. I had the passionfruit tart ($5.50) – lovely creamy tangy passionfruit curd, very superb short pastry and absolutely beautiful, beautiful sunset-over-the-clear-ocean-in-a-tropical-paradise glaze on the top. We especially loved the three very specifically placed passionfruit seeds. Haha, gotta love that detail. This one was definitely my favourite.

Passionfruit Tart

The Omelette snapped up the pear and almond tart ($5.50), which was very nice. Other fruit and almond tarts I’ve tasted tend to have very little fruit and a lot too much almond (frangipane?), so I was a little apprehensive about this one. However, Zumbo’s is quite a winner, it had plenty of pear in it and wasn’t too almondy! And lovely flaked almonds on top! Two ticks for that! But being at Zumbo’s, I feel the pear and almond tart was a little bit just a pear and almond tart. Very nice, but not that special Zumbo zing, I feel.

Pear and Almond Tart

She-Wears-Skirts had a brioche and chocolate pastry ($4.50) which I’ve forgotten the name of, which was also quite delicious. It was sort of like a log of chocolate croissant, but with chocolate all through it. The three of us agreed while it was certainly yum, (and big!), it could have benefited from more chocolate. Otherwise, it was very nice and flaky!

Chocolate Brioche Thingie A.K.A. Log of Chocolate Croissant

My cousin had a pear and custard danish ($5.50). This was pretty much a normal danish but the custard was delicious! Really, really delicious creamy goodness mmmmmmm! Apart from that, it was a nice pastry, fruity and flaky. Yum!

Pear and Custard Danish

The Omelette and She-Wears-Skirts’s favourite was the raspberry and pistachio tart ($9). This one was just stunning to look at with all its raspberry-dinosaur-spines sticking out of it and that crushed pistachio! The pistachio cream was definitely brilliant, so so pistachio-y and creamy, I wished there was more – but maybe that was just my little tidbit. The pastry was also lovely and short and the raspberries nice and tangy – however my brother commented, a little stale tasting? Maybe we’re just being picky.

Raspberry and Pistachio Tart

Overall, the food was lovely, watching Zumbo (and team) cook was very fun, the decor was fun - I especially like the evil donut, but the jam-packed-ness meant we felt quite rushed and that we needed to leave quite soon.

You can also buy from here, so there was a nice selection of macarons (which we saw being made), pastries and tarts. But for the cakes, we made our way over to Darling Street in Balmain (which is really just the next street over)… This I will continue in the next post.

c.c.

Not Quite Nigella Eat Your Heart Out!

I realise I am straying slightly into Hurley's territory here, but I cannot resist.

What it takes is a little dedication. Dedication in the name of food... Yesterday Country Bumpkin (CB) and I took a brekkie trip to the Bourke Street Bakery (sigh...) in Surry Hills. The Bakery opens at 8am. We were there at about 8:30ish. Yes, we both woke up early, and I mean early! 6:30am and 6:45am respectively. Reason being? We needed those ginger brulee tarts. Ha!
We did our research via Not Quite Nigella and UrbanSpoon before heading there. The bakery itself is a little difficult to get to when you aren't entirely sure where you're going. We started from Central and it took about 4 detours before we actually arrived. (However, having been there once, I can totally take you there again with my eyes closed.) It's a cute little, and I mean little, place right on the corner of a street. Once you're there, you cannot miss it, there's really not much else in the way of shops around it, lots of beautiful terraced houses that I dream about, though.

A very cute little place.

Because we arrived so early, there was no queue and no attitude from the staff (Ha! NQN and US!) and everything was still there, including the much-longed-for ginger brulee tarts. Yes! NQN actually arrived too late in the day and missed out on these absolutely amazing (and I am not exaggerating) tarts, so yes, a moment of satisfaction for CB and I. However, since we were so early we did miss out on the famed sausage rolls - the lamb, harissa and almond sausage roll I especially wanted to try. Together, we bought the pan au chocolat (chocolate croissant), rhubarb and almond tart, vanilla brulee tart with strawberry puree, chocolate mousse tart and of course, the ginger brulee tart. It's a little pricey, but not so much so that I won't be going back multiple times (I think it was about $4.40 for the 8cm tarts and $3.70 for the croissant).

Sigh.... pastry...

The croissant was beautiful. Not too sweet or buttery, and really nice and flaky. The chocolate was dark (yesss!) and there wasn't a massive amount, like you often get which detracts from the pastry. It wasn't the best croissant I have ever had in my life, but by all means really, really good! We ate this one before I remembered to whip out my phone for a picture, so no picture here guys, sorry!

The next one we tried was the ginger brulee tart, which was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Really. It was chilled so the custard wasn't too runny (On an interesting side note, they also use a 45% fat cream, instead of the 35% fat cream we usually get in shops, which results in a firmer custard) and there was, as raved about so much, that crack when we broke through the toffee on top. mmmmmm. Like US said, you can tell it's real ginger, not too gingery but a really lovely balance and I just wanted more. CB was right, we should have bought 2. Instead we bought the vanilla and strawberry brulee, which admittedly, we left for a little too long before we ate it. This one was also really nice. The custard was not too sweet and the strawberry puree at the bottom was really good! Because we let it go warm, the custard was a bit runny and there was no crack (why?!?).

Clockwise from front: rhubarb & almond, chocolate mousse, vanilla & strawberry puree, ginger brulee (unfortunately due to my inability to remember to bring a knife, we have no pictures of the inside. But please, let me refer you to NQN - she has beautiful pictures. Click Here!)

The chocolate mousse tart was something, though! This one is my cousin's favourite so I was expecting big things. And it was really, really good! The mousse is not too rich, a lot lighter than I expected and less firm too. And at the bottom was a "surprise" spoonful of raspberry puree which really took it to the next level. Raspberry + chocolate = heaven! And they put chocolate cake crumbs on top (not Milo, NQN!) which were cute and different, I thought. This was so much better than the rhubarb tart, which I have to admit I was a little disappointed in. All in all, it was quite nice, but a bit too much frangipane and not enough rhubarb. The result was therefore a bit too sweet and almondy for my taste. The pastry on all the tarts though is very nice - rustic looking and crunchy! Yum!! I am so going to try to make pastry now!

This trip made my day. Absolutely beautiful pastries which I will definitely be going back for. Definitely a high 8/10 (Only because it's a little hard to find and that rhubarb tart wasn't so great) And the top it all off, when I came home that night my lovely brothers presented me with my birthday present, which was the Bourke Street Bakery Baking Companion! Yay! Of course, I did give many not-so-subtle hints ("Hey! This is what I want for my birthday! And it’s on the Book Depository so get it there, okay?" Ahh... joys of the Book Depository...) haha! Nonetheless, I have been spending the best part of the last 12 hours reading through the book, and hence the little insights to how and what makes up the tarts.

My new 370-paged beautiful baby... complete with drool-worthy photos and step-by-step photo guides for pastry! (Including pate brisee! haha)

CB and I will be heading back to taste the breads and savouries and that chocolate ganache tart which has caught my eye... and for another ginger brulee tart, but in the meantime, I have my new baby :)

c.c.