Saturday, April 30, 2011

Passion fruit macaron with chocolate ganache

Not exactly the Paris post that I've planned, but since macaron is from France I supposed the entry is still related, in a way. To be honest I was never a fan of macaron's taste. I found it too sweet and found a taste similarity with meringue which also not a cup of my tea but the macaron's look is a different story. I always adore its colours and shapes hence for me macaron is like the idiom 'beauty is only skin deep'.

However after I tasted Pierre Herme's macaron not only it's screaming perfection in its look but it's also tasted amazing, beautiful inside out - definitely not like the macarons that I've tasted before.

So here's my first attempt to create macarons at home. But certainly can't take full credit for this one, the process was led by my friend who did a one day course at Laduree (jealousyy..)

The recipe was based on Pierre Herme's macaron although we did tweak the recipe a bit and made a passion fruit shells in addition. However our one didn't have a strong passion fruits, will do more research where to get a proper passion fruits syrup! Or please message me if you know where to get a good (and affordable) baking stuff.








Beginner's luck :)

We actually tried to make the green tea macaron last time but didn't turn out like we wanted to so I was a bit discouraged then but the disappointment only last for two days. I've been baking more after that, i.e other experiment cakes - I will post it one day (better not saying soon since we both know it's not true).

There's definitely a certain satisfaction when the freshly baked goodies came out from the oven and it's a great feeling when you're able to share it with people that you love, and oddly I actually find piping the dough is soothing.

Ah food definitely makes me happy. Either make it, eat it or taking photos of it.

London

Inspired by yesterday's Royal Wedding, I decided to use my Saturday to post the London entry. Not that we had any canapes or dinner in Buckingham Palace, but at least I remembered I had such a good pack of chips before entering the Westminster Abby's tour. Slightly different but ah..brings back good memories..

So flash back two months before - hey two months is not too bad, I have entries that I was meaning to post since last year, okay make that a different story.

Anyway I remembered it was dark at night when we arrived, windy, pouring rain and we got lost when we were walking looking for our hotel dragging our heavy luggage in one hand and the other hand trying to fix the broken umbrella *sad music on*.

Once we finally got to our hotel room and emptied out load (and Pierre Hermes' macarons that we hand-carried from Paris, that looked like crumbled oreo at that point), we didn't waste any time to rest, we just needed to find a good soup and possibly some rice. Yes I need Asian food, it was cold, raining, and I was super tired so I think I deserved at least a hot bowl of soup. Luckily I had some insight from my friend who used to lived in Lodon for a good Asian restaurant, so up to Bayswater we went.

We actually almost missed the place since the sign was so small, and at that time the road was quiet so there was no line like what my friend said. I was tempted to just walk in to a random Asian restaurants (there's a row of restaurants just outside the tube, handy for my hungry eyes!) But luckily Moco found the right restaurant and behind those close doors the restaurant was indeed packed!

Well we did check some reviews before and can't agree more that we normally go to affordable Asian restaurant for the food not the service. So I think The Four Seasons is no different in Asian restaurants in Sydney in fact I think the service was not as bad as the review at all. As for the food, too be honest I think we've had better in Sydney but it's definitely good enough for my Asian food intake of the week.

pan fried peking duck dumplings for entree

dumpling soup! I'd settle with just any chicken soup but hey not complaining..

as my friend and the review said, can't go here without ordering the duck! yum..

not normally ordered greens in the restaurant since God knows I hate being ripped off, but this time is an exception..we need the greens, who knows if we're gonna eat Mc Donalds for three days in a row

Ah..satisfied..

The next day we head early to Convent Garden to check this Indian Cafe that Moco found from a magazine he read on the train to London. Yeh random found sounds good to me.

And it was quite impressive found actually, I love the cafe's decor and I quite like having naan bread for my brekkie..along with giant size of good coffee, ah..good coffee. Surprisingly I haven't got good coffee in Paris, crazy (different post I know)

there's no much variation on the breakfast menu, so I took time to take photos of the beautiful decor instead..



more seats in lower ground, I'd imagined it will be a good place to hang out after work to have some beers or some chai latte..

yes yes it's gross to take photos of the loo especially after the naan bread, but it just looks so neat, check the old medicine cabinet at the back..I just feel like I went back to the old colonial times..

At dinner time we met up with my friend, she's been raving for this crepes place that she claimed better than French crepes in Paris. So I was very much looking forward to prove it :)

And oh my..delicious indeed! They had so may options for savoury and sweets, we decided to have dinner and dessert there..





check out the rewards they've received!

And don't forget one in London should visit the good ol' pub to have baked beans for breakfast or fish and chips for dinner, or do both like we did..


Our time in London was brief (well it's brief in every country actually), but London has a special spot for me since I had to wander alone for two days whilst waiting for Moco for his conference. Perfect time to have alone time, at least in London public transpot was a breeze and there's no language barrier. I love spending hours in the museum, taking random photos and when it's sunny it's so beautiful just to sit down at the park, shopping at Oxford street and not to mention staring at the groceries in Mark & Spencers, d'oh dork.

Oh and I found the photo of my budget lunch, sandwich with the super awesome chips I had before I went to The Abbey (total costs around AUD$3 - can't even get lunch with that price here)


London..we'll back again for sure..although last time I visited you was probably 15 years ago..but you'll never know!

The rest of the Europe photos are coming soon...I hope. Happy Saturday :)