Aries (Mar 21 - Apr 20)
Eats the whole bar on the way home from the shop.

Taurus (Apr 21 - May 21)
Loves good chocolate, especially if it is in expensive packaging.

Gemini (May 22 - Jun 21)
Chooses their chocolate by taking a bite out of each piece.

Cancer (Jun 22 - Jul 22)
Makes even the smallest bar last for at least a month.

Leo (Jul 23 - Aug 21)
Likes to be in charge of dividing up the chocolate.

Virgo (Aug 22 - Sept 23)
Cuts their chocolate into bite size pieces with a knife and fork.

Libra (Sept 24 - Oct 23)
Chooses two bars; one for themselves and one for you both to share.

Scorpio (Oct 24 - Nov 22)
Hides their chocolate and then becomes obsessed that someone finds it.

Sagittarius (Nov 23 - Dec 22)
Will only eat imported chocolate.

Capricorn (Dec 23 - Jan 20)
Likes to be seen eating only the best and the most expensive chocolates.

Aquarius (Jan 21 - Feb 19)
Loves chocolate - but likes to think they actually prefer carob health bars.

Pisces (Feb 20 - Mar 20)
Shares their chocolate and forgets to leave some for themselves.


I'm pisces, and I think it's quite true. Let's take the cupcakes analogy, I always bake 12 cupcakes, but it's not enough to distribute to all my friends. So in the end, I've got no cupcakes for myself. Is your chocoscope accurate?

I also bought some Italian products from Lipscombe the other day - sfogliatine and peach tea.

The Asolo Dolce sfogliatine is the best ever. I've never tasted anything close to its taste. In case you don't speak Italian, sfogliatine is sugar topped sweet puff pastries. Coupled with the Santa Vittoria iced peach tea, it's really good. That small little bottle of peach tea cost me $7.90. No wonder the Italians are so rich!

You might be wondering, what's with this daily post of little food. Well, I make it a point to leave some food in Alwin's postbox each day. So he'll get different food courtesy of me being guilty. I'm not sure if he's still mad at me. At the same time, I'm scared to talk to him. So I send food. Isn't it nice to see food in your letterbox, instead of boring bills?

I didn't have time today, because supposedly I was going to travel to Adelaide. I thought I might just buy some stuff for him. Last night I went to Lipscombe Lader, which is 15 minutes walking distance from my house. After 15 minutes of tiring walk, I'll reach Lipscombe Lader where there is a world of fine foods waiting for me. Lipscombe sells local and imported good foods. There's where I got my Italian cheese to make the tiramisu.

These tarts are from Lipscombe. They sell factory manufactured food, but at the same time they do sell fresh foods and some freshly baked pastries. I'm not sure how to describe the shop, but basically they just sell everything edible.

I also bought some Tasmanian made chocolate fudge. Apparent Tasmania has the best chocolate fudge in the world. I didn't know about that. My Adelaide friends told me to get some for them. I bought some extra to bring back to Malaysia too. YT, I'll keep a box for you.

I know, I know... you guys must be thinking, "this is not a dessert". But my one-dessert-a-day plan is not going that well. I was thinking, if I stuff him with dessert everyday, he might get bored. So today I make some simple finger food - fresh salmon on breadstick with onion chive cheese.

First, you spread olive oil on the breadstick and bake in the oven. Slowly cut the salmon. I adopted some skill here from my Japanese chef ex-boyfriend. But I don't think mine looks that good.

Then just twirl the salmon on the breadstick. Easy!

Eat with any type of cheese you like. I think it taste better with pepper cheese, but not too sure... haven't tried.

After I made it, I found out that I don't have a long container to pack the breadstick. So I had to use cling wrap. It looks so ugly now...

I plan to leave some food in his postbox each day. Last night was tiramisu because he has never eaten the tiramisu I made before. I used the South Cape fresh Italian mascarpone this time. It's not that good actually, although it seems like some quality product. And it's not cheap too. I bought 1kg. Don't ask me why. I'm not thinking straight. Anyway, the texture was weird. It turns out like scrumbled eggs. After cooling it for a night, it seems better. Taste wise... fine I guess. Nothing really weird.

1. In a hot saucepan, melt a block of love (preferrably the long-suffering ones), and let it simmer.


2. Add a few pieces of broken heart. Get those already broken, so you don't have to break it.


3. Stir in some regrets, hope and preparation for a positive change.


4. Set to cool.


5. Sprinkle some tears, memories, laughters and happiness.
   
   
6. Bottle it up and close tightly. Just in case anger, slip of tongue and jealousy get into it and spoil your cookies.

If you're reading my Mad Style, you already know of my quest to search for the best fish in Auckland. As a side, I was searching for the best dessert too.

On my first meal, I had the dessert platter (NZD 27) because I couldn't decide to have the coconut dessert or the chocolate on. What a brilliant idea they have to include the dessert platter in the menu. So, I got three different selection on one plate! Three flavours in one - sweet, sour and bitter. The combination was so good.

The coconut tapioca and passion fruit coulis with mango. Soaked in the coconut tapioca is the avocado and yuzu sorbet. There's a light avocado flavor and really soothing. It wasn't too strong, so it matches well with the creamy taste of the coconut. At the side, you have the macademia tuile. It's something like ginger thins, but this is super fantastic. I was craving for more!

The bitter taste I mentioned came from the dark chocolate. The Valrhona Manjari chocolate delice on wanut sponge. The dark chocolate was so rich, and when you put it together with the walnut sponge, it's a marriage made in heaven. There's a carrot passionfruit sorbet, carrot jelly and cocoa nib praline. If I knew it's a carrot jelly, I wouldn't touch it at all. Because I wasn't aware of it, I took it till the last bite. It didn't taste a single bit of the yucky carrot taste, which is quite amazing.

Lastly on the plate, it's the lemongrass panna cotta and blood orange jelly with melon and pineapple salsa. I'm a big fan of panna cotta. And this is the first time I'm tasting the lemongrass version. You can almost expect how good is the fragrance when it's lemongrass. The round ballie thing is another sorbet. A vanilla yoghurt sorbet garnished with baked almond Financier. God knows what a Financier is? There's some tasty honeycombs too

Super delicious dessert. I enjoyed every single spoonful. Didn't have enough, though. I was wishing I took another of the platter. I rate this 10/10. That's how good it is.





dine by Peter Gordon
Skycity Auckland
Grand Hotel
Auckland, New Zealand.

To mark my debut here at Cupcakes Party, I've decided that the best way to do it is to post about the most popular cupcake shop in Manila -- Cupcakes by Sonja.




My favourite is Peppermint Patty (probably because it's pink and minty, hehe).



Here are the other flavours I've tried before:




Vanilla Sunshine





Lemon Drop (a little too sour for my liking).





Mint Condition (not to be mistaken for Peppermint -- I think this one is made of spearmint).



Cupcakes by Sonja can be found at Serendra, The Fort, Taguig (right next to Miss Desserts).

I'm one of those people who don't drink coffee. But I still go to Starbucks, only for desserts, not for drinks. I crave for Mango fruit juice every now and then, yes, but it's the pastries that I keep coming back to. I was also once addicted to Valencia Iced tea, but it's already faced out in the Philippines, which is sad!

Sick and tired of Western dessert? Here's some Chinese dessert for you. Chinese dessert is always perfect for winter - hot and sweet.

I've ordered this glutinous rice ball with black sesame inside. This was in........ oh, I forgot the place. Anyway, it's in one of the Chinese restaurant in Melbourne. The soup is made out of rock sugar syrup and ginger. Really good in cold weather.

If you're in Malaysia, this taste exactly like the one in KTZ.

Like I've said a few weeks ago, there is a mushroom growth of chocolate cafe everywhere in Melbourne. Chocolate (with a mirrored C in the middle) is one of them. Few decades ago, we have coffee mania, where Coffee Bean, Starbucks, San Francisco Coffee, Gloria Jeans, Hudsons, Coffee Republic, etc. was the hottest hang out spot. Right now, Starbucks is totally outdated. No wonder they had to shut down hundreds of branch throughout the world. Right now, chocolate cafe is taking over the world.

Chocolate is situated at the corner of DFO Southern Cross, the exact spot where Starbucks used to be. I'm sure Chocolate have other branches in Melbourne, but it was just convenient for me to sit there and write up my thesis before my friend could pick me up from the station.

I ordered the Belgian hot chocolate. This is so far the best hot chocolate I had. You can get good hot chocolate everywhere, but the difference is the chocolate it is made of. Max Brenner's ain't so good. Chocolate makes it so thick, but yet not too sweet. I love it how they coat some chocolate on the wall of the mug. The one I choose is made out of pure dark chocolate, you can hardly taste the sugar. It's sweet but yet a little bitter at the end. It's really smooth.

The downfall of Chocolate is its outdoor seating. They didn't bother to close the door. It's really bad when cigarette smell was fuming into the indoor seating. I'm a smoker myself. But at times when I'm enjoying some hot chocolate, I just don't want to be interrupted by other stuff like cigarette smoke.