Since I was a baby, my grandfather taught me a lot about tea. I remember we have a small tea table in the living room where my grandfather make his tea. When I discovered Chado, I was so happy because I haven't been drinking tea from tea leafs since I came to Australia. Right now I'm a frequent customer there, to the point I can memorize their tea menu - they have blooming tea, green tea, oolong tea, and black tea. I'm still waiting for them to import white tea and chai tea.


Anyway, I had some sweets to go with my tea. I had daimyo matcha iri genmai cha uji, it's Japanese tea (duh!) brewed with brown rice. It's my favorite tea of all time after monkey's paw. I don't know how to describe the tea. It tasted like green tea but with extra brown rice fragrance. If you have a chance, please try it. You'll beg for more.


I saw wagashi daifuku in the desserts menu so I picked it. It's scrumdililycious!!! 100% Japanese taste. In Australia, whenever I see a foreign name on the menu, I always expect it to be fushion instead of the original taste. But the daifuku surprised me!


For those of you who don't know what a daifuku is, it's actually called mochi too. If you don't even know what a mochi is, it's a rice cake with filling. The one I had is red bean paste. It's quite funny why they name it wagashi daifuku. Normally it's called kuromame daifuku. Wagashi is the cake name, whereas daifuku is the type. I don't know how to distinguish the different types of wagashi because I honestly don't know how they make this.

When I'm sitting in the tea house, I observed how the caucasians here order their tea. You can definitely tell that they have zero knowledge of tea. I almost choke with that daifuku in my mouth when I heard someone wanted Oolong Milk Tea. For god's sake, there's no such thing as Oolong Milk Tea. I'm not sure who came out with that kind of fusion tea, but it's definitely an insult to the proper art of drinking tea.


Chado Way of Tea
134 Elizabeth St
Hobart TAS
7000 AUSTRALIA

After Piccolo, I went to Solo the next day. Two days of Italian food back to back. Solo is a pasta and pizza restaurant. Normally people not only go there for the good food, but they also go there for the good looking guys. I'm not sure what happen, all the good looking guys are no longer working there.

Actually there's nothing much to choose from in terms of the desserts. I had chocolate ice cream. It's too sweet for my liking. It's too sweet to the point that I keep drinking water after every bite I take. I rate this 2/10.

My friend had the nutella desserts. It's like a baked pan cake filled with nutella. And it was served with vanilla ice cream, drizzled with chocolate syrup (I prefer melted chocolate more) and icing sugar. I had to finish up my friend's dessert after she declared that she couldn't eat anymore. The portion was HUUUUUUGGGGGEEEE!!!! I prefer this one than the chocolate ice cream. This one is fabulous! This rate 7/10.

Solo Pasta & Pizza
50b King St,
Sandy Bay, 7005,
Australia.

First of all, sorry for the bad quality photos. I didn't pack my camera with me because I was late and Alwin already waiting for me in the restaurant. Well, another excuse is I was shopping with Shikin before that, so I didn't thought I need to bring my camera.

I freaking love Piccolo after the first visit. According to Alwin it's a relatively new restaurant. No wonder I've never heard of it before. I had slow cooked lamb shoulder, it was madtastic! However, Alwin's gnocchi with duck was a bit disappointing to him. Not that it wasn't nice, but the serving is too small compared to his XL size. Ahahahaha....


Before we ordered the dessert, he told me we're going to share because we're trying to cut down our sugar intake. However, when I asked him whether we should have the chocolate mousse cake or the strawberry semifreddo, he insisted that we take both. Guys, so contradictory and indecisive.

This is the most fantastic chocolate mousse cake I've ever tried in my life! Mainly because it was sprinkled with dark chocolate powder. So it's a bit bitter on the top. Then there is layer of chocolate mousse and cake. And it's so soft like cotton! If you ever go there, don't miss this one. Unless you're not a fan of dark chocolate. Because I taste dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate in the cake.


This is the strawberry semifreddo.

To be honest, I don't really fancy this one, although Alwin said it's much nicer. Don't trust him. He probably want me to have the chocolate mousse cake because I like it a lot. The reason why I don't like this is because it has traces of dried fruits in it. I don't like dried fruits in any shapes or forms. However, the semi-frozen custard was quite good. And the strawberries were really fresh.


This is just some fun facts: I heard that semifreddo was orginally from Italy. However, some food historian made a research and now the Spanish claims that semifreddo belongs to them. It is called semifrio in Spanish. Not sure if it's true because I only heard it from word of mouth.



Piccolo Restaurant & Wine Bar
323a Elizabeth St
North Hobart
TAS 7000
(03) 6234 4844

Before I talk about where to get sweets in Tassie, my friend Yvonne in Melbourne has been busy baking cupcakes. And she took photo of it and tag me on facebook. That's so sweet of her. I can't wait to bake cupcakes with her.

Here it is:

I can't remember which is mine. Was is the strawberry one or the cupcake one?

And there's more:

My name! She actually made only one E. So she had to paste the last E on photoshop. Teehee...



I found this small little hut on the way to Taroona from Sandy Bay. It really looks like those cowboy saloon. So I went in with the intention to get some Guiness Stout. But then I saw it on the board, "Desserts Special".


Makoto ordered the flourless orange cake. I took a bite and it's super good.

And I ordered the blueberry panna cotta. Hmmm... I love it too. But I prefer the orange cake more.

And then on some other day, I went up to North Hobart for dinner with friends. We stop by the ice-cream shop after meal. It's the shop next to Chatterbox. I love the setting of the shop, it looks like 1970s ice-cream bar with jukebox and leather chairs. You'll love it. I was feeling bad that I didn't tell my partner that I went out for dinner with other guys, so I bought him some gourmet chocolates. Since he's an alcoholic, I bought all the alcohol chocolates they have. It was quite pricey though. I text him that I bought some chocolate for him. At night when he came back drunk, he was shouting, "Where the hell is my chocolate???"

I love the champagne one. But the others.... erm.... I won't eat it even if it's free of charge. Word....


My best friend has been buying me cupcakes. She buys it whenever I'm really upset. That's like once a week. I think I'm experiencing mid-life crisis that's why my mood swing is so unstable. Here's the mix and match box.

And then, last week, she surprised me with the most beautiful cupcakes I've ever seen in my entire life:

I left the cupcakes on my dining table overnight. At night my partner was so tempted to eat it. I didn't let him, of course. Look, it has bling bling on the frosting.

There's also the rose flavour one. I love love love this one:

Life is so sweet!

To be honest, I had never heard of this name ever. But the very delicate and interesting display at its window tells me that it is not just any other pastry cafe or dessert shop, but a REAL GOOD ONE.


Being a curious girl, and one with a sweet tooth, I decided that it is worth exploring. When I pushed open the heavy glass door, my jaws almost dropped to the floor!

Appearing in front of me is a jewelry shop of desserts! All those sweet pastries, cakes, chocolates, confectionaries were arranged in a very classy way under the crystal clear glass cabinets. There are also many interesting dessert-made decorations that glows under the dim light of the shop.

As much as I tried to appear slightly sophisticated (well, who wants to be seen like a village girl in such a posh place, right?), I can't help but marvelled at the beautiful things selling in the shop.





(I think it is one of the streets off Champs Elysees if I am not mistaken. I got confused with all the roads and French signs anyway!)