Gelato Messina

Let me introduce you guys to my favourite gelato joint in Sydney.

The place is called Gelato Messina and it's located on Victoria St, Darlinghurst.



Now I've done my fair share of travels around Italy, and have tasted my fair share of gelatos and so far, Messina is the only place that lives up to my expectations of a good gelato.



I personally prefer gelato over ice cream (although I still really love ice cream) because I like the smooth texture of the gelato and how that brings out the flavour of the ingredients better than the milky, slightly frosted texture of ice cream.

When I was travelling around Italy it was summertime so I ate gelato whenever and wherever I could find them! My absolute favourite flavour is (and always will be) "Fior di latte" which literally means "milk flower" (which they don't have anywhere in Sydney...can someone find me a place that sells this flavour?). To me it tastes like vanilla milkshake!!! Yum!



Fior di latte from Grom, a popular Italian gelateria (this one I went to was in Milan)



Almond and hazelnut / Fior di latte gelatos in Cefalu, Sicily (it was boiling hot that day....all we did was sit at a beachside cafe and eat almond flavoured food :P)

But, there is one flavour at Messina which potentially can be the Aussie replacement for my Fior di latte - it's the "salted caramel with white chocolate" flavour and oh mon dieu it is HEAVENLY (it's the one on the left - double scoop all the way!).



The sweetness of the white chocolate is perfectly balanced by the salted caramel leaving you that wonderful slightly strange flavour of both savoury and sweet tastes in your mouth.



Messina has around 30 flavours available daily - they also have a list of Special flavours which change constantly. These specials are really special because they're more daring and quirky compared to the usual flavours that are there every day :)



The other great thing about Messina is that it's really good value for money. One scoop is $3.90, two scoops are $4.90 and three scoops are $6.90! I know certain other ice cream / gelato shops that sell their ice cream / gelato for $5.90 a scoop (honestly, a bit toooo much for ice cream...).

You can also take away these goodies in a take away tubs (500mL - 1500mL sizes). They also have a Creative Department (Messina’s Laboratorio and Patisserie) next door which sells ready made single serve ice cream desserts!

Expect to queue up when you're there though - seems like Messina is everyone's favourite gelato joint! (psst, they also have second store in the Cafe Court area of the Star so maybe you can try your luck there and not have to wait in line ;P)

D xx

Dinner @ Buffalo Dining Club.

One day my friend at work sent me a link to the SMH review by Terry Durack for Buffalo Dining Club which had recently opened its doors in Darlinghurst, just off Victoria Ave.

Finding out that it was the latest offering from the team that brought Table for 20 into Sydney's dining scene (I'm yet to visit eeeek!), I knew that it would already be on my "must-visit list".

The most stand-out thing from the review about Buffalo Dining Club was that it's menu was mainly based on....you guessed it - buffalo mozzarella! It's quite rare that you come across a restaurant which has a menu which is so focused on one particular ingredient - I guess that's its main selling point!

So I gave it a visit on a Saturday night and I have to say it was a lovely experience! (Buffalo Dining Club is open Wed-Sat 12pm -11pm)

Since Buffalo Dining Club does not take bookings, we made sure to get there around 6pm. Parking can be such a hassle around Darlinghurst so try to take public transport if possible (its a short stroll from Kings Cross)! By the time we parked the car, it was like 6:15pm so we ended up getting to Buffalo Dining Club at around 6:20pm.





When we arrived, the bottom floor was packed (it seats about 15 people) so we were taken upstairs (which also seats around 15) and found that it was relatively empty! So we got a table straight away.



The menu is on a massive chalkboard on one side of the wall, and the waitress kindly explained to us how the system worked.



You basically choose a cheese - there is a choice between buffalo mozzarella, burratina (cow's cheese) and a goat's cheese mozzarella (not on menu), then you choose two sides to go with the cheese. We choose the burratina with whole baby mushrooms and grilled baby eggplant.

Prosciutto is also one of Buffalo Dining Club's specialities - we ended up choosing the San Daniele, a Italian ham directly flown over by plane.

We also ordered the "spaghetti" because I had read that it was "special" in various other blogs previously!

The cheese and ham came out very quickly - and comes with bread and ring shaped biscuits.





The cheese looks nice and chewy on the outside but when you slice it open....it is actually filled with a super creamy and soft inside....which made be salivate just looking at it!



You combine some cheese, mushrooms and eggplant onto your bread and it tastes devine. I had never come across such fresh and creamy mozzarella before, even when I was in Italy!

The ham is also very tasty, although it was slightly salty for my taste buds. I still think the best ham I've ever had is the jamon iberico which I had in Spain. Just unbeatable.

When we finished the ham and cheese, we sat there thinking "damn we should have ordered more cheese!". But not long after, the spaghetti came out. It was quite a sight because the waiter comes with a wheel of cheese with the spaghetti inside it and actually takes the spaghetti directly from the wheel to the plate on the table, with flakes of cheese from the wheel becoming a part of the spaghetti dish!



Despite the awesomeness of the wheel, I haves to admit I wasn't a big fan of the spaghetti - it was a little overlooked so it didn't have that 'al dente' feel of a oil-based spaghetti.

Overall, when we left the only thought in our minds was - GIVE ME MORE MOZZARELLA!!



So will I go back to Buffalo Dining Club? Most definitely! I loved the atmosphere and loved how quick the food came out and most of all, loved the mozzarella! Next time I'll definitely order a mozzarella all to myself :) And it only ended up being around $20 pp!

D xx



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Upcoming post: Dessert @ Gelato Messina!

Sweetness the Patisserie (plus other bday gifts!)

Hi all :)

I know that it's been like over a week since my birthday but I really wanted to introduce you to this amazing patisserie that my friend introduced me to because she bought me some sweets for my birthday!

The patisserie is called "Sweetness the Patisserie" and its located in Epping!  My friend says its a little hidden gem on one of the side streets in Epping - its actually somewhere you would probably never "stumble upon" and would only really go there if you've heard about the place or live near it.



So the "it" products of Sweetness the Patisserie are apparently these "SWEET mallows" which are marshmallows of every colour imaginable! And each colour has a different flavour to is as well so imagine the number of flavours!

SWEET mallow flavours: Strawberry, Raspberry, Jaffa, Blueberry, Maple & Lime, Chocolate, Toasted Coconut, Black Currant & Vanilla Swirl, Mocha, Creamy Orange, Rose Water, Passionfruit, Guava, Lime, Espresso, Sour Cherry, Lime & Coconut Swirl, Lemon, Mango, Brown Sugar & Cinnamon, Lavender, Strawberries & Creme, Vanilla Bean, Lychee Rose, Raspberry & Passionfruit Swirl, Aniseed.



To be honest I don't even know what flavours were in my pack of four that I tried because there are just sooooo many flavours! If I had to guess (and unfortunately I'm not much of a Masterchef that knows flavours like the back of my hand), it would be Raspberry, Lavender, Lemon and Lime!  My fav was the green one (I presume its Lime...)



The SWEET Mallows are super fluffy on the inside and also really soft - you really can't compare these to this typical ones you buy at the supermarket.

Next up was the English Toffee.  I absolutely love toffee and caramel so I was so excited to give these a try and boy were they yummy!!  The combination of the toffee with the chocolate and the nuts (almond I think) as superb.  The toffee was more crunchy rather than sticky so I was happy that it didn't really stick to my teeth (the usual problem when you eat toffee).



I confess - I ate the whole pack in like less than a day. It's that good.

So I'm now super excited that I've discovered this little neighbourhood gem - I live kinda close to Epping so I'll be paying a visit myself in person very soon!

You can visit their site at www.sweetness.com.au

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Now, a lot of the people that are close to me know that I'm a big fan of art (not so into contemporary art though....but that could change, who knows).

And my absolute favourite artist is Vincent Van Gogh and my absolute favourite painting is "The Cafe Terrace at Night" by guess who? Right, Van Gogh! (if you've never heard of this piece of art, I highly recommend you Google it right now!)

But I really love a lot of Van Gogh's pieces - especially the paintings with the night effects (Fun fact: "The Cafe Terrace at Night" was the first painting which Van Gogh used his "starry night" effect!).

So obviously I love "The Starry Night" by Van Gogh, which is usually regarded as his magnum opus.

And my lovely friend who knew how much I love "The Starry Night", bought me a Starry Night jigsaw puzzle for my birthday!!!!!!



It's a tiny box and when I saw that it had "1000 PIECES" I was like "oh my, how small is a piece then?!!"

And when I opened the box....there they were...a 1000 tiny jigsaw puzzle pieces........!!!!



Here's a comparison shot between a 20 cent coin and a puzzle piece:



So if I'm not blogging often, you know what I'm doing instead :P Putting this tiny 1000 piece puzzle together obviously! hehe (jks, blogging will always be a priority!)

Hopefully I'll be able to finish this in due course and then hang it up on my wall in a nice frame :D

If you're interested in purchasing some artwork jigsaw puzzles to pass time with, check out www.jigsawsdelivered.com.au for a range of jigsaw puzzles!! (although they don't seem to have "The Starry Night".....must ask my friend where this one came from! hehe)

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Lastly, for myself I bought myself a nice hand cream for my birthday :)  Since it has been so cold recently, my hands have become super cold and super dry!! :(  So I was looking around to find a nice hand cream with a nice scent because I'm quite sensitive with scents (some hand cream scents give me headaches >.<!)

After looking around the shopping precinct in Sydney CBD, I stumbled upon this wonderful hand cream by TOCCA, in Mecca Cosmetica in Myer Sydney.  It is seriously hidden because it's like on the bottom shelf near the back of Mecca so you wouldn't really notice it unless you were really wanting to look for it.

I was actually smelling the candles above it (I love candles too haha) and I saw the hand creams below and thought heyyyyyyy!



I ended up buying the Grapefruit & Cucumber scented hand cream and oh my goodness it actually smells DEVINE.  The zesty sweetness of the grapefruit goes so well with the freshness of the cucumber I sometimes feel like eating my hands haha.  The cream itself isn't too thick nor too light so it has a really smooth finish and doesn't leave your hands feeling sticky either!

So if you're looking for a reasonably priced hand cream (A$14 at Mecca) with lovely scents, check out Tocca hand creams :)

They also sell clothes and other beauty products - check them out at www.tocca.com (although they only ship to US & Canada....*cries*)

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Upcoming blog post: Buffalo Dining Club, Darlinghurst!

Stay tuned :)

D xx

Dos Senoritas

Hola amigos :)

A lovely friend of mine wanted to catch up because it had been like 3 months since we last saw each other and we always have lots of random chit chat to catch up on :P

My friend was super nice and let me choose somewhere to eat - and I didn't really feel like going to the city so I did some research on urbanspoon (love this site to bits!). I had heard about El Loco in Surry Hills and always wanted to go eat some Mexican food so I thought 'hmmmmm I wonder if there's a El Loco equivalent in the suburbs somewhere....'

And after a little bit of digging around, I stumbled upon "Dos Señoritas"!

Dos Señoritas is a quaint little Mexican joint situated on Victoria Road in Gladesville. So really, every time I went on Victoria Rd to go to the city I had passed the restaurants many times.....just that I had never noticed it! Or maybe I was too focused on the road...



The exterior is quite noticeable with a typically "Mexican" sofa (such a cliche ha!) right in front of the restaurant.



The interior of the restaurant is very home-y but also decorated in such a lively way - bright colours, sombreros, maps of Mexico, tequila....





(spot the sombreros!)



I was pretty surprised that it was so empty (we went at 1pm on a Saturday) but apparently lunch isn't the peak hour - dinner is when the real fiesta starts for this place!  So I guess I was lucky to have a nice quiet restaurant (but unlucky to miss out on the party! hehe)

They give you a complimentary basket of corn chips and salsa when you arrive which is super yummy - the chips are nice and crunchy and the salsa is zesty and a little fiery at the same time! I knew I had to eat my mains but I couldn't keep my hands off them >_<



We also ordered two Mexican drinks: an Orchata, which is a tradtional sweet Mexican rice drink with cinnamon & vanilla and a Jamaica, a traditional sweet Mexican drink infused with hibiscus flowers!



They were quite exotic tasting... The rice drink had little pieces of rice inside it and I could definitely taste the cinnamon but I'm not sure whether it goes well with the food (too much "milky/cheesy-ness" for me). The hibiscus drink was slightly bland and was a bit more sour than I had expected....I think its more of an acquired taste thing - but I recommend you try it before you make any hasty judgements! Who knows...you might love it!

Then our mains arrived. We had ordered the tacos which was "Your Choice any 3 Tacos with Rice & Beans $25" (we had 2 prawn tacos and one chicken) and a burrito called "Supercheesygooeychimichanga" which was "Pork Chile Verde, jack and cheddar cheese stuffed into a flour tortilla deep fried topped with jalapeno cream cheese and jack cheddar cheese".  You can check out the full menu here.





The servings were quite massive! On top of the tacos / burrito, you also got rice, beans and salad!

It was my first time seeing a fried burrito - and I was sooooo excited to see how much yummy-ness would have been packed inside - and it was sure fully of yummy goodness!



The pulled pork balanced out the cheese really well and the sides also complimented the cheesiness to give you a good balance of flavours so that you didn't get sick of the cheesiness!

This was also my first time seeing prawns in a taco - I always thought a taco had minced meat! I guess I've been living under a rock and not exposed to true Mexican food! It was super delicious - the firm but juicy texture of the prawns went really well with the crunchy taco shell.



I'm not sure if the guy that served us was also the chef but I really felt like I was in Mexico because he kept using Spanish words like "chica" and "si si" to us hehe. He was super friendly.

Anyways, we were sooooo full at the end of the meal.... we left like a third of the burrito and most of the sides because we just couldn't finish it all! I had planned to go check out Cavalicious patisserie which was just down the road but couldn't because we were just so stuffed! :)

It ended up being $30 per person which is a little expensive for lunch but I so reckon 3 people could have shared what we had because of the very generous servings!

Hmmmm so, how "authentic" was it? Well, since I'm not Mexican nor been to Mexico I can't really comment on the authenticity of the food but it was sure different to the usual tacos and burritos they sell at kebab joints / Guzman y Gomez / Mad Mex! All I can say is that I found it really yummy - I would've finished all of the food it I could fit it in :P

So, would I go back to Dos Señoritas? Well they did serve really delicious, hearty food and I only ended up trying 2 things on the massive menu....which leaves me a gazillion other things to try out especially the Mac Daddy Burro (cos it has a cool name haha ). I also want to try out their margaritas and CHURROS!!!

D xx

p.s. you must eat the tacos with your hands! It's just yummier that way :)

Revlon Lip Butters and Cleansing oils!

Following on from my previous post on my Revlon Lip Butter in Pink Truffle, I have 6 more Lip Butter shades to introduce you to :)

They are (from left to right): Berry Smoothie / Cupcake / Creamsicle / Cherry Tart / Lollipop / Sweet Tart









These lippies are the perfect combination of a lipstick and a lip balm - they are very pigmented but also provide the moisturizing effect that many lipsticks fail to provide.

My favourite in this batch would have to be "Sweet Tart" because it such a fun, flirty pink colour ;) If you're looking for a more day-to-day colour - go for "Berry Smoothie".

I apologise for not having any lip pics - I'm not a big fan of taking pictures of my lips with lipstick on them to show how the lipstick looks on MY lips because they're going to look different depending on your natural lip shade and also the shape of your lips and the color of your skin!

So my suggestion is to drop into your nearest pharmacy or retailer that stocks Revlon and try these beauties out for yourself :)

I also recently received a Sulwhasoo Cleansing Oil from my bestie for my birthday - I tried it out at a friend's house who had this and it worked really well.



For those of you that have never heard of Sulwhasoo before, it is popular Korean skincare brand formulated with Korean medicinal herbs to "promote harmony and balance" in the skin. The products are usually very gentle on the skin, but work really well - especially for mature skin (my mum always uses Sulwhasoo products!). But that doesn't mean that its any less effective on younger skin - although you may be a bit adverse to the herbal smell of the products...

I currently also have the Shu Uemura Cleansing oil and the Innisfree Apple Juicy Cleansing Oil.



The Shu Uemura cleansing oil is probably one of the more famous cleansing oils - and they come in lovely coloured bottles! *LIKE* I have the pink one, which is meant to be "fresh" and for acne-prone skin because it acts as mattifier. This has a more thinner texture when you apply it to your skin, but once you put water on it, it turns thicker!

The Innisfree Apple Juicy cleansing oil is probably on a lot of Korean girls' HG (holy grail) lists because its cheeps and effective. It also has this fresh, zesty apple scent which will leave you feeling happy just by smelling it! This has a thicker texture when you apply it, but then becomes thinner when you apply water on it.

So which one is the best? To be honest, I think all of them do the job very well :) the Innisfree cleansing oil is quite famous in Korea for being the best budget cleansing oil and we all know how popular the Shu Uemura one is (especially because it comes in different formulas for different skin)! The Sulwhasoo one is new to my radar and I have to say it works just as well as the other two!

I used to never use cleansing oil before because I was always afraid it would clog up my pores and give me pimples. But I after I started using them occasionally after nights out (so when my face was full of makeup) I realized that they actually work better than using cleansing wipes because the oil blends with the makeup to deeply penetrate the layers of makeup on your face that you can't see with your eyes (especially the foundation!)

So if you haven't tried using cleansing oils previously, you should look around for some samples to test out on your skin :)

Toodles!

D xx

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Revlon Lip Butters - A$21.95 RRP (around A$7-12 on eBay)

Shu Uemura Skin Purifier high performance balancing cleansing oil (450mL) - A$110 RRP (A$83 on cosme-de.com)

Innisfree Apple Juicy cleansing oil (150mL) - around A$10 RRP in Korea (around A$16-22 on eBay)

Sulwhasoo cleaning oil (200mL) - around A$25 RRP in Korea (around A$50-60 on eBay)

Dinner @ Orto Trading Co.

Hiya :)

For Part 2 of my birthday celebrations (following on from Part 1 at the Breakfast Buffet at The Glass Brasserie) I went to Orto Trading Co. ("Orto") in Surry Hills with my friends!

The reason I chose Orto was because one day, me, my sister and a couple of our friends ate at Al Aseel in Surry Hills (yum!) and were walking back to our friend's car which was parked somewhere in Surry Hills and we happened to walk past this random strip of 3 small restaurants in one of the little side streets in Surry! They were PACKED and looked super cool so I made a mental note to try these restaurants out.

But alas.....I had forgotten the names of the restaurants....

So I literally went on Google Maps and tried to figure out what street it was and then used Google like crazy to find out the names of the restaurants :) And I found them! They were on Waterloo St, Surry Hills.

And one of the happened to be Orto :)



The entrance to Orto is wonderfully decorated with plants and candles. Apparently "Orto" means "vegetable garden" in Italian - I have to say it was very aptly decorated to suit its name!



You can see that the inside dining area is quite small...it looked like it would seat about 30 people inside. They also had an external courtyard / marquee area with heaters which looked like it would seat about 30-40 people!



They also had a really cute bar area with hanging bottles with flowers in them :D So cosy!!



Even the table setting was simple, yet super cute with candles and a jar of dandelions!

So we (by we I mean 5 people) decided to order a number of dishes to share. First up was the Broccoli & Cashew soup ($4).



We ordered two of these to share and boy, were they cute!!! They came in the cutest little cups and were super delicious, especially because it was quite cold that night!



We also ordered some Sourdough bread rolls ($3 for one roll) to go with the soup. They were freshly baked and went really well with the soup. One of my friends thought it "would have been nicer if they gave us some balsamic vinegar as well" :)

Then our main dishes arrived. It might have been because we were really hungry but it felt like a lifetime between the entrees and the mains...but I guess to get everything cooked to perfection (esp big pieces of meat) it would take some time..

Here are the mains that were shared:



Crispy pork hock with poached pear, carrot puree & glazed brussel sprouts ($55 for two people)

I really liked this dish - it was very crispy and the meat went so well with the pear and carrot purée! But the highlight had to be the glazed brussel sprouts. I was never a big fan of brussel sprouts until I tasted these! They were just little balls of yummy goodness - my friend was even like "I could eat these all day" :)



Braised Cape Grim beef short rib with Yorkshire pudding, colcannon mash and cider jus ($38)

Ooh the meat just fell off the bone so easily and was so tender! And the mash was super yummy as well.



Duck two ways - roulade and confit glazed in quince syrup with fig, walnut and raddiccio salad ($38)

I have to say this looks and sounds better than it tasted :( it was quite nice, but just the taste didn't live up to how delicious it looked... And I'm not really into figs, walnuts and raddiccio :P but definitely a tasty dish nonetheless.  Check out the rest of the menus at www.ortotradingco.com.au!

We ended up paying around $30 per person (we didn't have any drinks) and overall it was a very lovely dinner. They had a nice drinks and dessert menu as well but we decided to head to Gelato Messina in Darlinghurst for our sugar fix because I just love the salted caramel & white chocolate gelato there!!

Will I come back to Orto? Definitely. I heard the brunch here was even more amazing :)

D xx