Sweet Street Festival by Anna Polyviou and Friends at Shangri-la Hotel- Sydney

[Warning this post will contain an unhealthy amount of photos that will make you want to hate me with seething jealously. This post is also by no means sponsored, I paid to attend this event myself and so all comments remain my thoughts and my thoughts only].

Dessert degustations are about as rare as finding a magical unicorn, you often find around 2 courses out of 7 (or 8) that are dessert based and sadly that is the standard that has come to be expected. So what happens when you come across a night that is dedicated to dessert (yes you read correctly, DEDICATED)? Well one can only really jump up in jubilee and rejoice and praise the masterminds behind such an idea. Priced at $55 per ticket which includes 10 tokens and entertainment for the night, Sweet Street is the brain child behind Shangri-la Hotel's acclaimed, executive pastry chef, Anna Polyviou. What makes this event even better is the inclusion of Sydney's N2 gelato, Adriano Zumbo and Melbourne's Lux Bite, Savour School and Cacao Lab. With such pedigree all meeting together in the one location, this was the night where sweets reigned supreme.

Savour School: 

With Kirsten Tibballs of Melbourne's Savour School where you can learn to make chocolate and other stunning dessert creations.

Unfortunately all her chocolate pieces were on display, and so sadly the only goodies that I was able to bring back were some chocolates for 1 token.

Adriano Zumbo: 

Eponymous Zumbarons- I felt that a few of them were a tad smaller than what you would get in his stores and alike Taste of  Sydney expect a premium to be paid in events like these. One token gets you 2 macarons, remember that they are usually $2.50 each and you should think of each token as costing $5.50

Photo with the man himself

Lux Bite and N2

The grass always seems greener on the other side does it not? As a Sydney sider, you can't help but envy those Melbournians and their cafe culture and patisseries such as Lux Bite. I absolutely regret not eating out that much when I last went Melbourne so someone give me an excuse to fly down so I can eat my way through Melbourne. 

Surprisingly, I am also not much of a Masterchef fan but even so, I know of the famed 7 layer lolly bag from Lux Bite. Sadly that is only available in Melbourne but the guys behind Lux Bite partnered up with local resident N2 to create the #Lolly Bag Burger which takes the same ingredients of the cake but interpreted in a new light.

2 tokens

This was actually the first thing that I bought and it was just simply a beautiful mess. I loved the mandarin and eucalyptus gelato, the flavour was so rich and you could even taste the mandarin bits in the gelato. My next favourite part of this dessert is the popping candy, who doesn't love the sensation, it is practially like a party going off inside your mind and that description is so befitting of the wonderful flavour combinations being paired here. Unfortunately this was also rather messy, imagine cutting and sharing that brioche charcoal bun between two, we did but it would have been better if the spoon were stronger.

TART STAND FROM LUX BITE

One token each or 3 for 2 tokens

As there were 3 different tarts, it goes without saying that my friend, Elisa and I, obviously would opt for all 3

Rose & lychee ganache filled tart, topped with fresh raspberries, silver

Kalamansi lime curd tart with jackfruit, longan, chilli salt, meringue, kaffir lime sherbet

Heilala vanilla rice pudding and hazelnut praline cream filled tart, topped with fresh blueberries, hazelnut

All of the tarts used the same shortbread pastry so I thought I'd address them all together. The pastry was spot on- super light, not too buttery and not overly crumbly either. I would have to say my favourite was the meringue, which is quite surprising because I'm not the biggest fan of meringues. It was super light, a bit on the softer side which is probably why I liked it so much, pretty much just melted in your mouth. I loved the Thai interpretation of the classic lemon meringue tart with the more exotic jackfruit and logan- definitely appealing to my Asian palette. Much of the same can be said about the other two and since most of you are here for the photos, I'll let them do all the talking. 

With Bernard Chu of Lux Bite (mission accomplished, now to visit his Melbourne store itself and breaking news guys, he let me know that he is opening another store)

Trays and trays of eclairs though this would have been a rare sight if you didn't line up within the first 1.5hrs. I think Adriano Zumbo was the first to sell out followed by Cacao Lab. Priced at 4 eclairs for 3 tokens, these guys sold out like hotcakes. In fact they got so popular that they ran out of their boxes and had to restrict their eclairs to one per person so that as many people as possible could get their hands on these goodies.

After N2 and Lux Bite, this was the next thing that we got and I was so glad that I lined up for this early on before they started to sell out.

L to R:

Caipirinha-Tangy lime creme/ brown sugar smash/ Cachaca boost 

Pop Choc- 66% dark chocolate 'Single origin'/pop rocks/rice puffs

PBJ- Peanut butter cheesecake/ baked crumb/ almond nougatine/ raspberry jam

Hot Choc Dog- Chocolate mousse/ Raspberry gel/ grated 'chocolate' cheese/ mayo

I couldn't resist taking several snaps of the 'Hot Choc Dog', just simply so cute and quirky, it is utterly adorable. Sorry Gelato Messina but Cacao lab executed the dessert hot dog better (I still love you guys). Beautiful chocolate mousse paired with novelty chocolate cheese and raspberry gel. I felt that you couldn't taste the chocolate cheese as much (more of a novelty factor) because of the chocolate mousse as was the case with the subtle raspberry gel. But that said, it still tasted really nice so I'm not complaining. 

By far my favourite, does anyone else think that the Melbourne invasion should stay and settle down in Sydney for good (I will vouch for it). I think I'm suffering from withdrawal symptoms already, these pint sized eclairs truly prove that good things come in small packages. 

I'm an absolute sucker for peanut butter desserts and so I just had to order this. Best. Decision. Ever

Think of eating peanut butter straight from a jar but then that experience is glamourised because you also have cream cheese, baked crumb and almond nougatine (OMG).

I'm going to keep the description of the other two eclairs brief, unfortunately we made a bit of a mess out of the cachaca boost (alcohol in the syringe) but again I kind of bought it for the novelty of having a syringe (I find them cool, like many others no doubt). I also couldn't overlook the humble chocolate eclair, rich dark chocolate is always a classic and reliable eclair flavour .

Had to take a photo of the box because shortly afterwards they had to use plastic takeaway containers instead

Looking incredibly happy with the belle of the night- Anna Polyviou

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ICE-CREAM

Anna Polyviou's creations

Mag'Annas

Strawberry Yoghurt

Salted Caramel Popcorn

You can always rely on Anna for show stopping desserts which makes it only appropriate for her stall to be set against the backdrop of broadway style lights spelling out S H O W. Like Cacao Lab's eclairs, these guys were bursting with flavour. I personally found the strawberry yoghurt coating  to be tad too sweet but the slight sourness of the yoghurt ice-cream balanced it out well. I don't have  photo of the inside unlike the one below but inside was a layer of strawberry jam.

One my personal favourites that night was the salted caramel popcorn ice-cream. Heaven help me because I'm afraid that I will become addicted to this taste. We all know that salted caramel has been so popular these days but this has to take the cake for the best salted caramel dessert to date. Anna you are so ingenious, salted caramel popcorn flavour for an ice-cream is DIVINE. Please release your own range of ice-cream that can be readily bought (pretty please?) 

Vanilla panna cotta and berries

Passionfruit posset and tropical fruit

Caramelised white chocolate banana jam, banana bread crumbs and vanilla bavarois

One token each and they came with an accompanying mini donut

Whenever I see Anna's desserts in a glass cylinder I am always remember back to my Good Food Month experience here. Fast forward one year and these glass tubes still contain ridiculously good dessert creations. 

YUM YUM YUM

Need I say more?

First off the panna cotta wasn't so much a traditional panna cotta in the sense that it didn't like a panna cotta. With each spoon you could see the hundreds of vanilla bean specks and that was also reflected in the taste. 

The passionfruit posset was actually eaten first, having it last of the three would have been better because after 3 hours of desserts I kind of missed my savouries. Note to self, herbs can be a substitute for savouries when you've spent a night eating desserts and only desserts. First time having posset, at it was kinda like a custard but runnier and upon a google search of it, it turns out to be British pudding with origins dating back the medieval period. Lastly popping balls are always fun.

Lastly my favourite of the three was the banana based one, fragrant and delicious white chocolate banana jam with banana bread crumbs. If you are a banana fan like I am, this stuff is like liquid gold finished with barvarois with is like a bavarian cream.   

Savoury option for the night

My friend Elisa won herself a KitchenAid hand blender worth $250 in the dance competition held, how appropriate was it considering that it was also her birthday.

Goodies bag inside with chocolates from Callebaut and sparkling water from S.Pellegrino

Are you guys exhausted?  This is quite possibly one of the longest and photo-heavy posts that I have written, I hope that you enjoyed drooling and marveling over these gorgeous creations. I think that everyone there that night will concur with me when I say that it was such a lovely night. I can't wait to hear of news for further events Anna Polyviou events, they are always stand out and it definitely worth your money. I think that it was a good thing to share everything with a friend, that way you can taste everything available whereas with a group of 3 the portions don't work out so well.