Hyde Park Barracks Cafe- High Tea Review

I went High Tea and if you've ever heard me talking about it your reply should be something along the lines of "Finally". In case you're wondering about prices, we bought a groupon (my first time in fact) for high tea for two for $49 and although that's quite cheap I felt quite unsatisfied with variety of the petit fours that we were served. 

Where: Right next to Hyde Park Barracks Museum and Sydney Mint Cafe in the CBD, it's a historical and a heritage listed building (?) so that explains why some parts of the cafe is very rustic. Sat at the reserved area which was an elevated platform and I'm pretty sure that those were in the same seating as us also claimed their groupons that day as well.

 High Tea for 2

 Cucumber sandwiches, toasted prosciutto sandwich and these arancini balls (YUM) 

 Sweets! Scones, blueberry cheesecake and brownies

Pavlova and Lemon Meringue tart

Cream and Jam for the scones

 Consumed a concoction of drinks and that glass of champagne is mine (:

 Those forks are so cool

My thoughts:

I loved the savoury snacks and whilst I am a self confessed dessert addict I think I'd rather more savouries although the prosciutto sandwiches were too salty. The scones together with the cream and jam was so good, in fact after my scone I helped myself to the rest of the cream and jam. When it comes to cream, my general rule is less is more but nope I was void of any guilt as I devoured that light and fluffy cream which lacked some flavour- I think there wasn't much icing sugar nor vanilla essence in it but who cares I want that recipe because it was so light! The rest of the sweets were fairly average, but someone correct me on this but how gooey is a brownie suppose to be because the one we were served was really soft and gooey.

 Finally went to Tom n Toms afterwards to suppress my caffeine craving. As you can see it's the Korean version of Starbucks and since it's Korean the decor is so much better

 Iced Green Tea Latte (:

 How not to present ID

 I found this in Chinatown and the guy who made it is so talented, I am curious as to how much he charges for one though because it does take time.

The Sydney Mint Cafe Review

Another review guys, so 365 friend and I had been planning to go this restaurant after I felt like going on another food adventure. At the time we were both admiring their summer dessert menu and I obviously went ballistic when I saw french toast on the menu. Story is, I love french toast except I can never make it like they do in the restaurants, one reason might be because you should be using questionable amounts of butter to cook them.

One morning last month I couldn't help myself. I had french toast but I loved it! It's served with maple syrup and strawberries, it was so good- buttery goodness though D; btw I'm always on a diet so I try to steer clear of butter wherever possible. 

I'm going to start critiquing now, starting with the french toast my only fault would be that I did some strawberries that were bruised so that was a bit unpleasant. It would also be good if they had removed the stems that way you wouldn't hear the occasional clanging sound when your knife made contact with the plate. I also ordered a cappuccino ($3.50) and although I got a lot of foam, the barista - burnt my milk so yeah, I was disappointed with my coffee.

 French toast $9 generous serving of two slices and whilst it may not sound like much it is very filling

Come Monday, on the week of Orientation 365 friend and I bumped into Youtube Sensation, 'Alan' and one of their friends (if you read this right now I'm sorry for your poor reference it's just that I'm suffering from a lack of imagination). Anyways, they decided to join us by bus-ing it to the other side of the city.

Seared scallops, baba ganoush, preserved lemon, baby herbs $21 

 Chermoula spiced chicken, sweet potato crumble, green beans, tarragon butter $24

 Hickory smoked wagyu beef burger, tomato, cheese, bacon, cucumber & piri piri mayo $19

Salad nicoise, fresh grilled tuna fillet $18 

 Pistachio panna cotta, praline & floss $11

White chocolate cheesecake, dark choc jelly, berry compote $11 

I don't know why but for some reason I wasn't as satisfied as my first visit. Maybe it was because we were served tap water this time or that some of the main servings weren't as plentiful as I thought. Another reason could be because I wanted my raspberry and blueberry flan, I mean that was the reason why I decided to go to this place again but no they to switch over from their Summer menu to their Autumn menu when Summer hasn't even ended yet. Although if you have a sweet tooth like me and love desserts I would recommend this cafe, real panna cotta tastes so much different and better than store bought panna cotta. I wish my grade had picked wise dessert options like say panna cotta over this chocolate mousse.