A little zumbo magic

Word on the street in blog world is that Adriano Zumbo is the hottest patissier in town. So much so that he named the Meying after Sydney blogger Raging Yoghurt. Choosing a pastry from his take-away only Darling Street store is like having your nose pressed to the glass of a pet store window. Which one is your favourite? Which one begs to be taken home? His macaroons are notorious - the day I went in there were rose, mint or passionfruit-yoghurt to choose from (the flavours change frequently). I had stopped in on my way to my parents house for dinner, so opted for the truffle eclair which actually had truffles stuffed between the chocolate cream and sandwiched by the chocolate pastry. I loved the joker-hat style of the passionfruit meringue - we couldn't eat it after dinner and my stepmother teased that I would wake up in the middle of the night and the alien-like sweet would be on my face trying to suck out my eye. Instead of an evil brain I discovered symmetrical perfection and meringue construction phenomena when I dissected the beast for breakfast in the morning. And heaven at the base with the passionfruit tart. You can see more (and better pics) at http://www.notquitenigella.com/2007/11/19/adriano-zumbo-at-balmain. I'm still a luddite who can't get her links working . . . Oops - seems I can't find the photo for this post as well. Oh dear.

Yum Cha at dawn

Well, not quite. But almost. Crystal chandeliers and rouched sheer curtains at 10am makes sense only when there are mature chinese ladies pushing around stainless steel carts loaded with steam baskets, leaving a trail of drooling diners in their wake. Yum Cha at Kam Fooks in Chatswood rates one of the better reviews for yum cha in Sydney. And with good reason - $20 each brought us steamed sweet doughy pork or chicken buns, dim sim densly packed with pork and steamed in its wonton paper wrapping, spinach dumplings with little shrimp suprises inside. The breaded and deep fried shrimp balls in the picture and the sweet donuts were favourites when I was a kid, but after all the steamed goodies they seemed too dry, too fried, tasteless. We eased the dumplings down with green tea and diet coke. After a frenzy of eating, pointing through fragrant steam and lifting dumplings from the pot-sticky paper we all sat back, stuffed like a fois gras geese. Yum Cha for breakfast is a sort of parallell universe of the foodie kind.