Whipped cream black tea @ Meet Fresh

Who knew something so simple could be so good? As I made my way towards Central Station in the semi-darkness of dusk, I felt compelled to duck into Meet Fresh on the corner of Dixon Street for a little something to warm myself up. Most of the items are available as hot or cold options, but in my haste I didn't check if what I'd ordered was available hot. I left the store clutching an icy cup of sweetened black tea, topped with a thick layer of foamy whipped cream:

Oh well. At least it tasted good. Very, very good. Swish the cup around gently to mix the whipped cream with the tea, but do leave some unblended so that, once you're done with the liquid, you can eat the tea-tinged cream with a spoon. Two desserts in one!

(For my previous post on Meet Fresh, click here)


Meet Fresh

13 Goulburn Street Haymarket 2000
(Corner of Goulburn Street & Dixon Street in China Town)

Fro-yo @ Noggi, Strathfield

The weather's been so hot for the past couple of days. Perfect for frozen yoghurt!

Strathfield seems to have become a magnet for fro-yo businesses lately. Moochi opened up sometime late last year, and recently Noggi has popped up only a few doors around the corner. I have been to both, and each has their respective merits. In my opinion, Noggi has the upper hand atmosphere-wise, and I got more of a youthful vibe from its staff and decor :D

I like in particular how everything is green and fresh-looking. The menu is placed next to a panel explaining how to assemble your own, customised fro-yo dessert.

In addition to four kinds of frozen yoghurt (original, wildberry, green tea, and biscotti) with various toppings, Noggi offers waffles served with fro-yo, smoothies, and the usual selection of espresso beverages. The fro-yo comes in various sizes, ranging from a cone (which doesn't come with toppings) to the crazy 1300g serving known as a "groupi". With the exception of the cone, all sizes come with 3 free toppings (ETA: A friend brought it to my attention that the 3 toppings are actually not free; you can either buy the fro-yo without toppings, or get it with all 3 toppings for a higher price. Thanks, S.!). The sign on the bottom right hand corner says, "Come in your high school uniform & get your toppings for free!"Is this referring to the 4th topping? I can't believe I'm even contemplating suffering the humiliation of bumping into someone I know while donning my old high school gear.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you will direct your gaze to the larger measuring cup in the picture above. That is what the 1300g "groupi" comes in. On a second visit, I saw one being prepared. I hope whoever had ordered it was planning on sharing, because that was one giant-ass bucket of fro-yo. There were three different flavours of fro-yo in the single cup, so I guess they'll let you combine flavours. I stuck with the regular size on my first visit, and chose green tea as the base. The toppings? Fresh blueberries, mochi, and Oreos.

I went with a few other fro-yo aficionados on the second trip there, and we got two regular cups. One was biscotti fro-yo with mochi, Oreo and Cocopops:

The second cup held the original flavoured froyo, with gummi bears, mochi, and fresh watermelon pieces:

Next time, I shall try the wildberry fro-yo, and report my findings! :D

Noggi

2/2 Albert Road, Strathfield, 2135.

Website: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Noggi-Strathfield/252426288138707

My Hong Kong trip: notable eats! (Part 5)

I woke up surprisingly hungry and ready to eat, despite the meat and sugar feast from the previous night. The perfect solution to my growling stomach = xiao long bao! Lots of it!

And dumplings of another variety: the crispy-bottomed steamed pork buns!

This was also my first time trying a sweet xiao long bao. This batch had a sweet, red bean paste filling:

An interesting idea, but too much sweetness in one go in my opinion.

We got our dumpling fix at King's Dumpling, situated on level 3 of Windsor house. 

Some other dishes we ordered:

Jellied meat (sorry, I don't know the proper name)

Braised pork intestines

Chicken in broth

Beef brisket, sliced thinly and doused with chilli sauce and peanuts

Token greenery

'Crystal eggs': Smoked eggs with still runny insides. Amazing!

Pork cutlet with fried rice

Extra serving of fried crumbed pork cutlet!

Jelly fish and cucumber

Pork belly with chilli sauce

Some sort of cool, crunchy vegetable side dish

A semi-dessert: sticky red rice with glace fruits and beans

After eating, we watched the dumpling experts in action for a while:

Before spending the rest of the day...you guessed it!...shopping :D

We remedied the afternoon low blood sugar blues with frozen yogurt from Yo Mama on the third floor of Windsor House.

There was a choice of either the original frozen yogurt base, or a green tea variant. We ordered three cups to share, and tried out both flavours.

TOPPINGS! Someone went a bit nutso, and chose the unlikeliest of combinations:

Froot loops and mini marshmallows - urgh, my eyes smart from the food colouring

The green tea flavour came out very strongly, but the tanginess of yogurt (which I like) came out more strongly in the plain flavour:

Some sort of jelly, and urgh, those darned froot loops again

Another cup of the green tea!

Mini cubes of brownie and gummi bears(?!)

You'd think that we would be bouncing off the walls by this point, but it just so happened that we found ourselves in a ginormous food hall in the basement level of Sogo at this point...

There were many exciting things to be tried, most of them sweet. I continued with the frozen desserts by getting two scoops of ice cream from Milk Top. In my favourite flavours, of course - black sesame and green tea!

I love the shade of green.

The texture wasn't uber-creamy, but I kinda like it that way when I'm eating "Asian"-flavoured ice creams. 

Prettiness!

I also had a bite-sized Japanese-style cheesecake:

How can something be so fluffy and creamy at the same time?! This was delicious!

And some bite-sized "normal" cheesecake as well:

I really would have liked to try more things, but my pancreas was screaming in protest. So I just looked around some. There was a mochi promotion going on, with free samples to try. Okay, I had some :D

So many beautiful cakes:

And chocolates:

Dinner was quite non-descript. We did have something light and refreshing for dessert, though:

Strawberry cheesecake and chocolate fudge brownie ice cream from Ben & Jerry's

Oops, by "light and refreshing" I was actually referring to this:

HERBAL JELLY!!! Also known as "gui ling gao". From Hai Tian Tang.

This was the last night we stayed in Hong Kong. I felt very sad :(

The final instalment coming soon in Part 6!