The Tea Cosy, The Rocks

Scones, despite their haggard appearance, always makes me think of ladies in fascinators taking their tea on some English hillside. Although, I doubt real ladies eat scones the way I do - crumbs a-flyin', clotted cream behind one ear (???how did it end up there???) and jam stains down the front of my dress. Good thing I wasn't enjoying these scones with other real ladies (sorry, guys). Nah, it was just me and two of my oldest and bestest friends, popping into this little gem on a cafe (previously Tara Tea Room; now known as The Tea Cosy) on one fine, Saturday morning.

Haha, you can see the edge of my polka dot dress; my one concession to being lady-like!

My attire for the day - definitely a case of "WHAT was I thinking?!" It's okay, you're allowed to laugh; I sure did when I saw the picture. I look like I'm posing for a royal portrait! xD

Prior to immersing myself in the foodie culture, I've only ever tried scones from Bakers Delight. Not that they were bad or anything. In fact, I'm rather addicted to BD's berry and white choc, and choc mud scones. I've just never had a properly made English scone before, fresh from the oven and all fluffy and piping hot. Eager to satisfy my curiosity once and for all, I ordered the "deluxe" tea set, which came with two scones (any flavour of our choosing), clotted cream, Hank's Jam, and "bottomless drinks" (whatever and as many drinks as you want).

[Note: from looking at The Tea Cosy's website just now, it seems that the the "deluxe" tea set is no longer offered and has been replaced by other sets.]

I chose a raisin scone, a date scone, and strawberry jam.

Woah, carb overload! Being mindful that we were heading to Sweet Infinity Bakery next as a part of our own little food tour, I had half of each scone, but went big on the clotted cream and strawberry jam. In fact, each mouthful was more topping than the scone itself...just the way I like it! ;P

For my first drink, I ordered a diet coke. It was quite hot that day, I remember.

We stayed at the tea room for a pretty long time, and a second drink became necessary - an iced coffee!

Urgh, I felt so sick after taking a few sips. Nothing to do with the drink itself; my own fault for being greedy!

My friends both ordered the normal scone sets, which comes with two scones, double cream, normal (not Hank's) jam, and one beverage of choice.

Cute tea-cozy:

The scones were warm and fluffy, and with plenty of clotted cream and jam piled on top...delish!


The Tea Cosy (formerly Tara Tea Room)

33 George Street, The Rocks, Sydney.

Phone: (02) 9247 4955

Website: www.irishdesign.com.au/g/4145/the-tea-cosy---tea-rom.html

Opening hours

Fridays: 10am - 4pm
Saturday and Sunday: 10am - 5pm.

Mid-Autumn Festival in Spring...with home-made Moon Cakes to celebrate!

Such is the nature of living in the Antipodes; you never end up celebrating traditional Chinese festivals in the season they were named for. Mid-Autumn in Spring, the Spring Festival in Summer (although, that's more of a Lunar calendar thing)...oh well, it's the thought that counts. And the food!

The moon cake has been called the "Christmas fruitcake of China", forever being regifted and recirculated because people feel obligated to give them, but no one actually likes eating it. I don't know what they heck they're talking about, because I love, love, LOVE mooncakes. Boxes of luxury lotus seed moon cakes are given to us by relatives and friends as fast as we are polishing them off.  If it wasn't for the health concerns associated with eating moon cakes to excess (800 calories per moon cake!!!), I would capitalise on their ubiquity around this time of year, and eat them 24/7.

As it is, I try and limit myself to no more than a quarter of a mooncake per day. It's harder than it sounds, and there is alway that acute sense of disappointment with the last bite. *sigh*. I have full intentions of letting myself go completely once I reach 60 years of age, and eating as much moon cake as I want. I'm sure my aged pancreas would be ecstatic afterward.

Nothing impresses my family more than when I try to recreate a traditional dish/dessert in my very own kitchen. I stumbled upon a beautiful moon cake mould at a knives shop in Burwood, and handed over $38 for it with only a slight wince. Of course they're a lot cheaper in China (thank you, Grandmother, for repeatedly pointing that out to me), but it's not like I can just snap my fingers and and go shopping in Beijing. After some research, I decided on the recipe for the moon cake skin given by Florence at Do What I Like. The filling presented more of a problem since the canned lotus seed paste I acquired from a local Asian grocery store was very runny and insipid in flavour, and tasted nothing like the rich, nutty lotus paste in professionally-made moon cakes. I remedied that by mixing in some peanut oil and honey, and then drying the whole thing over a stove, until I got a thick paste with an almost dough-like consistency. And then it was a simple case of wrapping the dough over the filling, plopping it into the floured mould, and then banging the living daylights out of it over a counter to remove the now perfectly formed moon cake.

I decided to make another batch earlier this week, except this time...they were porcine-shaped!

Oink oink!



Recipe for Baked Mooncake with lotus seed paste filling

Adapted from Do What I Like

Ingredients (makes many small ones, or a few large ones ;P)

For the skin pastry dough:

500g all-purpose/plain flour
150g peanut oil
325g golden syrup
2.5 teaspoons lye water (available from Asian groceries)


For the filling:

2 cans of lotus seed paste, around 1150g in total
150ml peanut oil
2 tablespoons honey


For the egg wash:

1 egg yolk + 1 tsp water, lightly beaten and strained.



Method

To make the filling:

1. Combine everything, and mix until well incorporated. Heat over medium flame, stirring constantly, until a thick dough-like paste forms.

2. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Place in fridge once cooled for 1 hour.


To make the pastry:

1. Combine peanut oil, golden syrup and lye water in a small bowl and heat over a pot of boiling water until everyting is combined. Allow to cool slightly (but not cold) and add to the flour. Mix into a dough, and set aside for 1 hour.


To make the mooncake:

Please refer to Florence's blog post :D

Maya Sweets and Indian Restaurant, Surry Hills

Only a quick post here, mostly because there's not much to write :D I don't really know much about Indian cuisine and desserts in general, so the only kind of insight I can provide when it comes to Indian Sweets is that...they taste nice. Different to what I'm used to, but nice!

I got this box of goodies from Maya Sweets on Cleveland Street of Surry Hills. There was such a variety to choose from, and I honestly wanted to try one of everything. Which probably explains why I ended up buying close to a kilo of the stuff without knowing how I was going to finish it all :D

Let it be known amongst those of you who have never tried Indian sweets that they are sweet. Like, really, really sweet. Don't rush in and take a ginormous bite like I did, because you will find yourselves grabbing at your own throats as the sugar literally explodes in your mouth and down your oesophagus. Instead, try small nibbles paired with strong, black coffee. You'll enjoy it more, methinks :D

And, just because I'm opinionated like that, I'm going to nominate a favourite even though my palate's as unrefined as a newborn's when it comes to Indian flavours. My favourite one was the yellow, spherical one (without the specks) on the far bottom, right corner. It tasted like buttery, caramel sand!

Maya Sweets and Indian Restaurant

468-472 Cleveland Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010

Phone: (02) 9699 8663

Sea Bay Hand-Made Noodle Restaurant, Burwood

Despite its name, Sea Bay Hand-Made Noodle Restaurant has very little in way of seafood. "Sea Bay" seems to be a homophonic play on its name in Chinese "xi bei", which translates into "North-West". And indeed, North-Western Chinese cuisine is what is served here - big, hearty portions of it, at very reasonable prices.

The restaurant was completely filled when we arrived (without a booking). The staff politely informed us it would be about a 10-15 minute wait until an available table, so we entertained ourselves in the mean time by perusing the impressive menu on diplay in the window.

Soon enough, we were ushered in and seated , the eight of us hunched over a table intended for a much smaller party. Never mind. We were hungry, there was still a long queue waiting outside, and we were just grateful to be out of the cold.

 An artistic self-portrait, taken on an iPad 2 - the perfect answer to when a food blogger forgets to bring her camera to the restaurant (doh!)...

We rattled off a selection of hot and cold dishes from the laminated menu, and within minutes they arrived at our table...all at once!

The jellied pork ear was perfectly crunchy and chewy with cartilage. I kept going back for more despite the searing heat from the tiny, red chillis.

Think the following one may have been tripe. It was very spicy. We Northerners sure love our chilli...and offals!

Some hot dishes to warm the gut: dumpling noodle soup, and mutton broth with 'mo' (a type of Chinese bread)



Sweet and sour lamb (I think...or maybe pork?). Absolutely loved the sauce. I was mopping it up with my share of the 'mo' :D

We ordered some green shallot wraps, not really sure what to expect. They turned out to be filled with cooked vermicelli and thin slices of fatty beef. A bit tasteless, really. It could have done with some sort of sauce, or seasoning. Guess that was why there were squeezie bottles of soy sauce at each table.

And, my personal favourite of the night: hand-made noodles, the "xi bei" way! Tiny, springy pellets of gluten-rich dough in a rich, meat sauce - yum!

The bill came to around $20 per person. Yes, the seating was really cramped, and there was a baby screaming constantly from the left-hand corneer, but you know what? It's dining experiences uch as this that bring back the fondest memories of my home land. I'll take unpretentious, quality food over a Michelin experience any day!

(Well, may be not if someone else paid for me to eat at the latter :D)

Sea Bay Hand-Made Noodle Restaurant

181D Burwood Road, Burwood 2134 NSW

Phone: (02) 9745 2238