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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Pastry and conversation

Apologies for the lack of posting. Going to see my parents means I haven't had to cook for a while. However! With the amount of patisseries springing up around the city, Miss Italia and I decided to have a patisserie tour as she is my baking buddy and enjoys food as much as I do. I am surprised I was able to fit in (a very small) dinner this evening, I must say!

First stop was Jean Pierre Sancho for breakfast. We decided to diplomatically share what we got for maximum deliciousness. Aside from the fact that we weren't given knives (making sharing very messy and difficult), the pain au chocolat and almond croissant were excellent. The atmosphere was great, and the staff seemed to know their regular customers quite well which is always nice.

Almond croissant and pan aux chocolat

Lunch was at Fiorentina in North Perth. I've been looking lustfully at the cannoli in their Fremantle store whenever I walk past, so I was really looking forward to eating here. I was a bit disappointed with the vegetarian roll I had for lunch - there was too much mayonnaise for my taste and the bottom half was a bit soggy (the bane of my lunchtime existence, and the reason I like eating out for lunch instead of having home-made soggy sandwiches!), so that somewhat tainted the experience. I was also kind of upset about my tea being a teabag and not loose-leaf, but that's just my snobby tea-drinking pettiness :P

Vegetarian Roll with lettuce, mayonnaise, capsicum, cheese and artichoke hearts

The pastries from Fiorentina, however, were a redeeming feature. Miss Italia chose a mignon fruit tart with pineapple and I had a mignon cornucci (we were both a bit full to have the large sizes! Also, I miss saying the word "mignon" every day). Both of them were delicious, and Miss Italia informs me that the creme patissiere was excellent (which is the filling to less educated people like myself). I was expecting the cornucci to have Italian custard but it seemed to have a hazelnutty filling which I quite enjoyed.

Mignon fruit tart with pineapple, mignon cornucci

Last stop was Choux, renowned for their macarons and general deliciousness. We decided on the opera cake, which was layer upon layer of yum. If I was more well-versed in how they are baked I could give more information, but for now "Oh my GOODNESS, eat it" should suffice. They also were lovely enough to sell us some broken macarons for half price, as well as some proper ones.

The Opera cake, in all its glory

The failcaron, or "how to make yourself feel better about your macaron making skills"

The bags of broken (left) and non-broken (right) macarons:
Chestnut, lime, caramel, lemon and pineapple-avocado

Miss Italia is one of my favourite people to dine with as she has an excellent knowledge of food (particularly of the baking variety) and pulling apart the layers of the Opera cake made me stop eating it so quickly and in fact savour all its delicious layers. Well done, good sir. On top of that she is delightful conversation and a generally awesome person. I am pre-emptively mourning over her imminent exchange for the semester :(

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