Category: Bakery

Categories
Bakery Portuguese

Sweet Belem – Petersham NSW Bakery Review

After hearing many a story told by my colleagues of Sweet Belem’s Portuguese tarts I decided I absolutely had to try. Unfortunately for my wallet and my HbA1c, I was sidetracked into getting quite a bit more than just a few tarts.

Portuguese Tart

First things first. The Portuguese Tart. Sweet Belem’s Portuguese tart is not quite the tart that I grew up with. One of my best friends throughout high school (co-incidentally the one I ate at Din Tai Fung with eight years ago) was a little bit fancy, and would often get Portuguese tarts at the school canteen, never settling for a mere custard tart. On the odd occasion where he and I would partake in such opulent pleasures together I would find a soft, multilayered puff pastry crust around an eggy, custardy filling. For the longest time this is what I thought a Portuguese Tart was meant to be.

Sweet Belem changed my mind. As the benchmark for Portuguese Tarts, what Sweet Belem delivered was much different to my youthful experiences. The crust was flaky, hard, and crispy, made up of layers upon layers of pastry. The filling, caked in cinnamon, had a sweeter but also more complex flavour than any tart I had in high school or in the many years since. This is something you’ll definitely want to try for yourself.

And now for a brief description of some of the other baked goods I had. These are not labelled but I think you can figure it out.

Pineapple cake ($5.50) – NOT your Chinese style pineapple cake. Literally a pineapple slice on top. Soaked in sweet syrup. I didn’t like it

Baked chocolate tart ($4)- Enjoyed by my partner. Not too sweet.

Almond tart – Pretty good!

Egg and almond croissant ($4) – I actually really liked this, especially the parts with the eggy custard filling. A recommendation.

IN SHORT

I liked Sweet Belem’s Portuguese tarts, and I think that if you’re in the local area they’re definitely worth a visit. Their other baked goods (even the excellent almond and egg croissant) range from middling to good but aren’t worth making a separate trip.

Sweet Belem Cake Boutique
35B New Canterbury Rd, Petersham NSW 2049
(02) 9572 6685

Categories
Bakery Japanese

Uncle Tetsu’s Japanese Cheesecake – Sydney CBD NSW Bakery Review

Next to Event Cinemas on George St and very close to Wang’s Dumplings is the Sydney branch of Uncle Tetsu’s multinational bakery project.

During our first visit we had the original, matcha, and red bean cheese tarts.

Each cheese tart was delicious with a more cooked exterior layer and an interior runny gooey centre.

On our second visit the red bean flavour had been discontinued for a strawberry flavour for Christmas.

My favourite was the original flavour, however all four I’ve had have been quite nice.

I would rate these much above the Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tart in Australia. They are not as good as the cheese tarts from BAKE in Japan, and they’re also quite expensive at $3.90 a pop.

Unlike the cheese tarts I cannot really recommend this weird, watery, vanilla custard.

4/5

Uncle Tetsu’s Japanese Cheesecake Sydney
501 George St, Sydney NSW 2000

Categories
Bakery Greek

Born to Bake Greek Patisserie Café – Eastlakes NSW Bakery Review

My partner spent $90 on breakfast from Born to Bake Greek Patisserie Cafe on UberEats this morning. This is what she ordered.

Kreatopita

This wrapped-in-foil delight is the Kreatopita ($10). It consisted of meat mince in puff pastry, however there were parts of the insides that was straight dough. For this, it loses a point. A further point is lost for the price.

Salmon Roll

This Salmon Roll ($14) with smoked salmon, capers, baby spinach, red onion and cream cheese actually came with surprise avocado. Sadly the avocado was very hard and not ripe at all. The flavours were not extraordinary. It is also quite expensive. Not again.

Chicken Schnitzel Sandwich

This Chicken Schnitzel Sandwich ($14) with lettuce, tomato and a spicy mayonnaise sauce is as described on the shipping manifest. Unfortunately ours was quite unbalanced, as it seems they ran out of ingredients to extend the salad beyond half of the roll. We therefore had one side that was yum, and one side that was just dry chicken with no salads. I saw that soon after we received our meal that they had marked this particular sandwich as out of stock on the UberEats app.

The Moussaka ($14.50) was cold. How am I meant to eat this?
(UPDATE: even warmed up in the oven it was not very good)

Bougatsa

The Bougatsa ($7.50) was a yummy dessert of filo pastry around a warm custard filling. Quite good.

Amarena Black Cherry Tart

This Amarena Black Cherry Tart ($4) was a nice treat for $4. The black cherry was yummy but I wish there were more.

Salted Caramel Tart

The Salted Caramel Tart ($9.50) was pretty standard. Not bad, but $9.50?

The Orange Cake ($9) was unpredictably huge. Very dense. The densest. I didn’t really like it that much.

Strawberry cheesecake, Amarena Black Cherry, Fruit tart

My partner made a sweet and kind move on my birthday to order me a repeat of our previous adventure.

The fruit tart ($7.50) was actually really nice. I loved the variety of the fruit as well as the custard filling and pastry underneath.

The strawberry cheesecake ($7) I wouldn’t order again.

The Amarena black berry tart ($4) you have heard about before.

VERDICT

Though they may have been born to bake, the operators of Born to Bake made some strange choices , like surprising us with unripe avocado and a cold moussaka. While they may be born to bake, I was not – I didn’t expect to have to bake my own food after it arrived.

3/5

Born to Bake Greek Patisserie Café
1/279 Gardeners Rd, Eastlakes NSW 2018
(02) 8096 5945

Categories
Bakery Café European

Kurtosh – Surry Hills NSW Restaurant Review

“But you’ve already been to Kurtosh!”, you say. “You didn’t even like it!”

While both statements are true, my partner dragged me along to a Kurtosh franchise in Surry Hills after dinner at Khoi’s, and I didn’t want to waste a mediocre time by not writing about it.

I have discovered, since my last visit to Kurtosh in Randwick in August 2020, that kürtőskalác is a type of baked dessert of Hungarian origin. Unlike the delicious cherry strudel from Randwick Hungarian Restaurant Corner 75, however, I have never really had a kürtőskalác that I have thought to be special.

Before we get to the food, a special mention needs to be made for the consistently poor service at Kurtosh – something that seems to span their multiple distant sites. Before ordering I joked to my partner that our attendant would need to ask for our orders three times, as a callback to our poor experience in their Randwick store. To my surprise and horror, this did indeed happen – it was just very difficult for the Kurtosh employee (who was not the same as last time) to remember the three things that we wanted. She did indeed ask us three separate times.

The palmier was fine.

The chocolate peanut butter cookie was actively good. The cookie was gooey and chewy, with a dark chocolate flavour. I didn’t enjoy the peanut butter filling quite as much, but I did not hate it either.

The vanilla and nut kurtosh was not to my taste. Always a disappointment, but it’s very hard to convince my partner. For what it’s worth, she did enjoy this, and she specifically remarked that she enjoyed this more than the cinnamon one that she had previously tried.

Nurtosh/5 – I’m allowed to not like things, OK?

EDIT, JULY 2022
I recently had a snack at the Kurtosh store in Marrickville. Rather than starting a third post for the same chain, I will just append my vague thoughts onto the end of this one.

The Nutella Babka I felt had good texturing and layering on the outside, with good crispiness that was sadly let down by the Hershey-style vomit-like chocolate taste. Though I enjoyed the crispiness of the outside, I was further disappointed when I discovered the wetness of the liquer inside. Oh no. I keep finding things I don’t like at Kurtosh, but my partner keeps taking me.

Kürtősh – Surry Hills
604-606 Crown St, Surry Hills NSW 2010
(02) 9698 6643

Categories
Bakery Café

Brasserie Bread – Banksmeadow NSW Cafe Review

Another day, another feed. Today’s breakfast was eaten at Brasserie Bread, a bakery and cafe a mere ten minutes walk from our home.

The bulk of this review is actually about the second time I ate food from Brasserie Bread – the first time was a couple of takeaway sandwiches following a night shift several weeks before. The Smoked Chicken Sambo with avo, provolone cheese, roast tomato & aioli ($14) was quite good, while The Brasserie BLT Sambo with bacon, iceberg, tomato on Sourdough Batard ($12) was very middling.

While the wait for just a couple of sandwiches the first time felt like forever, the wait for dining in was actually very minimal. This is my story.

This glossy looking rhubarb and strawberry tart I must admit was only okay. I thought it was a bit too cakey and not tarty enough for my liking. Beautiful, though.

The apple crumble, in contrast, was relatively divine. Absolutely great interplay of crispy pastry textures, crumble, apple, and sauce.

My partner ordered the Eggs Your Way on Toast with Pepe Saya Butter, a mere $10 for a delicious and wholesome meal. She loved it so much that I caught her making heart eyes at the perfectly liquid yolk atop Pepe’s cultured butter. The chorizo that I spent $4 adding on was a waste – an absolutely not necessary addition to this already perfect dish.

The Slow Cooked Beef Brisket Sambo with housemade pickled cabbage slaw ($14), in comparison with the simple wholesomeness of the eggs on toast, was a letdown. I found the beef a bit unflavourful, a disappointment matched with its boring texture. Not even the yummy pickled cabbage slaw and sauce could save it. The second letdown of the dish was the oppressive quantity of soft crusty bread. I understand that Brasserie Bread is first and foremost a bakery, but I feel that they really missed the mark on the filling to bread ratio, and consequently I cannot recommend this sandwich.

COMMENT

I liked the little pastries and I liked the simple toast and eggs. The beef brisket sandwich was a bit of a letdown, but from memory their smoked chicken sandwich was actually quite nice. It was a cheap and cheerful local breakfast.

4/5 sauerkrauts

Brasserie Bread
1737 Botany Rd, Banksmeadow NSW 2019
1300 966 845