Lygon St, The Little Italy Of Melbourne

I am slowly going to make my way through my Melbourne trip which occurred early August so that was a while back! One of our nights there, my friends and I decided to explore the Little Italy of Melbourne. Café Corretto was definitely one of the busiest Italian restaurants along Lygon St though to be fair, many of the restaurants were overflowing with customers. We waited for around half an hour before we were seated so I suggest you get there early if you plan on not waiting around!

Blue Heaven, $5.00

We noticed they had a drinks section dedicated solely on spiders and we clapped our hands in glee upon noticing the name blue heaven. Instant order! Turned out to be lemonade with blue flavouring, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. I like spiders way too much! Yes, I will forever be a child.

Cardinale, entrée size for $13.00

This would have to be my second time trying gnocchi and I have to tell you all that I think I’ve fallen in love. The pasta is all freshly made in store and these little potato-y pasta gems were so soft and wonderfully pillowy I felt like I was eating clouds. It was very different from the slightly chewy version I had at Black by Ezard. The cream sauce was incredibly rich and indulgent but the hint of the tomato based Napoli sauce made it lighter and not as heavy from the repetitive flavour that you sometimes get from sauces based solely on cream. Chicken pieces were scattered thoughout, along with avocado pieces which were cooked. Can’t say I’m the biggest fan of cooked avocado in general, but give it to me raw and I can eat it any day! The serving sizes were also huge where my guy friends struggled to finish their mains serving size :P

Café Corretto
225-227 Lygon Street
Carlton, VIC, 3053

Opening Hours
Sunday - Thursday: 11:30am - 1:00am
Friday - Saturday: 11:30am - 3:00am


 
Just down the road is Brunetti - a cafe with the biggest Italian dessert selection I have ever seen. Cakes, biscuits, cannoli, cookies, more cake! It was everywhere! The display wowed me and I was overwhelmed by choices. Thanks to A for introducing this place to me, you fellow Melbourne-sider! The cafe was extremely busy and popular from the looks of it and completely packed. Service was hard to snag at the counters due to the crowds of people so it took a while to let them know of our selection choices and to order.

Pear & cheese crumble, $6.50

I was blown away by what was essentially a cheesecake with a twist. The poached pears and blackberry jam lent this slice of cheesecake a sweetness and juiciness that toned down the richness of the cheesecake. Of course, the choc chip biscuit base totally threw all that out the window, but I must say, the base of a cheesecake is one of the things I love most :P

Dolce amore, $6.90

Isn't this the cutest cake? My friends and I were enticed into ordering this slice because it looked like a strawberry. It was just too cute to resist. It was a light cake, with a soft coconut sponge that encased a strawberry confit and strawberry cream interior with a red velvet mouse surrounding it all.

Lemon brulee tart, $6.50

We were tossing up between the lemon meringue tart and the lemon brulee, with the latter winning because I do love myself a nice crunchy toffee top. However, I found this slightly a bit too tart without a sugary meringue cloud to balance it out. I do love lemon, however this was a bit too much. Not to say it wasn't a nice tart though!

Raspberry & white chocolate opera, $2.00

There are also bite sized options for those who have difficulties choosing from the range they have to offer and want to try a bit too much of everything or for those who haven't quite managed to activate their emergency dessert stomach. This was a nice option, with raspberry and white chocolate being a classic dessert flavour pairing however, it was nothing special.

New York baked cheesecake, $2.00

This was the pick out of the mini desserts though! The little slice was deceivingly rich and creamy with the wonderful denseness that you can only achieve through baked cheesecakes. Ah good old cheesecake, you always win me over, time and time again.

We stumbled back to our humble student accommodation, our stomachs filled to the brim. Trust the Italians to know how to feed us!

Brunetti
380 Lygon St
Carlton, VIC, 3053

Opening Hours
Sunday - Thursday: 6:00am - 11:00pm
Friday - Saturday: 6:00am - 12:00 midnight

Pasticceria Papa 2, Haberfield

Turning the big two-zero yesterday, I waved goodbye to my teenage years. How sad! Doesn't mean I can't act immature still :P I suppose I'm meant to be a year wiser, but I sure don't feel that way. What I do know is that I still have my love for sweets and my father dearest spoilt me rotten with a trip to Pasticceria Papa! While I absolutely adore their baked ricotta cheesecake, I decided to try something else this time around.

Blueberry cheesecake, $26.00 / various Italian biscuits and pastries, a bit over $20.00

My dad said we were going to pick out a cake, but once we were there, he encouraged me to pick out a whole range of biscuits and pastries too! They were all so delicious. The apple crumble had such a lovely crisp covering sweet stewed cinnamon-y apples underneath and the ricotta tart was so creamy, soft and fluffy at the same time. Those two sitting at the top were especially good mm.

The cheesecake was also divine. I could eat cheesecake all day ;) But clearly not possible as I would balloon up and resemble a lump of cheese haha!

If any of you are ever in the Haberfield area, I definitely encourage you all to pay a visit to Pasticceria Papa and try out their delicacies over a hot cup of coffee!

Pasticceria Papa
145 Ramsay St
Haberfield, NSW, 2045
9799 9631
http://ppapa.com.au/

Opening Hours
Monday - Friday: 8:00am - 6:00pm
Saturday: 7:30am - 5:00pm
Sunday:7:30am - 1:00pm

Eats lately via iPhone #2

Uni has been keeping me busy lately so I've gathered snapshots of bits and bobs I've been eating!

Clockwise from top left: apple & cinnamon, lemon meringue, strawberry, black forest, carrot, hummingbird

Cupcakes from the Cupcake Bakery! Cupcakes are just so cute and there was plenty of icing - my favourite ;) I really enjoyed the apple & cinnamon, along with the lemon meringue! I was expecting something special from the hummingbird but it just tasted like plain old banana to me. Which isn't a bad thing as I love banana bread/cake/muffins!

The Cupcake Bakery
320b George St
Sydney, NSW , 2000

 

Muesli and yogurt

Top Juice in Westfield Sydney has tonnes of fresh juices but I went for something heartier. Fresh yogurt is the best and this was the super thick kind swirled with a delicious mix of oats and raisins :)

Top Juice
Level 5 Cnr Pitt St Mall And Market St
Sydney, NSW, 2000

Sweet taro and red bean crushed ice, $8.00

I have a thing for taro in desserts - especially the sweet marinated kind they have at Meet Fresh! Taro and red beans is a classic Asian flavour combination which I love :)

Meet Fresh
175 Rowe Street
Eastwood, NSW, 2122

Pork roll, $4.00

I love porks rolls. This place has my favourite pork rolls! Crunchy bread? Tick! The carrots and daikon are pickled just to my liking and the sauce they use here is what I think makes this pork roll number one in my books.

Ashfield Vietnamese Rolls
222 Liverpool Rd
Ashfield NSW 2131

Grilled Portugese chicken salad, $15.00

Decided to buy lunch at uni for once while waiting to meet a friend and went for the char-grilled chicken with piri-piri spices with coral lettuce, rocket, tomato and chilli sauce. The salad was average at best and not worth forking out the $15.00 (costs extra to sit in). Unfortunately you don't feel comfortable staying there for too long as the waiters continuously hang around and watch you like a hawk, even swooping in multiple times to try get you to leave quickly. Hard to have an enjoyable lunch when they're acting that way. I've had the baguettes here which are pretty good. Go for the lemongrass chicken!

Taste Baguette
City Rd Law Building The University Of Sydney
Sydney, NSW, 2006

Guava, biscotti & green tea froyo

Taro, biscotti, green tea & blood orange froyo

Noggi recently got renovated and they now have a lot of new flavours on rotation. Yes I know, I have a teeny tiny obsession with frozen yogurt. And Noggi has always been my go-to place for biscotti and blood orange (when they do have this flavour). I always top my frozen yogurt with mochi, coconut chips, blueberries and other fruit if I get extra toppings :D

Noggi
2/2 Albert Rd
Strathfield, NSW

Half roast pork knuckle, $28.00

Probably a bit silly of me to get half the pork knuckle when the entire thing costed just $5 extra! But I know I would not have been able to finish it without being waaay too full so I decided to skip the whole knuckle, go for half, and spend the rest on beer! I asked them to replace the mash with sauteed potato because while I do love mash, I've had it many, many times in my life and I wanted to try sauteed potatoes! The pork knuckle had such a lovely crackling, and the sourness of the sauerkraut plus sweetness of the apple compote brought out the best of the pork.

Bavarian Bier Cafe
24 York St
Sydney, NSW, 2000

French toast, $7.90 + $3.00 extra for bacon

My sister and I decided to have brekky in Newtown before class one day and we settled for a cafe next to the art store I bought some supplies from. I so badly want to say that I loved this but it was much to eggy for my liking. But yay for bacon and maple syrup!

Fringe Cafe and Restaurant
199 King St
Newtown, NSW 2042

Massaman beef curry, $6.95 during lunch

I order Massaman curry way too much, but this non-spicy Thai curry is so comforting that I can't help but be drawn to it each time. Hooray for multiple Thai restaurants in Newtown with cheap lunch specials!

Newtown Thai II
105 King St
Sydney, NSW, 2042

 

Hehe made myself a Vietnamese inspired salad for lunch at uni :)

And also breakfast in a jar so that I could transport it :D Greek yogurt, nectarine, berries, muesli and maple syrup mhmm.

Also baked some potato wedges with greek yogurt and sweet chilli sauce. Chucked in a tonne of different spices. Loved using the greek yogurt as it was just like having sour cream but less fat and higher protein :) Chobani's the best!

It was my brother's birthday recently and all good birthdays must end with cake! So a mango cheesecake was bought from Michel's Patisserie. He absolutely loved it despite the fact that he normally isn't the biggest fan of sweets so thank goodness :)

So there we have it! A little too much food everywhere haha.

Chocolates Del Mondo, Burwood

For the past week, I've been having the biggest craving for a good cheesecake for some reason. So what a perfect time to try out a new chocolate cafe other than going to Max Brenner! I've been wanting to go to Chocolates Del Mondo ever since it opened last year but have put it off until now.

I was very excited upon seeing the large display cabinet of cakes and tarts that they had!

Forrero Rocher shake, $7.95

We ordered a shake as it was quite a warm day, and it was very refreshing and cooling. This definitely tasted like Ferrero Rocher, though I thought it was a bit too runny. I enjoyed it all the same regardless.

Lime and coconut cheesecake, $8.95

Sorry, wasn't told how much these two cakes cost individually, but together it was $17.90. This was quite an odd concoction with lime jelly on top of a coconut cheesecake. I thought the lime was a bit too tart and it didn't quite work that well with the cheesecake which disappointingly had that coconut essence flavour which I find to be too fake and not to palatable on my tongue. The swirl of chocolate definitely made it look more pretty but I failed to see how it was necessary as it didn't correlate with the flavours of lime and coconut at all.

Baked blueberry and ricotta cheesecake, $8.95

I had higher expectations for this one as I love blueberry and that crumble on top looked quite lovely! But unfortunately the ricotta cheesecake itself was quite dry and had a grainy texture. The only flavour came from the crumble and the blueberries that were directly under it. The rest of the cheesecake didn't have much flavour at all.

Considering how much we paid, I was expecting better quality cakes but unfortunately they fell short. Alas, I probably would have been better off buying a frozen Sara Lee cheesecake from my local Woolworths freezer. Cheaper at that too. Definitely not what I was expecting when I had such high expectations too. I was pretty happy about having a local chocolate cafe to frequent, but I don't think I would be going back any time soon :( Maybe for the drinks?

Does anyone have a favourite cheesecake at any cafes to recommend to me? :)

Here are the menus if anyone is interested.