Chez Dre (South Melbourne, Melbourne)

Recently while I was in Melbourne, I had the opportunity to meet up with my friend AK for lunch and a couple of my work mates joined us. I had not been to Chez Dre before but having heard about it I obviously did some research on the web. What perked my interest were the cakes and macarons!

It was a lovely cafe tucked away in a quiet lane off Clarendon Street. And as it was a lovely sunny afternoon we sat outside basking in the sunny warmth. I love that it had an al fresco area.

We had the following:

Croque Monsieur - smoked ham, emmental cheese grilled sandwich with bechamel sauce. MC said it was lovely!

Brendan Dewar Patisserie - Take 2

Okay, I am back at Brendan Dewar Patisserie in St Ives. This time it was to pick up a White Chocolate Cheesecake I had pre-ordered for a double birthday celebration.

Brendan Dewar himself!

A few days before the pick up, when I placed the order over the phone, Brendan was the one who took my order. After I identified who I was speaking to, I expressed my desire to meet him.

When I arrived, I asked to speak to Brendan. It was lovely to finally meet him. I expressed my thanks to him as someone from his patisserie had put my initial blog post link  (Brendan Dewar Patisserie May 2012) on the Brendan Dewar Patisserie Facebook page back in June this year. My first post was in May and I started to notice how popular the post was. After a bit of googling, I finally figured out that the source of most of the traffic was from their Facebook page. I was chuffed!

Zumbo Lab

Zumbo - now this is a famous one name word in Sydney and I believe in Australia too.

My friend KY found out that I had not been to the Zumbo cafe yet so he was kind enough to drive me to Rozelle. We were already having lunch in Woolwich so going to Rozelle from there was literally a stone's throw away.

It was already quite late in the afternoon when we arrived at Terry Street in Rozelle. Adriano was not there, so it was just a battle of working out which macarons to buy. The standout of the building is the Zumbo art grafitti on the main wall of the 'lab'. Totally unmissable.

The cafe is actually very small. The fascination is being able to view what was happening in the kitchen. You can actually see the patissiers cooking away in the kitchen. The artwork in the "lab" was very funky and very Zumbo.

I ended up taking away Pear and Vanilla, Fig and Burnt Honey, Lemon and Olive Oil and Raspberry Shortbread macarons.

The 4 Macarons!

Now I can finally say that I have been to Zumbo's. The results of having the macarons are that they are delicious and full of flavour. The lemon and olive oil macaron - a burst of lemon and the lingering subtle taste of the olive oil. The fig and burnt honey was full of flavour. As a matter of fact, all the four flavours were a great hit!

I will come back to try out more flavours.

Website: http://www.adrianozumbo.com/
Locations: Balmain, Rozelle and Manly