Desserts – Page 3

Kitchen Workshop

April 13, 2012 Posted in Asian, Australian, Food Reviews, Melbourne, Restaurant Reviews, Southbank, WesternLeave a comment

Crown’s Kitchen Workshop is one of my favourite buffet restaurants in Melbourne for its affordable pricing and all-round good food. What makes it a winner for me is its range of offerings and their dessert selections.

What makes Kitchen Workshop attractive is its offerings of 300g of fresh iced prawns or half a dozen fresh oysters. You get a coupon/ticket when you enter and you redeem it at the seafood bar.

Their prawns might I add are pretty darn good, along with the nice seafood sauce you can grab, these prawns are fresh and nicely cooked. You could probably make a meal out of just these but of course you don’t come to Kitchen Workshop for just their seafood.

They have a mix of the usual Western and Asian dishes from pastas, to beef stews, Asian stir frys, and a selection of cooked meats. They also usually have one or two soups, the last time I went there I tried their Potato & Leek soup, and also their Tom Yum Soup. While the Leek soup was nice and creamy, their Tom Yum soup wasn’t as good as I hoped but seemed really popular anyway. The Roast Counter I find their meats to be a tad dry but with sauce it’s usually decent enough.

Kitchen Workshop also has a Teppanyaki station where you can pick an assortment of vegetables and a protein, I think people usually go with pork and watch the chef cook you up something nice from your selection using their Teppanyaki grill. It’s usually extremely popular so get in quick when you see minimal people hovering around.

For those looking for a lighter meal, they have a salad bar with your selection of cold dishes and cheeses/meats. I’m not usually a fan of cold meals so I have no real comments on these but they do look desirable.

Okay, time to talk about their desserts. It’s slightly odd how all the desserts are right at the entrance but I’m digressing. There are the usual treats, e.g tarts, cakes, custards and the like. Either fruit or chocolate, or both! They also have a chocolate fountain where you can dip strawberries or marshmallows.

I believe they also have some warm desserts, and pavlovas to boot but I can’t be certain because I usually go straight towards the one dessert.

The real star of the show, for me, is their self-serve soft-serve ice-cream machine. Phew, that was a bundle to say. However, my golly is it good. There are only two flavours, vanilla and chocolate (the chocolate being the more authentic tasting one) but you can also pick a variety of toppings, e.g syrups, sprinkles, m&ms, candies, you name it. I like it au naturale, and I could sit there all day eating just that. Probably not the healthiest thing to do, or even the cheapest option since McDonald’s do 30c Cones. Who needs cones anyway! However, it definitely is the greatest way to end a meal. Delicious.

Overall, Kitchen Workshop is pretty good value for money. It has a good range of foods and desserts plus service is usually very good (removing plates and providing drinks). I just checked their prices, it appears it may have gone up? $33.50 for dinner Fri-Sat/weekend lunch. I’m not too sure but still I’d recommend this over Conservatory any day. Unless you prefer more seafood, then go for broke at Conservatory, but be warned they have no soft-serve ice-cream there.

Kitchen Workshop

Ground Floor, Clarendon Street Entrance
8 Whiteman St
Crown Entertainment Complex
Melbourne VIC 3006

Opening hours
Lunch
Mon to Fri: 11:30am – 2:30pm
Sat: Midday – 2:30pm
Sun: Midday – 2:30pm

Dinner
Mon to Thur: 5:30pm – 9:30pm
Fri: 5:00pm – 9:30pm
Sat: 5:00pm – 10:30pm
Sun: 5:00pm – 9:30pm

Lynbrook Hotel

November 16, 2011 Posted in Australian, Chinese, Desserts, Food, Indian, Italian, Lynbrook, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

I came across the Lynbrook Hotel after browsing Urbanspoon’s top Melbourne Buffet Restaurants. Having already tried China Bar, Consevatory and Kitchenworkshop (3 of the top 5), I was surprised to see Lynbrook Hotel so far up the top. Lynbrook? Lynbrook has a hotel?

After my initial shock, I checked out the official website, it said it had a International Buffet Bistro, offering European, Asian and Australian cuisines. This piqued my interest and afterall their prices were quite reasonable too.

We went to try it out for my father’s birthday, and booked the earlier session to avoid the large cohords of people (I expected anyway). Their eating area is quite spacious and clean. It makes for a welcoming dining experience.

The food is grouped into several categories, from Asian (Chinese), European (Italian), Australian, and Indian with a bit of Thai, and of course Desserts.

The Food

While I didn’t take photographs of the food itself (I was too busy eating), the food was decent and there was a great variety of dishes.

In the Asian corner, they have Fried Rice, and a few stir frys which were surprisingly decent for a restaurant primarily served by Indian chefs.

There was a good selection of seafood, from fresh prawns, to steamed fish and a few of your standard ‘Fish and Chip shop’ items, and also roast items like roast beef and potatoes, vegetables in another area.

In their European flavoured area they served mostly Italian food, i.e pastas, lasagne and pizza.

Their Indian area took me by surprise, as it smelt great. A few different styled curries, and bite sized snack food. As I mentioned before they served Thai fish cake, which was spicy! However when my parents when again for a friend’s birthday celebration, they didn’t have these on offer. So it seems their selection of food varies slightly per week.

Their dessert menu consisted of a lot of cakes and sugary treats. My favourite was the warm almond cake, and the chocolate mousse. Of course, they served ice-cream for the kids, which was running empty by the hours end. I’ll admit their selection of desserts was great, but nothing can top soft serve ice-cream at Kitchen Workshop.

There were a couple of downsides, their pizzas weren’t cooked long enough so the bread was still doughly. Perhaps their second run of pizzas were better, I didn’t attempt to try it again.

As mentioned earlier, their 3 tubs of ice-cream were probably sitting there for a while so it wasn’t replaced as quickly (or at all) during our session. Some of their dishes were slightly overcooked but I can overlook that as it wasn’t terribly bad.

Overall impressions

The Lynbrook Hotel serves a great selection of food, for what you pay for, you do get your monies worth. Compared to Kitchen Workshop which is roughly the same price, I’d prefer Kitchen Workshop but if you’re looking for some tasty Asian dishes Lynbrook is your best bet.

Lynbrook Hotel

550 South Gippsland Highway
Lynbrook

VIC 3975

Bistro Prices and Sessions Here

Bread Kingdom – Mocha Cake

October 26, 2011 Posted in Food Reviews, Glen Waverley, KoreanLeave a comment

There are quite a few Bread Kingdom stores around Victoria. As per it’s name, it’s a bakery that sells a wide selection of sweet and savoury treats and snacks. It’s actually quite similar to Breadtop but with a Korean influence. I find that most of their breads lean on the sweet side, or their savoury items are mainly cheese products. Nonetheless, they do have an interesting selection. Their sweet Ugly bread may sound (and look) unattractive but it was actually quite good.

Like Breadtop and Cakeworld, this Asian Bakery also sells a variety of cakes in several sizes.

We tried their Mocha Cake and usually I’m not a huge fan of cream based cakes but this cake was surprisingly light. Some cakes have a very heavy cream filling, along with a dense cake mixture but this cake was overall pleasant to eat. With a nice coffee flavour to it that wasn’t overpowering at all. The syrup on top gave it extra mocha hit and to be honest it’s one of the few cream loaded cakes I would actually go back for. All it needed was some chopped nuts for added texture and it would be perfect.

Usually I visit their Glen Waverley store but they also have stores in Springvale, Hawthorn, Carnegie and Wantirna. The Hana Bakery in Clayton is also suspiciously similar to Bread Kingdom, not sure what the deal is there. If you’re looking for something slightly different to the usual Breadtop/Cakeworld selections and want something to satisfy your sweet tooth, give Bread Kingdom a go!

Bread Kingdom
Shop 11
52-54 O’Sulivan Raod Map
Glen Waverley VIC 3150

Brownie and Passionfruit Chocolate Gâteau @ Le Petit Gateau

September 6, 2011 Posted in Desserts, Food Reviews, Melbourne, Restaurant Reviews1 Comment

Le Petit Gateau has definitely made a name for itself in Melbourne with it’s delicious cakes and chocolates. Their Brownie and Passionfruit Chocolate Gateau is an interesting combination of passionfruit, chocolate and their famous delicious mudcake praline all rolled into one.

I have got to say, Le Petit just don’t know how to make a bad dessert. Their passionfruit jelly on the top, along with a nice thin layer inside, as well as a delicious crunchy bottom. All the layers create such a wonderful taste in your mouth. Even if you tasted each layer separately it would have been perfect but together it’s just even better.

Only bad thing I can say is that their prices keep going up every year. It’s heading towards, ‘I don’t know if it’s worth it but I might still buy it anyway because it’s delicious’ pricing but alas I don’t think I would stop going to Le Petit Gateau. I’m hooked.

Le Petit Gateau

458 Little Collins St
Melbourne
Tel: 03 9944 8893
Opening Hours

Monday to Friday, 7:30am-5pm

Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm

February 24, 2011 Posted in Food, Food Reviews, Mornington PeninsulaLeave a comment

Visited Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm in Main Ridge (Mornington Peninsula). I’ve heard about these from travel shows like Postcards and it looked like a great place to find local alcoholic drinks, jams and food. I think it started out as a family business and has grown extensively.
It seemed like it was quite a popular place, many cars parked there already before midday on a weekday too!

Sunny Ridge first and foremost is a strawberry farm, where customers can pick their own fruit. Usually customers are able to pick not just strawberries but raspberries, blueberries and avocadoes too, although I think due to the strange Victorian whether we had that they didn’t have enough plants for picking.

You can also buy their produce if you didn’t want to pick them yourself, it also has jams, syrups, wines, chocolates, ice creams and a nice selection of desserts and snacks. Their selection of jams; strawberry (of course), raspberry, and I think blackberry, in assorted sizes. Plus many tasty looking chocolate and fruit syrups like passionfruit and strawberry. Sunny Ridge has chocolate coated freeze dried strawberries and blueberries too. I didn’t get to try them but it looked quite nice.

Wines
We tasted a wide selection of alcoholic beverages under the brand Robello Wines, which is an extension from the family business. liquors (two variations – a Fragola Cielo Strawberry Liquor and Fragola Amore Strawberry Cream Liquor) both quite sweet and light. The strawberry cream liquor tasted like a strawberry milkshake, a similar texture to Baileys.
They stocked a Charlotte, a 100% Strawberry Sparkling which has won numerous Australian Fruit and Wine awards. This had such a nice flavour, a strong strawberry punch. An instant like.

The Strawbellini (Moscato Strawberry Sparkling) was also another favourite of mine. It was refreshing and had a nice strawberry flavour to it too. This wine has recently been placed in the top 5 sparkling wines of the San Francisco International Wine Competition, that is quite the feat.

The Lolo Semi SweetStrawberry Wine was a bit of a let down after trying two fantastic sparkling wines, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. It just didn’t pack the same punch as the two sparking wines.
They also stock a Fragola Port, which I somehow missed.

Sunny Ridge also had a new line of ciders, Apple and Apple & Strawberry. The Apple & Strawberry cider had a nice flavour, it had a sweeter and well, stronger flavour to it then the Apple. The Apple one, compared to the Strongbow varieties, it didn’t really stack up but the Strawberry cider did have a different flavour to keep me interested.

For the non-alcoholics, they had Sparkling Strawberry flavoured beverage which wasn’t there for tasting, but I presume with the many fantastic strawberry wines they had, that this one would be excellent too.

Cafe
Then we went onto the cafe, they had a great range in their menu. Cakes, tarts, ice creams, sundae, teas, milkshakes. Pretty much everything. Their desserts looked quite scrumptious, it was hard to choose!

We ended up trying the Strawberry cheesecake, Devonshire tea and their ice cream.

The cheesecake was served with a chocolate and strawberry syrup, whipped cream and fresh strawberries. It looked and tasted fantastic, it had such a great taste to it, it was smooth and soft with a nice biscuit bottom. Plus the syrups and cream just added an extra texture and flavour to it all.

The Devonshire tea (aka Scones + jam) was nice, it wasn’t the lightest and fluffiest scones I’ve ever eaten but it was certainly better than the ones I attempted to make.

We tried the Roasted almond ice cream and the Strawberry ice cream. I liked them both, it tasted real and fresh without any fake flavouring that many ice creams seemed to have. There was a Strawberry farm in Tasmania that tops this one, but it was still good nonetheless.

We managed to devour everything and Sunny Ridge definitely made a lasting impression on me.
Their wide selection of products means we’ll be heading there again and I can see why it is so popular and a great tourist attraction for the Mornington Peninsula.

Check it out, it is certainly worth a stop by:

Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm
244 Shands Road, Main Ridge

Victoria 3928,

AUSTRALIA

Phone: +61 3 5989 4500
Email: info@sunnyridge.com.au

Opens Daily 9am to 5pm (Nov to Apr) or weekends 11am to 4pm (May to Oct)

ohdenny

Tag: Desserts