I dined as a guest of Pepper Lunch; all opinions are my own . As part of the generous meal at their launch, Pepper Lunch also included a complimentary dessert soft-serve – hello #icecreamthurs! I am a huge fan of soft serve, and I feel like the benchmark in Canberra has been set pretty high, with this delight from XO in Narrabundah. I was very excited to see that Pepper Lunch offers a range of Asian-inspired flavour toppings for their vanilla soft serve, including black sesame (unavailable at the launch) and green tea (matcha), along with caramel and chocolate options. Both my friend and I picked the matcha, which came in a huge cup and had green tea syrup and powder swirled throughout. The icecream itself was really creamy, and I loved that it was already starting to melt slightly as I ate it. I was a bit surprised at how subtle the matcha flavour was – usually matcha has quite a strong, bitter taste that you either love or hate, but this version seemed to be missing that bold flavour, which can be great or disappointing, depending on your view of matcha. Personally, I would have liked a stronger flavour, but I really enjoyed the vanilla soft serve.
Pepper Lunch, 88-96 Bunda Street (next to Oliver Brown) Canberra, http://www.pepperlunch.com.au/
