The Rabbit Hole

#sweetweek continues in Sydney! The Rabbit Hole is such a delightful place – offering a huge range of organic teas, plus a cabinet full of sweets and a brunch menu, there’s something here for everyone. I started out with a cup of choc orange fudge tea (with soy milk), which was served in the cutest little cup, with a white rabbit etched into it – the handle was the rabbit’s fluffy tail! Adorable. Given the scent was so sweet, I added sugar to the tea so that the flavour matched my nose’s expectations – with this tweak, I enjoyed the quite large cup. The first sweet was a piece of lavender shortbread, iced and topped with edible flowers. The shortbread was so thin and crumbly that you could almost imagine all of the butter within. The icing added another level of sweetness, although I didn’t really pick up any lavender flavour. To match with the tea, I also had a chocolate orange whoopie pie (kind of like a soft Butterbing), which was the perfect pairing. The chocolate cake-bit was so soft and spongy, and the orange-flavoured cream inside had a great citrus flavour. Certainly not your traditional desserts, but lovely nonetheless.

The Rabbit Hole Organic Tea Bar, 146 Abercrombie Street, Redfern, NSW, http://www.therabbithole.com.au/

Cafe Comme Ca

I’ve been eating a lot of sweets lately, so I declare this to be #sweetweek, starting with a flashback to my favourite cake shop ever. Ah, Cafe Comme Ca. The lovely Shinjuku store with its fun lighting, creative wall art and immaculate display cabinet was our first dessert stop in Tokyo (of course!). We were seated in the back corner which has a great view of the cake decoration space (so much fruit being styled into perfect shapes!) and the wait staff bench where the delicate cocoa shapes are dusted onto the plates – the secret is a stencil, if you hadn’t guessed already. I adore their fruity cakes, so picked one with raspberry, strawberry and mango on a flaky pastry base. All of the cakes here are beautifully creamy and this was no exception. The vibrant flavour of the strawberries and raspberries matched the bold tropical mango perfectly. I also tried their seasonal iced tea – black tea with apple. It came out in a large glass with plenty of ice and was really refreshing. I like black iced teas that aren’t too bitter and this was just lovely. I can’t recommend Cafe Comme Ca highly enough – guaranteed to satisfy your inner foodie, design junkie and fruit artist (because here, that’s a thing).

Cafe Comme Ca, 5F Comme Ca Store, 3-26-6 Shinjuku-ku, Shinjuku Tokyo http://www.cafe-commeca.co.jp/ (Japanese only)

Hash Specialty Coffee

I must admit, we did come to eat here after seeing how silly the line was at Hardware Societe, but this was one of the best ‘happy accident’ discoveries we had in Melbourne! Hash has friendly, welcoming staff who went out of their way to make us comfortable. Craving something lighter, I ordered the Sauteed Mushrooms ($17.5), served on toasted multigrain with pumpkin puree, chevre and smoked aioli. You guys, this would definitely be my breakfast pick of the year! The mushrooms were so cute and plump, keeping all their juiciness with the added thyme from the saute pan. The bread was delicious and absolutely slathered in pumpkin puree, which is now my new ultimate comfort food. But the real winner for me was that smoked aioli. Seriously, get onto it, it’s good stuff. A mouthful with all of the elements, including the lovely strong chevre, was breakfast heaven. They also avoided my pet peeve (inadequate toast-cutting knife) and had appropriate cutlery so I didn’t leave having undertaken an arm workout to eat my food. Unusually, their menu also lists the local provenance of their ingredients – this could definitely be a new trend to keep an eye on.

Hash Specialty Coffee and Roasters, 113 Hardware Street, Melbourne VIC, no website

Molto Italian

I met a friend for dinner at Molto Italian, where we were warmly greeted and seated at the bar. I’d already scanned the menu and picked what I wanted to try – the Maccheroni Matriciana ($28), with cured pork cheek, slow cooked tomato ragu and pecorino romano. Matriciana is one of my favourite dishes – I make it at home a lot – but this was a whole other level of sophistication. The ragu was just enough to coat the pasta, with a little extra for mopping up, and wasn’t too rich. I loved the crisp pieces of cured pork cheek, which added a great meaty flavour, as well as a kick of saltiness, to the meal. The combination of the sauce and pork took me right back to northern Italy. The pasta was cooked as al dente as it comes, which I found utterly delightful. I was worried that the portion would be too much – it’s huge, so definitely great value – but I finished it easily and didn’t get that ‘oh I’ve eaten too much pasta’ stomach-heaviness that lower quality pasta can induce. Sadly I didn’t have room for dessert, but I will certainly be back for more authentic, top notch Italian very soon.

Molto Italian, Element Building, Eastlake Parade, Kingston ACT, http://moltoitalian.com/

Pepper Lunch

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/

Agatha’s

I went to Agatha’s to catch up with a friend from high school, and to be honest my expectations weren’t high – it wasn’t really on my ‘foodie radar’, so to speak, but I was quite delighted to discover the excellent breakfasts on offer. I ordered the ‘Hey Pesto’ ($16), with smoked bacon, tomato, avocado, rocket and pesto hollandaise on ciabatta. Pesto hollandaise? Yep. That stuff is good. Rich, creamy and still stronger on the hollandaise than the pesto flavour, there was a huge amount on top of my bread, and I was totally ok with that – it’s delicious. Combined with the serving of avocado, there was a lot of creaminess going on, but the fresh tomato and rocket cut through, along with the saltiness of the bacon. I couldn’t really tell that the bacon was smoked, but it was very crispy and particularly tasty. As a bonus, there was some sort of pomegranate molasses drizzle on the plate too, which was beautifully sweet. I love ciabatta, and this one was lightly toasted, perfect to add some crisp but still be easy to cut into. The whole thing was very filling, delicious and great value – definitely worth a visit.

Agatha’s, 1 Gawler Street, Port Noarlunga SA, http://www.agathascafe.com.au/

Space Kitchen

My quest to try all of the Ricardo’s/Space cakes continued at a friend’s baby shower held at Space. Everyone else ordered lunch – I ordered cake. I’ve had my eye on the Cookie Monster ($9.90) for a while now, and this was clearly the moment. Now, I must advise you of two exciting facts about this cake (apart from the fact that it is both blue and named after the Sesame Street character, which you will have gathered already). One, it is large. Like, you may doubt your ability to eat it yourself, large. But wait… Two, it is light! Hooray, you can enjoy it all to yourself. The giant macaron top cracks open to reveal a half-mousse half-sponge filling, dotted with Oreos. Mmm. Oreos. The texture is quite unusual, but definitely in a good way – everything is surprisingly smooth and even though it looks blue, chocolate biscuit is the dominant flavour. I did largely eat this myself, and didn’t feel bloated or overly smashed by sugar afterwards, so there’s a good balance in terms of density and sweetness. Given the size I also rate this highly on value (especially when you don’t have to share!).

Space Kitchen, Skypark, corner of Furzer and Worgan Streets, Phillip ACT, http://space-kitchen.com.au/