Mia's #BlogMeetSg Review: Hediard French Cafe

During the #BlogMeetSg bloggers' networking event held at Edit Lifestyle last week (my blog post here), we were not only pampered with free flowing yummy french macarons and iced tea from Hediard, but also given a SGD $25 dine in voucher at the cafe, that ties in with a bloggers' instagram contest. 

And so, I decided to drop by for a CNY eve lunch with A and D after we knocked off!

Located at Tudor Court (Tanglin road), it was quite a far walk from Orchard Mrt Station, but it was still worth it! 

Touted as a French gourmet gift boutique cafe, you can find a variety of yummy sweet treats in gift bags, tea, condiments and etc at the gourmet gift boutique section. 

Even though the cafe section isn't exactly the biggest cafe you can find, it can still house a good 20 to 30 pax comfortably. The whole place exudes a sense of elegance with the red with dark oak colour theme, and yet remains spaciously cozy. 

And now to our orders for the day.

Flower Blend Herbal Iced Tea - $6

Mix of hibiscus petals, dried apples, rosehip and orange peels, cornflower and marigold, mango and tropical fruits

Unlike the other iced tea served at #BlogMeetSg event held at Edit Lifestyle, this ice tea turned out a little more to the bitter side, probably due to the herbal infusion, so I added about half the vial of sugar syrup for taste. Even so, the sweet fragrance of rose and fruits were still pretty strong and made the drink both refreshing and palatable. The slight herbal taste also made this tea a good pair with the sweet macarons we had for dinner later. 

Eggs Benedicte - $16

2 poached eggs on toast with Parma ham, shaved parmesan and hollandaise sauce 

The prettiness of the dish aside, the toast was really toasted till crispy and crackly, the way I like it! It may be a little bit of a challenge to slice and eat using knife and fork, but for those who love your toast crackly and crispy beneath the runny yolk of a poached egg, this is the Eggs Ben for you! 

Despite getting drenched in the liquid yolk from the cut poached egg, the toast remains crispy and with just the right amount of saltiness from the parma ham to taste, this is definitely a simply delicious choice for breakfast or brunch! 

Look at that yummlicious goodness of the runny yolk!

Next up, what else will I order for desserts when there's a fine selection of yummy french macarons?

Hediard "Bar a Macarons" - $15

6 Hediard's exclusive macarons served on a "bar" plate for a macaron's tasting on your own or to share at anytime of the day: 3 macarons "Les Fruits" (randomly picked from our 15 flavours box) & 3 macarons "Les Saveurs" (randomly picked from our 15 flavours box)

Although the macarons are supposed to be served randomly picked, we asked the friendly server for a favour and were allowed to choose from the available flavours for the day, with 1 of each flavour. 

From left to right: Cherry Pistachio, Chocomel, Vanilla, Rose & Lychee, Praline, Rhubarb & Tarragon (not matching the colour on the menu). 

We were also lucky to have visited when V-day wasn't exactly over yet, so we got 2 flavours in heart shaped! How lovely! 

Chocomel and Rose & Lychee. 

Didn't get to try the other flavours (pretty curious about rhubarb & tarragon) but I'm so glad I chose Chocomel. As the name suggests, it's a layer of caramel filling sandwiched in between two chocolate meringue shells. Imagine that!

As for rose & lychee, the rose flavoured shell is a little too strong in taste and almost completely covered the sweetness of the lychee filling. A good choice for rose flavoured macaron lovers who wants an extra complexity and oomph in the overall flavour. 

Hediard French Cafe & Delicatessen Boutique is located at 123-125 Tanglin Road, Tudor Court. 

For more information, visit their website HERE

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia's Review: The House of Robert Timms French Macaron

I've long heard of (and seen) Robert Timms Cafe and their monstrous sized french macarons but never had the chance to try them out.

And yes, I did notice that they're called macaroons but they really are french macarons.

As it was just a stopover 15 minutes coffee break for us that day, so we really did just had some coffee and I decided to stuff in a giant macaron at the same time. Haha, greedy me.
 Needless to say, I went for Choc Mint Macaron.

 Went for their Iced Latte and they turned out surprisingly good. Even with a generous dumping of ice, the coffee was still pretty strong and fragrant!

I always have the belief that if a place does iced coffee well, then they have good coffee. :)

A got a dog like bear latte art on his hot latte while YN got a cat like bunny!

And now back to business. My giant Choc Mint french macaron.

And to show you how big it is. Look, as big as an iPhone 4s.

Texture wise, it's still pretty well done.
A crisp outer surface of the shell that cracks beautifully when bitten and the inside rather moist and crumbly.
But the taste was.... MEHHHH.

First bite and I frowned, thinking. "Did they serve me the wrong flavour? I ordered Choc Mint!"
And then I even went to the display chiller to double check, this IS Choc Mint. Okay, WHAT?

There's absolutely nothing chocolatey about this macaron, not even the colour, pfft!
I could hardly taste the mint even, it was just a horribly artificial dead sweetness to each and every bite of the macaron shell and the thick layer of frozen filling inside.

No good, Robert Timms. This is not good.

I'm not sure if the other flavours are any good, enough I did come across one that claims the lavender was okay.
But really, try at your own risk. This giant macaron is $6 and it is worth that $6 in terms of quantity. I couldn't bear to finish it in the end. This is probably the 2nd time (after Bakerzin) I left unfinished french macarons on the table to be disposed off.

For more infomation on Robert Timms, visit their website HERE

Till then,
Mia Foo

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Mia's Review: The Garden Slug

I remembered it was a couple of years ago when I first visited The Garden Slug. A recommended the place to us and drove YS and I there, claiming it's more worth the money than *cough cough* wild.... hon...ey *cough cough* After that, I vaguely remembered bringing Sa over, and then revisiting one more time with A and someone else again. 

And now, my review will be based on my 4th and 5th visits. Yes, combined! (there was a 6th recently but I didn't snap any pictures... so no review.) 

On my 4th visit, it was a gathering with 3 of the TK girlies, M, A, and KK. 

 Yes, that's a super adorable signboard of the cafe. We actually did a silly 'vandalism' on it using my smartphone's photo editor app because of a mispronunciation of the word 'slug' by M. *rofl*

The Garden Slut.

 There, the cuteness in colour! :)

 They do serve a rather extensive menu. I've left out the starters and all day breakfast page of the menu. They also do serve some decent looking desserts, which I always told myself, "yes, today I'm going to try their desserts!" since my 2nd visit... But up till my 6th visit, I've yet to try any. :(

IMO, they're really pretty generous with their food serving portions, so having a dessert after the mains can be rather challenging.

My drink for the evening, Nutella Hot Chocolate - $5.50

Yes, I bet you have the exact first thought as me when I first saw this, going through your head right now. 

"Huh, their nutella free one?"

Oh well, didn't I just said that they're really generous with their serving portions? 

This mug of nutella hot chocolate, albeit not very big, is packed full of rich rich RICH chocolately nutella flavour. There's so much nutella all over the mug I didn't even know what to do with them. The drink was so rich, the leftover nutella just wouldn't dissolve in. 

Every sip of the drink just fills you up with an overwhelming richness of chocolate and nutella. Really too much, even for a chocolate-addict like me. 

I wished they've wasted less of those nutella.

Roasted Portobello Mushrooms - Price forgotten. 

This is a must try for mushroom lovers! These huge portobello mushrooms were roasted till tender and juicy, and served with (if I didn't remember wrongly) garlic olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette... something. We all didn't enjoy the balsamic sauce for it was acutely sour. The garlic olive oil was much better, but you really do not need these sauces to enjoy the mushrooms, for they're already packed with savoury goodness of their own.

My Seafood Sandwich - $19.50

It might seem a little pricey for a sandwich, but IMO it's really worth the price. The sandwich was stuffed generously with chunks of tasty battered parmesan fish and salad lettuce, which actually did make eating it a challenge for me. It also came with my favourite potato wedges, fried calamari and cherry tomatoes! The best sides combination I can ever ask for. 

My 5th visit was with OHYZ, Finaldust, and M after playing with Munchkin & Einstein at Pets Republic opposite the cafe.

My Bangers & Mash - $16.90

I like the sausages, chewy and flavourful. Plus, they were of the perfect serving portion that kept me full yet not sick of the taste. However, the mash potatoes didn't match up to my expectations. I found them at an awkward interval between smooth and gritty, which failed to impress my taste buds. They were also too dry and the gravy obviously wasn't enough to save it.

But what's really memorable for my 5th visit was...

 LA DU REE~

Even though The Garden Slug serves their own cakes and desserts, they're really very nice to allow us to bring our own macarons in, and very thoughtful and sweet to lend us one of their plates and help us do up a macaron-art piece! The staff even collected all our used utensils and wiped the table clean before bringing this to our table.

Yes, that's a lit candle you see on the 'cake' and the word 'Birthday' was blocked by the chocolate macaron.

The staff actually got their chef to draw this up for us, isn't that really wonderful of them?
My apologies if you think that I'm being too easily pleased, but I've experienced restaurant staff who don't even bother helping you getting the birthday cake out of the PLASTIC BAG and just pop the cake in the box, which is in turn, in the bag together with the plastic cutter, candles and all onto the barely cleaned up table and left just like that.
I'll give them a million thumbs-up for their excellent service from this group of very service-oriented staff.

For more information, visit their website HERE

Till then,
Mia

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Mia's Weekend Getaway: Mia Eats Australia - Sweet Treats!

As I've mentioned so many times in my previous Australia trip posts that I'll do a separate entry about sweet treats, here it is! Just in case you haven't noticed, I have a major sweet tooth! 

And my current obsession?  Macarons, AKA French Macaroons. 

Yup, these 3 macarons were from The Acland Cake Shop at St. Kilda, and they were at $2.50 AUD per piece if I'm not wrong. I've gotten them in Chocolate, Coffee, and Earl Grey (a flavour I always wanted to try). These macarons were somehow rather disappointing. Very sweet, especially the Earl Grey, which has this medicine kind of sickening sweetness to it (yikes!), and the macaron shells were all the way crunchy and very airy. IMO, a good macaron shell needs to be crunchy on the outside yet turns chewy on the inside. These macarons has failed to make the cut. Taste wise, were mediocre as well.

Next up was the oversized macarons at Queen Victoria Market, obviously selling at $2.80 AUD per piece unless distressed. I only bought one, and also my favourite salted caramel, to try out. Frankly speaking, they didn't look like a macaron at all because they're so big! They looked more like a mini-burger or a melting moment biscuit. Eating it was pretty tough too, because i couldn't crunch down in one bite. In the end I gotta bite off the top shell first then bite the bottom shell and felt like a kid eating a Big Mac, no joke.

Taste wise, they were definitely better than those at St. Kilda. The texture was more similar to macarons at Pique Nique, more solid and more 'cakey'. Taste wise, it's a pretty standard salted caramel taste. However, due to its size, I'll say it's pretty worth the money. *rofl*

Finally, my last macaron from the trip, La Belle at Chadstone Shopping Centre. 

 

The store reminded me of Laduree, very similar! 

 If i'm not wrong it was $3 to $3.20 AUD per piece (YS's treat so I didn't know how much it was!) and I got their Raspberry Chocolate. Selection of flavours wise, they were pretty similar with Laduree as well. And the taste too! A little too sweet (just like how Laduree is, to me) but texture wise was perfect. As you can see from the picture the outside of the macaron shell was crunchy and slightly crumbly while the insides were dense and slightly airy, moist and chewy. 

But then again, $3.20AUD/$3.80 SGD per piece? I'll rather go back to Canele, no doubts about it.

Then there's the melting moment biscuit from Hope Bakery at Sovereign Hill. I couldn't quite remember how much it was, but it should be $2+ AUD. Have always heard of this Australian sweet treat (along with their Lemington Cake) but couldn't seem to find any in Singapore. I'll say they tasted pretty good! It's like a layer of lemon-flavoured cream sandwiched in two pieces of buttery, crumbly shortbread biscuits. Rather filling for a sweet treat, too! I wouldn't mind having them again if I ever find them in SG. :)

And then, more Churros! This was the churros from the Spanish Doughnuts franchise with one of the branch at Southern Cross Station. They had a wide range of selection of churros (at different prices) and I just went for the simple, glazed churros at about $2+ AUD. This churros is definitely a better churros than the one I had at L'Olivio. I can definitely taste that it's made from a Choux pastry, and they were fried until crispy on the outside and still slightly moist on the inside. However, the sugar glaze was too much and it felt like my churros was totally drenched in sugar syrup. Would have better preferred a cinnamon sugar one, but I didn't seem to find it there.

Lastly, this was my final sweet treat/meal I had in Melbourne. French Crepes! The small cafe was located at a small alley near Flinder's Station, just 5 to 10 minutes away. Can't remember the name of the cafe nor their price listing, sorry about that. 

 First up, their coffee. I remembered ranting about their bad coffee standards and finally I found a better one.  But that's because I went for a strong brew (double shot, perhaps) of their Mocha, and comparing this to any other coffee in Singapore, they're still bad. I really gotta taste it really carefully to find the coffee taste 'hidden' within this strong brew. Else, I'll just think of it as an unsweetened hot milo. Melbourne is definitely not my coffee place. 

 My choice of crepes for the day, Chocolate Banana crepes! There's definitely a generous serving of sliced fresh bananas and a huge drizzle of good chocolate sauce. However, I'll very much prefer those Japanese style crepes with a much thinner crepe skin. These french crepes are made very very much thicker, about 2 to 3x as thick, and so feels kinda 'mushy' and 'uncooked' in the middle. Well, I'm definitely not much of a crepes person and YS insisted that this was a very well done french crepes. I could hardly finish the crepes in the end because the texture of the crepes just got increasingly sickening to me. 

And that's YS's plain butter crepes, which really looked like a badly made roti prata to me.

And this basically concludes my entire series of entries for my weekend getaway to Australia. :) 

Till then,

Mia

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