[FOOD REVIEW] Aqua S Ice Cream Parlor, CBD

Since I'll be going back to uni tomorrow, I thought I'd at least post about this before I sleep! I'm a bit nervous to go back to uni anyway so I probably won't be sleeping much haha. And thinking about ice cream might make me feel better about it :p

On to the ice cream! If you haven't noticed, Aqua S (Regent Place, 501 George St) has been all the buzz on Instagram and at any time I talk about ice cream with someone. I tried it on two different occasions to check out the new flavours and thus the salted dark chocolate flavour is unfortunately not available anymore :( but sea salt will always be there!

The best thing about this place is that it's really close to Town Hall station. It's opposite another popular place called Chanoma Cafe. Although others have talked about long lines here, I've been lucky to miss them on both occasions. It's probably because I go at times like 5 and 7 on weekdays when everyone either wants to go home or eat dinner haha. It's important to know that there's not much seating here, there were only like 3 or 4 tables and they're usually occupied. I'd say waiting in line, ordering and waiting for my ice cream took around 5-10 minutes max. Relatively fast.

You can choose between a waffle cone or cup but ice cream always feels incomplete without the cone and so I opted for the cone! In the above, I got the Sea Salt w/ Salted Dark Chocolate Cone + grilled marshmallow ($5.30).  The ice cream cone costed $3.80 and an extra $1.50 for each topping which includes grilled marshmallows, popping candy and fairy floss. I really just wanted to try the ice cream so I didn't want anything fancy. The grilled marshmallow was okay, it was really soft but not really worth the price for me.

As for the ice cream, I was actually surprised at how creamy it was! Although the salted dark chocolate flavour isn't available anymore, it tasted exactly how I would expect it to taste like. It had a very rich dark chocolate taste but I think the combination of sea salt with it made it really salty! By the end of it, all I could taste was salty creamy ice cream. The ice cream has that nice whipped cream sort of texture and is definitely filling! I actually liked the sea salt flavour, it was very interesting, salty but refreshing at the same time. I liked the cone too, it has a hint of chocolate flavour and is nice and crunchy! Oh and for all the photo takers, beware! This ice cream melts extremely fast! My friend took this one photo and it already started melting haha! By the time I walked out of the shop, I was already furiously licking it to save my hands.

And now on to the Chinese New Year flavours! These will be only available for two weeks (probably only 1 week and a bit by the time I post this) since they change flavours every two weeks to keep things interesting for everyone. This time around, they have the Taro and Mandarin flavour available in a combo with the sea salt flavour! I really wanted to try both so I grabbed my sister and made her get the mandarin flavour hehe. (She took the photo as well :D) To my surprise, I liked the mandarin combo with sea salt much better than taro. Alhough taro really did have the taste of taro, But I think the sweetness of it overwhelmed the taro taste a bit. It was extremely sweet when eaten along with the sea salt flavour. It probably didn't help that the other was salty and in turn made the taro taste even sweeter. I think the taro and sea salt flavours are both very dominant and so I didn't really like this super creamy combo but I think individually, taro would've tasted pretty good. It's as creamy as the sea salt flavour.

On the other hand, I thought the mandarin flavour was on point! It really tasted like a mandarin! It tasted like a fresh and ripe mandarin that has lots of juice and is sweet and refreshing at the same time. The mandarin flavour was extremely refreshing actually! I'd definitely recommend giving this a try if you like mandarins. In addition, when accompanied with the sea salt flavour, it gives your tongue a nice break from the saltiness and even after finishing it, you wouldn't feel too overwhelmed by all that ice cream you devoured.

Overall, I think this place is definitely worth a try if you're into soft serve-like ice cream that is really creamy and packed with flavour. Only down side would be how quickly it starts melting, it never fails to get on to my tissue and hands! Not sure if it's worth all the hype that's going on but I'd say I liked it and wouldn't mind going again to try other different flavours in the future.

[FOOD REVIEW] Alice's Tea Cafe, Chatswood

I haven't had the time to talk about this cafe I visited a while ago since the time I bought the vouchers from Scoopon for the breakfast and high tea. I went on different occasions for the two and so I wasn't pigging out! :p 

Alice's Tea Cafe is a cafe located on Level 3, Westfield Chatswood (1 Anderson Street). It has an 'Alice in Wonderland' theme with chess pieces and soft elegant chairs. There's even a teddy bear on their little couches! However, there were some chairs and couches that looked a bit dirty and stained so that was a bit of a turn off. I didn't even realise until my friend mentioned it! At times, it can be a bit loud since it is located in Westfield but it is also a nice place to chill and unwind in a busy environment. Service seemed relatively fast; probably around 10-15 minutes?

I've had the Mocha ($3.80) a few times already and I liked it but wanted to opt for something different this time and they happened to add Green Tea Latte ($3.50) to the menu. I've never tried any sort of green tea latte before so I didn't know what to expect but I personally wasn't a fan. It seemed to have some powdery flecks and was quite milky. The green tea taste seemed quite artificial and was quite sweet for green tea. If I come here again, I don't think I'll order this.

Although the latte wasn't anything impressive, I really liked the Eggs Benedict with free range eggs, hollandaise sauce and ham served on sourdough with baby spinach ($13). Isn't the pig board super cute?! Haha, I think they changed to serving with these recently because I used to just get a big white plate. I think this one is either a hit or miss. The quality of this cafe varies every time I visit. The last time I ate this, the egg didn't ooze out at all! It was fully cooked. But the other time I visited, the egg was so soft and fluffy and the oozing yolk just made it all the more droolworthy. The ham is pretty average, nothing special, reminds me of woolies ham. That would go for the bread and spinach as well. The sauce was nice and runny with a slight tinge of sourness to make the saltiness of the ham a bit more endearing. Overall, I liked it but I'm rather iffy about the quality of the food here these days.

I can't really remember the price of the high tea now, it's been a while but it's okay since I wouldn't recommend it anyway haha. The apple juice tastes just like Goulburn Valley but there was an occasion where it tasted really sour and diluted and so I don't think I'd get juice here anymore if I come back.

The high tea here was quite mediocre. The fruit cake and tarts on the top tier looked really similar to ones you could get from Woolworths and they did taste like the ones there so I would assume they were store bought. As for the macarons, I couldn't really taste the difference between the flavours, they were all just super sweet. Full of sugar with macaron texture.

On the second tier were raisin scones with jam and whipped cream. Nothing too crazy here but I personally didn't like the raisin scones. There were a lot of raisins and it was quite hard on the outside and it was soft on the inside but quite dry. 

The best thing about this high tea were surprisingly the sandwiches! I don't know if it's because everything else was sub par but they tasted quite nice. Perfectly sized and a bit warm. Chicken was a bit dry but it nicely complemented with the tomato and greens. The bread was nice too. Wouldn't say they were the best sandwiches ever but definitely the best tier.

Overall, I don't think I would come back here for their high tea. I think the mocha was nice though. It had a nice balance of bitterness and sweetness to it that I enjoyed. The egg benedict was enjoyable but due to the varying quality, I don't think I'd come back especially for it.