Upon entering glass, a few moments will be enough to recognise the aspirations of its acclaimed interior designer Tony Chi. The ‘invisible design’ is no doubt noticeable, as a sense of space and welcoming-comfort is created by clear glass panels that are grand complemented by room-length mirrors which optically extend the room. At night whilst the city buzzes with energy and vibrancy below; above in glass, one can escape into this sanctuary of warmth, created by earthy colours and choice of tone, enough to lose a healthy sense of time.

The impetus for booking glass amongst the other options for Sugar Hits this particular night was that glass is offering a chocolate assiette. If you are not phased to such a short description, I would be interested to know the reason why, because even my interest towards this normally – which I would describe as hard-to-get attention and elicit any sort of opinion – was immediately attracted. Not only are you presented with a white chocolate and pandan parfait, but there is also a chocolate fondant, raspberry marshmallow bitter chocolate fondue and Earl Grey tea ice cream rolled in cookies and cream biscuit. Swoon.

Tonight, our Sugar Hit clique consists of FFichiban, Pupu, C and myself. A positive note of attending a Sugar Hit with camera-yielding food bloggers is that every patron is presented with their own plate, therefore food-blogger dining etiquette does not apply: you don’t have to wait for us to take pictures. Our booking is for 9:30 pm and we find ourselves arriving in a lively packed room on an expectedly-empty Thursday night.

Sadly, whilst for a regular patron, the atmosphere and lighting of glass is perfectly matched; for a food blogger, the hearth is squeezed with unease and agony as the lighting is poor and no doubt the pictures will be noisy, blurry and pretty unsightly.

Left: Chocolate Fondant, Middle: Earl Grey ice cream rolled in cookies and cream on top of a white chocolate and pandan parfait, Right: Blow-torched marshmallow with a shot of raspberry bitter chocolate fondue.

If you’ve seen the commercial on TV that advertises a new snack that takes the centre out of a muffin, as it supposedly is the peak of muffin enjoyment before it all goes downhill. Then I suppose the chocolate fondant is like the gooey-centre of Max Brenner’s Chocolate Soufflé taken out and made to a benchmark quality. The chocolate is warm and wickedly rich and with each spoonful, one cannot proffer words of description to describe the guilty pleasures within. There is silent agreement without words amongst the table that the fondant is perfect.

I think Earl Grey is an acquired taste that you will eventually come to appreciate, the distinctive aroma and flavour results from the infusion of bergamot orange. The fragrance of the fruit is defined and when imported into ice cream, it is frustrating that one cannot readily find this flavour offered at ice cream shops. To top it off, the smaller-than-a-golf-ball sized ice cream dollop has been rolled into cookies and cream biscuit, which is subtle and delightful as a texture on the palette. Served on top of a white chocolate and pandan parfait, for me, it didn’t really make sense. The pleasant and nutty flavour of the pandan overwhelmed the subtle hint of white chocolate, but I didn’t mind this because I’m a fan of pandan. However, I found that I preferred eating the earl grey ice cream separate to the parfait such as to appreciate the refined flavour of the pandan by itself, instead of confusing the senses with the combination of pandan and earl grey. I suppose looking back on the experience; it was combination that sort-of-worked.

Finally, the blow-torched marshmallow is served with a raspberry bitter chocolate fondue. I shot myself in the foot by eating the marshmallow without lathering it with the chocolate. But who can’t resist the burnt aroma? What followed was that I was left with the fondue without anything to dip. To make matters worse, the spoon which you are given doesn’t fit in the shot glass, so I ingeniously used the tea spoon.

The sharp and refreshing flavour of raspberry speckles (they were that small) when combined with bitter chocolate left me wondering how ‘it worked’. It was average to say the least and perhaps it needed the marshmallow to make it more-than-average.

If any of our readers have recommendations for the next Sugar Hit that I should try, feel free to leave a comment. Or, if you’ve also tried glass brasserie’s Sugar Hit, let me know how you found it.

Glass Brasserie

Hilton Hotel Sydney

Level 2, 488 George Street

Sydney, NSW 2000

Ph: (02) 9265 6068

Posted by D

Credits to FFichiban for the photos.

Taking a walk into Regent Place is like stepping into the world of Japanland. Just downstairs is a games arcade where you can play some arcade games (flex your basketball muscles hee hee) or show off your impressive claw machine skillz by winning some cute, scary-cute or simply weird stuffed toys. While upstairs is a foodies dream with not 1, not 2 but 3 shops owned by the respected Kimitaka Azuma. Walking in from George St we are first greeted by the newly renovated Azuma Patisserie (previously Cafe Azuma), then on the left is noodle bar Ton Ton and finally back on the right is Azuma Kushiyaki.

My first visit to Azuma Kushiyaki had left me a very happy man finally finding skewer heaven in Sydney. Although there are quite a few others places that serve skewers, their quality does not match that here of Azuma but then again the prices reflect this quality haha. They also have a extensive and impressive sake list! Sake and skewers XD is there a better combination? How about the addition of a Sugar Hit ?

Yes, I thought the tea was interesting enough to get 3 photos of it hee hee

I was excited when I read that Azuma Kushiyaki would be holding Sugar Hits and so on the first night of Good Food Month I made a spontaneous sugar run.

Here Comes the Food

East Meets West – Dessert Tasting Plate; vanilla cheesecake & Belgian chocolate mousse

You should had seen the huge grin I had on my face when I saw that each person got presented with TWO boxes. I was literally jumping with joy in my seat haha. The first Sugar Hit of 2009 seem to have totally upped the benchmark from last year. The vanilla cheesecake was ever-so-soft it was almost like a marshmallow and light and airy it was like eating a cloud sprinkled with happiness and sunshine in the form of colourful fruits. The chocolate mousse was more dense and rich but still had a very fluffy texture and smooth as silk. Each bite caused an involuntary smile to span your face mmmm pure bliss!

East Meets West – Dessert Tasting Plate; green tea rolled cake with chestnuts, mochi with kinako served with vanilla ice cream and Japanese brown sugar syrup & nori seaweed langue de chat biscuits

In the second box was the most irresistible ice cream with mochi and kinako combination. With the Japanese (Okinawa) brown sugar syrup being the icing on top. The warming rich sweetness of the syrup mixes beautifully with the ice cream, which is mostly melted, while the mochi gave a sticky and fun bite to this dessert. The green tea cake was also rich with green tea flavour and the chestnut added some texture and nuttiness to the cake. The seaweed biscuits were delightfully crispy and seemed to be lightly covered in sugar.

At 20 dora a pop this Sugar Hit is very worth it and I wouldn’t mind going back for seconds mmmm especially the ice cream… SO GOOD!

Previous Azumaing:

Azuma Kushiyaki – Regent Place, Sydney CBD

Cafe Azuma – Sydney CBD, Sydney

Azuma – Chifley Plaza, Sydney

Azuma Kushiyaki

Ground Floor Regent Place Shopping (next to KFC on George St – once inside it is past TonTon on the right)

501 George Street

Sydney NSW 2000

Ph: (02) 9267 7775

http://www.siff.com.au/_webapp_276112/Azuma_Kushiyaki

FFichiban

Now come oonnn.. Giant Bald Head Chockie? Who cannot associate bald man with chocoalte now ?

Do you get a chocolate craving whenever you see a bald man? If that is the case, then welcome to my world! There is nothing specifically about bald men that arouses a chocolate craving from within but it is because who cannot think of Max Brenner each time they see one? Max Brenner was one of the first if not the first of the chocolate cafe trend that has been sprouting up with places like Lindt Cafe, Guylian Cafe, Boon, San Churros, The Chocolate Room, Cocoa…. and on and on. It was a big part of my growing chocolate addiction as it used to be so close (in Chatswood) but nowadays have to go up north or to the city to get their creamy, rich hot chocolates, cool refreshing PB Iced Chockie and their molten, moan-inducing souffle.

Soo if I drank the Dark Cinnamon I would turn into a beefcake pumping a chocolate bar, half covered in foam? …I’ll take 10 please!

Since Cupcake (yes, she is still alive yayyyyy ^^!) is out of Sydney we don’t have much time to catch up with her but when we do it is usually over food and especially if they insigate some sort of chocolate-induced coma. It was a bright and sunny winter day so we decided on Manly so we could also take a nice stroll on the beach haha (I also like classical music and candle lit dinners ) I actually haven’t been to Max in a while so I was surprised to see the new colourful cakes on display in the first photo and they also had some Limited Edition winter drinks and tasting platter.

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