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.