When the beautiful people at Zomato decided to procure some of the most delicious picnic treats you can get in Sydney, then look into their crystal ball and pick a summery day in mid-Autumn to organise a gathering at Prince Alfred Park (just a stone’s throw from Central Station), who could turn down such a delicious invitation?! Not us!
We have included a quick round up of the yummy treats we sampled and photographed at the picnic event.
On the beverage front, there was an amazing cold brew from Haven Specialty Coffee. You may recall, we reviewed Haven a few months ago but didn’t get the chance to sample their cold brew. The cold brew is aromatic, with hints of vanilla, as delicate as a cold brew should be and, coming straight from the ice bucket, was a refreshing treat on a warm day. Little wonder that the folks at Haven have chosen to bottle this successful formula!
From coffees to teas, Knick Knack Cafe is a Sydney CBD-based cafe that does healthy, cold pressed blend teas. Like the cold brew from Haven, these teas are best served chilled and there’s nothing conventional with Knick Knack’s teas. Their Blue Lemonade tea is made with organic butterfly pea-flower, vanilla bean syrup, and lemon. The floral notes are complemented with a sweet fragrance from the vanilla syrup. Foraging for Berries is a sugar-free cold brew fruit tea, with cold pressed watermelon and chia seeds. It has a wild, fruity taste with textures from the chia seeds. Chewing your drink is a unique sensation that I could get used to, especially if the drink taste as good as this one does.
The colours from the food on the Zomato picnic rugs had us behaving like bees to blossoms, diving in, and hovering over the treats.
No picnic would be complete without doughnuts! Zomato’s doughnuts were supplied by Doughnut Time, who specialise in hand-dipped doughnuts. The Veruca Salt doughnut has a salted caramel filling and is dusted with cinnamon sugar on top. Then there’s the Crème De La Crème which is filled with a crème brulee custard filling and decorated with toffee lacing. Each of the doughnuts, as well as being delicious, was a textural experience – soft in the right places, with sweet, little crunchy surprises.
Anna Chan Tarts supplied the range of striking and colourful tarts. Her tart pastry was nice and short, and the fillings have a heavy influence from Japan and the Orient. She had the Black Sesame Totoro and Earl Grey Rilakkuma tart at the picnic and they were some of the prettiest tarts that I have seen, and tasted so good. If you want to get into them, head to The Picnic Burwood on a Saturday morning. I think we’ll be heading there very soon too!
The Cupcake Princess provided us with an array of colourful mini vanilla cupcakes topped with cute little fondant discs that were printed with cool foodie emojis in edible ink. The cake and frosting were paired perfectly with the right level of sweetness and were soft and moist too! A definite win-win!
I will admit that we did sample dessert before our mains…how naughty of us! The Garden Court Restaurant at The Sofitel, Sydney provided a tasting board filled with quality ingredients and the distinctly European flavours are a treat. We picked at the smoked salmon, pickles and cheese.
Macchiato provided a trailer full of pizza, with every flavour on the menu laid out on the rugs…pretty impressive! The crusts were thin, yet soft, and the cheese was generous. Nothing beats a good wood-fired pizza.
Pie Face weren’t going to disappoint either with their bevy of pies, quiches, sausage rolls, and pastries. I tucked into their mini chicken pie. The pastry was flaky, the chicken was chunky and creamy. Super yum.
We would like to thank Naomi, and her team from Zomato, for putting on a delightful spread for us. Our tummies thank you too!
Leave a Reply