look at ’em. like a bounty spring harvest from a garden of macaron. yes, it was full bloom at adriano zumbo patissier this afternoon, with such flavours as mango and jasmin; rose and lychee; yoghurt and chilli; pineapple and ginger; green apple; and sticky bun.

!

but i am getting ahead of myself. first: lunch.

we met deborah at circle cafe for continuing november birthday celebrations. the kid was evidently into her second month of birthday festivities, the evidence being an enormous brown paper bag of pink silicon baking paraphernalia. thanks, lady!

being forward-thinking girls, we had already planned dessert at zumbo cafe, and so… what to eat that will line the stomach and leave enough room for what i considered the main event?

a delicious toasted baguette topped with a mound of sauteed spinach and generous dollops of goat’s curd, is what. it tasted healthy yet unboring, though by halfway through my mouth was already experiencing that familiar post-spinach trauma (not so much green bits caught in my teeth, but the weird slippery-catchy feeling on my tongue and membranes). it must have actually been healthy too, because i was still hungry after i finished. on to round two!

adriano zumbo cafe chocolat was much more subdued than i’d anticipated for a saturday afternoon. perhaps the bizarre weather had kept everyone at home. we perched ourselves on the high stools at the wooden workbench, and made a half-hearted attempt to look as though we knew what we wanted. on the patient waitress’s third approach, i picked paris.

creamy rose brulee and fresh lychees topped with raspberry sorbet and a chopped-up rose macaron. accompanying this was a coconut and sago milkshake mingling in a beaker with an intense and tart strawberry puree. the waitress had said that it was quite a light dessert, and it’s true, i barely registered its presence in my gut. and in my head, what did i make of this ispahan-meets-bubble tea ensemble? all the components were quite delectable, and the pudding on its own was fine, and the milkshake unusual and clever, and it looked lovely coming towards us, all scattered with rose petals… which weren’t particularly fragrant — i don’t know if they were meant to be eaten or not; i chose not. and yet i found myself gazing fondly and longingly over at deborah’s not a hamburger. now that i’d come back for.

and then… yes, we walked over to the cake shop, and gaped in wonder at the new chocolate slabs, and pointy domes, and the great loaf of chocolate fondant festooned with shards of technicolor chocolate, and macaron halves, and glazed strawberries. and at some point i may have gasped out loud at the rice pudding eclair — wait ’til a certain rice-pudding-poopooing, eclair-purist frenchman hears about this —

but the one that came home with me was the pistachio and raspberry tart, with its tidy lid of pistachio praline, and its plump raspberry (and a hidden reservoir of raspberry coulis i’m told), and its peekaboo pistachio ganache peeping out of the pastry crust.

breakfast tomorrow sorted.