Guylian Cafe, Darling Quarter - Sydney

Guylian Belgian Chocolate now has three cafes in Sydney CBD.  My first experience was at the outlet in the Opera Quays, along the walkway to the Opera House, a strategic location with views of the Harbour Bridge and passing sea vehicles of various kinds.  Recently I had the opportunity to check out the Darling Quarter joint, a much bigger place but with the same smiles of service and in fact more variety of offerings.  I have not yet visited the third outlet at 91 George Street at the Rocks.  Quality hazelnuts, cocoa butter and West African sourced cocoa beans underlie the Guylian product.  Above image, centre, shows the a wedding portrait of Guy and Liliane Foubert, the business founders.

The range of obvious products can be described as pralines, fruit mousses, milk choc, dark choc and truffles. For sit down meals and savoury stuff, you can have the choice of breakfast creations, waffles and pancakes, cookies, muffins, macaroons, bread snacks, salads and late night caps. There are also beef or chicken pies, plus quiche dishes.

Above, smoked salmon with capers accompany baguette slices and a choice of a lemon slice (the Belgian styled pistolets).  Below, the packaged product beautifully arranged on a shelf display. 

There are temptations like tiramisu, the poached caramel pineapple cake and 100% Pure Pleasure, which encompasses Belgian chocolate mousse with almond pannacotta and a so-called Guylian glaze.  For a couple, I recommend the chocolate degustation plate - and then get into sports gear and go for a run, together.  The plate has ice cream, chocolate, cake and dessert samplings.

One of the main aims of visiting Guylian is obviously to try the chocolate drinks, although they do serve affogatos and coffee based variations. I developed a fondness for the hazelnut praline choc milkshake

(image below).  Teas, juices, champagne, wines and iced drinks are also available.  There are wide clear windows to look out at the man made facilities just outside along the outdoor walkway, with the UTS Tower obvious and tall in the distance.

My impressions of the Guylian Cafe, at Darling Quarter in Sydney's Darling Harbour, are:

Atmosphere:  Trendy and spacious

Location:  Touristy, families and after work office people

Taste: Superb Chocolate

People Engagement:  Smiling, inviting and helpful

Service:  Friendly and quick

Best Time To Visit:  Mid-afternoons and late nights

Fav Dish Experienced: Opera Evolve

Would I Return?:  Yummy yes.

A Life in the City Centre - The Bright Side

In a city centre, if you live there, I imagine that one can more easily try new places, whether for a gig, catch up with mates, a quiet time with the special one or experiment the menu at a new eatery. The social media harps on suggesting and trying such new joints and people you know or on Facebook actually talk about them. Okay, so dress up and off you go and reach there in under half an hour (for Sydney or Melbourne that is). No fuss, you can check out what the demographics in that new cool place are wearing or chatting about - and quickly pick up what you want and decide not to. You do not even have to catch a ride on a vehicle, but walk, passing quickly by the jam lock traffic on city streets. The weather can be inclement, but you can duck from one sheltered buiding to another.


If you have moved on from the roast or salad and two veg combo meal for daily consumption, you do find a wider array of choices, especially in the exotic stuff (yes, chicken legs are available, if you ask). Living in the city centre means eventually you know someone from one of the major ethnic immigrant groups in Australia. Hey, we can't stick to our blonde haired partner always, especially when he or she is anyway trying out the new fangled stuff and fusion cuisine themselves. Just realise there are hubs in Sydney (or tribal villages in Melbourne) and it is easy to proceed. Purists say all these multicultural things have been watered down for the consumption of the still mainstream society here. Who cares? We have a taste of the sports, fitness, music, arts, food and trends from varied communities and foreign countries before we decide to spend some money on budget airlines to fly there and try the real stuff.


For migrants, the city centre also easily offers home and soul familiarity in the groups that congregate, especially around "their" food outlets -for example, just hang around the various parts of southern George Street or Surry Hills or Newtown in Sydney. You can catch the latest fad movie and walk home to be in bed within a decent few minutes, instead of facing the challenge of trasnportation back to the suburbs. Hey, what an opportunity to catch those special event movies that begin after midnight! Hair saloons are still abuzz in the east Asian strips of both Melbourne and Sydney after 6pm, even on weekends! There is no need to pay those superlative parking fees that are imposed on hapless visitors from outside the city centre.


You can buy less stuff in terms of groceries and kitchen supplies, for your personal fridge is only a stone's throw away and maintained by the commercial providers. When you have periodic bouts of insomnia due to the neighbouring noise from down the street, you just buckle up and join the revellers. Never mind staying up late, for you literally can be in your work place not long after you jump out of bed the next morning.


Summer is a great time to reside in the city centre. There are festivals, night club events, people who really don't want to go home as it is too warm and the sun sets late anyway. New Year's Eve brings home the true benefits of residing in a city centre, and many mates want to know you better and stay over. If you still do physical retail, instead of on-line buying,you can pop over to real great sales way before the hordes arriving from the outer west. You can buy takeaway from fancy diners and still have them warm on your kitchen counter - no need to microwave them, and besides they do taste odd after being put in a microwave.


In autumn, you can be at the ANZAC Day memorial way before dawn, with lots of time to spare, and I mean at major memorials. The airport is so close to the city centre in Sydney. You can escape to lonely places, those that you cannot even imagine, and on coming back, you quickly join the gravy train of the city centre, and I don't mean those dripping wet and messy stuff cluttered at some corners of some parts of an otherwise great city centre. This is the gravy train of a spectrum of roles to earn money and keep your career moving, provided the economy is doing well, even if you move on to another city. In a city centre, you do have the reality, and at times, illusion, that you are at the centre of action, even if it is just the Apple Store launching another product or if you find yourself lining up again in that queue to reach this hyped up retail outlet. You can get to see or meet or talk to people who have the same obsessions or perceptions about being based in the centre, beneath the sight of tall buildings and fascinating lights.

St Honore CakeShop, Sydney Chinatown - Yum Cha Possibilities

I reckon the Cantonese egg tart (pictured above), or the tarn tart, available at most yum cha sessions and in southern Chinese styled bakeries, is an excellent example of cuisine fusion, at its best, or viewed at the other end of the spectrum, an illustration of copying the Portuguese tart sans the caramel sauce. Or is it actually the other way? Granted that the texture and flavour of the custard can be different between the South Atlantic and South China Sea versions, the pivotal evidence is in Macau's past, where Portuguese adventurers of old came aboard and colonised the place, married the native girls and the rest is history - Eurasians bearing Portuguese names but looking like the average Guangdong person perhaps. 

I was at the St Honore Cake Shop along Sussex Street in Sydney's Chinatown recently (near the side with Paddys Market and the Market City Shopping Centre).  I instinctively looked for my fav yum cha piece, the char siew sou, oven baked pastries with a savoury and yet sweet filling inside of cooked pork bits, diced carrots, spring onions, mushrooms and with a garnish. The proof of quality is in the pastry and how it melts in your mouth.  Some versions include lotus seed paste, peanut, green bean, walnuts and the chemically induced hundred year old duck egg slices, but I avoid those.   They are all topped up by a sprinkling of sesame seeds (image above) and best eaten freshly baked. Good as snacks for lunch time or with tea, they can be oily but definitely delicious when served warm.

Imagine sticky flour dough concealing a hollow or sweet inside, usually with bean or peanuty paste, and served in various colours. Attractive to kids, but they may not keep well for a long period.  This is southern Chinese jian dou or northern Chinese ma tuan (image above) with a crispy outer skin and a pick me up bite.  Its origins go back a  few hundred years from the Tang Dyansty with its capital at Changan.  It is a cousin of the Japanese goma dango and the Malaysian or Indonesian kueh bom.

Another pastry above, but this one has rather sweet centre of another paste and requires a good cup of Oolong tea to wash down with. In Cantonese, it is referred to as the sweetheart or wife's cake, an interesting label, as I do not reckon there is a husband's cake in Chinese bakery.  The outside has to be flaky, so that, unless we don't mind a mess, we have to be careful with this cake, as it breaks apart when consumed, revealing a rather veg sweet inner core.  yes, there is icing sugar used, together with candied winter melon, castor sugar, glutinous rice flour and butter.

I also saw another interesting wrap below at the St Honore Cake Shop.  This is the type of outlet, where you are encouraged to arm yourself with a pair of tongs and an empty tray. You go around the glass shelves, open them when some display attracts and you choose them for counting and billing at the cash register.  There are normally no sitting tables.

Imperial Kingdom Chinese Restaurant, Glen Waverley, Melbourne

I visited the Imperial Kingdom at Glen Waverly, not once but twice, within an auspicious weekend, once for yum cha one day and then for a wedding dinner another evening. I can remember how the restaurant was beautifully transformed for Maggie and Eu-Gene Yeap's dinner reception at this venue. The dishes were carefully chosen for good omen and brought out the best in what the Imperial could offer. Lobster, prawns, crispy chicken, delicious noodles and extensively decorated banquet tables (each with the piece de resistance being the variety of floral bouquets) remain delightfully in my heart and mind's eye.


You walk up a staircase under a cover and reach the foyer of the restaurant. The dining area sits on this upper level, so I could easily see the goings on around the nearby junction, highway and neighbouring activities. Having this so-called bird's eye view delightfully reassures one of securely seated in a strategic lookout, especially during the change of colours from twilight to night. Then vaguely familiar individuals and more reassuringly known friends from the Melbourne area turn up, all dressed up happily and smartly for the occasion. The tables are placed close to each other but then everyone expects that in a Cantonese themed restaurant.


Maggie and Eu-Gene had a lunch reception earlier that special day with a modern Australian feel, complete with the bridal dance, walking under a canopy and letting off some party shoot off cannons. Tonight it was more Canton, although many dressed in Western styles. In contrast, the atmosphere at yum cha time, back at the Imperial, reflected more of the everyday bustle of such meals across the Chinatowns and suburbs of the world. The service, as required and expected, is fast and the tasty servings make me wonder why at times do we need to go downtown for such fare (again). There is ample ground level open air parking for the restaurant, though I am not sure if there is a lift up to the first floor. The yum cha tables had more variety to fit various numbers of people, unlike the ten per table practice for wedding dinners.


Is yum cha better in Melbourne than in Sydney, or Hong Kong and Vancouver? I reckon it depends on what you order from the moving passer-by trolleys - I would identify with fresh ingredients, skill in texture and cooking and how they are kept ready for serving. The skins must not be starchy, the vegetables must be appetising, the deep-frieds not soggy. The choice of teas must be liberal. The decor is not critical, but the taste in your mouth and on your palate as you place that delicate creation for your experience. The variety of sauces available and the quality of cutlery, chopsticks and China often vary between an elegant place and an ordinary one.


At the Imperial Kingdom, I had occasion to try the mango pudding, char siew pau (steamed pork buns), rice noodle rolls (with prawns in soy sauce)- and loved them all. My impressions of the Imperial Kingdom in Glen Waverly, greater Melbourne, are:

Atmosphere: Noisy and crowded.
Location: Suburban.
Taste: No need to go down to Little Bourke Street in Melbourne CBD.
People Engagement: As in any medium to large sized Chinese restaurant.
Service: Satisfactory.
Best Time to Visit: Dinnertime.
Fav Dish Experienced: Char siew so (baked pork filling pastry)and claypot vermecilli with lobster. Would I Return?: Yes.

Lees Malaysian - Sydney CBD

In the heart of bustling Sydney's city centre lies the HSBC Centre, off George Street, and the street entry food court has a range of office lunch time food providers. The one special to my heart is nearest the main entry, a branch of Lees Malaysian, offering an equal mix of Chinese Australian dishes and Malaysian staples like curry laksa, satay skewers and the classic har mee (prawn sufficed stock soup accompanied by vermicelli or Hokkien noodles). In all these years, my penchant for their version of the har mee has not abated.  I recall with fondness even now, how I would ensure having this dish for dinner before going home to the Sydney suburbs. The bus stop I used was only a stone's throw away along Druitt Street and I would gingerly time myself for enough indulging in this dish before catching the public transport home. This outlet of Lees Malaysian also opens late to almost 7pm each weekday evening, so it was great to visit after work or gym.  Above image - the Mongolian lamb, a staple of Chinese food in almost every Australian town and city.

Satay, oh satay as it should be.   Juicy, tender and moist, exuding of the best parts of chicken or beef cuts (above), flavoured just right with a combination of spices and whiff of  lemon grass in the south-east Asian style.   The peanut and chili based sauce is most critical, adding to the sensation of well prepared and marinaded meat cubes melting in our mouths.  Below, an illustrative representation of what is referred to as dim sims Down Under, always deep fried, wrapped in batter or skins - picture below depicts the spring rolls and snack bites, always good with beer or tea.

Above , the dish that I clamour for, a sort of soul or comfort food from my childhood - the har mee.
Garnished with a variety of equatorial spinach (kangkong), graced by thin juicy slices of prawn and pork cuts and topped up by a sprinkling of crunchy deep fried shallots, the dish's ultimate taste and outcome is also influenced by the amount of chili paste condiment you prefer and adopt (on spoon in picture above). The soup is first served clear before you add your choice of how much of such a chili paste condiment you then stir in.  There is always a half boiled egg as well for this street food special is traditionally consumed at breakfast time.  Yummy yum, I am salivating as I write this piece.

There is a method to making the noodle soup, as evident by the display above at Lees Malaysian.

The ingredients are prepared in various ways - chopped, sliced  or julienned - before any cooking is done.  They may involve carrots, corn, green veg, cabbage, lettuce, mushrooms, cooked meats and more, and the image above reminds me of a Subway fast food outlet as well.

My overall impressions of the Lees Malaysian outlet, located at the HSBC Centre in downtown Sydney, are:

Atmosphere:  Office and student crowd.

Location:  City centre.

Taste: Good value.

People Engagement:  Food court.

Service: Quick and responsive

Best Time to Visit: 2pm to 7pm on weekdays

Fav Dish Experienced: Har Mee

Would I Return?: Always