Pilu Kiosk, Freshwater

It's Springtime! And although the weather lately hasn't always been reflective of that, we have had a few beautiful sunny days in Sydney that remind us to pack away the heaters and big heavy coats and trade them in for air conditioners and pretty summer dresses.

The beautiful Freshwater Beach

On one of these days Sir D and I decided to go to Freshwater beach to check out Pilu Kiosk, a little cafe offshoot of the restaurant Pilu at Freshwater that serves panini, coffee and pastries.

It seemed like every man, woman and dog had ventured out today to enjoy the weather so when we entered the kiosk all the seats were taken! We headed over to the counter to place our orders while keeping our eyes peeled for anyone leaving.

Suckling pig panini - $9.50

Blanco Restaurant, Potts Point

I love finishing off the working week with a nice drink, and luckily on this dreary, rainy Friday night as we headed to Potts Point for dinner at Blanco Restaurant, we were presented with page of refreshing sounding cocktails to kick-start the weekend as we were seated in the restaurant.

Bloody Passion: blood orange, 42 Below passionfruit vodka, lime, sugar - $12

Blanco is situated in a stark white building studded with mosaic tiles off the main street in Potts Point and is run by Damien Pignolet and Ron White, formerly of Bistro Moncur. Pushing open the door, we're greeted with a bar at the front and a sparsely decorated restaurant bathed in red light, with a little bookcase and reading area at the back of the room. It's still early so we're the only ones there and have the full attention of the waitstaff who help us choose some drinks from the cocktail list which prominently features blood oranges.

Bloody Stringer Bellini: Paul Louis French sparkling, blood orange juice, peach liqueur - $10 (left); Crispy Portuguese chicken wings - $15 (right)

We start off with the crispy Portuguese chicken wings which actually turned out to be little drummettes of chicken but were tasty nonetheless. These were coated in a salty, slightly spicy batter and were crunchy on the outside with juicy, tender chicken on the inside. Perfect with a squeeze of lime.

Hot Chocolate on a Stick

If there's anything I love more than receiving foodie gifts, it's giving them. One of my best friends from high school S was leaving the sunny shores of Sydney for the rainy ones of London to study music (and become a famous violinist) so I tried to think of an appropriate going away gift for her.

I knew she loved chocolate and I know on those cold, gloomy days, nothing cheers me up more than a steaming mug of hot chocolate. So after doing some research on the internet about how to make a hot chocolate able to be transported internationally, I came across this brilliant idea on the Giver's Log - hot chocolate on a stick.

It was easy and simple to make - the key to getting a luscious, chocolatey hot chocolate is making sure you use good quality ingredients. This means using real chocolate that is high in cocoa butter and using good quality cocoa powder. The hardest part of this recipe was melting the chocolate at a low enough temperature to keep it 'in temper'; it's tempting to want to crank up the heat to melt it quicker but a bit of patience will give you smooth, shiny chocolate.

I made my hot chocolates on a stick in the shape of strawberries and penguins thanks to the silicon ice cube moulds that I received from Billy, Karen and Steph for my birthday earlier this year. I couldn't resist trying one and it was great - the chocolate melted nicely in the hot milk and it tasted like real chocolate, not that overly sweet powdered stuff. Since I used dark chocolate and S likes it sweet, I dipped some of them in white chocolate as well to make it a bit sweeter and wrapped them up individually for her to take to the UK. Hope you like them S!

Bau Truong, Cabramatta

One of the great things about Sydney is it's cultural diversity. I love how there are little pockets of Sydney where there are large ethnic communities, meaning that you can go to that suburb of Sydney and allow yourself to be immersed in a different culture for a day. To me, Cabramatta is one of those suburbs. Known as Sydney's "Little Vietnam", it's home to many Vietnamese Australians and lots of Vietnamese food!

Today we're here to grab some lunch and some snacks. We start off at Bau Truong, one of the more well-known Vietnamese restaurants along John St. Even though it's quite late the restaurant is still brimming with people. The service is brisk and we're quickly ushered to our table and given menus, and the waitress comes back several times to try and get our order.

Beef noodle soup - $10.00

Eventually JC and B both decide on getting the beef pho, the beef noodle soup which is a quintessentially Vietnamese dish. The rare slices of beef cook in the hot broth, and underneath the garnish of coriander and spring onions is a mound of slippery rice noodles. The broth is deep and flavoursome and both JC and B are happily slurping away whilst Queen Chu and I await our dishes.

Special BBQ pork chops with rice - $12.00

Adriano Zumbo Patisserie, Balmain and Belle Fleur Fine Chocolates, Rozelle

Continuing on from our very satisfying brunch at Kazbah on Darling, we drove further up Darling Street to Adriano Zumbo's patisserie. It had been a few weeks since his appearance on Masterchef Season 2 with the fear-inspiring macaron tower, but obviously the Zumbo craze was yet to die down since we could spot the patisserie a mile away from the seemingly permanent queue of customers outside.

We joined the queue and I saw a lot of people who were walking past slow down as they got to Zumbo's patisserie and wonder what all the fuss was about. I also spotted these t-shirts as we approached the store-front - I heart zumbo oh yes I do (but not enough to buy the t-shirt, I'd rather buy more cakes haha)

When we finally got into the store itself it was madness, I could barely even see what cakes were left. It was already 2pm so a lot of the more popular cakes had been snapped up and given the current macaron hype I wasn't surprised to find out that there was only one macaron flavour left: Vegemite.

(left) Tarte aux fruits de la passion and "I'll Get Back To You Barry" cake; (right) "I'll Get Back To You Barry": Chocolate yogo creme brulee, soft chocolate gel, chocolate cereal crunchy, chocolate sable breton, chocolate caramel mousse, chocolate plaquette - $8.00