Birfday!

Welcome to the new home of Penguin says Feed Me! My new domain and hosting is actually a birthday gift from my cousin and his fiancée and though it's been a steep learning curve, it's very exciting to have a web space I can call my own :) The move from Blogger to Wordpress was a bit of a hassle (although do-able in the end) and caused me to have a few "omg I broke my blog!" moments. It's taken me a week but hopefully everything works now - if anyone finds any problems with the site please let me know!

Vanilla cupcake from My Little Cupcake - $3.70

Anyway, I celebrated my birthday last week with a weekend packed full of eating. Sir D's birthday gift to me was to fatten me up take me to places where I wanted to eat. And yes, a large proportion turned out to be sugar-laden treats but it's my birthday so it's ok, right? We started our tour at My Little Cupcake in Neutral Bay which (in my opinion) has the best cupcakes in Sydney! Cupcakes on Pitt and the Cupcake Bakery have nothing on these guys! Having had their vanilla cupcakes before, I knew that the cake would be perfectly light and oh-so-buttery with a frosting of luscious buttercream.

Chocolate cupcake from My Little Cupcake - $3.70

We also tried a chocolate one which was equally as amazing with a rich chocolate flavour and a slightly denser cake than the vanilla.

Scampi sushi at Ju-rin - $6.90 per piece (includes scampi miso soup, not pictured)

Lunchtime rolled around and I requested sushi so Sir D took me to Ju-rin in Crows Nest to indulge in some fresh sashimi and scampi sushi. They also use the scampi head and make you a bowl of miso soup with it - no wastage!

Raspberry Cloud from Adriano Zumbo Patissier - $9

A trip to Adriano Zumbo was in order and since they opened their new store in Manly, I no longer need to cross the Bridge for my macaron fix! So it was a hot day and the cakes started to get a little droopy by the time we got home but they were still delicious nonetheless. I was drawn to the pretty colours of the Raspberry Cloud and after tasting it,  it's become my favourite Zumbo cake ever! It had perfect balance between the slightly tart raspberries and the sweet meringue on the outside and underneath the pretty exterior was a raspberry yoghurt mousse and raspberry compote.

Cob & Co. from Adriano Zumbo Patissier - $9

Sir D chose the Cob & Co. which was a cute corn on the cob cake that had elements of corn and popcorn and all sorts of corny goodness! The "corn" had a marshmallow coating with spiky blobs of corn meringue which gave it a pleasant sweetness.

Cob & Co. innards

Inside there was corn cream and corn mousse encasing a mango and lime gel which gave it a bit of tang, and Sir D's favourite component was the bottom layer of crunchy popcorn crunch. It's not a trip to Adriano Zumbo without some macarons (we got cinnamon and milo) but I er, forgot to take a photo before I eated them.

Mountains of bacon, sausages, haloumi, tomatoes and hash browns at Kazbah

Eggs and turkish toast at Kazbah

The next day I rounded up a group of my bestest best friends and we stuffed ourselves silly at Kazbah in Top Ryde with their breakfast banquet ($25pp). Originally I wasn't going to blog about this but even my friends were taking photos of the food so I happily followed. Four courses of delicious breakfast foods starting with porridge, cous cous and rice pudding, then a pumpkin and lamb tagine, then platters of eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato, hash browns, haloumi, mushrooms, spinach, beans and finally a pancake and french toast to finish.

Banana pancake at Kazbah

French toast with figs at Kazbah

And of course a birthday isn't complete without cake. This year I got a lemon meringue cake from Sweetness the Patisserie in Epping which was layers of lemon chiffon cake sandwiching some lemon cream and covered with a swirly meringue and lemon zest.

Lemon meringue cake from Sweetness the Patisserie

Cake cutting time!

The cake tasted amazing and was just like a lemon meringue pie (without the pie crust of course). The chiffon cake was super light and lemony and even though we were all full from the breakfast banquet, everyone still managed to fit in one extra piece of cake :)

My Little Cupcake
62 Ben Boyd Road
Neutral Bay NSW 2089
Ph: +61 2 9909 3908
Open Tuesday to Friday, 9am - 5pm; Saturday, 10am - 5pm

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Ju-Rin
316 Pacific Highway
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Ph: +61 2 9966 5811
Open 7 days, 12pm - 2.30pm and 6pm - 11pm

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Adriano Zumbo
Shop 1a/40 The East Esplanade (entry via Wentworth Ave)
Manly NSW 2095
Ph: +61 2 9810 7318

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Kazbah Top Ryde
La Piazza
Top Ryde City Shopping Centre
Cnr Devlin St & Blaxland Rd
Ryde NSW 2112
Ph: +61 2 9555 7067
Open 7 days from 8am

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Sweetness the Patisserie
38 Oxford Street
Epping NSW 2121
Ph: +61 2 9869 3800
Monday - Wednesday and Friday 8.30am-5.30pm
Thursday 8.30am-8pm
Saturday 9am-5pm

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