The main reason we came to La Floraison was for their creative custom printing on drinks. It is located in Sydney CDB, very close to Townhall Station which is great location and easily reached. Honestly, I never heard of this place before I saw pictures of those cute drinks which then prompted me to look for their address and made the trip eventually.
So we came here on a Saturday morning only to find that they open from 12 noon. I thought this is a little odd considering this is cafe and people do get the drinks in the morning or at the very least during brunch hours. So we had to kill some time walking around Daiso (luckily just few doors away) for the open time. In that time, we noticed there was also another small family did what we did – came here way too early.
As they opened and we lined up at the cashier for order, I realised this place really must be alive mainly for their drinks. There were just a few cakes available on display, literally mean just a few. The lady in front of me was asking if they had such cake from the menu and was told they had run out. Anyway, I ended up getting a piece of cake to share and a hot drink for each of us. Upon payment, they will ask what design you would like to have on top of your drink. You can choose from numerous pictures available on the tablet and even send your picture to them as well.
The entrance – I think the decor is very pretty with flowers and hanging lights – fairy tale alike!
Here are what we ordered:
Red Velvet Cake
Taro Latte with Gudetama print
Matcha Latte with Sinchan print
The drinks were not bad taste wise, but the cake was dry and felt like it’s been sitting there for too long. We love how the drinks are not overly sweet and can absolutely taste the taro or matcha flavours. Also their price point is fairly expensive – but I guess you pay for the experience. After all, we enjoyed slurping the printed Gudetama and Sinchan over our hot drinks 🙂 Would I be coming back? Perhaps no, mainly because we have already experienced it and apart from the print, everything else was not outstanding.
Click here for our experience at Gudetama Cafe in Osaka, Japan….
If we thought yesterday was full on, Day 3 proved to be even more so. We had on our list to go: Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, Iwatayama Monkey Park, and Kinkakuji Castle. As we thought the time would permit, we even added Nijo Castle after Kinkakuji Castle. So yeah, Day 3 was absolutely packed!
Day 3
Arashiyama
Arashiyama is famously known for its bamboo groove, was in my must-visit list. So even though, it is located in a fair distance from where we stayed in Kyoto, we just had to make time for it. Then add Iwatayama Monkey Parkin it, we are sold! The journey took about 30 minutes and two trains to reach Saga Arashiyama station. From there, it took probably 15 good minutes walk across the bridge to get to the bamboo grove side. Just before we got to the bamboo grove, I broke our selfie stick and all the selfie photos we took that day were too close and just couldn’t capture much of the view behind us. What a bummer! Anyway, let’s not let this incident cloud our holiday mood right?
Honestly, it was a little disappointing when we saw the bamboo grove was just that “short path”. I had imagined it to be much longer than that, plus there were so many people. Don’t get me wrong, despite of my expectation and crowds, the bamboo grove was still beautiful. Perhaps it would be really pretty during winter and snowing season.
We also made a stop to Tenryu-ji Temple. This Zen temple was apparently crowned as one of the finest gardens in Kyoto. It’s not difficult to see why when you walk inside, the well-maintained garden, the mountain view. For me, the most memorable point here was that clear lake, which reflects on the mountain and autumn trees behind it. All the pictures we took certainly did not do justice to this beauty.
Iwatayama Monkey Park
With an entry fee ¥550 per person, we finally made our way to the monkey park. The hike to the top was tough, even tougher than Fushimi Inari! They will also close early if the monkeys have returned the mountain or forest earlier. So, perhaps schedule your visit here in the morning or early afternoon.
Kinkakuji Castle
The famous Golden Pavilion of Kyoto, this is a must visit for us as well. I don’t think there is any train or subways that comes to this area from Kyoto. We took two buses to reach this place from Arashiyama and a one day bus pass had come handy. The Golden Pavilion is grand and seeing it in picture really doesn’t feel the same as seeing it in person. The ground of Kinkakuji Castle is not that huge that requires long time to explore it all, from memory it took us only about one hour until we made the exit.
Nijo Castle
Once we finished enjoying Kinkakuji Castle, we decided to squeeze in one more place before called it a day. We went to the bus stop and looked for buses to Kyoto Station and saw one of them also pass by Nijo Castle, so that’s it. However when we got to Nijo Castle, the ticket lady reminded us that the main castle area will be closed in 20 minutes 🙁
Oh well, we just had to make use of that little time. Obviously the first stop would be main castle area, then we could take our time exploring the gardens. Oh my, the grounds of this castle was massive with many gardens and pavilions. It’s best to allocate a longer time to visit Nijo Castle and explore it slowly rather than rushed.
What we ate on Day 3
These are what we had for the day:
All bought in Arashiyama: Octopus skewer ¥600; Beef croquette and Takoyaki ¥500; Matcha Candy Floss ¥600 (gigantic size of candy floss!)
Then more croquettes and fried fish cake in a canteen across the street from Kinkakuji entrance; which sadly we forgot to take pictures of. They also sell hot soy milk for ¥280 each and this tasted wonderful – so creamy and rich. During colder season they have the soy milk hot, whilst during summer days they have ice in the soy milk. This is a must try if you visit Kinkakuji!
Matcha ice cream in the cafe within Nijo Castle ¥740. Very interesting condiments on the ice cream – another must try!
Bought these from the department store next to Kyoto Station. Both bento boxes cost ¥2,073. The pork cutlet by itself costs ¥388. Happy tummy and happy wallet as well! 🙂
December is usually a month where most of us tend to indulge too much (in term of food), or at least I do! 😀 There are always a catch-up dinner, office functions, then all those festivities celebrations, it is just too hard to resist the temptations. But now that we are in the new year already, I truly think my body is in need of a simple green salad to cleanse out toxins from all the “naughty” eating and drinking.
These are the goodies that I put in my salad bowl:
Butter lettuce, also known as butter head. This soft leaves lettuce have very subtle buttery sweet flavor and naturally low in calories/fat/sugar.
Iceberg lettuce, these are great addition to salad for it has high water content and sodium then other lettuce families. It also gives a nice crisp texture to the salad, something different to the butter lettuce leaves.
Green apple. We all know how apple is great fruit, loaded with dietary fibers and vitamins(especially vitamin C) thus the saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” 🙂 I used green apple in the salad for extra tangy, sweetness, and crunch.
Cherry tomatoes. Apart from giving the bright red color in the green salad, they are also loaded with vitamin C and lycopene, an antioxidant that lowers your risk of certain diseases caused by cellular damage.
Cucumber, which is a well-known for its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer benefits. They are naturally low in calories, carbohydrates, sodium, fat and cholesterol. Because of their high water content, cucumbers can help supports hydration, especially during summer months.
Avocado. Another food that is loaded with vitamins and minerals, also high “heart-healthy fat” content as well as dietary fibers. On top of that, avocado contains even higher level of potassium than bananas, which help to support healthy blood pressure level.
Lemon juice and olive oil dressing. A very simple salad dressing that is not just tastes great, but also good for your body.
Cracked black pepper to taste
And last but not least, a mug of green tea to wash it all down!
First of all, please do not take this post as me trying to show off or bragging or anything, I just wanted to share our honest opinions and experiences on our flight in business class with Garuda Indonesia. Although we have pretty much always flown with Garuda Indonesia whenever we went back to Indonesia or within Indonesia domestically, this is the very first time we flew on Business Class ticket. It started with a promotion and one thing led to another, hubby suggested that we tried this, maybe even for once in a life time hehehe
I think we paid about almost half the normal cost with the promotion, so that really was great saving. But at the same time also made it affordable to us, because without the promotion I really doubted we would have gone for these tickets! By the way, the luggage allowance for each business class ticket is 40 kg; it is usually 30 kg for economy class ticket.
Started with some leftover thickened cream in the fridge from making the custard cream for crispy choux filling as well as matcha green tea powder that is going to expire in a couple of months, I was reminded of the green tea mille crepes recipe that I watched on Youtube a while ago. When I got a day off yesterday, I thought it would be perfect time to make one – I can use up all my thickened cream and green tea powder, also something I had never made before, hence I can share on this blog how the experiment went 🙂
I got the recipe from here and it really doesn’t seem difficult apart from making the crepes one by one. But yes of course, never underestimate anything in life hahaha! Seriously, it was really tricky to make a really thin crepe and I ended up made 2 batches of the recipe because I was only able to get 12 pieces of crepes from the first batch, as opposed to getting 20 pieces as directed in the recipe. 12 pieces of crepes makes a pathetic mille crepe, so I decided to make another batch.
On the second batch, I used a soup spoon (round-ish tablespoon) to pour in the batter and just spread the batter with the back of the spoon – this way I can actually get a thinner crepes. I felt this is more effective than swirling the pan as I did with the first batch. I just can’t get to swirl my pan fast enough to spread the batter thinly and some part would already be cooked, hence the crepes were rather thicker and took longer to cook. Also, remember to take off the pan from heat after each crepe to cool down; if needed, place it on a wet kitchen towel for 5 seconds.
I might make this again in the future and do a Nutella version (¬‿¬) yummmm
