Saturday, February 25, 2017

Taipei City - Yellow Lemon

Value for money: 7/10
Cleanliness: 4/10
Service: 9/10
Quality of food: 7/10
Overall: 6/10







Yellow Lemon has been here for over 3 and a half years, this was my first visit.


I've seen their 'picnic' sets for a while on Instagram.


It's a lot of fun inside the place, itself. There's lots of natural light as it's a corner space with very big windows, and everything is clean and well presented.





I am also a big fan of the open kitchen where you can see the kitchen staff working on things. Often I get caught staring...



I also like the long marble worktops, perfect for pastries and desserts.






I only took photos of the 'sweet' area of the menu, as that's all we came for, this time. However, Head Chef Andrea did show us some pictures of the rest of the menu and it looked great. So, I am pretty sure we will be back to try out those bits.




Picnic for 2
$600 x 2

The basket arrived on our table, along with the 'turf'. However, said 'turf' was very dirty. It seems like either it can't be washed, or hasn't been washed in quite some time as there were lots of bits of food over the turf, itself. Also, as the desserts made it to the table on the logs, stones or such, they also appeared to be fairly unclean, too...





Crab macaroons with salmon roe were one of the savoury pieces that came with our picnic. The macaroon was crunchy, which went nicely with the delicate crab meat and then topped off with the salty salmon eggs.



These little jelly babies arrived, shortly after the macaroons. The yellow was mango and the red one strawberry. If you've had a jelly bean before, you'd probably be expecting a chewy gummy. But, this wasn't chewy in any way. The flavours were fresh and natural.




Chocolate eclair. These were one of the better things we had at Yellow Lemon. The choux pastry was light, the raspberry jam inside was good and the cream with fruit on top was a nice finishing touch.



Whisky gummy. Possibly not for the weak of heart, as the whisky flavour is pretty strong. Luckily, I am a big whisky fan! So, I enjoyed these.




Creme Brulee. The Creme brulee was pretty decent, with a crunchy topping. However, the burnt sugar topping was a little bit too thick.


These jam filled madeleine's were good, but the jam filling was a little too much inside them, which made them a little soft and 'mushy'. On the trowel, there was some 'dirt' which was a chocolate crumb. It was fun, but didn't pack a whole lot of flavour.



Grandma's apple pie. The granola-like crumb was delicious, the chocolate covered bottom was delicious and the cinammon flavour going with the crunchy apple crisp on top was great, too.



Pizza. At first glance, the pizza didn't look great and I thought it was going to be quite doughy. However, it was crunchy, light and tasty. In fact, I could have eaten two.


Served atop a jar of dry ice, panna cotta was filling the bottom of the passion fruit, topped with passion fruit on top. The combination of sweet on the bottom and sour on the top combined together nicely.


This 'caviar' came in the forms of mini chocolate balls with a nice crunch on the inside. A couple of layers of these mini balls gave way to panna cotta.











Yellow Lemon photographs really well. However, the truth of the matter is - it just isn't as good as I was hoping for.



Opening Times:
Monday - Friday
11:00 - 20:00

Saturday and Sunday
10:00 - 20:00


Tel:
02 2533 3567


臺北市中山區明水路561號

No. 561, MingShui Road, ZhongShan District, Taipei City



Happy Eating!

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Thursday, October 27, 2016

Taipei City - Cafe Kuroshio

Value for money: 9/10
Cleanliness: 8/10
Service: 10/10
Quality of food: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

It was raining. Then, it rained some more. Then, it rained a shed load more. What to do? Go to a Cafe and relax because it's the weekend (and they have free WiFi)


Haven't we become a bit obsessed with going to cafe's and whittling away time doing work? I still like it, so for the haters out there - close this page (but come back later for posts about my wonderful food reviews).


Now, this cafe isn't going to set the world on fire with new and incredibly challenging dishes/drinks. However, it is going to do exactly what it says on the tin: serve good coffee and cake, in a friendly, comfortable and relaxing atmosphere.



Not sure what a 'Chess pie' is, but hey ho (seriously, though, check your English. If you want to include English in the menu then by all means go for it. But type it out on a search engine or check out a dictionary).



It was still very early when we arrived...








They sound good, right? We had just eaten at Jing Ding so we weren't hungry in the slightest, but, next time I will definitely check them out. 






The menu:


They have a decent variety of different Latte's, actually. Rose Caffe? Interesting. 




And beer, too: 2 thumbs up.



熱貝里斯巧克力
Baileys Chocolate
$150


An interesting caffeine (but still naughty with the added Irish liquor) free hot drink here. It was nice, but not amazing.


美式咖啡
Americano Coffee
$115


To some: boring. 
To me: standard.

I almost always get the straight up coffee with no added milk or sugar wherever I go. I like to taste the coffee, itself (and often the milk can be of questionable quality and doesn't help the coffee beans in any way to shine).

This Americano is quite nice. There's most definitely a good amount of coffee in here with a nutty aroma and taste. It's slightly sour (I quite like this aspect of some coffee) and overall fairly decent.



The bottom line:
Some Cafe's can pretend to be something they aren't. But this one doesn't. There are no frills, nothing elaborate and it's not pretentious in any way. I spent 3-4 hours in here, and felt comfortable doing so.







Happy eating/drinking!

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