Botanical Confectionary

Salivating much?

Is that not one of the most beautiful desserts you've seen? Wait til you see the rest! This baby is one of many creations from Omid Jaffari - Melbourne Botanical Cuisine chef extraordinaire! And last Sunday was Day 2 of his Sydney tour.

The Botanical Confectionary Workshop - aka dessert day!!
And oh - my - god! If ever a menu has gotten better and better and BETTER with each course served, this was it!

We had a full house again (of course - its desserts!!) with a couple of new faces, and we were all blessed with another spectacularly warm sunny day :)

Tables set, music on, waters poured...

Omid, Maya and I all made sure the day was chilled and relaxing for all our guests so that they could INDULGE a little (well alot) guiltfree... every morsel, every taste, every texture, every flavour, and intriguing combination that was to pass their lips and linger on their taste buds had to be perfect. And so (drumroll please) in order of appearance (and almost order of crowd favourites to be honest), the deathly sins were as follows…

- "Gimme Summer That" Smoothie
- Strawberry Granita
- Salt of the Earth; Chocolate Mousse on Chocolate soil and candied citrus
- Coconut, ginger and lime sorbet
- Green smoothie
- Blueberry flan with lavender syrup and triple-candied citurs
- Panna Cotta with fresh passionfruit and edible flowers
- Lemon granita with sweet cinnamon drizzle

We re-arranged the order of dishes last minute and it worked perfectly! Granitas and sorbets cleansed palates after rich chocolate dishes, and the sweet green smoothie mid way helped to bring everyone back down to Earth after their Heaven highs :)

The presentation Omid has perfected with his dishes is the most beautiful thing to watch for anyone with 'perfectionistic traits'... um, cough cough... ;)
This beauty was the Blueberry flan and it was the number one favourite.

... Until this baby entered the room...

Welcome the Panna Cotta. Close your eyes and imagine this - a creamy yet refreshing-sweet-coconutty-sorbet-like-textured-petite-little-beauty... contrasted so SO well with the TANG of fresh passionfruit. Got it? YUM! This was the winner. Hands down. Said by all.


HOWEVER...

In my opinion - dare I stray from the crowd - the chocolate mousse has to be THE best thing I have EVER tasted in my life! EVER! (lucky for me I’ve had leftovers in my fridge all week)
Soft, smooth, melt in your mouth… A deep rich chocolate flavour, with a hint of dragonfruit peppered throughout ever so subtley … a touch of candied lime gently perched ontop with a pinch of sea salt to finish it off… every little detail thought of and teamed up perfectly. Oh and the chocolate soil underneath - whoah! Holy moley!




Yep that's me alright! Totally blissing out on chocolate mousse.
It was another successful day, full of fun and laughs, wonderful conversations had, questions passed around and bouncing off each other for answers... I love moments like these. Days like these! I was blessed with a whole weekend of it! Like-minded people coming together and HAVING A BALL!

So this weekend I'll be down in MELBOURNE for the final leg of the Botanical Cuisine Tour which is going to be quite the Grand finale and I get to indulge in more of everything I loved so much about last weekend! There will be more chef's in Melbourne, more dishes, more guests, more surprises! I cannot wait! I'll be busy busy making sure everything is ready and everyone knows what they're doing but know we will all pull it off with a BANG! I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes next week sometime. Until then... put those tongues back in your mouth ;)