Patisse, Waterloo

You know your other half loves you when he doesn't hesitate to go to high tea with you, and readily invites his mates and their partners to come along too.  At the end of the day, Cheesecake Boy knows he's going to get some good food and a certain Dumpling Girl will be very happy.  I'd been wanting to go to Patisse for a while, and when I realised a themed high tea was offered once a month, I knew that there would be no better introduction.  Now, Cheesecake Boy does have his limits being a guy's guy after all, and refused to go to last month's floral themed high tea.  However, when I suggested last Sunday's theme being the "Last Day's of Winter: Apple, Pear and Rhubarb", well he easily agreed to that. 

 

Located inside the PYD Building, Patisse was a lot more spacious than I had expected.  It's quite an open space, that encourages you to roam around the store.  Cheesecake Boy and I arrived early, so we decided to do some sticky beaking before the crowd came in.  Well I did anyway, much to Cheesecake Boy's dismay.   He's always reluctant to leave me to my own devices in any shop.

Good thing I managed to do my little wander without Cheesecake Boy.  Otherwise, I may very well had missed out on this precious find...

It was the last copy left on table, and I knew I had to have it, as I love collecting recipe books like just like this.  Cheesecake Boy warmed up to the idea, after I told him I'd make some of these desserts for him from the collection of recipes.  However, as the box is too pretty, I still have not been able to tear off the plastic packaging just yet.  My curiosity will get the better of me eventually, and I'll forget how much I want to preserve the book right now.   After purchasing my book, a block of Valrhona chocolates and some desserts for my dinner party later that night, I was ready to give our impending high tea my undivided attention.

We were asked what drinks we wanted with our high tea, and apart from two of the guys going for coffees, the rest of us went with the standard teas on offer.

A lovely wooden board of mini spinach and feta quiches and Wagyu beef pies came out first.  They were both really well received by all seven of us on the table.  Starting with the Wagyu beef pies, the boys all wished there were more to go around.  The pastry of the Wagyu pies, just melt in your mouth and you can definitely feel the buttery goodness, with any lingering heaviness.  The filling of the pies were sensational, for me the perfect ratio of meat and gravy.  There was also some diced carrots and other vegetables inside the filling.  This was definitely one pie that you don't need to add any tomato sauce to.

The spinach and feta quiches were lovely too.  The feta was quite subtle, so it allowed the delicate flavours of the spinach and buttery notes of the quiche to come through.  The quiche filling had a nice and light consistency, that really complemented the buttery pastry shell well. 

Spinach and feta quiches and Wagyu beef pies

Next came the sandwiches, and the choice was between roasted vegetables that seemed to be dotted through with feta or chicken that seemed to be slightly too underhanded with the mayonnaise.  I adored the roasted vegetable sandwich fingers for it's rich and robust filling.  However, in my opinion the chicken finger sandwiches were quite bland, and the chicken breast was too dry.  I think if they were more generous with the sauce, then it may have salvaged these chicken morsels.
 

Roasted vegetable and chicken finger sandwiches

The plate of desserts were the last to hit our table, and for a good reason too.  As Vincent Gadan himself, came out to explain each of his creations and what techniques he applied to them.

Selections of desserts

I got very excited to see the lady finger banana clafoutis.  You see, I use to be a banana a day girl, that was until bananas got very ugly and small.  I find that sometimes clafoutis can be too dense, but this was not the case here.  The batter was buttery as expected and was also wonderfully moist.  However, I really felt like I was just eating a miniature banana cupcake.  If you love the intensity of lady finger bananas, then you would have been in heaven with this little clafoutis.

Lady Finger clafoutis

I realised when we got home, of all the mandarin chocolate mousse's for me to pick to photograph, I chose the only one that was missing the incredible mandarin tuile.  You can spot the tuile on the dessert plate above, it looked like a piece of paper with its orange strips.

The silky mousse had a nice balance of chocolate and mandarin.  However,  I found that the tuile was the most interesting element of this dessert. You could really taste the lovely sweet intensity of a mandarin in this tuile.  It was like Vincent Gadan had extract the inner essence of a mandarin, and injected it into this innocuous, but pretty piece of tuile.

Mandarin chocolate mousse

My favourite of all the offerings was the verrine of pear, pistachio dacquoise and rhubarb.  Starting at the bottom was a layer of lovely stewed rhubarb, followed by a fantastic layer of pistachio dacquoise that had been blended with cream, the dacquoise layer was topped with some cured pears that was dusted with beetroot powder and was lastly finished off with pieces of dried rhubarb.  There really was a harmonious balance between all the layers in taste and texture in this light as air creation.

Verrine of pear, pistachio dacquoise and rhubarb

Vincent made a joke that he couldn't have a "Last Days of Winter" theme and not include apples, and rightly so.  The apple inspired creation consisted of a caramelised apple filling and crisp shell.  The Normandy apple tart may have been simple, but it was divine.

Normandy apple tart

Although, there were no scones offered.  There was no need worry that there wasn't enough food, as we definitely had left overs.  Considering we all didn't have breakfast, I was surprised that we including the three boys were all stuffed, but contently so.

I may of had to book at least a month in advance at $45 per head, but the high tea offerings at Patisse has been one of the best that Cheesecake Boy and I have experienced in quite a while.  It really was a matter of quality over quantity, and we didn't feel like we were being presented with generic choices for consumption, that we find is very common amongst high tea destinations nowadays.  There was definitely more than just some thought and care going on here.  Those little differences in consideration really made for a lovely high tea experience.

Munching away, Dumpling Girl.


Patisse

Shop G01, PYD Building
197 Young Street
Waterloo NSW 2017

Ph: (02) 9690 0665
http://www.patisse.com.au/index.html