Guylian Café (Sydney, AUSTRALIA) ★★★☆☆

I thought Guylian only makes tasty chocolates but they proved me wrong on this day with some pretty impressive cakes.



Before we started munching on their cakes, a few signature beverages to get us going first, starting with my Guylian shake that was smooth and absolutely thirst quenching.



Our "main courses" finally arrived much to our delight. 

Passion Temptation, white chocolate mousse with caramelized passion fruit cream
The white chocolate mousse was not as sweet and heavy as we originally thought it would be. The passion fruit was a tad too sour for my liking but the chocolate mousse helped to neutralize that acidity.



The 100% Pure Pleasure was true to its name. This gem features a Belgian dark chocolate and Guylian praline enriched with coffee sponge and delicate almond panna cotta.

That was just pure pleasure.



Looks like a storm is coming soon, perhaps it's time to pack and head home.

Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: $$$

Address: 91 George Street, The Rocks, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia

Website: www.guyliancafe.com.au

Luciano's Restaurant & Bar (Queenstown, NEW ZEALAND) ★★☆☆☆

We visited the gangster-themed Luciano's restaurant on Steamer Wharf before taking a flight back to Sydney to meet up with friends and family the next morning. Steamer Wharf was relatively quiet but most restaurants inside were packed with customers, mainly tourists. We had to wait almost half an hour for a table.

Finding a server to place our order was almost as equally difficult as getting a table. Thankfully we managed to do so after a long wait.

We started things off with a lovely crispy calamari.



Spaghetti carbonara was next but I thought it had a little too much cheese in it.



Pan seared scallops was a little small and it had way too much seasoning.



We were still a little hungry after these dishes so we added another starter before calling it quit - porcini mushrooms.






Food Rating: 4.5/10

Price: $$

Address: 88 Beach Street, Queenstown-Lakes 9300, New Zealand

Tel: +64 3-409 2460

Mercure Queenstown Resort (Queenstown, NEW ZEALAND)

I wasn't a big fan of staying at ski resorts but since they offer pretty nice discounts in non-peak seasons, we decided that it wasn't such a bad idea after all. Mercure Queenstown Resort was our pick for this trip and other than the fact that it was quiet, there wasn't much to say about it. 

The hotel was made up with a series of three-story buildings. There was a small swimming pool in the middle of the resort which we didn't get to check out personally.

The hotel restaurant (I think called South Eatery) was the only area in the resort that we saw some life. 

The room badly needed a facelift but thanks to our extensive time spent on the exploration of the city, we didn't really spend much time inside our room. 

The lone bright spot of staying at Mercure was its proximity to Skyline Gondola. Just a 6-minute drive.

Rating: ❤❤

Price: $$

Address: 21 Sainsbury Road, Fernhill, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

Tel: +64 3-442-6600

Website: https://all.accor.com/hotel/1994/index.en.shtml