Tuesday 17 May 2011

Passionflower

Shop 2, 168 Bourke Street
Melbourne 3000

One of the things I love most about Asia is the abundance of unique ice cream flavours not yet widely embraced in Australia. In particular, I am partial to a scoop (or two) of black sesame. It's rich nutty flavour is absolutely irresistible. When I discovered that Passionflower had opened up in Melbourne, I could not wait to take a lick.

The offerings at Passionflower are extensive. There are a wide variety of ice cream flavours, with the more 'exotic' including black sesame, jackfruit, red bean, taro and durian. I'm not sure when 'exotic' became 'premium' but Passionflower seem to think so, charging an extra 50 cents a scoop for these flavours.

Clockwise: Taro, Green Tea, Burnt Caramel and Black Sesame

Full of enthusiasm, we eventually decided on the taro, green tea, burnt caramel and black sesame flavours. It didn't take long for the disappointment to set in. Neither of the premium flavours (taro, green tea and black sesame) lived up to expectations. Although visually attractive, all had an almost overwhelming vanilla hit. It was only just possible to differentiate the flavours, and I put much of this ability down to the fact that they were different colours. The same could not be said for the burnt caramel. But wait, don't get too excited. When asked how it tasted, my friend replied with one word...'burnt'. Someone at the Passionflower lab clearly took things a little too literally when developing this flavour. It was simply inedible (yes, apparently there is such thing as inedible ice cream).

There are a wide variety of other desserts including crepes, pancakes, waffles and unique blends of grass jelly, glutinous rice balls, chocolate and ice cream. However, they do not come cheap and given that the one constant in all of Passionflower's offerings is their ice cream, I do not see myself returning anytime soon.

Casual Desserts 


Food - 1/5
Variety - 3.5/5
Service - 2.5/5
Price - 2.5/5

Total - 9.5/20

Passionflower on Urbanspoon

No comments:

Post a Comment