La Renaissance Cafe Patisserie - The Rocks, Sydney.

Today was one of my closest friend's birthday today so after a quick shift at work and dashing to uni to pick up my textbooks, we were to spend a cute little lunch date in The Rocks. At first we were supposed to go to Baroque, however we were a tad late and couldn't make the end of the lunch menu. Nevertheless, we ventured to the Orient Hotel (which will be reviewed in a separate post) and had dessert across the road at La Renaissance.

I had heard great things about this patisserie, and it's strong 90%+ rating on UrbanSpoon made me have high expectations. Nevertheless, the long queue which actually went outside the door, at about 4PM was hyping me up. The interior is quite small, so I wasn't surprised. We were in a bit of a rush so we decided instead to get them takeaway, especially since we were unsure if we were going to be able to finish all that we would order.

Finally we decided on 2 patisseries each:

• Tranche Chocolat (top left): Slice of dense Valrhona chocolate ganache cake with pistachios. The ganache cake had a surprising yet unpleasant spicy taste to it which did not work well with the pistachio. It felt like two totally different tastes trying to combine yet never reaching each other. This was the only patisserie left unfinished in the box. Did not enjoy this.
• Mousse Picasso (top middle): Layers of white and dark chocolate Valrhona chocolate mousse, wrapped in folds of Valrhona milk chocolate. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, the white chocolate mousse was soft and not overly sweeted, the milk chocolate folds were delicate, contrary to its crunchy look. My friend enjoyed this one most and ate most of it.
• Zulu (top right): A delicious dome of Valrhona Grand Cru 'Macae' dark chocolate mousse, salted caramel and chocolate ganache centre, biscuit base. This is one of the most reviewed patisseries in the whole of Sydney in my opinion. It's something that if you go to La Patisserie, you must try. I was quite anxious due to the fact I've had issues with salty caramel being unpleasant to my palette, or overly sweet or salty. This was the perfect blend. It did not empower the dome. I ate into the dome, at first impression, baring heavy resemblance taste-wise of a red Lindt ball. At first I didn't taste the salted caramel yet when the centre was split, it was divine. The little wafer balls inside also added texture. I highly recommend this!
• Coffee eclair (bottom): Choux pastry finger filled with coffee custard cream. I am constantly in search of a coffee eclair which I love. I once had the most horrid, bland coffee eclair from the Guylian Cafe and ever since that day was very wary of trying out a new coffee eclair. This was divine, the perfect amount of sweet, and the custard creme was smooth and tasted like an iced cappucino. Loved this.

Rating: 8/10

Service was great, the only disappointment I had was with the first patisserie, and greater eat-in prices. But nevertheless, I enjoyed trying this patisserie and highly recommend anyone to try it. You will be impressed with the wide selection of desserts, which we had trouble deciding on!