Baking Maniac Party

What a great evening... R&A from Baking Maniac, thanks for the yummy dessert! It was great meeting Jason from Geoexpat group in person as well. Finally an update to the photo preview of the dessert party as I've been so busy at work since Chinese New Year.

Look at all the dessert in the photos! It has been one of the best all-you-can-eat dessert party for me in a LOOOONG while since I've had all these allergies! R&A are very serious about their baking and careful in avoiding all our allergies - as you can see in the beautifully designed menu and the grand dessert stand!


I even got to pack my favourites home to satisfy my sweet tooth for the next few days. Those in this box are our favourites:



Chocolate Mendiants - The chocolate so smooth and overloaded with nuts and my fav dried cranberries. Loved them:

These cupcakes are amazing! They are the signature of the Baking Maniac ;) The level of moist is perfect to my liking. They used the best chocolate in the cupcakes, and the orange flavour is real, not from some flavoured oil. mmmmmmmmm yum! They also had banana muffins but I'm not crazy about banana (though I LOVE chocolate and had 2 of the chocolate muffins).

Cranberry Hazelnut Biscotti, with a hint of Cardamom. Biscotti is something I always loved. The texture of these biscotti is perfect and I loved the Cranberr/Hazelnut mix.

Yuuuum. I'm not a brownie person but I couldn't put these down. Thanks C:

The crisps to the right also has the interesting herbs flavour. Loved the texture of crisp + bit of chewiness. Cookies are decent too, would be great if it has more chocolate chips LOL, as a chocolate person. Chewy gluten-free cookies isn't easy to make... They also had Saffron Cardamom Pistachio Cookie.

Another heavenly dessert from C. You definitely couldn't tell that they are gluten free. We all agreed that the almond powder makes the difference:

Another look of my favourite:

Special thanks to Baking Maniac for the invitation =) See their website for some more professional photos and the "behind the scene" story ;)

If you have any sort of allergies (dairy, nut, gluten, you name it) and need cupcakes or any cakes for any parties, they can definitely help. R&A are amazing people who'd take care of all your special requests =)

Their contact info: http://bakingmaniac.blogspot.hk/p/contact-us.html
Bakers@bakingmaniac.me

Hanoi with allergy

It has been a while. It has been so long that Hanoi seems like a dream now... I did find some allergy-friendly restaurants in Hanoi:

Bobby Chinn

77 Xuan Dieu Street, Tay Ho District, Hanoi

In case you don't know, Bobby Chinn is a celebrity chef with his own show on TV. We were lucky to meet him in person at the restaurant that evening. When I emailed to make my reservation, I told them about my allergy including the "gluten-free" part and they completely understood. The waitress even told me they substituted the flour in the turkey gravy with rice flour. The Christmas dinner costed ~70USD including champagne. It was well worth the money... let's forget the Vietnam price level for a while. It is a bit out of the way but Bobby Chinn was saying that they are looking to move back to the old town area.

Cozy ambiance perfect for a champagne.

My cold white bean soup

"squid pasta"... flour-free pasta made with squid

Heavenly mushroom risotto - always my fav dish

buckwheat pancake with smoke salmon and cavier (with gluten)

my gluten free alternative: cheakpea pancake bruschetta

dessert!

Green Tangerine

48 Hang Be Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi

Vietnamese style French cuisine. Yummy and creative dishes. The Ca qua fish in tamarind sauce is really good. As well as the dish in the phone below... Email them in advance for arrangement for allergy. (I didn't specifically ask for GF food, but instead just picked dishes that look ok.)

Spice Garde Sofitel Metropole

MSG-free restaurant. I didn't request gluten-free but I'm sure they can arrange something if you talk to them in advance.

Exotissimo - Mai Chau tour home stay

We were at Ms Chang's ecological home stay. I told my guide about my allergy when booking the trip and on the tour. I ate most but not all of the dishes. I didn't get any reaction from the trip... It was this fantastic tour made me fall in love with Vietnam.

Street foods I didn't try

Pho - 49 Bat Dan. Long line up til late at night. I took a bite of the rice noodles, yummy!

Eel noodles - 87 Hang Dieu Street (the stir fried one is the best according to my friends. But I didnt touch the food cuz I saw huge packages of MSG on the shelf)

Ok, I took a few bites of this rice rolls. Yummy! Even in HK/ China, you can't easily find freshly made and steamed rice rolls like this! 14 Hang Ga Street

Vietnamese bun. Obviously gluten filled. I didn't touch...

Special thanks to the Canadian Chinese family we met on the Halong Bay trip for this street food cheat sheet (original source: gastronomyblog). I didn't try everything on the list. But for those my friends tried, they are all good.

Good luck with your Hanoi trip!