Scents of Taste is a bakery and coffee shop/cafe with French pastries, French bakery items, and French staff - such that it makes you feel like you might just be in France. Whilst many people choose to dine in on the range of offerings including croissants, palmiers, tarts, baguettes, sweet pastries, eclairs, macarons, and of course coffee, there is a steady stream of people who opt for takeaway for a snack or treat for lunch or dinner.
Part of the al fresco dining at Scents of Taste before the crowd comes in
Whilst Scents of Taste appeared on the Mount Lawley scene a while ago, its position in relation to Beaufort Street (i.e. behind the Astor Theatre) meant it probably didn't receive the attention it deserves.
Ham and Cheese Croissant - $6
Intrinsically French, we all know the croissant is a staple of French baking. Filled with ham and melted cheese, this croissant tasted indulgently good. The croissant itself was made how you would expect a good French bakery to do it - buttery, light, flaky, and flavoured just right to eat on its own let alone with the added savoury tastes of the ham and cheese.
The croissant was a great medium proportioned savoury light meal, even though quite rich. Upon ordering, the croissant was placed into the baker’s oven to be reheated and for the cheese to come out nicely melted.
Croque Monsieur - $8.50
Layers of melted cheese and ham sandwiched together. Need I say more? Scents of Taste make a mean Croque Monsieur complete with an outer coating and filled with ham and cheese goodness. Even though this isn't fancy food and is more like French snack food or a light meal that is more common in Europe, this was one of the better croque monsieurs around.
Again, the croquet monsieur was heated on order giving it a nice hot melted cheese and ham taste.
Strawberry Slice - $7.50
Coming highly recommended by the waitstaff, this strawberry slice was layer after layer of flaky pastry and custard, topped with a bit of strawberry flavoured cream, half a strawberry, and completed with a caramel covered layer of pastry. The presentation, as with most of their pastries, was impressive and led to a sweet pastry and custard dense slice of satisfaction.
Overall, the strawberry slice was a rich and fancier pastry without the feeling that you were eating something very heavy. The sweetness levels, apart from maybe the small amount of caramel, was also good – being not too sweet.
Snail - $4.30
Escargot? Yes but no but… This pastry was lightly sweet and had the texture you would expect of this type of pastry. The pastry also had a buttery taste and once again baked fresh to the good standard that seems to be Scents of Taste.
Paris Brest (left) - $6.50 and Chocolate Caramel - $6.50
This Paris Brest was a pastry that was composed of choux pastry (think profiteroles) cut in half like a bagel, filled with praline flavoured cream, and dusted. The pastry had the texture and taste of profiterole pastry and the quality of the Scents of Taste pastry was good. The cream filling didn't feel heavy and was lightly flavoured. Overall, this pastry tasted lighter than what I'm sure it was with milder flavours to the pastries above.
The Chocolate Caramel tart was lined with a layer of sweet caramel, filled with a thick amount of chocolate mousse, and finished with this decoratively layered creamy chocolate top layer that was coated in chocolate powder.
The tart base was well constructed, being a hard buttery shell that needed a bit of force to break or cut into but also didn’t crumble or accidentally break apart whilst eating it. Whilst the caramel was a bit too sweet for my liking, the chocolate centre and the pastry as a whole was well made and nicely.
Cappuccino - $3.45
Quite an average coffee, the froth was a little too foamy and inconsistent for my liking. The taste was quite neutral, not really showing any strong characteristics either way. Whilst not a terrible coffee, I would definitely call these guys good French bakers rather than good baristas.
In summary, Scents of Taste gets the thumbs up as a French bakery. Whilst the range of pastries isn't the biggest in Perth, what they do make they make well.
Points to note: Scents of Taste serves sweet French pastries, savoury items (some of which are heated in the baking oven upon your order), as well as coffee. Takeaway and dining in are equally popular here.
Go for: Great tasting and well made French pastries.
Scents of Taste
Shop 3, 80 Walcott Street
MOUNT LAWLEY WA 6050
(08) 9272 6708
Trading Hours
Tuesday to Saturday: 8am to 6pm
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment