Sea Sweet, Parramatta

The September issue of Time Out Sydney is now out with my latest Food & Drink column highlighting Sea Sweet Patisserie at Parramatta.

It was Fouad from The Food Blog who first put me onto this suburban gem, just one stop on a delicious fooding day out. He had told me about a Lebanese breakfast that involved cheese in a bun that was drowned in syrup. My first question was where, and quickly followed by when.

Fouad's deep-seated affection for Sea Sweet is a result of his childhood memories frequenting the same shop in Lebanon, which began in Beirut and now numbers ten branches. The Parramatta store is its first international foray.

You'll find a huge range of Middle Eastern sweet here, and, most impressively, everything is clearly labelled with names and a brief description of the ingredients. This takes a lot of guesswork out of ordering, although at the same time, it makes it so much harder to choose!

By the time we'd left, I already knew I'd be returning to research a piece for Time Out Sydney. This kind of sugar paradise is too good to keep to myself!

Sea Sweet Patisserie

WHAT IS IT?

A patisserie serving European and Middle Eastern sweets.

Baklava display

WHAT'S IT LIKE?

The shop is split in two with European desserts on the left, Middle Eastern sweets and biscuits on the right.

Chocolate baklava

WHAT SHOULD I ORDER?

Knefe cheese ($13.90 eat in/$7.90 takeaway) is a cheeseburger made for sweet tooths. Take one ka'ak sesame bun, slick the insides with syrup and then sandwich around a generous square of creamy knefe cheese coated with semolina. A quick grill results in a toasted sesame bun with a stretchy-sweet core of syrupy molten cheese.

Knefe cheese - semolina encrusted sweet cheese

Placing knefe cheese into a syrup-doused ka'ak sesame bun

Adding more sugar syrup


The knefe cheese bun fresh out of the grill

Knefe cheese in a bun $13.90 eat-in

Knefe cheese in a bun takeaway $7.90

Semolina-encrusted knefe cheese inside the bun

WHAT ELSE?

Kashta (thick clotted cream) is celebrated here in an endless choice of desserts. Sea Sweet might be the only place in Sydney to serve kashta ice cream ($14.90). Otherwise go all the way and order the Beirut Delight ($14.90), an island of pure kashta cream smothered with honey and a tumble of crushed pistachios. You'll also find kashta on top of the fruit cocktail ($14.90), a refreshing fruit salad piled in a parfait glass atop a bed of smooth avocado puree.

Kashta ice cream $14.90

Fruit cocktail $14.90
Strawberry, mango, pineapple, banana, kiwi fruit and sweet avocado puree

topped with honey, pistachio, almonds and kashta

Pistachios and kashta on top of the fruit cocktail

DOES EVERYTHING COME WITH KASHTA?

No. Chocolate baklava is a modern twist on a traditional favourite, with chocolate-flavoured filo pastry drizzled with stripes of chocolate icing. Also grab half a kilo of baklava take away for $13.90 - by the time you get home you should be ready for more.

Fingers pine

Bite-sized cashew and pine nut-filled baklava known as lady's fingers

Balourieh pistachio

A layered pistachio centre with a light coloured string outer

Chocolate baklava


Mammoul walnut
A walnut-centred delight with rosewater scent

Nammoura

Semolina and almond traditional favourite

Sugar syrup and menu on the dine-in table

Znoud el set $2.90 per piece takeaway

Date boule

Date-filled ball rolled in sesame seeds

Tamara

A pistachio-encrusted shortbread with a date centre


Baba au Rhum $5.20 takeaway
Sweet-syrup infused sponge with pineapple centre and topped with fresh cream

Sea Sweet Patisserie

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Sea Sweet Patisserie

4/354 Church Street, Parramatta, Sydney

Tel: 1300 90 80 70

Opening hours:

Sunday to Thursday 8.30am-11pm

Friday and Saturday 8.30am-1am

Related Grab Your Fork posts:

Parramatta - Parramatta Park Cafe
Parramatta - Sahara
Parramatta - Temasek (Jan09) and (May08)
Granville - El Jannah

Baklava - El Bahsa Sweets, Bankstown
Baklava - Rabieh, Punchbowl (Aug07) and (Feb05)
Baklava - Sabbagh Patissery, Greenacre


Time Out Sydney reviews:
ATL Marantha, Kensington (Indonesian fried chicken with edible bones)
Balkan Oven, Rockdale (Macedonian burek)
Durban Dish, Baulkham Hills (South African bunny chow)
Hijazi's Falafel, Arncliffe (Lebanese breakfast)
Island Dreams Cafe, Lakemba (Christmas Islands cuisine)
La Paula, Fairfield (Chilean empanadas, lomitos and sweets)
Sizzling Fillo, Lidcombe (Filipino pork hock crackling)
Tehran, Granville (Persian cuisine)
Tuong Lai, Cabramatta (Vietnamese sugar cane prawns)