Mado Cafe at Auburn

The key with going for a successful food adventure is going with people that truly love food. Our friends Queen Viv and Miss America are always willing to go that extra mile for that extra special meal which is a sentiment I always appreciate as I am the same. So despite the fact that Miss A. has been up for over 25 hours straight and she is still willing to go out for dessert after our carnivorous fest at Carne Station proves what a strong constitution and resolve she has. Just what a beauty queen needs really.

So its late in the evening when we drive up to Auburn and revisit a place we've been to several times before lured by Grab Your Fork and known for their fabulous Dondurma (salep enriched stretchy Turkish ice cream), Mado cafe. Service is a unsure and wary, as if we've fallen outside of a spaceship and our questions are answered with a confused "I don't know". Its a pity the service is so neglectful as the desserts are divine.

We know what we want, what we've had before and loved, the ice cream (including a must have black mulberry) so we choose the Cup Maras which is an ice cream sundae with scoops of black mulberry, pistachio, sour cherry and maras (white) with fruit salad and sour cherry sauce ($9.50) and the Kazandibi ($5.50) a "cauldron bottom" charred pudding thickened with salep from the orchid root. To quench our thirst we order a Turkish sour cherry drink ($3), Gazoz a Turkish lemonade ($2.50) and Turkish mineral water ($2.50).

From left to right: Gazoz a Turkish lemonade ($2.50), Turkish sour cherry drink ($3), and Turkish mineral water ($2.50)

Our drinks arrive along with our sundae and pudding. The Turkish mineral water tastes like regular mineral water, refreshing and with hard large bubbles, not softly carbonated. The sour cherry drink, always a favourite (we downed about 20 bottles of this last time) is gorgeously fruity and the Turkish lemonade has a fruity flavour to it, almost like creaming soda.

We dig into our mermaid decorated sundae and I start with my favourite, the black mulberry. Its sweet and with a slight berry tang to it but so heady in berries, its like burying your face in a field of the sweetest berries. The pistachio is lovely too, although not particularly pisctacho-ey with just a faint echo of it. The sour cherry ice cream looks to be replaced by the mango which is nice enough but we know that the sour cherry would have been nicer-I wish they had told us that it was not available. The maras is a mild, plain flavour, more like a milk flavour. The fruit salad is fairly small consisting of a few grapes and tiny cubes of melon but the thick sour cherry topping is gorgeous and I want it by the jar to drizzle over ice cream at home.

The Kazandibi, always a favourite of ours, is gloriously stretchy and sweet with a liberal touch of cinnamon. Its hard to describe as there's nothing quite like it, its similar to a super stretchy rice pudding without the grains of rice.

I contemplate buying the black mulberry by the tub but alas with the night so warm and the journey home so long I know that it will be melted (or eaten) long before we reach our driveway...

Mado Cafe

63 Auburn Road, Auburn Sydney

Ph: +61 (02) 9643-5299

Monday-Friday 8am-midnight, Saturday-Sunday 10am-midnight

Payment accepted: MasterCard, Visa, Diners Club and American Express

Vegetarian options

Also locations in Brisbane and Melbourne