Have your cake AND eat it too

When I go out to dinner with my friends they know that Julia picks the restaurant with the best desserts on offer.

I’m ALL about the dessert so much so that when I went out to dinner at one of the top smorgasbord restaurants in Auckland I skipped the main course and basically just sampled every dessert on offer.

However I am currently on Day 20 of the CrossfitHPU paleo challenge so it’s been 20 days since I’ve sampled any dessert offerings.

Which means on my birthday there was no cake (not that I usually have cake on my birthday but not being able to have cake is different from just not wanting to have cake – if you get what I mean).

Anyway one of my friends happened to post a photo on instagram from the Little Bird Unbakery and my brain went DING!

If there was going to be a place where I could find a paleo approved dessert like deliciousness it would be there, so I called up the girls and today we went to check it out.

Little Bird Unbakery is an unassuming building set back from the road.  The first thing you notice is that it’s small.  Actually a better description would be tiny.  One big table and two tiny tables set against a wall that has a big glass window that allows you to see into the kitchen.  I actually think the kitchen is bigger than the entire store front.

It’s also busy and from talking to other people who have dined at Little Bird it’s always busy so it’s pot luck as to whether you are going to be able to sit down and eat in.

We did manage to score a few seats around the big table and we saved another chair for a friend who was on her way (much to the chagrin of other diners and staff).

Once I had drooled over all the offerings in the cabinet and had decided what I wanted I asked the girl behind the counter what was it in and she pulled out a folder that listed all the ingredients in each of the dishes on offer.

I thought that was awesome as I really want to do the entire challenge 100% paleo.

Clare and Yumes decided to have “real food” and then follow that with something sweet afterwards.  I just went straight to the sweet stuff because that’s how I roll 😉

My dessert was devine! You couldn’t even tell there was no dairy, sugar or grains. It was very rich though and dense. Considering I ate my slice at 1pm and its now 3:30 and I’m sill not looking for more food shows you how satisfying the desserts are and the best part? I don’t feel sick, no carb coma, no dairy “tummy” I’m just “satisfied” in the best possible way.

Clare loved her dish of mushrooms on “toast” and Yumes said her’s was nice but she preferred “real sushi”

When Ros arrived the girls then picked a slice each.  Clare had a lemon slice, Ros tried the ginger slice and Yumes went with the Choc Brownie (and each one of us obviously sampled each slice) 😉

Here are our verdicts ..

Brownie – I found it VERY rich and overpoweringly chocolatey. Clare thought it was nice. Yumes took one bite look disgusted said “wheres the sugar?” and gave it to Ros (and Ros ate it so she obviously thought it was nice lol).

Ginger slice – Everyone except Ros thought it was way too gingery.

Lemon slice – Clare and Ros liked it. Yumes went meh and I thought it was a bit bland and not really lemony enough for me. However after tasting all three the lemon slice ended up being my favorite.

BUT my cheesecake was way nicer

Overall it was worth checking out as Yumes said “It’s good to try out new things” we did all however think the place was a little pretentious (but we are all Westies).

I was happy because I got to eat something sweet and paleo approved. I think however once the paleo challenge is done and dusted I’d probably save my dessert eating for my “off day” because out of all the desserts in the world cheesecakes are probably my least favorite and I’m hardly going to find a hot steam pudding smothered in custard at a place that doesn’t cook it’s food 😉

Tonight I’m going out to dinner at a restaurant that has a paleo menu .. how cool is that!

Til next time