Somewhere between an Asian bakery and patisserie, Hello Happy sells baked goods as well as pretty cakes and a a variety of cold and hot coffees and drinks.
I choose the prettiest cake in the display: Raspberry Mousse ($5.40). This is one of the most Western cakes on offer (along with a mango mousse and blackforest). They also had some Western inspired desserts, like green tea or sweet potato layered cake, the latter which I found particularly unusual.
The raspberry mousse has a sponge base with a raspberry mousse centre. The cake is coated in a jelly like glaze and surrounded by some raspberry flavoured ‘rocks’. I enjoyed this cake – I came looking for a pretty cake that tasted good, and that’s what I got. The raspberry mousse was intense, like raspberry jam, but it wasn’t cloyingly sweet at all – it had the tartness you expect from raspberries. I don’t usually pay attention to decorations, but these tasted goood and I found the wafer sticks particularly cute and interesting how they were ‘glued’ to the disc.
And an iced green tea latte. My hopes for a nice drink fell to pieces the moment I saw its off-white colour. Green tea lattes are meant to be green, not white. I have never enjoyed a green tea latte that wasn’t the colour of matcha powder. Tasting it only confirmed my poor first impression of the drink. It tasted like milk with too much sugar syrup and any hint of green tea was barely there. A good green tea latte tastes like a green tea KitKat, which this one could not be further from, alas.
Their fruit smoothies and actual coffees are good though, I’ve heard. So next time I’ll just stick to cake and the more classic drinks.
Hello Happy is located at 22 The Boulevarde, Strathfield NSW 2135.