-18 Meno Diciotto Gelataria is where we ended up for dessert to cool down after eating burgers at Happy Ending Burgers on a particularly warm evening. On offer are 25 flavours – both fruity sorbets and creamy gelato – some of which they’d won awards for at the Royal Easter Show prior to 2015.
They weren’t clear which ones won awards though, so we try their Tasting Plate ($20.00) with (left to right): passionfruit pavlova, cookies and cream, lemon meringue, raspberry, watermelon and lime.
The Passionfruit Pavlova (left) has a vanilla base with passionfruit curd swirled through. It tastes mostly like vanilla, though, as the swirls aren’t as generous as they could be. That said, when you do hit the swirls, the passionfruit flavour was bright and refreshing.
The Cookies and Cream (right) is surprisingly light with bits of cookie that add a chocolate crunch but aren’t too firm or soft as to require chewing.
The Lemon Meringue (left) is a creamy lemon gelato with bits of meringue throughout. As with the pavlova, there weren’t very many bits of meringue, but what was there brought an enjoyable chewy texture.
The Raspberry (right) has the bright tangy and sweet flavour of the fruit with flecks of pulp, but overall it’s nothing remarkable.
The Watermelon (left) is light and refreshing but the flavour definitely comes from syrup and lacked the freshness of the one from Anita Gelato.
The Lime (right) is delightfully zesty. We’ve had sourer lime gelato, but compared to the other sweet flavours, this one was enough to leave us salivating.
Overall, the gelato here is decent, but it’s nothing for which we’d go out of our way, especially when the service from the staff is so lacking with the male who served us making no attempt to hide his impatience and annoyance over customer indecision by visibly rolling his eyes. Service with a smile!
-18 Meno Diciotto Cafe is located at 93 Majors Bay, Concord, Sydney.