Reviews

As we’re all no doubt aware, organised religion no longer has the pull it once did. The opiate of the masses has been cut with lesser substances, leading to an overall downturn in the market and some often quite dissatisfied customers, who’ve been forced to find salvation in other ways: television, video games, sex, Kellogg’s LCMs.

Of course, without the ability to rely on the usual business, some misguided religious zealots have seen fit to diversify their operations; be it via crusades, or terror campaigns, or by founding television stations on which are featured gentlemen whose mass consists of approximately 95% hair and teeth.

Buddhism does not escape this fate. Although it benefits from possessing a more "spiritual" air, and is therefore more palatable to the average Joe or Juanita - spiritualism, not religion, is all the rage these days - even it has made headway into other areas. For example, in the International Buddhist centre on Riccarton Road, there is a vegetarian café. And in this café, there is cake*. And as there was cake, it was of paramount interest to us.

(* However, to our eternal disappointment, there was not a lightsaber to be seen. No displays of telekinetic prowess. Not a single odd alien creature, though a couple of hairstyles sported by some of the patrons could only be termed otherworldly.)

Buddhist Cookies & Cream Cheesecake
Cake categories: cheese, biscuit, zen-imparting
Price: $6.00
Available from: Fo Guang Shan Tea House

Obviously, this isn't just your normal cookies and cream cheesecake. No, this cake is made from cream cheese harvested from yaks high atop a Himalayan peak, each of whom is a master of tai chi and at least one mysterious martial art; Oreos crafted by reclusive monks from an isolated monastery somewhere in the Tibetan hinterlands; and secret ingredients purported to impart on the diner the secrets of the universe.

Oh, wait. No it's not. It appears to be the same one they sell at Coffee Culture.

Though one might consider it mildly incongruous to see a commercially produced cake given pride of place at a place of such obvious spiritual enlightenment - and certainly a disappointment as well - it is not altogether surprising. Vague and often conveniently-appropriated tenets of spiritualism have merged with mainstream culture to form our modern ethos; and so too must it flow the other way. Still, it would have been wonderful to have entered and seen some truly exotic creation; perhaps infused with pomegranate and cardamom and all those other mildly esoteric ingredients you usually find hipster cafes shilling.

Construction, Texture, and Structural Integrity

Viewed sliced, cookies and cream cheesecake resembles a lesson in geology, ideally suited for these tectonically-eventful times. A base layer of biscuit is topped by a layer of cream cheese mix speckled through with fragments of Oreos. The top of the cake is a scattering of Oreo gravel, looking to all appearances like a street midway through roadworks, just prior to the tar seal stage. A series of slightly larger - though still diminutive - Oreo balls sit on the rear section, balancing the rest.

Taste

Cookies and cream is a tremendously popular flavour in New Zealand, covering the bases of the two most important food groups: the first being cookies, the second being cream. It's nigh-conquered the ice cream market, being the second highest-selling blend in the country, behind hokey pokey. A foray into cheesecake was only natural.

However, like its brethren of ice cream flavours slumming in cake form - hokey pokey and jelly tip - it's not quite as successful in this manifestation. It's not as bad as the small disaster that is the jelly tip cheesecake, but it's certainly a disappointment relative to its original ice cream parent.

Nevertheless, it does retain the appealing sweetness, and there's a curious hint of salt that permeates its cookie crumb. Salty and sweet combinations are not for everyone, but it certainly adds a pleasing complexity of flavour.

Extras

There's no cream in this dojo, and apparently no yoghurt either. The only thing that came with the cake was a napkin, a fork, and total enlightenment. But nobody goes buying cake to get total enlightenment, so it feels like a bit of a misfire.

Concluding Thoughts

Even in other settings, the cookies and cream cheesecake would be a bit of a letdown – it just doesn't live up to the high expectations set by its ice cream counterpart. But in the midst of the Jedi Temple (and let's face it, the place is clearly a front for the Jedi Order), you'd really hope for something truly special, and this just didn't deliver. Maybe we caught them on an off-day, and they'll come up with something great next time. (They'll know we're coming right? They're able to read minds, aren't they?)