Reviews

I have seen a place. I have seen a place that is Australasia’s pre-eminent monument to gauche sensibilities and absences of taste.

Okay, so "hell" might be exaggerating things a tad. As we all know, hell on Earth has been firmly established as Lincoln. But for an area of such natural potential, it seems the Gold Coast has squandered a pure reputation of cerulean waters and ethereal sand in favour of dodgy timeshares and the inescapable air of drug money. If you'd ever wondered where promo girls come from – and indeed, I think that is a question we have all pondered at one point or another – the Gold Coast is the answer.*
(* Actually, the Gold Coast is the answer whether you've wondered about that or not.)
But far be it from me to slate an entire region unduly. I'm sure the Gold Coast has many redeeming features, it just chooses to keep them close to its cosmetically-enhanced chest. And if getting wasted amidst bleach-blondes while screaming I have seen a place where you can paint your buildings any colour, so long as it is a pastel shade of tan, orange, pink, or coral; a place where you can paint your skin similarly. I have seen a place where leathery elderly men walk down the street shirtless in June, alongside women whose intellects are the only feature they’ve neglected to augment. I have seen a place where characterless, cloned apartment towers stand in a dense line alongside an idyllic encroaching tide, the recent decades’ best approximation of Easter Island’s moai statues. I have seen a place where “buffet” is not only a dominant style of cuisine, but supports a veritable subculture of offspring. I have seen a place that is hell on Earth. I have seen the Gold Coast.

"YEEEEAAH!" to no one in particular with a look of vacant mania in your eyes is your thing, then it's probably quite enjoyable.
Actually, maybe it's not so bad.
Queensland isn't devoid of pleasant beachfront locales and – oh, right, yeah, I'm writing about Queensland, in case you didn't realise – even cakes, they just tend to be elsewhere. It was with some surprise that the best specimen that presented itself was at none other than chain-café The Coffee Club, which seemed marginally better than its New Zealand counterpart (table service? How hoity-toity).
When I saw this cake imprisoned in the cabinet, I knew it was the one for me. But upon ordering, a look of horror crossed the staff member's face. His colleague smirked, saying "you can cut that one". It would seem that the Chocolate Fantasy* Cake was not a beast with which to be trifled.**
(* Coincidentally, Chocolate Fantasy was the title of my ill-advised foray into the world of R&B. Turns out that people don't want "smooth grooves from a white boy who grew up on the mean streets of Christ-to-the-church". Who woulda thought?)
(** Get it? Trifled? Because a trifle is a dessert, and... look, this kind of punnery is the best you're gonna get, so just live with it.)

Chocolate Fantasy Cake
Categories: chocolate, layered, be-hatted
Price: AU$5.60
Available from: The Coffee Club… in Brisbane.

Construction, Texture, and Structural Integrity
The most notable thing about the Chocolate Fantasy Cake is the ridiculous flourish of crumpled chocolate sitting on top, accented by a dusting of gold powder, suitably ostentatious for the area in which it was purchased. It almost looks like the works of a frustrated milliner, one who, having been withheld an invitation to the Royal Wedding, decided to express in cake form what they might have worn. Would have topped what Princess Moosehat wore, at least.
It was this flourish that generated the look of horror in the waiter’s eyes. Often you might find chocolate curls or crumbled flakey chocolate on top of a cake, and that doesn’t present much of a challenge when it comes to cutting a slice. But this was one big interconnected chocolate sea monster, probably with its own cardiopulmonary system and maybe even a basic sentience. Cutting it was going to cause a catastrophic failure across its whole mass, and, possessing the seismic experience of a Cantabrian, I knew it could all go horribly wrong.
Fortunately, the man behind the counter possessed more talent than I gave him credit for. Realising that the chocolate hat would not maintain its integrity, he presented it with the shattered fragments arrayed artfully next to the cake proper. The sleek lines meeting jagged edges suggested that this is the cake Batman would eat, if Batman were to eat cake.
Aside from the hat, the cake beneath was perfectly moist, run through with a layer of creamy ganache. It was one of those rare cakes where its form did everything right, which is quite impressive considering how very wrong it could have gone on a first glance.

Taste
Chocolate cakes are becoming much-of-a-muchness, but this one needs to be praised for its top-shelf quality. Rich, but not sickly; the dark chocolate adornment offset the lighter blend of the body. I could try and read into it hints of manuka and cardamom, but that would be lying, and besides, chocolate done right doesn’t require alien flavour accents.

Extras
The chocolate fragments from its broken precipice were set aside a well-sized tuft of whipped cream, which is really all one needs for a cake of this sort.

Concluding Thoughts
The Chocolate Fantasy Cake proves that Queensland is indeed capable of producing things of a fine and elegant taste. I’d rank it as the best chocolate cake I’ve had in that price range, if one ignores the cost of the flight in getting to a place that serves it.