Sweet Things- Strawberry Cheese Pie Bingsu- Old School Ka-fey

382 Pitt Street, Sydney

As a man of my word, I had vowed to return back to Old School Ka-fey after our brief encounter with each other on Friday night, so we find ourselves here on a Sunday arvo to try their Korean Bingsu!

At around 3.30pm on a Sunday arvo they were packed, we were kindly asked to take a seat in the slanted entranceway where a number of seats were set up for customers to wait for tables to free up and as we sat (feeling like waiting at a doctor’s surgery) my wife noticed the remarkable resemblance between the Ka-fey and Satang Thai Infinity interior decorations.

“Nah, it can’t be, they probably didn’t renovate after moving in” I insisted, as ‘Old School’ had moved into the vacated store after Infinity set up in the World Square.

“But there are decorations which are the same!” My wife told me. “Like they even have a vintage mo-ped like they had at Satang!” And with that piece of information, I had no return.

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But after a couple left, we were seen to a table for two, and after making our orders back at the front counter, we waited for our Bingsu. While we waited my wife googled to understand what exactly is a Bingsu (as we’d never had one before).

A Bingsu is a Korean dessert, picture a snow-cone shaved-ice with syrup and different ingredients mixed into it, but at $14.90 they’re some heavy-duty premium snow cones! But reading a popular Sydney Foodie’s blog, we found out that Old School was actually owned by Satang Thai- hence the matching décor with their World Square restaurant. And all of a sudden I had to re-adjust my mental imagery: The friendly Korean store owner from Friday night was in fact Thai; and his friendly re-direction to Satang, was not just to help a lost couple, but a strategic  prompt of customers to their parent store. But oh well! Such is life.

But our monstrosity ice cone arrived, and all thoughts of unauthenticity left when this was set down before us.

The bowl which it was served in was on par in size with a soup bowl, and the shaved ice was piled on more than double the height of the actual bowl! With spoons we scooped at the green matcha fairy floss; the whipped cream; the cubes of fresh strawberries; the shaved ice which tasted like a fluffy light cheese cake mixture; at the bottom there was a chocolate cookie base; and the additional strawberry jam syrup which you could add to your cheese cake snow…….*Heart shaped eyes emoji*.

A Bingsu is definitely something that you can’t….. Well, you can, but you shouldn’t, eat alone! As it’s so large and probably by the time you get to the bottom everything would have melted into a temperature cool soup.

So sharing is the design of a Bingsu, and I think everyone in the Ka-fey had the same idea. The only clientele in the store today were couples sitting shoulder to shoulder, sharing a Bingsu. Or a table-full of girls sharing all of their desserts with each other. Many many tables full of girls.

Although $14.90 is pretty steep for dessert, but we still think it’s still worth it as it is a labour intensive dessert to construct; and as business owners, you price products at a level at which the market would bear-  and it was clear that Sydney-siders were more than willing to pay $14.90 for the Bingsu (they also had brick toasts and drinks).

I think we’ll be back, the Strawberry Cheese Pie was very moreish, and I’m interested to try more of the dozen different flavour combinations on offer. Check-it out! It’s worth your while. And if you’re a single guy looking for love….. borrow one of those fluffy white puppies and come to Old School alone for a Bingsu. And I think this is your best chance of meeting ‘The One’, if the ratio of girls to guys is any indication of your potential to meet the ‘ONE’!