Pastry: Dark brown and flaky but too much pastry 6/10
Presentation: Notable effort made to artistically assemble, poorly proportioned 7.5/10
Value for money: $5.50 (estimate) Jumbo portion, pastry too overwhelming 6/10
Overall score: 6.1/10
The item was big and heavy, made of three darkly coloured thick stacks of flaky pastry. The dimensions were approximately 150x60x60mm, with the majority of its height being made of pastry. The custard looked overly yellow and resembled glue holding the stack together. The top layer had a thin layer of fondant icing atop, decorated with a heavy-handed pattern of chocolate. Looks aside, this thing was missing the mark with quantities and ingredients all round. The pastry was so overwhelming and lacking buttery richness that I gave up eating most of it. Yes it was a dark brown, but it was awfully dry and salty. The custard was similar in texture to glue; overly sweet and a ridiculous amount of vanilla essence made the taste quite unpleasantly tangy after eating the serving. The icing was nothing to write home about either unfortunately, with the chocolate used not darkly bitter or from the top shelf of chocolate.
From a monetary point of view this vanilla slice provides a large portion for the price, but the overall makeup and quality of components let the item down significantly.