Monthly Archives: March 2008

melbourne in three days – shopping

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There are three main shopping areas I personally like to visit in Melbourne.

Bridge Road, Richmond

Bridge road has a good variety of stores including some outlets. I love the Body Shop outlet (the only one in Australia I believe) and Macro Wholefoods (which Brisbane sadly misses out on). Kitty loves the Mimco outlet, aptly named ‘Mimco Aisle’.

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Brunswick Street & Gertrude Street, Fitzroy

The Fitzroy stores are more eclectic than the stores at Bridge road. The Brunswick Street Bookstore (business card below) is a good place to visit, so is Industria at 202 Gertrude Street. The original T2 store is in Brunswick Street too.

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Melbourne City

Little Collins Street has some great little stores, one of them being ‘Little Salon’ (below). DFO at Southern Cross station is worth a visit as it is so handy to the city.

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melbourne in three days – getting there and around

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Melbourne Airport (Tullamarine) is a about 20km northwest of Melbourne city. Since there aren’t any public trains or trams that travel from the airport to the city, you need to catch a bus or taxi.

We usually use the Skybus service. It is fairly cheap ($26 return per person) and it includes the Skybus direct to Spencer Street Southern Cross Station and then a smaller shuttle bus to your hotel. The Skybus takes about 20 minutes and then the shuttle bus can take another 30 depending on where you get off.

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You should remember to book your return shuttle bus pickup at least a day before departure to guarantee a seat.

It is very easy to get around Melbourne city with the excellent tram network. The city circle is a free tram service that runs during the day. You have to put up with annoying voice over announcements of various tourist attractions, but it is free. For other trams, a daily zone 1 metcard is the best value ($6.50) as you can travel in inner Melbourne all day on any tram (also buses and trains). You can buy metcards in newsagents and convenience stores, as well as from the concierge desk at most hotels.

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I misjudged our return flight times last Sunday, so in a frantic dash to the airport we had to catch a cab. It was quicker than the bus (as expected) but it cost us $49 one way including highway tolls. This was a quiet Sunday afternoon so I imagine during the week it would cost a lot more. We got to the airport with less than half an hour before departure but we were still allowed to check in (thanks to Virgin Blue!).

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melbourne in three days – food

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Kit and I spent the weekend in Melbourne. One of my favourite things about Melbourne is the food. The variety and quality is hard to beat.

Supper Inn was really tasty and popular on Friday night, they were turning away the crowds as usual. We had salt & pepper king prawns, stir fried kai-lan with garlic (yum) and steamed rice. It was simple Cantonese food, but so fresh and full of flavour. The menu is comprehensive with lots of specialties including crispy pigeon, which we avoided.

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Liagon street was as good as usual. We tried Trotters on Saturday night. Nice, but not as good as Tiamos for Sunday lunch. Tiamo’s does really good simple pastas. Tiamo’s sister restaurant, Tiamo 2, is currently closed due to renovations but due to reopen soon.

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Flinders street station is amazingly busy. This busyness supports specialist food places, including one that predominantly sells fries. Chips is a better description, fat ones. Handcut and served in either cardboard cones or boxes. Your choice of sauce and less than five bucks.

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Brunswick Street Fitzroy, like a lot of the city, was grotty. We still found a great modern Vietnamese place for lunch called Red Rice. Apparently they do red rice, we saw it being delivered to another table. The food was great, not your typical Vietnamese. We had two appetizers each, plus a large serve of Asian salad greens with a Vietnamese dressing.

The only thing I dislike about food in Melbourne is the acceptance of smoking in outdoor eating areas. The weather was beautiful, we would have loved to eat outside except that we didn’t want someone’s dirty cigarette ruining our meal.

bún bò huế from viet hoah @ west end

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At least once a week I order the Bún Bò Huế (Spicy Beef Noodle Soup) from Viet Hoah Restaurant in West End, Brisbane. It has to be my all time favourite soup, words can’t describe the mix of flavours contained. I like it much more than Phở which  seems to be more popular here in Australia. Bún Bò Huế contains round rice noodles whereas Phở usually has flat rice noodles.

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Viet Hoah charge less than nine bucks for it, which is incredible considering it always fills me up for lunch or dinner. I can’t think of a better way to spend the cash.

a three day weekend

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With the surplus of working days this leap year, Kitty and I thought it would be nice to have a three day weekend.

Friday

After reading so many good reviews we decided to venture the half block to Piaf, a French styled bistro for lunch. Our expectations were sky high and unfortunately weren’t entirely met. I had rice paper rolls to start which were a little too sweet for my taste. I also would have preferred a runnier, homemade sauce rather than the straight thick hoisin (with peanuts) on offer. The belly pork that I had for main was  also very sweet. It was a huge serve (of meat) but had very little accompanying green and rice. It would have enjoyed it more if it was three times less meat and three times more green. Kitty’s veg linguine was okay but needed more seasoning and less oil. The interior design and layout is very cool. I love the wood and the simplistic art on the white wall inside. The prices are very reasonable, all starters were eight bucks, light meals twelve and mains sixteen.

Afterwards we had devonshire tea at tealicious which was very yum!

Saturday

We drove to Byron to stay the night at the consistently good beach hotel.

We had lunch at the Orient Express eatery. They have a weekend yum cha menu where all dishes are $7.90. We ordered gow gee, veg spring rolls, a prawn pancake, crepe wrapped fried rice and a side of green. Most of the dishes were nice but needed more seasoning/herbs for my liking. The supplied hot chili and soy sauces came in handy to smother the food. We ordered a pot of Buddha tears jasmine tea which was superb.

We swam in the pool and the weather was nice as we walked the length of the beach at sunset.

Fishmongers for dinner was consistently sound. We had grilled fresh local mahi-mahi.

Fish Mongers

Sunday

It started to rain on Sunday morning whilst we ate breakfast looking towards the park and ocean.

Arriving back into Brisbane we decided to pick up a late lunch from a local favourite: Viet Hoah at West End.

Good times.