under $20

HOT: Jolly J’s Curry Shack, Port Phillip Arcade, Shop 8, 232 Flinders St, Melbourne

November 11, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments

A friend (who had heard it from a Sri Lankan colleague) tipped me off that Jolly J’s served authentic Sri Lankan food. That’s not immediately obvious from the picture menu propped in front of the no-nonsense wash-and-wipe down restaurant – the board lists unheard of Sri Lankan delicacies such as Chicken Parma, Singapore noodles and [...]

HOT: Genova, Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St, Carlton

November 9, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

On the surface The Boys are Back and Genova are both films are about men who lose their wives in tragic circumstances and have to cope with being a single parent to two children. However, I’ve been trying to work out the differences between the films which meant that I gave The Boys are Back [...]

HOT: Proud Mary, Cnr Stanley and Oxford Sts, Collingwood

November 7, 2009 ⋅ 22 comments

Lena: Do you really not drink coffee????? Jetsetting Joyce: Um, that’s right. I’m not a true Melburnian. Can you and James please come to Proud Mary with me? It’s reputed to have the best coffee in Melbourne and I’d really appreciate your expert coffee-drinking opinion. James: Sure. I have been coffeeing a bit at Brother Baba [...]

HOT: The Brothers Bloom, Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St, Carlton

November 6, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

The Brothers Bloom is a light-hearted caper film filled with lovable characters, fiendish rogues, an outlandish cross-continental storyline and sight gags galore. The story starts with Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody), two orphaned brothers who first discover the satisfaction of conning others as young kids. Shunted to yet another foster home in a small [...]

HOT: Moon, Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St, Carlton

November 4, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments

I thought that Moon might end up being an unreviewable film. Thanks to an errant alarm clock and coding-induced insomnia, I found myself dozing during key moments of the film, leaving me in a fog of confusion for most of it. That’s not to say that the film was sleep inducing, as everybody else in [...]

HOT: TOFWD The Organic Food and Wine Deli, 28 Degraves St Melbourne

November 3, 2009 ⋅ 3 comments

TOFWD is a mouthful of a name, but at least there’s no second-guessing what’s on offer at a place called The Organic Food and Wine Deli. This Degraves Street café and mini-health food shop serves organic food to the lunch masses, with pies, rolls, sandwiches, bowl food and sweet things on offer. I had a [...]

HOT: Shocolate, 3/296 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

October 31, 2009 ⋅ 12 comments

It appears that Melbourne’s appetite for artisan chocolate just keeps expanding – Shocolate is a shiny new chocolatier that has just opened in my hood, near the corner of Brunswick and Johnston Streets. On a steaming hot Saturday the outdoor tables in the teeny front area where all occupied, but anyway we wanted to escape [...]

HOT: Migo’s, 289 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

October 30, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments

I normally bring my lunch into work so that I have time to fit in a gym session in my lunch hour. However, when I’m disorganised about my lunch, I tend to use it as an excuse to be disorganised about the gym too. So today, lunch-less, I abandoned my gym gear for the second [...]

NOT: The Boys are Back

October 29, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments

The Boys are Back is director Scott Hick’s (Shine) latest film about family, fatherhood and boys. The movie is based on ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ the 2001 memoir of The Independent columnist Simon Carr, and it was shot on location in South Australia, turned into an almost unrecognisable romantic landscape of swaying golden [...]

Ask the Doctor: Cheap dining in Chinatown for a large group

October 27, 2009 ⋅ One comment

Help me Doctor!: One of the grads at work has asked for a recommendation for a restaurant in Chinatown for their grad dinner (informal plus because we’re a public body… cheap). Dinner will be for about 20 – 25 people and if there’s a banquet option (or some easy ordering option), that would be good. [...]