under $20

HOT: L’atelier de Monsieur Truffe, 351 Lygon St, East Brunswick

August 8, 2011 ⋅ 4 comments

Three words to cheer up your Monday. New. Chocolate. Shop! Collingwood favourite Monsieur Truffe has opened bigger and brighter establishment in Brunswick East and it has all of the charm of the original plus more. Thibault Fregoni, the ‘mister’ of Monsieur Truffe, has set up his own old-fashioned cocoa bean roaster and bean press, which [...]

NOT: Takumi, 32 Bourke St, Melbourne

August 4, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

Melbourne CBD abounds with good Japanese lunch spots, from tiny laneway favourite Sushi Monger to the rarified surroundings of high-class Shoya. Takumi is a restaurant which spans these two extremes – it is spacious and uncrowded with a quiet and sedate ambience. The decor is inoffensively neutral, almost blandly boring. Boppy J-pop plays quietly in [...]

HOT: Third Wave Cafe, 189 Rouse St, Port Melbourne

August 3, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

As many of you know, I’m not a coffee-drinker. What’s even stranger in a coffee-town such as Melbourne is that many of my friends are not coffee-drinkers either! Which means that there is a bit of a hole in my reviewing repertoire. Thankfully, my coffee-drinking friend M has returned from overseas and is a ready [...]

HOT: Cupcake Central, Level 2 Melbourne Central Dining Hall, cnr Swanston and Latrobe Sts, Melbourne

July 25, 2011 ⋅ 6 comments

What would you do if you lost your job tomorrow? Sheryl Thai used to be an IT consultant. Then during the GFC two years ago, she was told that she no longer had a job. Not one to cry into her keyboard, Sheryl decided that it was time to fulfil her dream of owning a [...]

HOT: Wallis & Ed, 1 Bourke St, Melbourne

July 18, 2011 ⋅ 4 comments

With so many excellent restaurants to choose from in our city, Melbourne never really had a place in its heart for the Hard Rock Cafe. So the American chain’s prime location on the corner of Bourke Street and Spring Street has now been transformed into the chic space known as Wallis & Ed, named after, [...]

HOT: Story In A Cup, Shop 4, 9 Yarra Lane, South Yarra

July 15, 2011 ⋅ 4 comments

I know, I know, it’s hardly ice-cream weather at the moment (but forecast sunny today and tomorrow!). But I for one cannot resist ice-cream any time of year. Especially where you can help yourself! For this post I’m lumping frozen yoghurt in with ice-cream as in my mind they’re much the same, though frozen yoghurt [...]

HOT: Pillar of Salt, 541 Church St, Richmond

July 7, 2011 ⋅ 3 comments

In The Melbourne Magazine’s recent list of Melbourne’s best cafes, Richmond’s winner was Pillar of Salt. Intrigued by its biblical name, I made a mental note to visit it the next time I was around Richmond. Let me just say at the outset it’s a place worth a trip across town. On a weekday afternoon [...]

HOT: Naked for Satan, 285 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

July 6, 2011 ⋅ One comment

When Naked for Satan first opened in September 2010, it was all about the drinking. The bar infuses its own vodka in a polished metal engine-like contraption and as the wall of wine attests, it’s a gathering place for people to drink and be merry. A year later, the focus seems to have turned to [...]

HOT: Cacao Green, 258 Swanston St, Melbourne

June 26, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

The landscape of Swanston Street changes so often that it’s hard for me to keep up. Even the areas of the street that I’ve passed a thousand times are a blur of noodle shops and fast food outlets such that I’ve never noticed Cacao Green, a store near the corner of Lonsdale Street which opened [...]

HOT: Slowpoke Espresso, 157 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

June 21, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

This time last year it seemed that Smith Street was the place to open a cafe or restaurant. Funky eateries launched one after the other and the punters flocked to the slowly gentrifying grunginess. This year it seems that maybe it’s Brunswick Street’s turn, with two new openings within a short space of each other [...]