restaurants and cafes

HOT: Marvellous March in Melbourne

March 7, 2010 ⋅ 3 comments

I’m all for comfort food, opaque tights and scarves (I think it’s a reaction to growing up in sunny Queensland) – yay for Marvellous March! Marvellous March is also the name of a handy little booklet produced by That’s Melbourne with details of the big events around Melbourne that will make you love autumn. This [...]

NOT: Min Lokal, 422 George St, Fitzroy

March 3, 2010 ⋅ 9 comments

My friend M is moving into Fitzroy next week and for our Sunday catchup he wanted to try a place around his new hood. Min Lokal is Swedish for ‘my local’ and I thought it’d be the perfect venue for this northside newbie. Evidently lots of other locals treat Min Lokal as their neighbourhood cafe [...]

HOT: Nuffnang Food Bloggers Dinner, Collins Kitchen, Grand Hyatt, 123 Collins St, Melbourne (Part 2)

March 2, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

As promised yesterday, here’s a blow-by-blow account of our meal at Collins Kitchen in the Grand Hyatt Hotel walking through their a la carte dinner menu. Before I start I should warn you – there is a LOT of food involved. I haven’t eaten that much in a long time! First up, warm house-made sourdough [...]

HOT: Nuffnang Food Bloggers Dinner, Collins Kitchen, Grand Hyatt, 123 Collins St, Melbourne (Part 1)

February 28, 2010 ⋅ 17 comments

There are definitely some advantages to writing about food obsessively. Nuffnang is a blog advertising community which brings advertisers and bloggers together so that advertisers can target their products to blog readers and bloggers can make some money from the advertising – you may have noticed Nuffnang ads occasionally on MEL: HOT OR NOT. Nuffnang [...]

HOT Chat: Akisa from BeautySwatch

February 28, 2010 ⋅ 2 comments

You may remember that at the Nuffnang Christmas party I met Akisa, the brains behind a cool beauty website called BeautySwatch. I liked her idea so much (a huge colour library containing swatches for thousands of lipsticks) I thought you might be interested to hear more about Akisa and her work with BeautySwatch. Hi Akisa, can [...]

HOT: Funky Curry and Vindaloo Against Violence, 164 Bourke St, Melbourne

February 26, 2010 ⋅ 8 comments

Today’s post is a bit of a mishmash – my views on a serious issue as well as a light-hearted food review. Firstly, you may or may not have been aware that last Wednesday 24 February was Vindaloo Against Violence day. Melbourne, Victoria and Australia has been subject to some shameful local and international press [...]

HOT: The Social Studio, 128 Smith St, Collingwood

February 24, 2010 ⋅ 5 comments

Fitzroy/Collingwood seems to be the hotbed of social enterprise businesses in Melbourne (see my review of restaurant Charcoal Lane), and in late 2009 another one opened around the corner from me – The Social Studio. The Social Studio is a non-profit fashion studio space staffed by approximately 20 young members of Melbourne’s refugee community and [...]

HOT: Gastronomica Slow Food Quiz, Collins Quarter, 86A Collins St, Melbourne

February 22, 2010 ⋅ 7 comments

I’m known as a bit of a foodie amongst my friends. However, at food quiz Gastronomica I discovered that my small font of knowledge was nothing compared to the food nerdiness displayed by the rest of Team Phat Preston, including food bloggers Tummyrumbles, Melbourne Gastronome, Tomato, Eating with Jack, Essjay Eats and Eatnik. In fact, [...]

HOT: Mamma’s Boy, 13 Little Collins St, Melbourne

February 19, 2010 ⋅ 3 comments

I’m not sure who ‘Mamma’s Boy’ refers to, but for me the name of this cafe’s name conjures up images of mothers all around the world urging their sons to ‘Eat up!’ ‘Mange!’ ‘Chī fàn!’. Certainly their cabinet selection of fresh-looking pre-made sandwiches, appetising sit-down lunch menu and cartoon recipe blackboard encourages you to get [...]

HOT: Ramen Ya, Shop 25G Melbourne’s GPO, 350 Bourke St, Melbourne

February 17, 2010 ⋅ 10 comments

After the success of the inaugural Dumplings Fest, a bunch of food bloggers/tweeps gathered for the next [Insert Food] fest – this time in honour of ramen. Sadly, good ramen joints are hard to find in Melbourne (although I’m predicting that they’re the next big dining trend, after izakayas and gastropubs have their time in [...]