I’m getting married tomorrow!

MEL: HOT OR NOT is the decisive guide to Melbourne, but it’s also a diary for myself, my family and friends, detailing all of my comings and goings in my home town.
So it feels a bit strange to post a restaurant critique, a film review or an interview at the moment – as tomorrow is [...]

HOT: Metlink Edible Garden, Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, City Square, Swanston St, Melbourne

I wish the Metlink Edible Garden was a permanent fixture in Melbourne’s CBD.
Just for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival (which is being held between 12-23 March), City Square has been transformed into a living, breathing biosystem. Australia’s largest gardening club The Digger’s Club have been responsible for planting 60 heirloom varieties in the raised [...]

HOT: Mag Nation, 88 Elizabeth St, Melbourne

I like free stuff. I’m just not sure whether Melbourne is ready to see my bum in order for me to get it.
Cool magazine shop Mag Nation (the land of magazines yay!) is currently holding a promotion called Undies Monday. Yes, you heard right – if you strip down to your underwear between 12-5pm on [...]

HOT: LTRHDS Letterheads 2010, 1000 £ Bend, 361 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne

LTRHDS Letterheads is an exhibition of, you guessed it, letters of the alphabet.
But this isn’t just a grown-up version of Sesame Street. Each piece of artwork denoting A to Z has been produced by 26 different artists, cartoonists, graffiti artists, graphic designers and illustrators from Australia, UK, US, Japan and Brazil. The free exhibition is [...]

HOT: Gingerboy, 29 Crossley St, Melbourne

For various reasons, I’ve had to cancel three successive meals at Gingerboy – now I’m half-mad at my friends that I’ve been denied for so long.
Gingerboy is awesome. The narrow space is darkly sexy and very cool, with plastic piping echoing a tunnel made of bamboo sticks and red silk threads fringing elements of the [...]

NOT: Fifteen Melbourne, Basement, 115-117 Collins Street, Melbourne

To eat and do good? A $15 two course lunch at Fifteen Melbourne was too good to pass up.
For those who don’t know, Fifteen is a worldwide social enterprise business started by famous uber-energetic chef Jamie Oliver. Its aim is to provide apprenticeship scheme for young people, between the ages of 18 and 24, to [...]

HOT: Marvellous March in Melbourne

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 is [...]

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

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 bread. [...]

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

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 is also [...]

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

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 recently due [...]