Finally the Arts Precinct has a decent place to eat, in the form of My Mexican Cousin.

The all-day restaurant is part of the Melbourne Recital Centre and is a joint project between Savatore Malatesta (St Ali, Plantation)  and Jerome Borazio (The Resurrection, Ponyfish Island). It’s named after St Ali‘s most famous breakfast dish ‘My Mexican Cousin’, so don’t be confused into thinking that there’ll be Mexican food involved in the neo-Creole menu.

I was attending the MusicPlay concerts at the Melbourne Recital Centre for a couple of days in a row so took the opportunity to try most of the typewritten one page lunch menu with Gourmet Chick. It is mostly shared food and comes in different portion sizes, so pre-show you can go easy on the servings and post-show you can satisfy your growling stomach.

I found the food to be a bit hit-and-miss. I can’t vouch for the menu’s authenticity as I’ve never eaten much Creole, so I’m going purely by flavour and texture.  Sometimes things that sounded great on paper didn’t emerge from the kitchen as expected and sometimes blandly described dishes were interesting, original and delicious.

Case in point – Praline bacon ($6) sounded good in theory but not so good in practice. It was like really over-dried beef jerky and we left most of the plate untouched.

The scallop ceviche ($5.50) was not the expected slices of scallop but whole medallions partially pickled. Not sure how it’s possible to ‘cook’ a thick scallop in lime juice, so consider it more of a scallop sashimi with some spicy gazpacho dressing. Worth a repeat visit.

The dirty rice was a Creole-style fried rice ($12), a tasty but oily mixture of rice, ground pork and Creole seasoning which with a bit of research apparently consists of cayenne, paprika, oregano, onion, garlic and thyme.

Make sure you don’t miss the po’boy, a classic New Orleans sandwich. It comes in two sizes ($7 and $14) and half is enough if you want to try other things. It’s a small sub spread with mayonnaise and a seafood stock reduction and piled with juicy fried king prawns and lettuce leaves. A quick and filling meal if the curtain is being raised soon and not something that’s going to make you burp during interval.

For dessert the beignets looked like appetising balls of fried dough but on taking a bite Gourmet Chick suspected that they had been reheated rather than freshly fried. She used to work at a servo cooking doughnuts so she should know! They lacked the tongue-searing just-fried sizzle and the crunchy exterior of a fresh doughnut. I personally didn’t care much for the accompanying sauces either.

On a second visit I had the gumbo and crab egg roll. Again, one hit, one miss. Like the scallop ceviche, the crab egg roll ($12) was a delicate dish, beautifully presented on a narrow platter, served cold, and contained big shreds of crab meat mixed with aioli, Creole seasoning and wrapped in an omelette. Really delicious, especially in hot weather.

On the other hand, the gumbo had the slightly gluey mouthfeel of a lot of cornflour or potato thickener in its base. A cheap stomach-filler nevertheless, as a half serve of gumbo ($7) is all you need for one person.

My coffee-drinking friend who lives nearby assures me the coffee is excellent (as you’d expect from the St Ali stable) and the staff are super-friendly.

My advice for dining at My Mexican Cousin is to select from  the menu carefully (if you are inclined, read the menu’s Creole-pedia for an explanation of the abbreviated codes next to the dishes). If you end up with more misses than hits at least the prices will be reasonable and there’s really no better option for pre or post-theatre dining close by.

My Mexican Cousin, Corner Sturt St and Southbank Boulevard, Southbank +61 3 9686 3389
Mon 7am – 4pm
Tues – Fri 7 till late
Weekends 8am till late

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Do you have a brother?

Does he make you coffee? Cook you eggs? Bake you muffins?

If he’s an annoying brother, then he might just do so.

Annoying Brother Espresso + Kitchen is a small new cafe that’s opened on the southern end of Nicholson St village on the corner of Bik Lane. I have no idea about the origins of the name but it’s catchy and I like the on-theme blackboard cartoon that comprises part of the cafe’s decor.

During my weekday visit it was popular with nearby office workers and most curiously, Irish construction workers in fluorescent orange vests! Guess there must be a site nearby and who’s to say that they don’t deserve better than builders tea?

As the name suggests, the cafe specialises in coffee – they roast and grind their own beans and there’s a rotating menu of blends to try. I have it on good authority from Miss Kish that the coffee is excellent! The food menu is a short affair of about a dozen breakfast items made from locally sourced ingredients – eggs, pancakes, muesli – and a handful of ‘lunchie’ things – a steak sandwich, fritters.

I love dukkah eggs when I see them on a menu and this version was two jolly poached eggs sitting atop a tomato and red capsicum chunky salsa, fresh spinach greens and sprinkled with spice mix ($14.50). I don’t usually comment too much about toast  (it’s just a base for toppings a lot of the time) but this bread was remarkable for its inability to yield to a steak knife. Absolutely rock hard and inedible.

I requested a side of buttered thyme mushrooms ($3.50) which was the opposite of the bread – soft, juicy, buttery and moreish. Next time I might go the Tetris instead –  a build-your-own breakfast of eggs done how you like with a choice of sides including the magnificent mushrooms.

For sweet things I had three house made options – banana bread, muffin and cookie. After asking the owner what he recommended I went with his favourite – the raspberry and white chocolate muffin.

As he took my plate away he asked me how he liked my breakfast and I was honest – I said the eggs were great but the bread was really hard and dry. He apologised, explaining that the sourdough was fresh yesterday but had hardened overnight, and then to my surprise when he brought out the muffin on the wooden platter he said that it was on the house. A small gesture but that’s the way to treat your customers – surprise and delight.

The muffin was a just-baked soft and fluffy ending, filled with gooey chocolate and oozing raspberries (and served with a pat of butter. Really? People put butter on top on their buttery, sugary, muffin?). On par with the muffins from Proud Mary, which I consider in my muffin-eating experience to be the best in Melbourne. Muffins that are definitely worth a return visit, gratis or not.

For other great cafes in North Fitzroy, try Mitte and Mixed Business.

Annoying Brother Espresso, 660 Nicholson St, North Fitzroy +61 3 9482 9494
Mon-Fri 7am – 4pm
Sat-Sun 8:30am – 4pm

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In the documentary and cross-cultural love story ‘Banana in a Nutshell’ there’s a funny moment where the Chinese girl and her Anglo boyfriend argue whether cereal is a breakfast food or ‘anytime’ food. It mirrors the kind of conversations that I’ve had with RM before – to me cereal is only for breakfast, whereas he thinks it’s weird to eat noodles in the morning.

This is just a roundabout introduction to say that I LOVE NOODLES and consider myself a bit of a noodle freak. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, I could eat them all day (and for 3 weeks in Vietnam, I did). So when I heard Kokoro Ramen had opened I rushed there, post-haste, to broaden my noodle horizons.

Kokoro Ramen is a roomy ramen joint where the noodles are made fresh on site. The colourful menu is fairly overwhelming with all the possible options (you can even create your own toppings with your choice of broth) so I went straight for the menu recommendation – deep-fried soft shelled crab with the Tokyo chicken and seafood stock base ($14.90).

The bowl that arrived was generous with the noodles and less generous with the toppings – but I guess for under $15 you can’t be expecting too much seafood. At least the crab was juicy yet crunchy, spurting out soup stock at every bite.

But when it came to the noodles and the broth, disappointment set in.

I love noodles that are bouncy and toothsome, with a slight chew and glutinous resistance. These noodles were deadened. One chomp and a nothingness of noodle dough lying in your mouth.

I also found the broth very bland – spoon after spoon I sniffed and slurped, trying to discern some skerrick of chicken or seafood flavours. All I got was a semi-salty murkiness. There was no fragrance, no clarity. And I didn’t have a blocked nose…

On my visit Kokoro Ramen was busy with blue-shirted male office workers in a scene reminiscent of neat Japanese salarymen bedding down for their lunch at their local. And the ramen at Kokoro Ramen is certainly filling and reasonably priced and makes a change from a ham and cheese sandwich, so if you work in the area I can see the attraction.

However, I’m voting with my feet and walking that extra couple of blocks to Ramen Ya.

Kokoro Ramen, 157-159 Lonsdale St, Melbourne +61 3 9650 1215

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Ah summer!

There are certain events that happen every year which really mark the season in Melbourne. Cricket. Tennis. The Suzuki Night Market. Free music in the parks. And one of my favourites, outdoor cinema.

Every year I try to get to at least one summer movie screening under the stars – it’s still a novelty outing for me. Despite growing up in balmy Brisbane, outdoor cinema never really took off while I was living there. I think people were just used to hiding from the humidity inside air-conditioned multiplexes and the thought of sitting on a rug battling bugs to watch an old film didn’t really appeal.

Melburnians are a much hardier lot! Despite the freezing, blustery weather that greeted us for our screening of The Blues Brothers at Rooftop Cinema, it was a sold out session. We wore long pants, jackets, brought a rug and still needed to hire another rug ($5 and totally worth it if you don’t dress up in ski gear, like one movie-goer we spotted).

Despite Melbourne’s unpredictable and at times inclement weather, Rooftop Cinema is a magical experience. Have a pre-movie drink at the Rooftop bar or enjoy burgers, fries and ice-cream from All-Day Burger (courtesy of the folks behind Beatbox Kitchen).

Listen to the sounds of the city’s nightlife rise up amongst the rooftops. Watch the lights of the city glow glamorrously against the fading light.

Then sit back in a deck chair, curl up under your blanket(s) and sing along to ‘Rawhide’ in the ‘mission from God’.

I heart you Melbourne. Thank you for bringing us Rooftop Cinema.

Rooftop Cinema, 6/252 Swanston St, Melbourne

A couple of years ago RM and I had a week’s holiday in Shanghai. We ate ourselves silly in all manner of restaurants, with a particularly memorable dumpling gorge at Crystal Jade which is still my gold standard for dumplings worldwide (well, limited to the dumpling places that I’ve tried around the world).

Shanghai Street Dumpling brings a little bit of Shanghai culture to Melbourne. It’s a tightly spaced, no-frills restaurant that specialises in Shanghai style dumplings, mini buns and a plethora of noodle and rice dishes with most dishes under $10. There are queues outside all the time but tables turn quickly.

For a quick and cheap pre-movie meal RM and I shared some of their must-try dishes – the xiao long bao ($8.80), the shen jian bao ($7.80) and boiled dumplings.

The bamboo steamer of xiao long bao contained eight squat little parcels bulging with piping hot soup and a pork filling inside. The skins were variable in thickness – some very delicate, some a little less so. Evidently they don’t use the Din Tai Fung method of weighing each ball of dough to the exact gram before rolling it out, but that’s not to say that the thicker-skinned dumplings were bad. Just noticeably heavier in the chewing.

As for the filling – oh my! Subtle flavoured pork broth swimming with a gently moulded pork mince inside.

The plate of pot-sticker mini buns came out next, with the bases browned and a nice even dough wrapping a juicy meatball. Eat them with the table-top chilli sauce for an added dimension.

Finally, despite the unglamorous name of ‘boiled dumplings’ I actually loved the chicken filling of these dumpling more than I expected. Very sweet, very juicy and perfect slathered in that chilli sauce again.

If you like dumplings, get yourself in the queue for Shanghai Street Dumpling as soon as you can. You won’t be disappointed! After several disappointing outings to old favourite Hutong Dumpling lately, I’m switching allegiances.

Shanghai Street Dumpling, 342 Little Bourke St, Melbourne +61 3 9600 2250

Mon-Sat, 11.30am-8.30pm

Threefold is a casual cafe/bar tucked into a narrow corner space on Flinders Lane and Tavistock Place. You’ll recognise it by the planter boxes laden with fresh herbs at its entrance - a happy  contrast to the soulless vistas offered by its office block neighbours.

It’s a smart establishment that seats mostly business people along narrow benches and small tables which all face the long marble bench stacked with colourful, fresh dishes served in big white bowls and platters.

For lunch the choices range from terrines to tarts to imaginative salads (not an iceberg lettuce leaf to be seen). On my visit I tried the pork belly with a choice of two spring salads ($18.50). Sadly the pork belly did not live up to its good looks – the meat did not fall from my fork as expected, requiring a bit of sawing to get through, and the crackling didn’t crackle and got left behind.

R fared better with pastrami and melted gruyere sandwiched on thick-cut rye with a zingy side salad of apple, radish and shaved cabbage ($13.50). A gourmet twist to the toasted ham and cheese sanga.

I finished off the meal with a small slice of marble cake ($6.50) while R received a very pretty latte made using organic beans from Espresso Syndicate.

Finally, a word on their service. When I wanted to eat at Threefold with a friend with a baby in tow, the staff said ‘no problems’. They reserved a table for us at the front near the door with the most room, helped shuffle chairs and tables around and were very accommodating in the face of a slightly troublesome crowd of pram, shopping trolley, dropped cutlery and dirty bibs.

Threefold is a welcome gourmet addition to the slightly dull, business end of town. I liked the look of the dinner specials up on the blackboard and they open late for after-work drinks on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Much better than getting greasy takeaway on your way home.

Threefold, 381 Flinders Lane, Melbourne +61 3 9614 8194
Mon – Tue:7:00 am-4:00 pm
Wed – Fri:7:00 am-11:00 pm

Summer’s here, the sun is out! (Well, not today. But it’s Melbourne so the weather could change by lunch time.)

Instead of eating your lunch at your desk, why not stroll down to Little Collins Street to N. Lee Bakery? Join the fast-moving queue of office workers, grab a $5.50 Banh Mi and eat your lunch in the sun! Treasury Gardens is just across the road.

My Vietnamese friend tells me that N.Lee does very authentic Banh Mi. Their most popular filling is the sliced cold cuts or pork, with a close second being the broken up pork meatballs cooked in tomato sauce. Both rolls also include pork liver pate, aioli, a smear of the tomato sauce from the meatballs, hot chilli sauce if you want it plus pickled julienned carrot and radish, onion, cucumber and coriander. Beats a ham and cheese sandwich any day!

The bread at N. Lee is also very good. The ‘tigering’ effect on their rolls is part of their bakery’s signature and it’s a crusty roll that doesn’t require a steak knife to get through it. Yes, it’s high GI white bread – but it’s delicious!

N. Lee also have an outlet in Smith Street Collingwood which I frequent more often. The rolls are slightly cheaper there (under $5) but for some reason the bread is different and I prefer the rolls in the city store.

For other great sandwiches in the CBD, try Migo’s, Waffle On and Little Mule. Where are your favourite sandwich shops in the CBD?

N. Lee Bakery, 62 Little Collins St, Melbourne +61 3 9419 9732

Tally-ho ladies and gents!

Thanks to some Sunday sun, a group of about 50 well-dressed cyclists gathered for the annual Melbourne Tweed Ride.
Tweed wearers and vintage-stylers rode out from Federation Square along the tweedy brown Yarra River to Como House, which was hosting the Paris to Provence Festival. We got many amazed glances, friendly waves and jolly car horn toots along the way.

Some pictures to inspire your next tweedy/vintage outing!

To see more images, check out CycleStyle’s Flickr stream and click here,  here, here, here and here.

Rose Garden may sound romantic but it’s not the sort of restaurant where you’d take a first date.

But go with your friends, your colleagues, your relatives, on your own – it’s that good!

The small no-frills restaurant specialises in cheap, quick Cantonese fare. It’s a favourite amongst international students and office workers during the week, though we also spied curious tourists (it’s the only place on the street with a lineup outside) and families with young children sitting at the outdoor tables.

The menu is vast so as a newbie I suggest you go straight to the Rose Garden Top 10. We tried #1 and #2 –  spicy green bean with minced chicken on rice and fried rice with shredded duck and preserved vegetables respectively. A ridiculous $9.50 each for a huge plate of food.

Both dishes were full of flavour (watch out, those spicy beans are definitely spicy!) and didn’t seem to be too MSG heavy, though I suggest you sip the complementary tea regularly to cut through the slightly greasy feeling which will gather in your mouth afterwards.

Service is almost non-existent. You pay when you order so there’s no messing around with getting bills at the end. It’s quick in, quick out – and darn delicious. I’m returning to try #3-#10 on the Top 10!

For other cheap and cheerful Chinese food in the city, try Gold Star Noodle House, Pancake Dessert House and The Grand BBQ.

Rose Garden BBQ Shop, 435 Elizabeth St, Melbourne +61 3 9329 1560

One of my discoveries for Melbourne Music Week is actually not directly about music. If you visit any of the bars at Melbourne Music Week you’ll find Lupe, an innnovative single serve filled wine glass that’s perfect for festivals and events. Today’s HOT Chat is with Georgia Beattie, the founder of Lupe (you’ll have to excuse the lack of accent on the ‘e’ of Lupe, can’t work it out on my keyboard!). Thanks Georgia!

Georgia, tell me a bit more about your background and the story behind Lupe?

I’ve grown up amongst all things wine. My father started making wine when I was young and of course he had us out in the vineyard picking grapes and getting amongst the very hands on process of making wine. I have worked with my father at his company Swords Select for the last 5 or so years which gave me a feel for the wine industry and running a business.

What inspired you to develop Lupe?

I was at a festival in Melbourne and I asked the bar staff whether I could have a glass of wine instead of the typical lolly water or beer that they usually serve.

It turned out that the packaging was the major limitation. Spirits and beer seem to have managed to create a user friendly package, I pondered why hadn’t wine?

So given my wine background and entrepreneurial drive I started prototyping my own single serve glass of wine. I came across some fairly major hurdles in the PET glass creation just about the same time I learnt of James Nash in the UK who had been working on a ready to drink wine product for the last 5 years.

I jumped on a plane with all that was remaining in my bank account shortly after finishing university and now I have the rights to Mr Nash’s product in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Having Mr Nash’s product opposed to my own creation gave me a much faster route to market as well as the confidence with a proven and tested product that was successfully selling in the UK and Europe.

What’s a typical work day for you and what advice would you give to someone starting their own business?

I usually go for a jog around the tan at 5.30 / 6am to prepare myself for the day (healthy body healthy mind). I have a coffee on my way to work (location depending on my mood – I don’t have a regular I’ll rotate between St Edmonds, Auction Rooms, Dukes Coffee, Cumulus Inc). Over a coffee I plan my day and to do list.

If I could predict the rest of my day it would make my life a lot easier, unfortunately I roll with the punches and try to cross as much as I can off my to do list.

What are your next plans for Lupe?

Lupe is essentially a packaging company so I’d like to walk down the liquor isle within 5 years and see all my favorite branded wines with a single serve version along side the 750ml bottle. We’re creating an entirely new market segment with the single serve that is complementary to the 750ml bottle. It’s going be extremely challenging but exciting at the same time. We’re currently in discussions with 2 large wine companies about packaging a single serve.

We recently launched in Japan and we’ll slowly roll out into Korea and Hong Kong next year.

When I worked in the CBD one of my shopping challenges was finding a good loaf of bread. I rarely had time in my lunch hour to travel to Queen Victoria Markets or battle the lines at David Jones Foodhall, which meant often I had to be organised enough to buy my bread on my way to work.

Fortunately, one of Melbourne’s best specialty bakeries, Phillippa’s, has now ably filled that gap by opening a cosy store in Howey Place, between Collins and Little Collins Streets. Just look out for the faux stone brickwork outlined onto the exterior of the shop, giving it a very European feel.

The city store offers  a selection of take-away provisions from Phillippa’s large range of products, including loaves of bread (yay!), packets of biscuits and slices, jars of preserves and their muesli and granola blends.

There are also ready-to-eat items which you can take with you or eat in at the mini tables at the back of the shop – a rotating menu of freshly sandwiches and mini breakfast rolls (highly recommend the crispy bacon and tomato), salads or soups depending on the time of year, cinnamony muffins filled with chunks of apple and cranberry, bite-sized morsels of Phillippa’s must-try caramel pear slice and breakfast cups of yoghurt, fruit and granola.

Note that there is no white bread available! The bread is made from wheatmeal, wholewheat honey, rye, grain and stoneground organic flours.

With Christmas coming up the seasonal range is also available in store. I am a huge fan of Phillippa’s pain d’epice which keeps forever and is great with cheese or on its own though I think there are better mince pies to be found in the city. On my next visit I’m also going to buy a canvas bread bag – these are great for keeping bread fresh.

Phillippa’s City Store, 15 Howey Place, Melbourne +61 3 9671 04030
Monday-Friday 7am-5:30pm
Saturday 8:30am-2:30pm

Stuck for a unique, Melbourne-themed Christmas gift or holiday souvenir?

Then make sure you get to Melbournalia, a series of pop up stores open now in the lead-up to Christmas. Over the next few weeks four Melbourne CBD venues and one repurposed newspaper stand will host displays of Melbourne design goodness, with HQ being at Melbournalia Home in an out-of-the-way laneway (naturally) off Franklin St.

Melbournalia Home is a stylish converted warehouse filled with stationery, jewellery, homewares, fashion, coffee, art and design from some of Melbourne’s best-loved boutique design brands.

My covet list includes:

Gorgeous Neighbourhood throw and picnic rugs from Otto & Spike and make-your-own mobile from Ink & Spindle.

Tram roll cushions from Poulier & Poulier.

 Mattt cases for notebooks and laptops.

In 2011 our kitchen calendar is by The Design Files. In 2012 our calendar will be the designed by the giggle-worthy Able and Game.

Tonight Melbournalia Captains opens at Captains of Industry (Level 1, 2 Somerset Place, CBD) with a launch event 6-8pm and everyone’s welcome! Enjoy some wine and browse the Captain’s selection of Melbournalia gifts for the modern gent.

Out of all the dining venues in Federation Square, my favourite is the Transport/Taxi/Transit complex.

Transport is great for a quiet riverside drink (though it can get rowdier on weekends), I often take visitors to experience the slick food and expansive Yarra views at the high-end Taxi restaurant and we even arranged our post-wedding drinks at Transit.

A few months ago Taxi introduced the Bento Lunch, a more accessible way to try their Japanese inspired fine dining menu. For $45 you receive a meal consisting of four separate courses of sushi/sashimi, a soup, a main course and dessert. It’s bento without the actual bento.

I was invited to sample the Bento Lunch and was most impressed with the quality of the produce and the startlingly fresh flavours.

The lunch commenced with a platter of super-fresh salmon, tuna and alfonsino (a deepwater fish I’d never tried before) served with a sinus-clearing hit of freshly grated wasabi. So different from the insipid green toothpaste you often get served.

The soup course was a salmon miso soup with wakame seaweed and shimeji mushrooms. I don’t tend to get very excited by soup – I can take it or leave it (and most of the time I leave it, just takes up room unnecessarily in the stomach). However, this light broth had a very rich flavour as the soup stock had been made with ground salmon bones. Loved the slithery little mushrooms as well.

The main course offered two choices – snapper or pork belly. I chose the sticky pork belly with seared scallops and a spicy red nam jim sauce. I loved the strong flavour combination in this dish but the pork belly lacked the crisp crackling that I really love about the cut. On the other hand, the snapper with red pepper essence and crumbed mussels presented a very crispy skin.

Dessert was a lineup of three sorbets – mandarin, green tea and passionfruit and coconut. I particularly loved the punchy freshness of the mandarin scoop.

The Taxi Bento Lunch is offered seven days a week and is available with a changing menu right up till Christmas. It’s not your everyday grab-a-quick-bite-in-your-lunch-hour option but it is a great opportunity to try out Taxi at a cheaper price point. The service, views and food are all top rate – who needs to know you only paid $45 for it?

For other bento-style lunch options around town, check out Yu-u, Nobu and Matteo’s.

Bento Lunch, Taxi Dining Room, Transport Hotel, Federation Square, Melbourne +61 3 9654 8808

Miss Marie is a cafe with an inner-city vibe catering to the discerning suburban cafe set.

The first hint of its slightly left-of-centre sense of humour is in small shrub outside its entrance. The hanging child made me take a horrified double-take before I gasped in relief to see that it was only a doll.

Inside the large room is decorated with interesting paraphernalia, including some giggle-worthy vintage advertising signs, interspersed with bright floral arrangements and cheery yellow accents set within the timber tables and in the form of the oversized pepper mills. On the speakers, some old-school tunes – Elvis, The Beatles.

The two page menu lists all-day breakfast dishes on one side and lunch on the reverse. The breakfasts are a roll call of cafe standards – eggs, muesli, toast, hotcakes – while the lunch options are more towards the bready variety, with a few departures into an omelette, pan-seared salmon and a salad on the specials board (or door – pretty nifty idea wall-mounting an old door covered in blackboard paint for listing the specials).

Although it was more lunchtime during my visit I couldn’t resist ordering the French toast ($14.50) consisting of Noisette brioche, maple syrup, grilled banana and bacon.

Look at the size of the serving! I was most impressed by the generous thickness of the brioche and the plate contained one more slice of bread than I was expecting for the price. That’s the benefit of dining out in the suburbs :–)

As far as taste goes it ticked all the right boxes – sticky sweet syrup, cinnamon-y brioche, a smokey hunk of bacon and a nicely mushed ripe banana. I think the bread and the bacon could have benefited from more time in the pan/under the grill for extra crispness and crunch, but that’s a personal preference.

The glass domes of home-made cakes and slices looked really tempting (especially the dark chocolate and walnut brownie $4.90) but given my sugary lunch I thought I’d better ease off on the sweets if I didn’t want to fall asleep driving home.

Miss Marie is a great little local cafe for Rosanna residents. As it’s across the road from the train station I expect that the pre-work crowd come in droves for their coffee and muffins. The coffee is made from 5 Senses beans using a Synesso and my sources tell me that it is fantastic.

Thanks to Miss Rosanna for the tip! My travel to this cafe was made possible thanks to the Holden Barina.

Miss Marie, 45 Beetham Pde, Rosanna

I can think of no better way to spend a cold, rainy afternoon than in front of an open fireplace drinking tea. Better still, drinking tea, eating cakes and lounging around reading an Evelyn Waugh novel.

I recently indulged in my perfect rainy-day afternoon scenario with High Tea at the Lobby Lounge of The Westin Hotel. The Lobby Lounge is on the ground floor of the hotel and is a space set apart from the main reception marked by leather lounges, an open fireplace and bookshelves. It’s quiet enough to read a book and the leather bucket seats are just right for sinking into.

The Westin is all about contemporary glamour and so their high tea is a modern take on the traditional afternoon tea. For $45 ($55 including a flute of Chandon NV Brut) you receive unlimited tea or coffee plus sweet and savoury morsels presented on a sleek tiered platter reminiscent of a vintage drinks trolley. The teas from Jing Tea range from black, green, white and herbal infusions and I tried the White Peony tea and the whole rosebuds. Each pot would normally cost $7 so if you really like drinking tea then unlimited tea is good value!

Tier 1 contained two scones – original and cranberry and raisin. They were quite crusty on the outside and I feared that they might be dry but in fact they were light and fluffy inside. Not the best scones I’ve ever had but nice enough with jam and cream.

Tier 2 held the savoury bites and they weren’t just the standard cucumber sandwiches. First up, smoked leg ham, brie and semi-dried cherry tomato in a black olive and parmesan ciabatta. A mouthful of a description and a delicious mouthful too. The smoked chicken with apple and walnut compote filling was a little tasteless in comparison, though I did like the crunchy sunflower seeds in the polenta bun. To round out the savouries, a teensy smoked salmon tart and a classic crustless sandwich of egg mayonnaise and watercress.

Tier 3 was a colourful array of sweet delights. I liked the pastry of the vanilla marscapone and fresh fruit tart and the lemon tart but the pistachio macaron was too sticky and wet in texture. The two chocolate desserts – a chocolate creme brulee and black forest slice – were a really decadent end to the afternoon tea and I could feel myself dozing over my book as the sugar coma took hold.

I enjoyed The Westin’s contemporary take on high tea and it’s a nice pit stop after some city shopping. High tea is served on weekends from 12-4pm and bookings are recommended as there are only five tables in the Lobby Lounge.

Love afternoon tea? You can also try The Langham and Stranger’s Corridor.

High Tea at Lobby Lounge, The Westin, 205 Collins St, Melbourne +61 3 9635 2222

Oh I know, I should have known better.

When you have a captive audience (hungry, footsore gallery goers) then there’s probably not too much incentive to provide a great dining experience at the in-house cafe. Other than Cafe Vue at Heide Museum of Modern Art and some international examples (notably Tate Modern and Musee d’Orsay) I can’t think of many art galleries that are also worthwhile food destinations.

Which leads us to The Tea Room at NGV International. The gallery has a high-end restaurant Persimmon and a sandwiches-and-drinks option in the Gallery Kitchen and The Tea Room provides the mid-range experience – a pleasant sit-down setting with views over the water wall, table service  and a predictable middle-of-the-road menu of hot dishes (soup, quiche, pies, that sort of thing) and afternoon tea.

After being seated I was left to my own devices for a bit before I managed to get to the counter to ask for a menu and then gesturing for someone to take my order. Being in a little bit of a hurry I decided to go for four crustless sandwiches ($10) from which you have four options of fillings – chicken mayonnaise, smoked salmon with dill creme fraiche and cucumber, roast vegetables with pesto and egg with watercress mayonnaise. I figured that sandwiches shouldn’t take too long to make and when I spied some of the other plates coming out of the kitchen I realised that they were probably pre-made anyway.

After quite a long wait my sandwiches appeared. The sad ensemable were curiously pressed into roly-poly shapes and not particularly exciting in flavour, though acceptable. The portion was fairly small so I decided to try some of the cakes which were very prettily arranged in the glass cake cabinet. Given The Tea Room specialised in high tea I was hoping that their pastries would be better than their savouries.

When it finally arrived (how long does it take to slice a piece of cake?) the cheesecake ($7) was again fairly pedestrian – not fantastic but not terrible. It did fill the hunger gap though.

There were a total of two waitstaff and two other people who seemed to be managers serving customers. The Tea Room is not that big and I would have expected four staff to be adequate but the service was very slow. I noticed other tables around me also frequently had to gesture for attention to place orders or make requests.

While I always enjoy visiting NGV I think next time I’d prefer to BYO lunch and eat it in the sculpture garden.

The Tea Room, Level 1 NGV International +61 3 8620 2431
10am-5pm

Melbourne Writers Festival is over for another year and we’re in the middle of the Melbourne Spring Fashion Week – so this post straddles the two events nicely.

One of the events I attended this year at the Melbourne Writers Festival (along with the Jonathan Franzen Q&A which was really enjoyable – he’s the guy you want at all your dinner parties) was Dressed for Murder: Fashions from the World of Hitchcock.

What does vintage fashion have to do with books? Well, the presenter was Charlotte Smith, the author of two autobiographical books, Dreaming of Chanel and Dreaming of Dior, and the event was about her custodianship of the Darnell Collection. This is a private collection bequeathed to her by her godmother Doris Darnell which contains over 5,500 vintage pieces, from dresses to hats to handbags to shoes. Charlotte now manages the collection fulltime and shows off certain pieces around Australia and overseas at select events when she’s not storing, cataloguing and restoring items and recreating the stories behind them.

Charlotte was a very engaging speaker, articulate and passionate about her work and she really took you on a journey by building the story behind the collection. The most drool-worthy part was the fashion parade of some of the collection’s pieces, inspired by the fashions featured in Hitchcock’s films by beauties such as Grace Kelly and Kim Novak. They’ve inspired me to dress up more!

Vintage fashion is a passion for my friend and fellow blogger Marianne from Esme and the Laneway, so who better to accompany me to this event. Marianne has a gift with the camera so today’s photos are thanks t0 her work. For more images, check out her full blog post here.

A lifetime ago I worked at Rialto in Collins Street and there were zero good lunch options.

Fortunately things have been moved on in what my former colleague dubbed the ‘Beirut’ end of town. One of the great places located under my former liftwell is Espressino.

Espressino is a pizza and coffee bar brought to you by the folks behind +39 Pizzeria – voted the best pizzeria in Melbourne in 2011 by The Age Epicure. With that pedigree, the thing to order is definitely pizza.

R and I shared two pizzas – baby broccoli with mozzarella, anchovies and pinenuts ($14.50) and ‘Gamberi’ with mozzarella, zucchini, prawns and cherry tomatoes ($16.50). Both pizzas came out promptly, as befitting a place catering for mostly office workers. If you’re in a super hurry then you can buy panini, piadine or pizzette to take away.

The pizza bases were bubbly and nicely charred around the eduges with a very satisfying rip-em-apart chewy consistency to them (though pre-cut into slices for ease – thank you!). I very much enjoyed our topping combinations too, although I thought I detected an unexpected buttery flavour on the surface, which was a little odd as I’d expect olive oil rather than butter to be involved in Italian-style pizzas.

The unseasonally sunny weather beckoned us to linger a little longer at our outdoor table so R ordered an excellent latte for $3 (beautiful crema) and I indulged in a dessert pizza with strawberries, nutella and vanilla ice-cream. This dessert can easily be shared between two people, making it a bargain at $8.  The vanilla icecream is particularly noteworthy – not just bog standard commercial stuff but with the speckled evidence of scraped vanilla beans and infused with some sort of liquer.

From what I tried the quality of the pizzas at Espressino is excellent and it is certainly comparable other high-end pizza restaurants like Ladro or Supermaxi while being about $3-5 cheaper per pizza. In fact, the same pizzas are available on the menu of +39 Pizzeria for about $4-6 more than at Espressino.

Espressino Coffee and Pizza Bar, 68-70 King St, The Rialto, Melbourne +61 3 9620 4774

The winners of The Age Good Food Guide 2012 Awards were announced last night. Here is the complete list of winners, some with my previous reviews – congratulations!

Vittoria Coffee Restaurant of the Year – Attica

Citibank Chef of the Year – Dan Hunter, Royal Mail Hotel

Regional Restaurant of the year - Loam

Best New Regional Restaurant – Mr Carsisi

Plumm Wine Glasses Best New Restaurant – Golden Fields

The Age Young Chef of the Year – Josh Murphy, Cumulus Inc

Champagne Louis Roederer Sommelier of the Year – Bengt Baumgartner, The European

Virgin Australia Service Excellence Award – Jason Lui, Flower Drum

Professional Excellence – Neil Perry

Dimmi Award for Innovation – TOYS Collective

Epicure Sustainability Award –  Maurice Esposito, Esposito at Toofey’s and Saint Peter’s

Donlevy Fitzpatrick Award – Gerald’s Bar

Dan Murphy’s BYO Restaurant of the Year – Osteria La Passione

Samsung Diners’ Choice Award – Cutler & Co

Vittoria Coffee Legend Award – Philippe Mouchel, PM 24

Best Short Wine List – Merricote

Regional Wine List of the Year – Lake House, Daylesford

Brown Brothers Wine List of the Year – Spice Temple

Lucky Beer Dish of the Year –  Barbecue Spare Ribs, Dandelion

The book, apps (from Samsung apps and iTunes) and goodguides.com.au website will be available from 30 August.

Here’s the list of 2011′s winners.

For those of you lucky enough not to work on a Friday, did you know you can give yourself a dose of classical music with your art every few months at NGV International?

Orchestra Victoria, the orchestra which accompanies Opera Australia and the Australian Ballet is presenting a series of free lunchtime concerts every few months in conjunction with NGV’s current Winter Masterpieces exhibition Vienna Art and Design. The orchestra is presenting a series of classical Viennese works in the glorious Great Hall under the stunning stained glass ceiling by Leonard French.

I attended a concert with a delightful Strauss, Mahler and Beethoven program and I’m already looking forward to the next concert on Friday 14 October, which will feature young Shanghai-born cellist Li Wei Qin.

The tickets are free and are highly sought after so must be booked ahead – just call Orchestra Victoria on 03 9694 3669.



In Melbourne it seems that we’re in store for yet more rain. But don’t let the drizzle stop you from getting out and about, because local label Wet and Wendy have taken over one of the city’s round disused news stands, and like the Eco Innovators Showcase, transformed it into a neat little stall.

The racks are filled with fabulous rain gear, from umbrellas to rain coats. The small retractable umbrellas with a cheerful rain print on the underside are $39.95 and the large umbrellas are $49.95. In weather-wear, the stylish waterproof cape coats are $99.95 and the remaining handful of samples of the silver and navy blue rain coats are $60 (snap them up quick – they’ve sold out online at Wet and Wendy and my business CycleStyle already).

The pop up shoppe is open from Tuesday 16 August to Thursday 25 August, on weekdays only and from 8am every day.

This week, why not LOVE THE RAIN!

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 the background and the service is sweetly deferential.

The restaurant calls itself a wagyu beef specialist so of course that is the thing to try here (unless you’re vegetarian), with the lunch specials around the $15-$25 mark. I ordered the Deluxe Bento Box ($22.80) as I needed a large meal to replace my lunch and dinner.

The neat compartments were filled with my choice of wagyu beef pattie, yakiniku beef  or sukiyaki beef, salmon and scallop sashimi, ebi fried prawns, wagyu beef curry, salad, steamed rice and miso soup. There was certainly a lot of food and enough to dissuade me from dessert, even though I had already earmarked the black sesame pudding with ice-cream ($5.80).

Sadly, my yakiniku beef was a bit dry and stringy, not the sort of texture I’d be expecting from cuts of waygu, a by-word for melt-in-your-mouth beef. On the other hand, the wagyu beef curry was an unexpected favourite, given that I’m not normally a Japanese curry fan. The authentic home-cooked comfort dish was warming, roundly flavoured and the slow cooked cuts of meat were just perfect with the rice. As for the rest of the bento box, the flesh of the deep fried prawns was fresh and juicy and well-encased in a crunchy panko crumb batter. The sashimi was good but not particularly remarkable, along with the salad liberally draped with a sweet dressing and a pedestrian miso soup.

My friend A had the gyoza bento box ($15.80) which had much of the same items except it included deep-fried gyoza. I’m not sure why they chose to deep fry the dumplings as we agreed that these overly crispy morsels would have been much more palatable pan fried.

All in all, Takumi is an ok option for Japanese food if you’re down the top end of town, but would I recommend it? It’s certainly not the best Japanese I’ve had in the city and even for its very reasonable price point I can think of other places I’d rather go for lunch – such as Yu-u, Izakaya Hachibeh and Yamato.

Takumi, 32 Bourke St, Melbourne +61 3 03 9650 7020

MON – FRI 12:00-2:00pm
MON – SUN 6:00-10:00pm

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 cupcake store, inspired by the famous Magnolia Bakery in New York City.

She started her business online but as demand outstripped supply she opened her first store in Glenferrie Road Hawthorn. Cupcake Central at Melbourne Central is her second store and my, is it pretty.

The branding has been designed by Matt of The Anatomy, who was also responsible for the branding of St Ali. The cute-retro-down-to-earth styling has been done by the talented Claire Laritt-Evans who also styled Market Lane Coffee. Best of all, the kitchen contains the kind of quality ingredients I choose for my own pantry – Callebaut chocolate, Madagascan vanilla – as well as some dream kitchen items like vintage filing boxes! Old-fashioned scales! Pastel SMEG fridge!

I was invited with other food bloggers to attend a cupcake making workshop where we got to make vanilla, red velvet and chocolate cupcakes, play with fondant and learn the art of frosting. I pride myself on being a bit of a baker (I did get a Kitchenaid stand mixer instead of an engagement ring) but even I learnt a few things.

Firstly, in order to get perfectly shaped cupcakes, use an ice-cream scoop to pour your mixture into the patty tins. Genius!

Secondly, after experimenting with different colours of fondant and different cutters, I never want to eat fondant icing again – it’s just like sugar playdough.

Thirdly, frosting a cupcake perfectly using a piping tip is harder than you’d think. Here are my shamefully woeful creations compared to the professional standard you’ll get at Cupcake Central.

Cupcake Central has a constantly rotating menu of cupcake flavours depending on the day of the week and cupcakes are baked fresh every day (apparently some of the mass produced cupcakes are baked 2 days before and iced – boo). I’m a fan of the chilli chocolate and chocolate hazelnut, while my friend said that the red velvet was the best she’d ever had. Give them a try and you be the judge :–)

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

Mon – Thurs 10:00am – 6:30pm, Fri 10:00am – 9:00pm Sat – Sun 10:00am – 6:00pm

To refresh your memory, Look.Stop.Shop is a free, self-guided tour of window displays and in-store installations of some of Melbourne’s favourite retailers, from the flagship Melbourne Myer store to little independent boutiques hidden in laneways. They’ve all taken the State of Design theme for 2011 ‘Design that moves’ and intrepreted it in their own unique ways.

The best way to start the tour is to drop into the State of Design festival hub at Melbourne Central’s Shot Tower Square. There you can pick up a map and guide from some customised cargo bikes from PS Bikes (more design that moves!) and the hub will also be running various events, from parades to pop up shops, during the period of the festival.

From there, you can choose a short path, long path – or make up your own path!

From a total of 29 shops, here are some of the windows designed for Look.Stop.Shop this year:

RMIT Visual Merchandising Students designed the window for Kookai (Shop 134 Level 1 Melbourne Central) with a carnival fair theme.

Melbourne knitwear label Otto and Spike have constructed some giant knitting in the window of Wilkins & Kent (372 Little Bourke St). It’s real knitting – 2 people had to cast on the ‘needles’ made from discarded fabric tubing!

Sportsgirl‘s theme was ‘which side of the bed did you get out of this morning?’ (Shop 18-23 Centrepoint Mall, 283 Bourke St). Two videos were shot in East London – one on Super 8 and one on VHS, denoting the fabulously organised morning and the haphazard alarm-didn’t-go-off morning. The mirrored structure at the entrance of the store reflects the floor, the people and the store in a constantly moving tableau.

Finally, this year the program includes The Scale of Things, a mobile cart showcasing designs from some of Melbourne’s artists and crafters.

You can vote for your favourite shop here and to be in the running to win a pair of Brooks running shoes (pun intended), with the winning shop announced on 8 August.

You can become a fan of Look.Stop.Shop on Facebook.

One of my favourite festivals is State of Design, Victoria’s annual design festival. So get ready because from 20-31 July I’ll be bringing you lots of State of Design related blog posts. I’ve got my online Festival Planner all sorted and diarised!

This year the theme for State of Design is ‘Design that moves’. Interpret that in any way you wish – design that moves you emotionally, design that moves you physically. One of the events which falls into the latter category is Chasing Kitsune, a Japanese food truck – otherwise known as a  Yatai – designed by Melbourne architecture and design firm HASSELL.

Chasing Kitsune has been cunningly fitted out inside a Budget rental truck by another design firm Schiavello and it will be moving amongst various inner city areas during the period of the festival, with outdoor seating set up in each location. The Japanese street food is courtesy of Mopho – finger-licking-good chicken yakitori, okonomiyaki and pork ramen feature – and drinks are a choice between Asahi and Robot Ninja Sake.

Melburnians love their food and love a pop up, so I’m guessing that Chasing Kitsune will be a hit. You can follow Chasing Kitsune on Twitter or  Facebook or download the State of Design iPhone app to receive Chasing Kitsune location hints.

Thank you to HASSELL for inviting me to the launch.

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, of course Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII.

Despite the nod to Windsor royalty, the cafe and bar is not part of its neighbour, the Hotel Windsor. For one, there is a separate entrance. The decor also doesn’t share the olde worlde stuffed cushion-ness of the Windsor and is more neutral with light wood tables, dark bentwood chairs and matching banquette seating. A long glass panel faces the banquette which gives an interesting effect – you can see your own face in the mirror, floating above the bobbing heads of commuters rushing along Bourke Street.

The breakfast menu is short and sharp – muesli, porridge, toast, eggs. Everything is well-priced, with my house-toasted muesli and almond crunch costing $8.

I don’t care what the dieticians say – toasted muesli tastes better than regular muesli! Wallis & Ed’s version is a very fine crumbed sweet muesli and it tasted like the top part of an apple crumble (which is the best bit, really). If you want to have an even bigger sugar hit in the morning you can have your muesli served with orange juice rather than milk.

What the cafe does share with The Windsor is a pastry chef and I urge you to try the pistachio financier ($1.50). It’s a moist little sweet morsel which will go perfectly with your Five Senses coffee. On the other hand, the cherry clafoutis ($1.50) is a shocking alcoholic kick for that early in the morning.

Wallis & Ed also serves lunch and dinner with a French feel (chef is Frenchman Jerome Tremoulét) and the bar of course can provide you with a classy, sedate destination for after-work drinks.

Wallis & Ed, 1 Bourke Street, Melbourne +61 3 9633 6265
Mon-Sun 7am to late

This year RM and I have selected the films for our 10 film mini-pass in a slightly different manner. In one way we’ve been constrained by the fact that we have a little baby, which means that we can only see films together if we can get a babysitter and we can’t see several films back to back. On the other hand, limited movie date nights together means that we’ve been free to go our on way with our cinematic interests.

So, here are the films that RM and I have chosen to see this year. Our leanings are towards international award-winning European cinema (me), music documentaries (him), feelgood films involving kids (me), Japanese films (him), Eastern European comedies (me), sports documentaries (him) and dark Korean films (me).

There are 200+ films on offer and your film-going tastes may not necessarily match mine – but as this year’s tagline says ‘only the best films make the cut’.

2014 – MY WEDDING AND OTHER SECRETS New Zealand audiences have embraced this charming, oddball comedy about the challenges of cross-cultural love.

5022 – NORWEGIAN WOODWith this adaptation of the best-selling novel by Haruki Murakami, acclaimed Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung (The Scent of Green Papaya, Cyclo) has created a dark and strikingly haunting film about love and loss.

6024 – LIFE IN A DAYA historic cinematic experiment shot by thousands of people in 192 countries, Life in a Day is the true story of a single day on Earth.

3032 – 33 POSTCARDSAn inter-continental journey with a little girl lost and an adult looking to be found.

4046 – PRINCIPLES OF LIFE How hard can it possibly be to organise a family holiday?

2053 – KHODORKOVSKY “For me, as for anybody, it is hard to live in prison, and I do not want to die here. But if I have to, I will have no hesitation. What I believe in is worth dying for.” – Mikhail Khodorkovsky

1067 – SENNA “A high-octane bio of one of auto racing’s greatest figures.” – Variety

6074 – FIRE IN BABYLON “My bat was my sword.” – Vivian Richards

2078 – PROJECT NIM “Reminds us that while our close genetic relatives are as intelligent as they come, we can be the biggest chumps.” – Guardian

4083 – HOW TO DIE IN OREGON “A beautifully intimate look at terminally ill patients who choose to end their lives painlessly and legally.” – Variety

1090 – THE UNJUST “Achieves a happy marriage between commercial savvy and artistic integrity in its hard-hitting depiction of Seoul as a city of corruption.” - Hollywood Reporter

2097 – BEING ELMO “There are Piggy people in the world, and Kermit people, and Grover people, but Elmo people are everywhere.” – Variety

8105 – VIVA RIVA! Violent, kinetic and sexy, crime thriller Viva Riva! stares down the barrel of Kinshasa’s savage criminal underworld, shattering staid preconceptions of African filmmaking.

3112 – BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE: THE TRAVELS OF A TRIBE CALLED QUEST Hollywood actor Michael Rapaport brings the story of hip-hop’s finest to the screen with a fan’s devotion.

9118 – CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS Cinematic legend Werner Herzog presents an astonishing glimpse of our prehistoric forebears.

3128 – EXPORTING RAYMOND An attempt to export the hit US TV show Everybody Loves Raymond to Russia makes for a front row seat to a comedic culture-clash.

Melbourne Sustainability Drinks are part of a national networking evening hosted once a month by the Shaper Group with the byline ‘connecting passionate people to create a better world’.

In Melbourne it happens on the first Wednesday of every month and is well attended by ‘light to medium green’ types who work in or have an interest in sustainability issues, with a surprising number of people in suits. It’s not just a gathering of beardy middle-aged men wearing socks and sandals!

In my guise as the founder of an online bike accessories shop, I went along to my first drinks in June to meet people who were interested in sustainability and to glean some business advice from the guest speaker that month, Malcolm Rands, the founder and CEO of Ecostore. From a personal standpoint I was also interested in hearing from Malcolm as I came across Ecostore‘s laundry and household cleaning products at Woolworths and quickly became a fan of their range – effective and green! As I read more about them I became more impressed by the company’s philosophy and brand and their commitment to develop products which cared for the health of people and the environment. They proudly proclaim that they test on humans and use the precautionary principle to determine the ingredient make up of their products ‘does it belong in our environment/on people’s skin’?

The evening began with a meet-and-mingle session for about an hour and I found people were very friendly and approachable. Name tags were provided printed only with names, no companies, to encourage people to talk to others as individuals, not as representatives of a company.

Malcolm then spoke for about 10 minutes with some time after for questions. He outlined his vision for Ecostore to be a profitable business with non-for-profit values and its beginnings in a permaculture eco-village in New Zealand. One thing really resonated with me ‘make it easy and pleasurable to make a difference in everyday life’.’ Apparently 30% of people make purchasing decisions based on their values, which means that the products still need to save people money, work as well, be easy to use and not too look ‘hippy’.

Eighteen years after Malcolm and his wife Melanie first founded Ecostore, the brand is still innovating. It has collaborated with artists for the abstract artwork on all its products. The plastic containers used for its products are now manufactured using 85% regrind plastic and 15% virgin plastic from renewable sources, meaning that they literally grind up their old bottles and put them back into the new bottles.

The next Melbourne Sustainability Drinks are on Wednesday 6 July 6-8pm and the guest speaker is Danny Williams, the founder of ProGreen Biofuels, a subsidiary of Renewable Energy & Biofuels Limited (REBL). To RSVP go to http://www.melbournesustainabilitydrinks.com/rsvp

Melba Mannequins is the twinning of my two loves – fashion and food.

The name of the event comes from experiencing lunch at the Melba Restaurant at The Langham while beautiful models parade fashion around the restaurant.

Thanks to The Langham, I attend the first sold out Melba Mannequins event which featured the Autumn/Winter collection from Anthea Crawford. It was hosted by Gorgi Coghlan of Network Ten’s The Circle and included styling tips from stylist Franco Schifilliti.

They’ve just announced a second event on Wednesday 27 July to showcase the upcoming Spring/ Summer collection and as tickets sold out for the first event you’ll need to get in quick for this one. There will be a third event on Wednesday 21 September to coincide with Anthea Crawford‘s Spring Racing collection.

So that you know what you can look forward to, here are some drool-worthy pictures of the lunch. Note that it’s the usual lunch buffet provided by Melba Restaurant so even if you can’t make it to the Melba Mannequins event you can still sample the delectable food another time. A contender for the best buffet in Melbourne? I think so!

Sparkling seafood and freshly made sushi.

Canapes and salads from the cold meat and salad bar.

A wide array of Indian food, including naan bread with various fillings made fresh to order in the tandoor oven. Extremely moreish!

More food cooked to order, this time wok-fried noodles.

What I consider Melba restaurant’s piece de resistance – the dessert bar!

Melba Mannequins is the perfect afternoon out for your girlfriends – fashion, a flute of Moet & Chandon champagne, a huge and impressive buffet lunch, all with views of the city skyline. In addition, for every ticket sold $20 will go towards The Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation and there were some fabulous raffle prizes at the lunch that I attended, including styling sessions, a stay at The Langham, a magnum of champagne and Anthea Crawford vouchers.

Melba Mannequins Show 2
Melba Restaurant
Wednesday 27 July 2011
Seating from 12:00 noon, event commences at 12:15pm
$110 per head
For further details please contact Restaurant Reservations on 1800 641 107 or email rest.res@langhamhotels.com

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 about seven months ago.

I thought at first the name ‘Cacao Green’ was a cheeky pushing-the-line reference to other well-known chocolate shops in Melbourne (for you lawyer geeks out there, I immediately thought ‘hmmm section 52 of the Trade Practices Act?’) but it turns out it’s a chain that’s arrived from Korea. The city store is their first foray into the Australian market and there are plans to expand to other areas of Melbourne (Glenferrie is slated for September) and interstate.

Thanks to Nuffnang a bunch of food bloggers and I gathered at Cacao Green to sample their frozen yoghurt, chocolate, desserts and coffee. Their frozen probiotic yoghurts are made on site with organic no-fat milk and powder imported from Italy and as such the starting point for the yoghurt flavours is called Italian Original, with a rotation of seasonal flavours – currently Brazilian chocolate, Japanese matcha and strawberry.

The yoghurt is like a very creamy soft serve icecream with a very subtle tang and for $6.50 the portions are very generous (the picture shows a regular serve which could easily feed two people). You can top your yoghurt with a selection of toppings ($1 per topping or $2.50 for three) and I had crunchy granola with my Japanese matcha.

The yoghurts also feature in the parfaits which are layered with fresh fruit and organic granola ($6.70). They are marketed as an alternative to breakfast, lunch or dinner and while I have a sweet tooth I’m not sure that a parfait is a suitable substitute for a meal! It makes a nice afternooon tea snack or dessert though.

Their other specialty is waffles. Once again these are huge and easily a dessert for two, thus making it a very economical sweet treat for around $9 between two people. The waffles are made fresh to order and are drizzled with frozen yoghurt and various toppings. I tried their signature organic dark chocolate and the blueberry/raspberry compote and walnut (the third flavour is crispy almond and walnut). They were not too wet and doughy inside but I prefer my waffles with a crispier outer coating – these were more like the kind of waffles I’d expect from Japanese (maybe Korean?) dessert shops.

Their organic fair trade Brazilian hot chocolates are similarly huge and you can choose between 45%, 60% and 75% cocoa (from $5.80). Again it was pleasant enough but no match for the hot chocolates made by other establishments in Melbourne in my view.

I didn’t sample their coffee but they advertise that they use organic Mr Espresso oak wood roasted beans and organic milk in their Synesso machine.

Having traipsed through significant part of their menu I will return to Cacao Green for the frozen yoghurts but I think they have strong competition in the vicinity for waffles, coffee and hot chocolates. Nevertheless as they are open till 10pm on a busy main street I suspect that they will do well with the where-do-we-go-after-dinner-if-not-a-bar crowd.

For other dessert options nearby, try Max Brenner, Harajuku Crepes and Roule Galette.

Cacao Green, 258 Swanston St, Melbourne +61 3 9654 9674

Mon – Wed: 10:00 am - 10:00 pm

Thurs – Sat: 10:00 am - 11:00 pm

Sun: 10:00 am - 10:00 pm