Melbourne great eats and spots – part 1

okay.. this may be a biiiiiiiiiiit outdated, but I was looking through some ol’ pics and decided to post up some places to visit and famous eats in Melbourne CBD – mainly attributed to sleepygal’s visit last 2 winters ago, i.e. 2007 (yeah i know, it’s ages, but things hasnt changed! much…. )

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for those who didnt know, i have 4 besties.. and we call ourselves the gals – something that brought us through thick and thin; and also something that made our high school more memorable, exciting and fun (will introduce ‘em later). so after form 5, we split to separate paths but until today, we are still in touch and plans to be each other’s kids’ godmother (not sure how it’s gonna be yet.. lol)

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Anyway, because the 4 of us are in melbourne, sleepygal decides to pay us a visit – here’s what our adventure looks like

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Upon her arrival, we prepared a “banner” which screams sleepygal, together with our voices which ultimately caused her to walk so fast, hence the blur pic, what a WARM welcome, dont ya’ll think?   trust us to do jus that

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First things first, we brought her to eat. At approx  9–10pm at night, there’s nothing much to eat aside from chinatown food. So we brought her to a famous greek restaurant called STALACTITES which serves wraps till the late night. It is located at the corner of Lonsdale and Russell St (if you are in the city, you will not miss it because Melbourne is a friggin’ square! and they have st signs at every junction, which is a good thing too ). They are famous for their lamb wraps but I prefer their chicken ones.. *tee-hee*

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Just look for the Lebanese House Restaurant, it’s next to it. It has a cave-y interior look you wont miss it sorry there’s no close up of the food, but it is yummy! not the best you can get in town (the best is somewhere from a truck-seller) but still a taste of Greek food! oh oh don’t forget the chips!

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After a good night’s rest, we are ready for day 2! After grabbing Australian’s delicacy, SUBWAY (:p) we headed to the PIXAR exhibition held opposite the Flinders St Train Station. They always have exhibitions there, so it’s worth a visit while you’re there – it’s FREE!

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can you find Nemo??? No? Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming swimming swimming…then *ahhh memoriess*

- From left: cycogal, sleepygal, crazygal & hypergal -

p/s: sizzlegal is missing ’cause she’s home with her family

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Yeah, we saw boo and we couldn’t resist jumping into the prohibited area to shake his hand

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Hypergal and Sleepygal showing off their stunts, can you recognize where it came from?

oh, and Melbourne’s very own Eiffel tower… *heh heh*

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btw, these pics are taken near the South Yarra river (opposite Flinder’s Train Station too); one of the only rivers in Melbourne.

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An interesting fact: Australia and New Zealand is a rather dry land, always suffering from drought. Read more here.

so when you do opt for home-stay while you’re here, one of the house rules they lay down for you is the ideal 7-minute shower max, if not they’ll either turn off the heater or just turn off the water supply completely (some even installed the shower heads with timer!)

Unlike Malaysians, we love our 30 min shower dont we????

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* a lot of things happened which is better off undisclosed :p *

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We had an early dinner due to the bad weather – as you can see, winter is all about rain, rain and rain. unfortunately melbourne’s rain is nothing compared to Malaysia’s – it’s merely drizzles, hence their water supply is minute. *shrugs, oh well

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We had our dinner that night at ITO’s, a japanese cuisine at the corner of Bourke St and Russell. It is quite a small secluded shop (just look up at the signs while you’re walking up Bourke st heading towards Exhibition St direction), the taste is okay, normal japanese food for its price, ranging from AUD$10-15, depending on what you order.

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Personally I like their unagi don hypergal decided to try their salmon, it was okay, but I prefer is semi-cooked so it’s not too dry, you can tell the waitress if your tastebuds are the same as mine sleepygal was craving for her udon at that time, and decided to go for tempura.

Overall, I think the quality of the food here is to my likings, and with its price too, it’s reasonable quality food in Melbourne CBD (unless you travel far far to the suburbs) better than the japanese here, dollar to dollar (dont lah compare to the ****/***** places)

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*mm-mmmm

*p/s: there are a lot more small japanese shops around selling cheap take-aways and fast food, like the famous one: DonDon located at 321 Swanston Street OR 330 Little Lonsdale Street, MELBOURNE (they probably have more branches now).

They are like SUPER FAST at serving food, one minute you’re ordering, next minute you’re paying AND taking your food. It is NOT FUN working in there, I know because I was one of the “machines” that operates for their super duper fast food serving, paid at AUD$8.50 per hour.

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Nonetheless, the food is good la..for its price (AUD$ 5.50-7) – so you’ll always see a queue of working people during lunch hour, be it asian or whites or blacks.

damn cheap for its quality actually… especially their SASHIMI DON. i dont have the pic to show you all but I can assure you that it’s fresh, the salmon fish comes in every morning and the boss goes to each branch to slice up the fish, to be arranged in a nice rose-shaped pattern on top of the rice.

oh, oh, love their chicken teriyaki too

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There are seriously so man japanese cuisine in Melbourne, one can never get sick of. One of the must-try claimed-Japanese-but-originated-from-HongKong dessert shop is ICHIPAN’s crepes located at Melbourne Central (near BOOST)

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they have all sorts of flavours, all sorts of combination; from bananas to green tea ice cream to nutella sauce. Mix and match your favourite crepes (hot/cold) when you’re there!

p/s: that’s my mom on the left btw

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oopsies, i got so side-tracked when I talked about food :p

Anyhoooz, sleepygal, hypergal and I ended our night with Melbourne’s most desired dessert/hangout place, none-other-than MAX BRENNER’s!!!

Max Brenner’s is a chocolate dessert place which represents THE CHOCOLATE CULTURE of all times. Read more about Max Brenner, a bald man’s love story towards chocolate here

Meanwhile, here are some pics of my experiences with the bald man. Enjoy~

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omg, i miss them so much!

- From left: the belgian waffle with sides, vanilla ice cream and strawberry.

the chocolate dip with strawberries (my fav! get to feel the true taste of the chocolate mm-mmm).

the oh-so-rich chocolate brownie (very satisfying for chocolate cravings ~yum!).

the chocolate iceshakes/smoothie on their Drink-Me trademark cup – comes in a lotta flavours e.g. banana chocolate, oreo cookie & peanut butte; all with chocolate obviously

(they also have the Hug-Me cups for hot drinks).

and the final one is special – it’s called ‘suckao‘, which I dont know why, but it’s basically milk and choco bits melted to your own liking. you get to choose which choc flava you want – dark, milk or white chocolate and then u melt it, either with addition of milk or not.

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SCRUMPTIOUS!

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Price wise – a biiiiiiiiiit pricy but heck, it’s worth a pamper once in a while Definitely a not-to-miss when you’re new in town!

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Will be back for more – stay tuned!

miss.qp

Japanese @ Nihon Kai, Old Klang Road and Astro Star Quest Final 2009

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Guess what! mr.fbb had two VIP tix to watch Astro Star Quest Finals Live in Stadium Putra Indoor, Bukit Jalil last Saturday. Astro Star Quest is a singing competition for talented young people (like you and i) as a stepping stone to show the world that they can sing/dance/perform! sorta like the idols show, btw what happened to Malaysian idol?!?! hmmm..anywaysss  we decided to go even though we dont follow (because it is in Chinese and we’re both kinda bananas) because we thought it’d be nice to go experience some VIP seats *snicker*

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(for those non-malaysians: bananas =  chinese who can’t speak/read/write Chinese =p )

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Since the show begins at 8pm, we went for an early japanese dinner at the oh-so-secluded japanese restaurant, Nihon Kai @ Old Klang Road. It was recommended by a friend and I must admit, the shop didnt look inviting at all despite its decorative interior with slight authentic japanese theme.

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They have two floors, with the upstairs having rooms for family gatherings/private functions. It is a small but homey place; but the people, not so approachable. I stepped in and first thing they ask was “Did you book?” I shook my head and almost expected them to chase me away but of course, they didnt, it was 5.50pm! who eats dinner at that hour??? and then they told us we had to leave by 7pm -.-” how rude.

not only that when we were looking at the menu, the waitress kept coming over and asking if we were ready, and then she added,

“aiy0r hai mei you hao ah, ten sia hen duo ren..”

which translates to

“still not ready, later got a lot of people…”

to her colleagues.

They must be really busy, every table comes with a booking. but still, every customer is valuable. she ought not rush us like that, right???

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anyhowz, I wanted to order their cod fish as recommended but they didnt have them that day so we went for the mix tempura and raw sashimi instead.

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The sashimi was not a let-down. It was fresh, nonetheless, but it is not the best that I’ve had. Still, the price is very affordable (~ RM 16.00) as it comes in a set with the tempura, miso soup, rice and cawan mushi as below:

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The tempura is nice – like any other you can get in any other japanese restaurant, nothing to shout about… but still it’s not greasy and yucky, it’s just nice to the mouth and stomach  *bite…crunch-crunch* 

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hahhah the cawan mushi looks so serene right… so…still. heheh this egg dish tasted okay, very home made, with lil/no MSG. But they could at least put in a lil more extras? only manage to find a small crab cake and a tiny mushroom.

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Same goes for the miso soup.. it’s nice and very homemade – no MSG whatsoever, which I likeyy very much

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We also had their specialty just to taste what they have got to offer – can you guess what is in it? it just looks like a “popiah” filled with cucumber right? but nope, they have hidden a sashimi inside, together with cucumbers and cabbage… sort of like a salad-in-a-sushi, quite SCRUMPTIOUS i would say…special but the vegetable kind of hid the taste of sashimi….. hmm~

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we also had the “ni kyu don” , i.e. the beef rice. nothing to shout about, in fact I think that it’s too dry, they should’ve added more sauce to it. a no-no to order despite how tempting it looks. Overall, I think their sashimi is well worth it and also their sets. anything with their sashimi, WHACK it! hehe total damage above was about rm60… oh oh!! and also, they should change their green tea… it is tasteless compared to sushi grooove’s!

(p/s: green tea fan here….. =p )

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So anyhoo we headed to the stadium after that, and am really disappointed with the so-called VIP seats we had offered by Astro Life

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I mean…SERIOUSLY>!?@!#?@$?

If this is what they call VIP seats, I have nothing to say……………………….

Except that

I was thinking of my comfortable couch at home the whole time….

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But I have to admit, the sound effect and the cheer and the atmosphere is surprisingly good… Kept imagining myself as one of the finalists…………

How many supporters will I get?

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*dreams away*

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miss.qp

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Address: 4-2, Jalan Telok Gadong, Off Jalan Klang Lama Batu 3 1/2, 58100 KL.

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[Go towards Old Klang Road. After the underpass, keep left, look out for the Kee Hing Tyre with big Michelin Tyre logo on signboard and turn left right there (which is the road just before Shell). You should be able to see Nihon Kai at the double-storey shop lots.]