Sunday 10th Feb



I love the idea of growing our own food  (just for fun not serious or anything) things like stone fruit, summer fruits, tomatoes for that basil/tomato/bocancini. Like my great grandma used to make, every summer she'd harvest stuff grandpa grew in his garden, and made all the preserves for the year, for family friends and all the church fetes. Anything she could preserve she would, she made the best caramelized onion jam. But also tomato sauce, all things chili, jams and chutney. With one of my favourite things - mason jars! By what I reckon is witchcraft nothing ever went off. One day we'll make all these things too - it's a part of the five year plan. Which I've been told is ambitious. :P

This year we're delighted to be attending the 5th year of the long lunch at the 19th year of the sustainability living festival. Hosted by... abc gardening guy Costa Georgiadis, to celebrate local growers and promote, well eating local produce (which costs a lot more than anything imported from china). 




The produce is transported to the GLL chefs – who do not know the type and quantities of produce they will receive. After receiving the produce, our GLL chefs design a four-course menu and set about cooking up for over 200 guests.













Life cykel mushrooms, summer grown and foraged greens and leek top ash, Mount Zero EV olive olive, garlic lime and chili

Pumpkin seeds-skin-flesh, fried onion rings with skin, carrot, wild brassica and radihs, sage, and red wine vinaigrette

Friday 9th February 2018 




Laksa Bar is a no frills, no deco, self serve cutlery, order and pay at the counter eatery opposite the casual lovely weddings worthy trunk diner. It feels like a student eatery place...



There isn't much space, an ugly rural black and white projection on the wall and the wooden table is covered in contact paper...



Despite being a laksa bar, we didn't order the laksa during this heatwave. But I do like that they have bibs. 




Quite good, plenty of flavour, salad was viet fusion, some of the coconut rice was soggy.

Thursday 8th February 2018


There are two American dinners in Melbourne, Misty's (relocated to Reservoir) and the newly located Soda Rock now at the Jam Factory, after an apartment tower bought the space. Spacious and airy with checkerboard floors, red booths, waiters on skates and a juke box. Think rock & roll, and Grease (the musical).





Who can go past getting a shake at a diner? I guess they didn't have as much variation on all the things that could kill you back then XD

It was pretty awesome! One of the best shakes, this is my style, non of that food porn trendy freak shakes that compromise on quality, this is the real deal. Not sure why I have three straws there though.








I much prefer the filet o fish at McD with a soft & fluffy buttery bun. But that's pretty modern, and burgers these days often use those sweet brioche buns, and so the natural-ish burger buns don't cut it these days. These are the retro ones, so don't compare, but you know it's a try once thing. 

Chips were average, though note that I did ask for a half serve of the fries as sizes are generous here. :P

Fish Burger combo......................... $18.95
$5 extra upgrade to shake
= $24 (burger on its own is $12, shake $10)




I was pretty full at this point so only had a couple spoons, and it was pretty good. Though pumpkin pie is my favourite. Mother said the pie was too sweet, the crust too and also too buttery - she is not a true American though :P It's a pretty big slice, so I'd recommend getting this to share and an extra scoop of ice cream (unless you've already had a shake).






Soda Rock seems to be a more of a novelty to us than a place that does great burgers, however dessert is what we'd recommend. A shake and pie to share after a movie.

The bill for dinner, dessert and a drink came to $36. Through through the eatclub we got 40% off, which is why we chose to dine here tonight :P

Our waiter is great on skates and very friendly, a children's entertainer when not skating around with a tray of milkshakes. 

Being one of the last customers for the night we were pleased to see the place being cleaned, as we've been here once before, at the old location and after jas went to the bathroom, he insisted we not eat here. Also the juke box was greasy. Great to see with a new location it's much bigger, airy and cleaner.

Friday 3rd Feb 2018



Hanaichi at QV is one of those cheap eat places, where prices have barely changed over the years, on the same price tier as DonDon and Rose Garden BBQ (though we've yet to dine there). 



They have all the usual Japanese thing except bentos: curry, udon, rice dishes and ramen. There's only 10 items on the menu.




Going for takeaway we ordered a rice dish, the Teriyaki Chicken which was kinda dry and low on flavour. No salad dressing either. 

But service was very friendly (super friendly). Oh and they take card, no min.

I do like that say with the curry you can choose your protein, chicken, pork, tofu/veg. They also sell wine and beer! A backpacker's dream. We might be back, though unlikely.

Thursday 1st Feb 2018




Uncle Tetsu via Foodora, skip the queue! Such a wonderful feeling to not have to line up. :P
They opened a few months ago on main streets and had crazy snaking lines. Recently you can order through delivery services.




We order through foodora and were delighted to see a free pick up option! Some places also offer free delivery. If we were swamped at the office delivery would be the way to go, but it was a lovely afternoon and we were dropping off a parcel nearby so stopped by to breathe in the wonderful aroma of cake baking, a scent that I'm very unfamiliar with these days.





Like Hokkaido you can see the busy bees whipping up fresh batches in a small kitchen throughout the day. Made from scratch too. They take cash and card with no minimum spend, not amex though.

When Uncle Tetsu first opened there was just one flavour for madeleines (muffin like but different in texture) but now in addition to original there's also chocolate and matcha!




The cake is like wet?! insanely moist... but meant to be like that? almost mushy? I don't understand why it's so popular... at all... I much prefer my version of the japanese cheesecake.




The Madelaines wasn't wet though slightly, on the dry side (I had the original) though I could taste the honey which was nice. Andy had the choc which he said was dry and supermarket muffins are better the matcha was good in flavour, though still a bit dry.



Update - We went back for their cheese tart with a cookie tart, delicious. Also their egg pudding from the Melb Central store is good too, and I believe they do soft serve up there too.

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