Melbourne!

Hello hello :) Last week as I mentioned previously, I went to Melbourne, on holiday with family. After an initial drama of booking with Tiger Airways (our first and probably last time) we managed to re-book with qantus at the last minute!

On our trip we went to the Vienna exhibition at the National Gallery, did a lot of opshopping/vintage shopping (mainly Chapel street!), caught up with my dads friends ("yes of course I remember going to your wedding 10 years ago..."), explored the laneways, went on many trams and ate some really really good food!

Here are some photos of our trip (although mainly of food...of course!)

Yummy vegetarian steamed dumplings in Chinatown 

We ate dinner twice at a place called Lentil as Anything, a 'pay as you feel' restaurant which serves delicious vegetarian food. We luckily were staying a 5 minute walk from the Abbotsford location, and really enjoyed sitting there listening to live South American music (on every Friday night!) and soaking up the atmosphere. It was a buffet dinner, offering some biryani type rice dishes, vegetable curries, dahls and salads. 

An eggplant and beancurd dish I ordered for dinner. The eggplant was amazingly soft and flavoursome and the beancurd was super soft too, the texture reminded me of egg custard! We ended up eating at this Vietnamese restaurant called Vinh Vinh (in North Richmond) two nights in a row, it was so good!

Lunch at a place called "Soul food" in Fitzroy. Luckily I stumbled across this vegetarian cafe a few years ago when I went to Melbourne with a friend and remembered to go back. I had this yummy thai rice patty with a wild rice salad and mango salsa dressing! 

My sister had a chickpea tagine with cous cous, yoghurt sauce and roti bread. Mmmm. 

Eating lunch at a place called 'Hooked' on Brunswick street. I had this vege burger with grilled eggplant, guacamole, cheese, cucumber, salad leaves and sweet chilli sauce as well has hand cut chips. This was one of the best vege burgers I've ever had and I'm not usually a fan of hot chips but these were an exception! My sister ordered grilled fish and I was very impressed as a side they offered sticky or brown rice with bok choy, which she chose. 

We were lucky enough to stay at my dads friends flat and so we made our own breakfast most mornings (muesli, toast and avocado, simple!), but one morning I decided we'd go to Three Bags Full, which I remember seeing on Heidi's blog here, and when I looked it up realised it was a 5 minute walk from where we were staying!! I'm so glad we went because it was a seriously hip cafe with amazingly good food. 

I ordered roast mushrooms with goats cheese and almond dukka. Oh my, so delicious...loved the nutty dukka sprinkled on top! 

My sister had the porridge with rhubarb and pistachio and said it was the 'best porridge she's ever eaten'! I had a few spoonfuls and had to agree with her! How do they make it so delicious? It seemed slow cooked and deliciously creamy. Wow, it was just divine. 

One morning when we were travelling on a tram my dad spotted a sign for a student cooking school called Angliss. We got off to check it out and it turned out they offer lunch cooked by students of the school! We were fortunate enough to make a booking for the next day and were very impressed by the food! Because it's a student cooking school, we only payed $15 for 3 courses! 

This was my dessert. Vanilla bean panna cotta with strawberries, sweet balsamic vinegar (kind of weird..) and a toffee type thing. It was all very scrumptious and we left with very full stomachs! If you're in Melbourne, I'd recommend trying it out :) 

Outside Rose Street artist markets, open every Saturday. Lots of crafty things/hats/cards/jewellery all made by local designers. I bought a lovely headband and some clips! 

Moi (pretending I'm a fashion blogger) and wearing some purchases from Melbourne! French connection dress from The Red Cross (opshop), shoes from a garage sale we stumbled upon and a headband from Rose Street markets :) 

Close up of the headband ;) I rather love fabric covered buttons! 

A very cute bike we spotted on the street :) 

And that was my trip to Melbourne!! :) I feel very inspired now to try and recreate some of those dishes! 

Hannah x