Melbourne
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brunswick, melbourne
things I see, think & eat
I am a migrant too.
Everyone that claims Australia is full - how did their family get here? that’s right, most likely on a boat.
does it matter any way?
change of perspective. change of heart.
The Boathouse
7 The Blvd
Moonee Ponds 3039
I find the Boathouse to be a little getaway, a breather within the busy city. The location in Maribyrnong Park along the Yarra River is just beautiful. We discovered it a while ago and keep going back.
The crowd you find here is very diverse, ranging from joggers digging into healthy brekky, mums & kids out for lunch to suits discussing business over dinner.
We enjoyed sitting outside during the warmer months. This is obviously not possible at the moment but the fit out inside is great, cosy/relaxed and artsy/classy at the same time. The aboriginal paintings on the wall add to the atmosphere.
As for the most important aspect of every restaurant - the food:
The food is fresh and creative. The menu has a bit of a twist which makes it exciting and different to many other restaurants in the area.
Entree - crisp toast with warm smoked trout , potato salad & watercress.
They offer 10 different pizzas. We are still working our way through them. These here are the roasted pumpkin pizza with feta, caramelised onion and baby spinach (my fave so far) & the prawns, scamoroza and chorizo pizza. The pizzas are delicious, hands down.
For dessert (aka the best part of every meal) Gary’s cheesecake (white choc mousse nut crumble & rhubarb syrup) to the left & peanut butter panna cotta with salted popcorn ice cream and toffee popcorn to the right. Stunning.
You cannot be a coffee lover residing in Melbourne and not check out Manchester Press. There is a girl with a toothpick drawing on your coffee. They draw on your coffee. Serious latte art. Only in Melbourne.
The other thing the place is known for are their bagels. So off we were on the hunt for picturesque coffees and delicious bagels.
Manchester Press is hidden away on Rankins lane with a plain MP sign (apparently that’s what the cool kids call it) but thanks to google maps we finally got there. It was a weekday well before noon and “MP” was pretty much full. Miraculously we got hold of two chairs straight away. Service was taking our orders before we knew it. We were off to a good start.
My latte came a little while later. The milk foam bunny looking at me put a smile on my face and I almost felt bad for taking a sip. The coffee was very good. And very strong (I like my coffee strong, years of excessive caffeine consume left me with a high caffeine tolerance but it might actually be too much for some).
We were waiting for our bagels for quite a while watching everyone around us get served little plates of delightfulness. When we finally asked our waitress it turned out our order got lost. 40 minutes, many apologies and a free round of coffees later the food was put in front of us. Yumm! That was one good salmon bagel. Servings are actually quite big, definitely bigger than they look.
All in all it was very nice. The occasional order gets lost anywhere. No biggie. I recommend.
Bluebird Espresso
134 Johnston St
Collingwood, VIC 3066
Bluebird is one of Collingwood’s finest. “That’s not too hard to achieve” you might think. Valid objection. Let’s just say if Bluebird was located in Brunswick it would still be all the way up there on the list.
Their menu holds an impressive number of options. I have to admit none of them sounded overly appealing to me. None but the chicken burger. It doesn’t matter because the chicken burger is absolutely delicious and I don’t want to eat anything else ever again anyway.
The staff at Bluebird are so hip they put the average hipster to shame. Love it. They are always super nice and the guy that makes that amazing coffee should be given an award.
The blue walls, the fresh tulips on every table and those paintings on the blue walls (of the sort you find in grandma’s attic) give the place a homey, funky & peculiar feel. All at the same time.
What I really like are the National Geographic issues from back in the 80ies and 90ies stacked in a corner. I could flip through them while drinking flat whites all day.
Bluebird makes Collingwood a better place. If you find yourself in the neighbourhood check it out! And have a chicken burger while you’re there.
Rumi
116 Lygon St
Brunswick East, VIC
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right- doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
- Rumi
Jalal ad-Din Rumi is a 13th century writer, mystic and my all time favourite poet. Hence the restaurant’s name was reason enough for me to give it a go. A 90% rating on Urbanspoon reinforced the plan and made me walk in with high expectations.
Wednesday night, full(!) restaurant & the three of us, each quietly brooding over the menu for about ten minutes. We all had a hard time ordering. In a good way. We started discussing it at length, changing our minds every two minutes. Everything sounded exotic, interesting and tasty. We ordered 3 courses each (as recommended by our waitress) which allowed a decent coverage of the items on the menu.
The food was sensational. Great flavours and combinations. Sigara Boregi (cigar shaped pastry filled with haloumi, feta and kasseri), assorted greens, spiced lamb shoulder & chicken on beetroot puree were our favourites.
The correlation of smell, people & lighting created a harmonious atmosphere. Plenty of space in between tables allowed for a nice conversation. The decor is minimalistic, again in a good way.
Oh Lygon Street, you hold so many treasures. Rumi is undoubtably one of them… Can’t wait to go back.
