Melbourne Food Safari

Melbourne is one of the World’s great foodie cities. So upon visiting for a weekend and facing reviewing one place in particular, what does one couple do? I’ll tell you… you turn the entire long weekend into an eating safari and cover a bunch of its best. So, here we are… 

Nutrition- 

Taste-

Service-

Ambience-

Extra mile-

Budget – mixed

*Scores are out of 10

Melbourne rating – Awesome overall- too hard to pin point specifics. Read the below and visit them all!

 Mike

This was a tricky one. Well, only in the sense that it was a case of best of a best bunch. Which one to choose? We went down with the intention of dining at Movida, a delightful Spanish tapas restaurant after the (relentless) encouragement from a friend about visiting their Sydney location with him. Having not done that yet, and feeling somewhat bad, in a strange twist of guilt, we went along to the Melbourne one without him…

So let me start us off- it was awesome. Strangely, I think, the first time I’ve had a Steak Tartare, and it was impeccable. Simply beautiful meat with a spice combination that left you wanting more.

We accompanied that with a roasted mushroom dish that quickly had NN exclaiming “Awwmygawwd, these are the best mushrooms I’ve ever had!” and they were very good. After rounding the night off with a brilliant pork shoulder and prune dish we left satisfied and content that we had found our review for the week.

Keeping in mind no real subject to talk about, besides – if you go to Melbourne, try Movida.

 

Then the next day rolled around, we searched out a little cafe recommendation Seven Seeds and settled in for breakfast. Now, if there’s one thing that grates me about breakfast places it’s that there is generally only bacon and salmon as meat options on the menu. Of course, I love bacon, but sometimes a change is nice.

So upon seeing pork belly among other meaty options, I was in love.

Coupled with amazing coffee and this was a winner.

 

Soon we had an issue- which place do we choose?

 

Cue smart decision- let’s make the whole weekend a feast of Melbourne’s best places – done!

 

So, we left Seven Seeds slightly snobbier on out coffee. Or should I say more hip? As in hipster, because without doubt, my Kiwi/Sydney combo was nowhere near Melbourne enough to drink some of the slow drip, pour over filter, schamncy coffee I tried. Just showing my true class there…

 

The roll continued.

We then later hit Bowery to Williamsburg, a small New York style sandwich store that served up amazing little sandwiches with a variety of sides. Ours being macaroni cheese and  broccoli and asparagus salad. Oh and a s’more that had NN salivating for the rest of the trip (ask her).

 

Then we visited The Meatball and Wine Bar that night. Not a recommendation this one, but easily playing into my hands- meatballs and wine!

And it didn’t disappoint. In fact, not only that, it was close to pick of the weekend for me!. Simple menu- choose your meatball, choose your sauce, choose your ‘base’, e.g. polenta, greens etc, and voila, you’re in eating heaven. The simplicity here was the key, I believe. Great simple food done faultlessly.

 

It went on from here, but I’ll allow NN to divulge the specifics. However, from me the key here was this: Melbourne is rich in restaurant options and quality, and for pretty reasonable prices too, especially when compared to Sydney. If faced with dining out in this city, and you are paying close attention to your diet and health, then close your eyes and pint, you are bound to find something with great options and great taste.

 

I’ll be back there soon for sure. Oh and this time I’ll tell my mates so we can catch up, and not just traipse from one eatery to the next in a bubble of eating bliss…

Nards

 A client asked me what we did in Melbourne, and upon replying that we ate, the confusion in his face was clear – “what do you mean you ate”, he asked; well we spend the entire time moving from one restaurant to the next, eating and drinking.  That was our weekend.  We did train on one of the mornings, but the rest of the time was about us fully indulging in our eating and drinking.  This was one of those weekends where our aim was to go into beast-eating mode and enjoy every single minute of it, guilt-free.

 

And as any true over achiever does, we stepped up to the plate (literally).

 

In total, we got to seven different restaurants – all of which were amazing.  The Saturday consisted of a tram –ride to St Kilda to go to Dr Jekyll for breakfast, followed by Cumulus Inc for lunch (in the city), a fair few beers in Federation Square, and then a cab out to Fitzroy to go to Little Creatures (more beers and more yummy food), and finally, the day ended with room service desert.  A pretty successful day I say.  And yes, we did splash out and have more than just vegetables and protein; in fact we had wonderful breads, dips, cheese, cured meats, wines, cocktails, cakes and loads of different wines and beers.

It is these kind of weekends that are food for the soul; spending quality time with someone you love, experiencing loads of different taste sensations and the experiences that each of the restaurants have to offer- it’s what makes up life.  We don’t do this all the time, if we did I guarantee we would be fat, unhealthy trainers, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with being lax from time to time.  After all, life, and we, would be very boring if we ate clean 100% of the time!

 

The only reason that we CAN enjoy these kinds of indulgent weekends is because for the majority of the time we train hard, sleep well, eat well, and keep our lives in relative balance – something that everyone can achieve if they put their minds to it.

 

For anyone looking for somewhere to eat in Melbourne I highly suggest any one of these mentioned restaurants, however, the absolute highlights for me were the mushrooms from Movida (they.were.spectacular!) and the S’more from Bowery to Williamsburg – I will fly back to Melbourne just to eat that again!

What’s a S’more?  A chocolate biscuit base on which a thick chocolate, peanut ganache sits, with big fluffy marshmallows plonked on top – sexy.

P.S. If anyone can find a place that sells S’mores in Sydney, please let me know J

MC & NN