travel Archives - Page 8 of 20 - The Wifey's Corner

April 19, 2017April 17, 2017

Sofitel Melbourne on Collins

For the last two nights of our Melbourne trip, we moved from Atlantis Hotel to Sofitel Melbourne on Collins. The choice was not made by us because we booked a mystery hotel from one of the travel website and turned out to be Sofitel. So, it was a happy result of the mystery hotel booking 😀

Located on Collins St towards the end near Parliament House, is great location for the shopaholics. It is so close to shopping strips and restaurants. And being on Collins St, there is a tram stop so close to the hotel, if you don’t feel like walking after shopping 🙂

There is also a small food court below the hotel which are buzzing with office workers during weekday mornings. The hotel itself is beautiful as you would expect of a hotel of that class. The facilities it offers, the beautiful room, comfortable bedding down to nice bathroom amenities all impressive. For us, the best part is that huge comfy bed and pillows – I definitely had the best sleeps here!

Without further ado, here is our room tour:

The other facilities we used while staying here was the gym and of course those massage chairs located inside the gym. The view from the gym room was awesome, there are enough equipment available and had never been full house whenever we visited 🙂 It has been a lovely stay at Sofitel Melbourne, but just one thing about the service. They are friendly but felt a bit distant (it’s a shame considering its league). But then again, we had very minimal contact with any of the staffs anyway.

Sofitel Melbourne on Collins

25 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000

Phone: (03) 9653 0000

www.sofitel.com/gb/hotel-1902-sofitel-melbourne-on-collins/

April 17, 2017August 25, 2023

St Ali Coffee Roasters, South Melbourne

My cousin recommended us to try the iced filtered coffee at St Ali Coffee Roasters, which she spoken of highly. So, after our burger meal on a very nice Saturday, we headed to South Melbourne. It didn’t take long to get there by tram and a short stroll in the area. Even though the distance is not at all that far from CBD, South Melbourne surely has a different vibe. It is a lovely area, laid back and has so many local shops that offers many interesting items. And of course, all the hidden little shops inside those little lanes also can be found in the area.

St Ali is located in another alley, inside a looks-alike-ex-warehouse building. Once you entered the door, it is actually much spacious than it looks from the outside. There are crowds of people, graffiti on the walls, and smell of coffee and delicious looking cake displays near the cashier.

And as per the recommendation, we tried their iced filtered coffee, flat white and one of their yummy cake. The food menu actually looks very appetising and delicious, but unfortunately for us who just had our lunch, therefore the cake.

The recommended ice filtered coffee in bottle

I personally am not a big fan of the filtered coffee because it has that acidic after taste. But it sure is refreshing for that hot sunny weather. On the other hand, hubby thinks the filter coffee is great. I, however, love the flat white – smooth and slightly fruity.

From there, we walked to South Melbourne Market and it was delightful. A huge building, with many shops and stalls and so many people. A lot of the products sold here are local produce, or made by local artists/designers – everything are just exciting! And there is also the Padre Coffee stall there, which I really love their coffee. So of course, we had to buy couple bags of their coffee beans to bring home 🙂

St Ali Coffee Roasters

12-18 Yarra Pl, South Melbourne VIC 3205

Phone: (03) 9686 2990

stali.com.au

April 14, 2017January 15, 2018

Betty’s Burgers & Concrete Co, Melbourne

When asked for the food that first come into mind in Melbourne, I personally would say burger (without doubt!). Maybe because we had a few burgers more in Melbourne than anywhere else we have travelled to. But in my defense, there are indeed many burger joints in Melbourne CBD alone; so it makes sense that I correlate burger with Melbourne 🙂

Anyway, having walked past Betty’s Burger joint multiple times and it always seems busy we decided to have an early lunch on a Saturday. We went there around 11 am and it sure was not busy because they just opened for the day:P Yay for us: no long wait and plenty of seats available.

Love those potted plants and fairy lights on the ceiling 🙂

Upon looking at the menu, I knew right away which burger to get. And why I even made a point of this is I usually couldn’t decide to get which one, most of the times I have at least 2 options I really want to try. But in here, I knew the one I wanted to order in one glance of the menu.

Here are our orders:

The Shroom Burger was awesome!!! Very nice delicious indeed with gooey melted cheese sandwiched between two huge crispy skin mushroom. It is a sinful and yummy treat 🙂 Hubby had Betty’s Classic Stack and he said the beef patty was good, not too dry. But we both agreed the shroom patty is the best part of the burger (っ˘ڡ˘ς)

Betty’s Burgers & Concrete Co.

97 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

Phone: (03) 9642 5823

Email: infomelbournecbd@bettysburgers.com.au

www.bettysburgers.com.au

Update 15/01/2018:

Betty’s Burger is now also open in Darling Harbour, Sydney. It has opened since June 2017 apparently, but I had only seen that last week when walked past it. And here is their address:

E04/14 Darling Dr, Sydney NSW 2000

Phone: (02) 9212 7773

April 12, 2017October 28, 2023

Gukbab, Melbourne

One problem with having too many choices is you end up not being able to choose, any one agree with me here? That was how we felt on one evening during our Melbourne trip. I mean there are so many restaurants there, impossible to keep track of, and yet we just could not decide where to go. It had been a long day and we were just resting at the hotel while watching Food Network. The show was about exploring Korean food and that eventually inspired us to look for hearty Korean food in Melbourne 🙂

We often walk past Little Lonsdale St during our stay at Atlantis and there is a block where there are many Korean restaurants. Most of the time, there are always small crowd in front of the restaurants and even though we look at them curiously, we never happened to look closer. So, this time we walked past each of them and read their menu, see how busy the restaurants were and decided what type of Korean meal we wanted.

Since we were no going for Korean BBQ type, we ended up at Gukbab. And here are what we ordered:

And of course … rice! The only gave very few type of banchan aka Korean side dishes

The hotpot was so hearty, especially good for winter season. It has generous amount of meat, vegetables and tofu. The cheese buldak aka stir fried chicken with extra hot chilli sauce and cheese topping was delicious and hot! It was not as hot on the first few bites but after a while, I started getting the chilli punch. But, it is still a tasty dish and I love how they cut the chicken pieces into bite sizes. A little disappointed with the banchan served, usually we get a few more types in Sydney, but were only served three types here. Banchan is usually one of the things I look forward to when eating in Korean restaurant, just because they are so many types of them and always a great experience to get something unusual 🙂

Overall, we had a warming and hearty dinner here. It was decent meal albeit not the most memorable one. As for price, they are kind of similar standard with other Korean restaurants here in Sydney.

Gukbab

Shop 1, 535 Little Lonsdale Street, CBD, Melbourne

Phone: (03) 9939 0380

www.facebook.com/GUKBABHOUSE/

April 10, 2017April 9, 2017

Chin Chin, Melbourne

Another hyped up restaurant is Chin Chin by Lucas Group. My brother and his wife recently went to Melbourne and they highly recommended Chin Chin to us. Therefore on this trip, we made sure to visit this restaurant. It is located in Melbourne CBD and according to their website, they only take reservations for group of 8 or more.

We got here around 5 pm hoping to beat the crowd with early dinner, but it was almost full house already. Luckily we got seated right away at the kind of awkward position table near the entrance. No complain here, especially 10 minutes after seated, there was already a long line of diners waiting at the entrance.

We ordered the caramelised sticky pork and infamous son in law eggs with some rice:

Caramelised sticky pork with sour herb salad and chilli vinegar

Son in law eggs with asparagus, herb salad and chilli jam

Both dishes came out quickly and they were delicious. That sticky pork is the bomb, the meat was really tender and very well seasoned with spices. It pairs nicely with the refreshing herb salad and chilli vinegar. The son in law eggs was just as yummy with hint of shrimp paste and chilli heat. However, I personally would prefer it to have more chilli kick.

It is a really lovely place, serving very delicious meals, but I think is a little overrated. I personally would not wait over one hour for a meal here, but I do appreciate how quick they whip out the dishes even during that busy times. There have been rumours that it will open a branch in Sydney, so let’s hope that will be the case and we can enjoy those yummy food without hopping onto the plane to Melbourne (still I love that city and no doubt will return)!

Chin Chin

125 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Phone: (03) 8663 2000