travel Archives - Page 9 of 20 - The Wifey's Corner

April 4, 2017April 2, 2017

The Kettle Black, South Melbourne

Another cafe that I had wanted to go is The Kettle Black. There are numerous positive reviews and high rating of this place. Located in South Melbourne, it is easily accessible by trams from CBD or even walk past the beautiful parks. But on this occasion, we went there by tram. It was chilly and windy that morning and as always the case in Melbourne, this cafe was busy when we got there. Waited for about 15 minutes and we were shown to our table.

These were our brunch orders:

Soy chai latte for me, served with honey

Seasonal local mushroom – cooked and raw

Hot cake with ricotta, blueberries, maple, double cream, seed and nuts

Coffee was good according to hubby – maybe not wow, but good. I love my chai latte, it is warm and not overly sweet, definitely can taste the spices. Perfect drink for cold windy day!

The mushroom dish was spectacular, hubby said it was the most satisfying no meat dish he has had. All the mushroom there, whether cooked or raw, powdered, sliced, or whole; everything was beautiful and tasty. The goat curd was yummy without being too overpowering – perfectly balanced dish.

The beautifully presented hot cake, too pretty to cut into. It also tasted delicious!! The hot cake was light and fluffy, the maple syrup and double cream makes gives it just enough sweet and richness. The tartness of berries help to balance the sweetness. And those seeds and nuts gives multiple texture to the dish. This dish is probably best for sharing as it is huge, I am not kidding!

The service was great, very attentive and friendly; food came out quick. On top of that, it has a lovely environment. It was a happy visit to Kettle Black and no wonder all the praises it gets; would love to come back again in the future!

The Kettle Black

50 Albert Road, South Melbourne

Phone: (03) 9088 0721

Email: info@thekettleblack.com.au

www.thekettleblack.com.au

April 2, 2017

Cat Cafe Melbourne

One of the thing I was looking forward to in our recent Melbourne trip was a visit to Cat Cafe Melbourne. I know, there is a Catmosphere here in Sydney that we haven’t even visited all this time (duh!!). But, this time around in Melbourne, we would definitely make a reservation to visit this cat cafe; especially because it is located in the CBD and not far at all from our hotel.

The Cat Cafe opens daily from 10am – 1pm and then reopens again 2pm – 6pm. And we booked a one-hour session starting at 10am, hoping the cats would be awake and more playful than in the afternoon. And boy we were wrong, most of them were actually sleeping hehehe. A few walked around or hid inside boxes and tunnels. The staffs said it might be due to the weather, it was cloudy and cold and grey; honestly I was sleepy too 😛

Here are some pictures of the cat residents of Cat Cafe Melbourne:

The entrance and stairs to upper level and cafe area

Main play ground – do you notice the hanging bridge on the ceiling, how cute!!

The cats – they are all huge fluffy balls!!

Love that water fountain and more sleepy cats…

There are two rooms for the cats: upstairs is a bigger room where most cats were there on our visit; also where you can order your food and drinks. Downstairs is a smaller room or what they called social room – there is Wii console and TV in this room.

It was really fun to be here and plays with the cats. But, these cats being already centre of attention all day everyday; you would expect them to be quite ignorant to humans. Apart from that, I enjoy the quietness in here and look at those cats taking their time to play or sleep. Probably is a good place to reflects and get away from everyday stress/routines.

Cat Cafe Melbourne

30 Guildford Ln, Melbourne VIC 3000

Phone: (03) 9642 8540

catcafemelbourne.com.au

March 28, 2017March 26, 2017

Tokyo Japanese Restaurant, Melbourne

After a whole afternoon of walking around, chasing tram, and missed a train – we finally arrived at Melbourne Central again. It was around 7 pm and we were not sure where to head to have dinner. While walking out of Melbourne Central station, hubby noticed this big board that says Tokyo Japanese All You Can Eat! And there we went for our dinner.

The restaurant is located above a bar called The Meeting Place, in the corner of Elizabeth St and Little Lonsdale St. The cost is $29.80 per person, exclude drinks. Upon climbing the stair, this is the entrance to the restaurant:

A friendly waitress confirmed with us how many people are dining and quickly showed us our table and left us with menu. She explained just ordered whatever we want from the menu and they will prepare as order. Here are what we ordered:

We ordered hot lemon tea for drinks (left) and Chawan mushi (right) – the first order that came out

Clockwise from top left: Agedashi Tofu, Seaweed Salad, Prawn Gyoza, Sushi & Sashimi Platter

Clockwise from top left: Takoyaki, Chicken Karaage, Diced Beef Miso, and Mixed Tempura

We enjoyed our meal here, they were not superbly awesome but decent meal. I like the idea of cook as order, where the food came out nice and hot. In doing that, the deep fried food are crispy and not soggy. On top of that, the food also came out very fast – so no worries about loosing much of your time for that.

Chawan mushi was so smooth and fluffy, a very delicate dish. The diced beef miso were tasty, however few pieces of the meat were a bit chewy. The sashimi were fresh and delicious. The tempura batter was nice and light. Love the lemon tea with fresh slices of lemon and doesn’t taste like instant flavoured tea mixes. Green tea ice cream is yummy, with strong matcha flavour and not too sweet. We were happy with everything we ordered and definitely left the restaurant with full tummies.

Tokyo Japanese Restaurant

Level 1, 315 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne

Phone: (03) 9602 5616

March 26, 2017October 28, 2023

Operator 25, Melbourne

After checked-in at Best Western Atlantis, we were initially going to have lunch at Hardware Societe. Being highly rated on Zomato and seen such long queues from previous trip, we were looking forward to come back for lunch on weekday hoping it will be less crowded. And boy, we were wrong! There was a long queue just as bad as any weekends and by the look of it, we would not get a table in 30-60 minutes even.

Quick stop at Brother Baba Budan for take away flat white – a nice kick of caffeine to start our holiday!

We walked around the Hardware Lane a bit and could not decide what to eat. And somehow we walked north and went to Operator 25. This is also another cafe that receives many positive comments. So, let’s check out if it really lived up to that praises 🙂

We got there around 1 pm and it was still quite packed with patrons, a few free spaces only. And there were a short queue of people getting their take away coffees. A waiter quickly showed us to our seat in the long bench, sharing it with few other patrons and handed us the menu. We ended up ordering these:

Hubby loved his meal – said the yuzu hollandaise sauce is very delicious and it has the tanginess to cut trough creaminess of hollandaise sauce. The crispy wonton was also a nice addition to the meal, provides a different texture to the dish. Overall, this dish is very well balanced, taste wise and texture wise. Yummy!

While I am as happy with my omelette as well. Those big chunks of grilled octopus turns out really tasty and not chewy at all. They are seasoned well and cooked well, the omelette is light and fluffy. Also love the wakame seaweed salad, it works well with everything else on the plate. But, I felt my toast was just normal buttered toasts, couldn’t really taste the miso in them.

Over all, I think they did a great job coming up these dishes. Must be a lot of planning and efforts to finally come up with a dish with multiple ingredients that compliment each other. Definitely live up to the positive reviews!

Operator 25

25 Wills St, Melbourne CBD

Phone: (03) 9670 3278

operator25.com.au

March 26, 2017August 30, 2023

Best Western Atlantis Hotel, Melbourne

We just had a short weekend getaway to Melbourne at end of February. And for this trip we stayed at two hotels, the first leg at Best Western Atlantis which location is very close to Southern Cross Station. In fact, on of the reason we chose this was for its location – thinking it would be so convenience to get to train station and still in the CBD.

This time we flew to Avalon Airport and caught the Skybus shuttle back to Southern Cross Station. That was our first time flying to Avalon Airport and it was not bad at all. Yes, it is far from CBD but the shuttle bus helps and was not that expensive either. But if you travelling in group of 4 or 5 people, maybe get a hired car would come cheaper 😛

Anyway, the trip from airport to CBD was fine – as I remembered the only part where we got stuck in traffic was when it got closer to CBD. The drive took about 50 minutes from airport to Southern Cross station. From there it was an easy five minutes walk to the hotel. We got to the hotel around 11.20 am and was surprised that the room was all ready.

We were at room 1528, floor 15th – a City View room. The room is pretty basic but sufficient. There is a window overlooking the street and buildings around back of the hotel towards CBD. A double size bed that has past its prime time, couple of fluffy pillows, a desk and an old looking couch. As for the bathroom, I am happy that it is clean and everything worked fine. Note that they only provided a tube of shampoo, a tube of conditioner and two standard hotel-sized round soaps. Since we brought our own toiletries, I don’t have much to say about those provided ones.

Rooms are cleaned every day before lunch (I think), it has always been done by the time we came back after lunch. Air conditioner worked well. Once it reaches the set temperature, it will turn off itself then on again when it is couple degrees above the set temperature. This might be a problem with light sleepers and it makes little noise when turning on.

The hotel offers paid buffet breakfast that we didn’t try. But appeared fairly busy every morning when we walked past the breakfast are. While we were there, they didn’t have free wifi in the room. However, prepaid wifi is available by contacting the front desk – from memory it costs about $30 per day.

To summarise, this hotel is good value for the price and location being close to Southern Cross station and many tram stops. As for comfort, we’d rate it average – nothing wow, but not too bad either. After all, it costs only around AUD 100 per night, so do adjust your expectation 🙂

(Best Western) Atlantis Hotel

300 Spencer St, Melbourne VIC 3000

Phone: (03) 9600 2900

atlantishotel.com.au