In total defiance of my budget, I’ve enjoyed way too many delicious meals and cocktails out and about this week, with my partner in crime & new friends. Happy days!

Melbourne

Coffee & Cocktails

Borsch, Vodka & Tears, Windsor

More than 100 vodkas, a majority of which that are imported exclusively from Poland, crowd the spectacular drinks list at Borsch, Vodka & Tears. The intimate bar & restaurant serves up a heartwarming slice of Poland with a side of vodka and a dash of cheeky humour. We ordered a vodka flight, of three vodka tasters for $14.95 and a Compendium, their signature vodka cocktail. The vodka flight was really novel, giving us a chance to try a smooth clear vodka, a strong oaked vodka and a fragrant pomegranate vodka. 

Soho, South Bank

D was home early Wednesday night, so we celebrted with a mid-week date for pizza & cocktails at Soho in South Bank. I’d already eaten dinner, so while David tucked into a cheesy Sicilian-style pizza, I enjoyed a Limoncello Martini. With a sweet & sour base and frothy white chocolate topping, it was a lot like drinking a lemon meringue pie.

Charlie’s Bar, Hardware Lane

Just off Lonsdale St, Hardware Lane is a bustling enclave of bars and restaurants. The underground Charlie’s Bar has a decent drinks list and enough booths and tucked-away seating areas to be the perfect venue for catching up with twenty or so girls for drinks. 

World Bar, South Bank

We popped in for a coffee this morning & signed up to their free membership – hello $5 wines, and $18 pizza + beer/wine combos. We just missed breakfast, which is a shame because the menu looks delish, but I’ll definitely be back one evening to have a crack at their cocktail list and small plates.

Oh So Delicious!

Saigon Sally, Windsor

This Saturday night we decided to pick a restaurant, based on a new neighbourhood we were yet to visit. We loosely set our limits as the tiny suburbs of South Yarra/Toorak and Prahran/Windsor. Most of the South Yarra restaurants were a little overpriced for dinner (surprise surprise!) so we set our sights on Chapel St in Prahran/Windsor.

We couldn’t have picked a better restaurant than Saigon Sally. The older, more sophisticated sister to Hanoi Hannah, and the distant cousin (?) to recently opened Tokyo Tina, Saigon Sally is chic enough for date night and cool enough for drinks with friends. The menu is designed for sharing, which is my favourite way to dine – I love being able to try a variety of dishes! We opted for the Saigon Chilli Crabs as our large plate, amazing banh mi for our small plate, and two medium plates: Wagyu Tartare and Vietnamese Chicken Coleslaw. We were genuinely delighted with every dish, and as I gushed about every plate I started to sound a bit like a broken record. We spoiled ourselves with more cocktails, I went for the Mango Cobbler and D was recommended a cocktail by our waitress, which I should have double-checked the name of, because it was seriously one of the yummiest cocktails I’ve ever had – without being sickly sweet.

The killer cocktail list and delicious small plates make it perfect for returning for some drinks & nibbles with friends, as well as for a main meal. I will definitely be taking friends here when they visit, it’s one of my favourite dinner spots in Melbourne! Can’t wait to try Tokyo Tina next week.

Greek on Hardware Lane 

After drinks at Charlie’s Bar on Wednesday, I filled up on some yummy calamari across the lane. Can’t remember the name of the restaurant, but you can’t go wrong in Hardware Lane, with more Greek food than you can poke a fork at.

White Night…Fail?

For two years I’ve enviously scrolled through Instagram feeds full of photos from Melbourne’s famous White Night celebrations. From 7pm till 7am, the CBD and some surrounding areas host hundreds of thousands of residents pouring in the streets to enjoy free art installations and performances.

White Night was on last night, and I was really excited to see the most famous element – the crazy, colourful light installations painting iconic Melbourne buildings in fantastical colours & patterns.

We planned to go just after midnight, once the crowds died down. We went out for dinner and drinks, but as the night wore on I got sleepier and sleepier. By the time we got back to our apartment, my eyelids were heavy and we threw in the towel. I slept for the next 11 hours.

Photo Source

Do I regret missing it?

Not really.

I feel a little bad, but I’m also happy that instead of pushing on and on when my body was telling me to do the exact opposite. At home, I used thrive on little sleep, and get up at 5:30am with ease in summer. Since the move, I’m sleepy by 10pm and sleep through alarms at 7:30. I think moving has been more tiring than I realise!

I’d already had a really fun night out with my boyfriend, so my Saturday night was already a win.

There’s always next year!

Watching

Australia: The Story of Us

Tuned in to this tonight, while I sat composing this very blog post and found myself totally hooked – and that this post took about three times longer to write than it needed to! It’s a recreation of the little-known stories that shaped Australia, such as Caroline Chisolm, who helped turn Australia into a functioning society with a future, rather than leave it as the Wild West that it was when she arrived in 1838. At the time, England gave single, young women free passage to Australia, to even out the mostly-male population. Unfortunatley, these women arrived with nowhere to live and little job prospects, making them vulnerable to violence and cunning brothel Madams. Caroline took hundreds of women under her wing and established Australia’s first employment agency. She placed girls looking for work as servants in trustworthy families, giving them not only a job, but for many, the opportunity to meet a husband and begin their own families.

They estimate that 1 million Australians are descendants of the girls that Caroline Chisolm helped. Pretty amazing stuff, no?

Cooking

Last week I made pasta and risotto over and over again, because I never had quite enough to make anything more interesting. This week, I succumbed to the meal plan, which resulted in a delicious Sticky Thai Chicken & Mango Salad, from “Gizzi’s Kitchen Magic.” I swapped golden caster sugar for stevia, and chilli for sweet chilli sauce (full of sugar, I know), and mint for coriander. It was easy, relatively quick, light and delicious!

Sticky Thai Chicken & Mango Salad

Serves 2.

Heat olive oil in a pan. Rub two chicken thigh fillets with salt & pepper, and cook for 6-8 minutes on each side. Set aside. Combine 2 tbsp of sweet chilli sauce, 3 tbsp of fish sauce, 3 tbsp of lemon or lime juice and 3 tbsp of stevia in a small bowl. Cook on the stove for a few minutes to let the stevia dissolve, until it’s bubbling. Return the chicken to the pan quickly, coating it in the sauce. Set aside. Chop up some shallots, place in a salad bowl. Peel a large mango, slice off the cheeks. Slice into thin slivers, place in the salad bowl. Make a similar sauce to the sauce for the chicken (improvise a little, to taste) and mix through the salad. I think a handful of roasted cashews would be delicious too, didn’t think of this till after! Divide the salad on to plates, top with chicken and roasted cashews.

Words

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

Henry David Thoreau