A happy year is made of a thousand little happy moments. To help me be mindful of and remember the little things that will make 2015 great, I’m giving them some space and reflection time here on Wanderbug. Spending some time each Sunday processing the ups and downs of each week is a great way to stay present, grateful and dodge the dreaded Monday blues. l also love to share my favourite Melbourne finds to inspire your next adventure! 

Autumn is creeping in, little by little, and I feel like a kid in a candy shop. The leaves don’t change colours in Brisbane like they do in Melbourne, so this is my first “real” Autumn. It’s already my favourite season!

I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, which is why I’ve condensed two weeks’ worth of Melbourne discoveries into this one post. Better late than never!

Best Bites

I’ll post some Melbourne eating guides soon, so instead of giving too much detail on the many,  many new places I’ve eaten, I’ll keep it short and sweet. I’ve eaten at some really great places recently, but for the first time I’ve had a few misses.

My favourite places have been The Panama Dining Room in Fitzroy for their yummy, creative bar menu and $1 oyster happy hour between 6pm-7pm. They have a restaurant, but we ate from the bar menu because it looked so delicious! We started with $1 oysters ( usually $4ea) and then had the pork belly burger with kimchi, fried egg, pickles and crinkle cut chips. I’ve said so many times that I’m sick of pork belly, but I was too intrigued by a kimchi and an egg on a burger! It was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had.

On Saturday I met Jasmine’s and her friends for brunch at Nourished385 in Prahran. It was so nice getting together with a group of girls for brunch, for the first time in a long time. They’re all lovely, and unsurprisingly, none of them are Melbourne natives! Between the five of us, two were from Brisbane, one was from New Zealand, another from Canada and finally, one from regional Victoria. A testament to Melbourne’s ability to attract people from all over the country, and the world!

Pidapipo in Carlton has been the perfect dessert the last couple of times I’ve eaten on Lygon St – it’s on our walk back to the tram, so it’s impossible to resist! Supposedly, it’s South American inspired gelato. I can’t authenticate the validity of “South American gelato” but the flavours are interesting and it is pretty delicious.

The Breslin, along the South Bank promenade, does delicious ribs and a beautiful calamari and haloumi salad – the ability to produce a salad you think about days later, is the measure of a good restaurant.

Proper & Sons at the South Melbourne market has won my heart with their amazing French toast and great coffee – their entire menu & cabinet is divine! I’ve already been back once, and will return again soon.

Best Bars

Murmur, off Little Bourke, is my new favourite indoor bar in the city – small, cosy and with a great drinks list. Bonus points for the cutest (and cleanest!) bathrooms I’ve seen in a Melbourne bar so far.

Of course, my favourite al fresco bar is Arbory, on the Yarra River at the back of Flinders Station. David & I visited a few times this week, most recently on Sunday night with my friends Jasmine, Laura & Peter. Laura & Peter are expats from Minnesota, you should check out Laura’s blog here – I love her Phillip Island posts!

& the not so greats…

For the first time since moving here, I’ve had some underwhelming meals. Mostly, it’s because I think the prices were too high for what was offered – there is so much good food in Melbourne, I think you have to be really on top of your game to charge premium prices. Luckily I was eating with great company!

I found both Beachcomber  in St Kilda & Teatro in Hamer Hall in South Bank to be very over-priced. The service at Villa Romana in Lygon St was really slow, with tables who were seated well after us getting their meals ages before us – we only ordered pizzas! Also, my margherita was more of a tomato/cheese pizza, nothing like the traditional margherita I know and love. To be fair, everyone else enjoyed their meals once they got them. My pizza was nice, for a cheese pizza.

South Bank

I’ve been doing lots of walking along South Bank recently, and every time I always find another beautiful angle of the city. The night time shot is actually of South Bank, looking back from the banks under Arbory Bar.

Chinatown

I’ve walked past Chinatown a few times now, and each time the wafts of sizzling, sweet, sour and spicy dishes tempt me to investigate. This week, I went with my friends Laura & Jasmine to Chinatown for lunch, and I purposefully didn’t look up a restaurant, wanting to follow my nose and choose whatever looked delicious – especially as many small, family-run Chinese restaurants don’t have huge PR machines ensuring you hear about them. We ate at the Empress of China, and shared sweet & sour pork, lemon chicken & mongolian beef with peanut sauce.

On Friday night, I met my boyfriend after his post-work drinks and tried to find somewhere to eat – pretty much impossible without a booking or a very long wait on a Friday night in Melbourne. We thought Chinatown would be quicker, because of the sheer volume of restaurants, but we were wrong. Luckily, Dragon Boat only had a short wait and my beef with mandarin sauce was delicious!

South Melbourne

I’ve really, really started to adore my neighbourhood, South Bank & South Melbourne. Clarendon St is full of so many cute cafes, boutiques and much-sought-after Asian takeaway joints, that I think I’ll be back a lot during the coming months. It also has the South Melbourne Markets and Woolies, Coles & Aldi – I only shop at the markets and Woolies, but it’s nice having everything we need within walking distance.

On Friday, I met my uncle for lunch at Gas Eatery & Supplies on Coventry St, and poked my head into the amazing homewares store next door.

At Gas, I had the lamb gozleme, which was amaaaazing! I will definitely be returning for lunch very soon, it’s my new favourite lunch spot in South Melbourne.

Prahran

I was early for brunch at Nourished 385, so I had a little stroll along High St in Prahran. I didn’t have time to look in any of the shops, but I was furiously typing away into my Notes app all the design stores that I wanted to visit. If you’re redecorating, High St has got your back. Handmade rugs from Central Asia competing with European tile & wall decor shops, between hat shops, boutiques and framing workshops. Lots of seriously gorgeous stores, I will definitely be back to hunt down something cool for our apartment.

I really like what I’ve seen of Prahran so far – this weekend I’m returning to Chapel St for a night out, and next weekend I want to visit the Prahran Market!

Melbourne International Comedy Festival

On Saturday afternoon we went to The Great Debate at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. We loved it, and thought it was the perfect event for us this year – we didn’t know who to see, so hedging our bet with six comedians seemed like a good option. Read my post about it here.

Fitzroy

After the Comedy Festival, we went to the aforementioned Panama Dining Room in Fitzroy. I love this loft space, with it’s enormous arched windows that look right down the street or into the foliage of the pretty plane trees.

From our seat by the window, I spotted a cheesecake shop which sells it by the slice. We planned to go there for dessert, but it had closed by the time we’d got downstairs and back onto the street. I’d really worked myself up for dessert, so I was pretty happy when I realised we were standing outside the famed Gelato Messina.

I had the Jamie Lannister, from their Game of Thrones collection, which included honeycomb, salted caramel and raspberry. It was deeeeelish!

On Sunday afternoon, we were back in Fitzroy so David could get a haircut, and I could peacefully nerd-out in Books for Cooks. I came very close to buying many books, and have to return to properly investigate the French section. This store is incredible, and is a very dangerous place for fellow cookbook addicts. Around the corner on Smith Street is a travel book shop, so I’ve essentially found my two ideal stores, just a stone’s throw from each other. Watch out bank account.

We stopped by the famous Huxtaburger on Smith St and indulged in the joint’s namesake burger – deeeelicious! At $15, international tourists might find this a little outrageous for a burger (small chips, an extra $3), but this is fairly standard for a burger in Australia, outside of McDonalds or Hungry Jacks! It was really delicious, and very similar to the yummy burgers at Arbory. Two thumbs up!

One thing I didn’t enjoy so much about Fitzroy, was that I wouldn’t have felt as safe walking around alone. Fitzroy has one of the largest public housing estates in Melbourne, which means that daytime drunks aggressively yelling at everyone and anyone on the streets, in the middle of the day, are not an uncommon sight. I watched one guy scream and spit at a handful of people standing waiting to cross the road, before stumbling across the road, fortunately avoiding being hit by traffic. We saw about three other people like this on Sunday, and an enormous group of people like this on Sunday night.

Fitzroy is certainly a “cool” suburb, and expensive to live in – yet I wouldn’t want to pay the sky high rents to feel on edge most of the time I left the house. One aspect of big city living that I’m not quite used to – and haven’t noticed as much south of the Yarra.

NGV & State Library  Freebies

One thing I love about living here is how many cool, cultural exhibitions and events are always on – and often they’re free! On the long weekend, David & I went to the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria), and poked around the free exhibitions, which included a lot of sixties fashion & furniture (very cool) and the Nordic Cool: Modernist Design exhibition, which I really loved.

The NGV did a great job of narrating the exhibition, and this quote from Danish designer Henning Koppel really resonated with me “Things should be worth looking at… In my opinion, beauty is the first thing to strive for in everything.”

This struck a chord with me, as I attempt to carve out a home in Melbourne. Our apartment came fully furnished, and the furnishing are lovely, but I miss my house in Brisbane. It has more than twenty years of my life etched into every nook and cranny, and in comparison a new place feels a little impersonal. I don’t have a big budget for decorating (/ would rather spend it on travel), but I’m making an effort to bring more of “me” into my new living space – and trying to find a balance between form and function for the objects that surround me every day.

This week I spent one day working in the gorgeous La Trobe Reading Room in the state library, and popped my head into the free Inspiration by Design exhibition, straight from London’s V&A Museum. It’s full of graphics, ancient medieval books, photography, illustrations and other artistic artefacts collected by the V&A (the national art museum) over the past 150 years.

Melbourne’s Green Spaces

Melbourne has so many green spaces, that they still perfectly accommodate the city’s growing population. Pretty impressive city planning when you consider that most of these gardens were designed in the late 19th century, with a drastically smaller population in mind.

Royal Botanic Gardens

I feel so lucky that I have such beautiful gardens so close to home! The Royal Botanic Gardens, which includes the Queen’s Gardens and King’s Domain, are enormous. I’ve already been by myself a few times, took Mum there when she visited and last weekend David and I went for a walk through the gardens.

 I seem to be a bit of a fresh air snob, because I immediately notice (and love) how much cleaner and cooler the air is within the gardens. I miss day trips to Mt Glorious just outside of Brisbane (next level fresh air), but these gardens are a good consolation prize!

We followed the gardens down to the Yarra and walked along the River till we reached South Bank and the beautiful Princess Bridge. We crossed the bridge and went to Riverland for lunch, which was delicious as always. Riverland is one of the first bar/restaurants we went to when we visited Melbourne, so it always brings back happy memories of our first Melbourne holiday when we go back.

Carlton Gardens

Walking through Carlton Gardens makes me feel like I’m in a London park (on an uncharacteristically warm and sunny day).

I love looking at the Royal Exhibition Building, which is Australia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Listed building, and the pretty fountain out the front. It hosted the first session of Australian Parliament in 1901 and is one of the few international exhibition buildings left, from the “golden age” of international celebrations and exhibitions at the end of the 19th century.

The gardens are really beautiful and there is plenty of room to take a picnic or stretch out under a tree with a book.

What have you discovered in your city recently?