Happy 1st birthday ‘this is weeny’. Waiting for a reasonable moment to start on a bottle of 42 Below Honey vodka (how festive!) I only just realised that today one year ago in Melbourne, I posted a picture of a really good slice of pizza online. Lots has happened since. 2009 was a good year for a bad one. I’ll put up a few pictures over the next few days, none that have made the blog before. Till then, I hope you have a lovely, hangover free Christmas with people you care about. Kisses.
Speaking of Melbourne, Juhi’s been busy organising this really cool event at Miss Libertine in a couple of weeks. Well on Friday 30th October to be precise. Called What is Glitch Hop?, the night is a sort of introduction to the genre and the brilliant guys who produce the stuff. Electronic meets hiphop, defected and distorted. If I was in Melbourne, I’d be all over it. She even made this spiffy poster herself. You can read about glitch hop in further detail and see some videos on their blog.
So you don’t have to wear this in the future.
Although I secretly love it. Bio-Accessories was on display at Melbourne City Library (my library!) and was the brainchild of designers Ben Landau and Brittany Veitch. Described as ‘an effort on the wearers behalf to green their own personal space’, this collection was part couture, part social commentary.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from many years’ research of the best bars, bakeries, pie shops, Mexican joints and chocolate cafes in various cities, it’s that sometimes the city’s gems are not within walking distance. Melbourne is the same, and Northcote is one of those completely underrated suburbs brimming with them. This here is a lovely little Northcote blog. The main strip High St teems with cute shops with incredible window displays like The Friendship Tree and In The Woods, lots of little restaurants and a dark and incredibly sexy chocolate bar called Coco Loco.
I went all by myself to Coco Loco after finding one of their postcards in my top drawer. I desperately needed a hot chocolate to cure a serious case of the blahs and was hell bent on going somewhere new. I think I said ‘meh’ no less than 63 times that day and not once after that night. The beautiful walnut bar, low lighting and a very long and engaging conversation with chocolate alchemist Khaled Sherbini himself, had me spending two hours sipping my warm drink and trying the amazing couverture 70% and 55% dark chocolate relishing all that and the jazz on offer. I ordered the Cocolero – a cinnamon hot chocolate with Coco Loco’s specialty, cashew milk, a secret family recipe and a vegan and and gluten free alternative to dairy and soy. It was silky and didn’t interfere with the flavour of the chocolate one bit. Coco Loco has a lovely history with Khaled continuing his grandfather’s legacy, best explained on their website. Feasting at Coco Loco isn’t cheap, but it’s the price you pay for quality, plus it’s certified fair trade and organic and utterly divine.
Definitely worth the tram ride.
Visit their website.
Coco Loco, 219 High St, Northcote, VIC 3070
Last week, on our Fitzroy + Collingwood exploits, Soha and I peeked through beaded curtains after a heady fragrance of chocolate piqued my curiosity in the street. Inside was a beautiful chocolate shop and cafe owned and run by lovely French chocolatier Thibault Fregoni. He was lovely so we decided to stay and try something. He answered my million questions in his lilting French accent and joked about being born in Brunswick and putting it on merely for authenticity. He makes the chocolate on campus in a little couverture kitchen at the back. The specialty is single origin chocolate and his range is divine.
The Smith St space opened in September of 2008, moving from its regular spot at Prahran market. The cafe is a lovely place to relax, with cool wallpapers and art, and natural light which cast pretty shadows of its name on a wall. Monsieur Truffe has lots of comfortable seating including these cool card stools and serves tea, coffee and the best hot chocolate and iced chocolate I’ve had in ages. Both were exquisitely silken. I cannot drink anything powdered ever again. They also serve up goodies like delicious croissants and flourless chocolate cake and sell their amazing chocolate bars and chocolate drinks.
I like that the eco-friendly Monsieur has made a conscious effort not to use plastic. No plastic bags, and even the straws are biodegradable, made of corn. Ecopreneurship FTW.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Collingwood, Eat me, Environment, Melbourne, Photography, Reviews
When I first came to Melbourne, a Nigel-no-friends exchange student a few years ago, I fell in love with the city and its secrets. I was an great lover in the beginning, always exploring and finding new things to like but I’ve turned into this lazy girlfriend, who takes living in the CBD for granted and spends far too much time in bed alone with pudding and overdue library books I don’t even read. I’ve let myself go.
So the little sister I never had and I decided to uncover Fitzroy and Collingwood, well Gertrude and Smith St if we’re being specific, and we ended up having the best afternoon evarrrr.
Soha, outside the Dianne Tanzer gallery (108-110 Gertrude St) we visited. There are so many free art exhibitions on at Gertrude St at any given time. And how good is her hat? OMFG.
We went to so many beautiful antique and collectibles shops. You can buy all sorts of vintage – road signs, furniture, memorabilia, etc. This incredible one was on Gertrude St.
Stores with great styling. Like Shappere (91 Smith St) with their work benches for belts and hand beater collection and handbags.
Outlet stores. Sneakers and bras and lycra for miles.
Mad, cool or over the top salons like the uber pink Lure (311 Smith St) and barbers that all have beer like Dr Follicles Barber Shop (240 Gertrude St)
First we stopped off for a snack at an authentic little family owned Greek diner called Melissa (118 Smith St) which was all too cliche and amusing. The owners and their family all sat at one table gossiping and arguing. The spanakopita was delicious.
We also found the most divine chocolate cafe. Photos soon. Then this lovely, rambling Turkish man at Fitzroy Kebabs (near the corner of Gertrude St and Smith St) felt sorry for these two undernourished beige girls and kept bringing us treat after treat. We only bought a gozleme to share, and we left with free plums, baklava and filled pide for dinner.
I don’t know what he was thinking either. Seriously, best day ever.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Eat me, Fitzroy, Fuck Your Recession, Melbourne, Photography, Sheena
Two days ago, I DIYed a bangle necklace, read the Sunday supplements from the paper (best!), caught a train to Footscray and went to the open day and fundraiser at the MMoP. It smelled of my childhood. My grandparents owned and ran the oldest letterpress printers in Pune, my hometown. Maybe that explains my love of typography. The metallic blocks, the sticky inks and the wooden cabinetry all brought back memories I didn’t know I had. I remembered playing with the the cast metal pieces and the movable type, amazed at how many drawers and compartments there were in this one space, my half Scottish grandmother Reggie or Aai, as everybody called her, behind the main desk ignoring arthritic fingers and knitting little sweaters as if on auto-pilot. I remember all the workers drank hot tea in tiny glass tumblers, they bound all the blank pages left over in my school notebooks into fat scrapbooks at the end of each year. I remember dipping my hands in vats of adhesive and pulling it off like a loose layer of dead skin with only our dogs to share my disgust and awe with.
But I digress, The MMoP is a truly marvellous place. Here are photos.
The No Vacancy gallery space at Melbourne’s QV always has great stuff on like killer art exhibitions or that kooky PR driven Indoor Drive-In. I was the supermarket buying soy milk and apple crumble (unemployment cuisine) and stumbled upon the No Vacancy Art Market totally by chance and it is quite wonderful. It’s been on for a while but I caught the late boat. It’s running for only another couple of days till May 17th, and the spiel from the website explains it best. ‘Twenty stalls presenting emerging and established local talent in the Gallery’s inner-city space over four weeks. Illustrators, artists, jewellers, designers, animators, rare booksellers and an eclectic mix of hand-picked others come together to showcase their wares and offer a rare opportunity to collect original work.” I took some pictures. I loved the Artist’s Puzzle Book, a compilation of puzzles hand drawn by Melbourne artists. And Zoe Churchill’s stoneware and Curious Moth’s illustrations.
On the night of the third, my friends and I had dinner at Grumpy’s Green on Smith St in Fitzroy. It’s fun discovering awesome vegetarian cafes in Melbourne with Sarah – I also like Vegie Bar on Brunswick St for woodfired pizza and sangria. Grumpy’s Green is another cosy choice on a parallel street. It’s an eco-friendly lounge bar, that serves a selection of vegetarian snacks and meals, keeping their carbon footprint down by serving locally brewed beer and wine and meals with ingredients that are 100% locally sourced. You can read about all their other lovely initiatives to make Grumpy’s eco-friendly here. I think its neat that they have Earth Hour three times a week and have live acoustic music by (soy) candlelight.
We missed that but our dinner was delicious nonetheless. I ordered the nachos with their chilli bean sauce, sour cream and guacamole. Sarah had the veggie burger, Turkish bread with a chickpea and sunflower seed pattie and lettuce, tomato, onion, roast capsicum, cheese & Grumpy’s mustard mayo; and Mark, a pizza off the Specials board. Their menu has lots of vegan and gluten free options. A great thing about the place is that they offer a vast array of seating choices. Barstools and regular tables and couches to sprawl on. I found it hard to choose between the low table with the massive collection of comfortable cushions by the window and the lovely beer garden at the back, settling for the former on that frosty night.
This is their website.
Grumpy’s Green, 125 Smith St, Fitzroy, VIC
If there was a dorkathon, I would hands-down, no-contest, beat everyone down, so when I met Garance Dore at Cutler and Co in Melbourne on my birthday, I giggled and told her how much I love her blog and her photos, and that I’m glad it’s in English too now even though I used to make my Tahitian boyfriend translate it for me and send her messages in French about how much I enjoy her work. Then we talked about how she has a good translator and that he does justice to her sense of humour even in another language and I may have said something about her ‘great personality’. Sometimes I think I should be locked up and made to wear only polyester for a week for my cringeworthy gushing. The party on May 3rd, was some sort of Sartorialist casting for Saba and many Melburnians dressed to the nines were out in droves, probably hoping to get shot by Scott Schuman, but errr.. he pretty much only shoots in natural light. Hah! I knew that. But Scott was lovely, charming and a really great conversationalist, I’ve always loved his finds and photographs, I just prefer Garance’s eye and optimism. But they’re a match made in sartorial heaven.
Thank you to David Johnstone for the photos.
