Fun times!

Arbory Bar and Eatery
Flinders Walk
Melbourne, VIC 3000
Ph: (03) 9621-2260
Website


In an uncharacteristic display of fabulousness, I spent two nights out last week. Both evenings were for events at Arbory Bar and Eatery - one was a Menu Preview and the other was their Launch Party. Twice out in a week is a lot for this Grandma, but the venue looked great, they kindly said I could bring a plus-one to each event, and I knew that my friend Kimba would really enjoy the Menu Preview (a sit-down meal where you get to meet the chef), and that my buddy Jimbo would enjoy the Launch Party (Drinks! And tasty morsels of food being brought to you on platters!) Yesss! I win all of the friendship points!

So, here's the deal with Arbory: it is a new restaurant / bar located on a decommissioned platform at Flinders Street station. It is built along the entire length of the platform, and overlooks the Yarra River. What a perfect spot!

The Arbory

Looking onto the River. Melbourne, you so pretty!

Looking onto Flinders Street Station

Let's start with the Menu Preview evening. Executive Chef Nick Bennett (ex-Cecconi's and ex-Trocadero/Fatto) put together a selection of items from the menu, which were matched with some lovely Spanish wines. The items below were my favourites from what we tried, and are the ones I would recommend you order if you visit yourself.

Pea and herb arancini

Yes to crunchy balls (heh) of pea risotto, yes to a blanket of grated pecorino cheese.

Mushroom and cheese croquettes

The mushroom croquettes were super crunchy and full of gooey, oozy, cheesy goodness.

Buffalo mozzarella, fried artichoke, green sauce, raisins and almonds

The buffalo mozzarella was a nice dish, with mild flavours and a great texture contrast between the soft mozzarella and crunchy fried artichoke.

Steak tartare, cheese, toast, sauce Béarnaise

The highlight of the evening, for me, was the steak tartare, which was served on a little toasted cheese sandwich, and drenched in Béarnaise sauce. So good!

Roast onion, silverbeet and cauliflower pie, leek salad & truffle pecorino

Yay for pies. The pie was nice and hearty, with the onion, silverbeet and cauliflower being an unusual, but very tasty, combination of flavours.

Peppered steak, kohlrabi remoulade, onion rings

The steak, sauce and kohlrabi remoulade were good; the onion rings were amazing. I don't think they sell the onion rings separately as a side - they really should.

Popcorn and salted caramel sundae

The dessert we tried looked deceptively plain, but packed loads of flavour - ice-cream and salted caramel, blanketed in a dusting of popcorn powder.

Executive Chef Nick Bennett

So let's have a look at the Launch Party! Whilst the Menu Preview was more of an intimate event, the Launch Party was basically a really big party! Loads of people, lots of food, lots of drink, music, and a lot of fun.

Bar

The Arbory offers a red and a white wine on tap (and a rosé too, the night we were there!), as well as a wide selection of beers and ciders.

Wine!

I was very excited about this table of different cured meats, and the gigantic wheel of cheese - delicious.

Meeeeeats

Meats and buns

Top left: Pea and herb arancini, Top right: Stake tartare, cheese, toast and sauce Béarnaise Bottom left: Fish burger; Bottom centre: Double cheeseburger; Bottom right: Crinkle-cut chips, truffle salt and pecorino

I had a super fun time at both events, and think The Arbory is a great venue - fantastic location, good food, relaxed atmosphere. Jimbo has already been back once, on his own coin, and said the mushroom croquettes and calamari were really good. I'll be interested to see how it does over Winter, especially considering that the venue is entirely outdoors. They have umbrellas and gas heaters, so hopefully they'll be able to cope with Melbourne's ever-changing weather!

Wine

We had the most awesome lunch with my parents today and I couldn't wait to tell you all about it!

India Delights

India Delights
59 Mahoneys Road
Forest Hill, VIC 3131
Ph: (03) 9877-7593
Website


India Delights is on Mahoneys Road in Forest Hill (directly opposite Forest Hill Chase shopping centre), and is one of my parents' favourite restaurants. It's owned and run by a Malaysian guy, and they serve all kinds of fab Malaysian Indian food - curries, roti, thosai, satay - as well as noodle dishes like sar hor fun and curry laksa. My parents have been raving about it for months, and we finally made a trip there today.

Bain Maries

Bain Maries

Sandra and I may have gotten a little over-excited at the prospect of eating some of our Malaysian mamak stall favourites, and we totally over-ordered - oops!

We started with a couple of vadai - I'd never had these before, but they are kinda like a savoury spiced donut-slash-fritter. There was one made of rice flour, and another based on split yellow peas - both delicious.

Vadai - one made of rice flour, one made of split peas

My dad went for some of the curries in the bain marie - two meat and two vegetable curries, served with rice for $10.50. Bargain. He chose potato curry, cabbage curry, chicken curry, and a fish curry. They were all good, but the potato curry, in particular, was excellent - really spicy and with a nice flavour from toasted mustard seeds. You can also see the teh susu ais (iced milk tea) and the teh o limau ais (iced lemon tea) in the background - aaaah, memories of Malaysia!

Curries and rice - fish curry, chicken curry, potato curry, cabbage curry -$10.50

I got my favourite - murtabak! They had chicken, beef, sardine or vegetable, I went with the classic, beef. They are cooked fresh to order, and it was really great, with crispy roti on the outside, and big pieces of tender beef, potatoes and onion inside. The accompanying beef curry was really tasty too. (I was expecting minced beef in the murtabak and was pleasantly surprised that there were proper pieces of meat in there). I also got a milo ais (iced milo), because milo ais is the best.

Murtabak, curry, Milo ais, teh ais

My mum always gets the sar hor fun - flat rice noodles, stir fried with different seafood, meat, and vegetables, and drenched in an eggy sauce. Repeat orders from a Malaysian mum means it's the real deal! (I think sar hor fun is Chinese-Malaysian, rather than Indian Malaysian, but they do a really great version here!)

Sar Hor Fun - $11.00

Sandra got the mamak mee goreng, which she asked to be done vegetarian (but still with egg). It was super spicy and had heaps of smoky wok hei flavour.

Mamak mee goreng - $9.50

Quote from my parents...

Dad: The mee goreng here is much better than Pappa Rich!
Mum: Yah, Pappa Rich how siaow lah!

By the way, "how siaow" is Hokkien for "bullshit". Oh Mum!

Finally, we also had a chicken satay to share. I love the generous amount of peanut sauce they give you. It came with cucumber, onion and achar (Nyonya spicy mixed pickled vegetables). The flavour of the achar was really good, with a nice mix of spices, but the vegetables weren't as crisp as I would have liked.

Chicken satay - $10.00 for 5 sticks

SEDAP MAN

In February, we took a little weekend away with our friend Kimba to Jervis Bay, on the south coast of New South Wales. I'd never been before, and didn't know much about the region in general, but was definitely up for a chilled-out weekend of white sandy beaches, blue water, and yummy food!

A Weekend in Jervis Bay

Kimba was able to take us into the Qantas Lounge for breakfast before we got our flight to Sydney. I was possibly a little too excited about the free food, free coffee... and the pancake machine! Welcome to the future, people!

Pancake machine

P.S. the pancake machine was just ok - it was cool to see it work (it takes about a minute and the pancake just pops out at the end), but it was more of a novelty than a taste sensation.

Breakfast in the Qantas lounge

After arriving in Sydney, we drove down the coast in our trusty rented Nissan Micra. Jervis Bay is just under 200 kilometres south of Sydney, which took us about two and a half hours, with a cheeky stop at KFC at the Albion Park BP servo on the way. What can I say? We be classy laydeez. Y'all know I'm all about the Hot and Spicy, Wicked Wings or the Double Down, but the Kentucky Burger was pretty good too!

Kentucky Burger

We stayed at Salt on Silkwood, a beach house close to Callala Beach. It was comfortable, quiet and very pretty. The owners were also very responsive (via email) with restaurant recommendations, local activities and so on.

Living areas, Garden

Main bathroom and bedroom

Calalla Beach

As I said above, it was a really chilled out weekend - on two of the three nights we picked up wine, meat and nibbles from the local supermarkets and butchers, and ate them in the beach house. I love picnic dinners!

Dinner

Cheese, bread, dips, deliciousness

Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Half Baked

We spent our second day in Jervis Bay in Huskisson, which was the biggest town close to our accommodation. There are lots of restaurants, cafes and shops here, as well as numerous tour operators offering boat rides around the bay. The weekend we were there, there happened to be a big triathlon on, so there were heaps of roadblocks in place and the town was crazy busy!

Huskisson

Full honesty here: I was not expecting much from the cafes in a touristy beach town, but we came across a really fabulous cafe: 5 Little Pigs (66 Owen Street, Huskisson, NSW 2540), where we had lunch. It had a bit of a Melbourne vibe going on, friendly staff, great food and good coffee.

The Smashed Avocado - smashed avocado on crispy corn tortilla chips w/ tomato salsa, queso fresco & ancho crumbs - $15.50

Cheeseburger - piccalilli relish, ketchup & cheddar - $10.00

Mushroom Burger - grilled haloumi, eggplant, rocket, pickled beetroot, aioli and basil pesto - $14.00

My mushroom burger was seriously awesome - a lightly toasted brioche roll with a juicy grilled field mushroom, a slice of eggplant, haloumi, rocket, beetroot, aioli and basil pesto. Super delicious! I have no idea why this was $14 and the cheeseburger (with chips) was only $10, but it was still a fab lunch.

Iced Coffee - $5.50

After lunch, we took a dolphin watching tour - there were quite a few different boat tours on offer, with various companies having offices on the main street in Huskisson. I would suggest just walking up and down and picking one that takes your fancy. We got to see wild dolphins - yay!

Wild dolphins in Jervis Bay

Huskisson

Our third day in Jervis Bay was a beach day! Hooray! We drove down to Hyams Beach first for a look-see, which is famous for being in the Guinness Book of Records as having the whitest sand in the world.

Hyams Beach

Hyams Beach

We then drove to Murray's Beach, where we spent most of the afternoon, swimming, sunbathing and relaxing. It was unbelievably gorgeous!

Murray's Beach

Murrays Beach

Hello!

Lovely sand

Dinner that night was at Rick Stein at Bannister's! I'd done almost no research before the trip, and even though I was vaguely aware that Rick Stein had a restaurant "somewhere in regional New South Wales", it never crossed my mind to look it up and see if it was close to Jervis Bay. However, when we were driving from the airport to our accommodation, I saw a billboard for the restaurant and literally squealed! (Apologies to Kimba who was driving at the time!) I googled the restaurant as we were driving, and saw that it was only an hour further south of Jervis Bay. Luckily the girls were up for it, and I booked us a table for our third and final night away. Hooray! It ended up being a really great meal, and I'll be blogging it in full. Here's a picture of the lovely entrée I had, the Oysters Charentaise - freshly shucked oysters, served with super spicy and juicy sausages. An unusual combination, but so very, very good.

Oysters Charentaise - $27

For our final day in Jervis Bay, we decided to see a bit of nature, and went for a walk in Morton National Park to see the Fitzroy Falls.

Fitzroy Falls

Morton National Park

After our walking, we stopped in at The Robertson Pie Shop (4400 Illawarra Highway, Robertson, NSW 2577) for some old fashioned meat pies. The pie shop seems to be quite famous, based on a lot of different reviews we googled, and it's hard to miss it when you drive there!

The Robertson Pie Shop

The Robertson Pie Shop

The Robertson Pie Shop

Potato pie, sausage roll, steak and mushroom pie, beef bourguignon pie

We decided to indulge in some sweet pies too (well, we were on holiday, after all!) and we got a cherry pie and a peach pie to share. You can buy them plain or, er, pre-creamed.

Cherry Pie

Cherry Pie

Robertson seemed to be a quiet little town (or "large village", according to Wikipedia), with a few shops. I thought it was extremely pretty, like a real life version of those pastoral scenes from Thomas the Tank Engine.

Picture perfect Robertson

You know what else Robertson has? The Giant Potato!!! This, like the Bannister's billboard, elicited a lot of squealing from me when we first drove past. (I know, I'm a total dork!) This was the first of Australia's Big Things that I've seen so far.

The Big Potato

From there it was a leisurely drive back to the airport, and yes, more free food at the Qantas lounge, before boarding our flight back home and back to reality.

Cheese and sparkling wine at the Qantas Lounge

It was a super fun weekend! Big thank-you to Sandra for researching and planning the accommodation and activities, and thank-you to Kimba for doing all the driving over the weekend! (I helped by... um... providing the all important moral support!)

Have you been to Jervis Bay before? Do you have any recommendations for activities or nice eats? Also, for those who have travelled throughout country Australia more extensively than I have - who do you think makes the best meat pies in Australia?