How to make Pad Thai

Hello friends, long time no hear, I'm sorry I have been away for so long.

We are doing great although it is winter again in Wellington, this weekend, we decided to experiment with Thai ingredients, by making a "Pad Thai." Although not authentic, my version was speedy and delicious. You will see in the video that I left out the soy sauce, as I mistakenly forgot to include this item on my shopping list earlier this morning, that feeling that I missed something was nagging at the back of my brain earlier, which I was aware of at the time but left behind in the depths of lost memory, in other words, life after 30.  Nevertheless, I think I did a good job. Enjoy this video:


By the way, I promised a budget for this dish, so you may replicate this at home. Here it is:

500g of tiger prawns ($23.99/kg) - $11.99
1 white onion - $1.99
4 cloves garlic - $0.99
1 Pak choy - $2.99
2 packets of 200g Chef's World Pad Thai noodles, 99% fat free - $2.30
1 green chilli - $1.99

Pantry items:
vegetable oil - 30ml
Salt - 1 tpsp
Raw sugar - 1/2 tpsp
1 lemon
1 size 6 free range egg

Total cost for 2 people: $22.25 or $11.13 each!

Making a baked potato

Sorry its been a while since I've blogged - actually its been three years!

I still love food and to quote the Terminator Genesis, living "straight line, never look[ing]" back style, true to form, here is todays recipe, Baking a Potato

I have a lot of plans for this blog including starting a youtube channel. So watch this space. In the meantime, enjoy this video

That Life Saving Liquor (How to Make Coffee)

It’s winter again and noticed this blog hasn’t had many recent posts, we’ve been busy of late, settling into yet another city, Auckland city, having come home from Melbourne, Alex and I have taken our time to find suitable work and finally, it seems we are clear for take-off.

A is at another company and I am working for a small boutique in one of Auckland’s more fashionable suburbs. As always, budgeting has been a challenge but we always take time out to go café-hopping. I was watching a video of another you-tuber who made her own chicken-dumpling soup for her family and kids. She mentioned something which stuck – teach your kids to cook and it will nurture a lifetime love of food and this helps them to look after themselves later in life. I think I my case, this has been absolutely true.   Inspiring me to deliver words of wisdom in this next exciting post:

We’ve all enjoyed it, it’s what keeps us going and let’s be honest, got me through most of my uni-essays and personal challenges, it is the amazing…….Coffee! Why coffee you ask. Triumphs and tribulations aside, coffee has remained a dear and loyal friend through the years. Many don't know how long it takes to prepare this humble life saver.

..grown in tropical regions of the world with hot climates, high rainfall and good drainage. The green beans is one of the two seeds from the cherry of the coffee tree. A coffee tree takes four to five years to mature, after which it can produce enough cherries to yield one kilogram of roasted coffee each year. There are two main species of coffee tree: Coffea Arabica and Coffea Canephoris, commonly called robusta….[from Godfrey, J. Cafe L’affare (eds.).2010, ‘How to Make Really Good Coffee.’ Random House; Auckland.

The coffee then goes through an arduous process of picking (by hand), processing (involving soaking to remove the husk), sorting and grading and finally roasting. This is done by a gas-fired rotating drum tumbling the green beans constantly throughout the roast cycle. Lighter roasts have a lighter fruit flavour while darker have an alluring bitter, smoky and burnt characteristic…(Godfrey et al)

Encouraged, we purchased our own industrial home coffee-machine, complete with tamp, milk frother and pressure gauge.  See below:

Home Coffee Machine

Like anything, home-‘barista-ring,’ started a mega -challenge. Mainly due to the urban snobbishness of Welly youth proclaiming you have to have some “2 years experience” making coffee to call yourself a professional.

Boiled right down, all it is is this:

1)   Get yourself a grinder (about 40 bux from your homeware store) and grind up your beans.  

2)  Grind about 8-10 tablespoons of coffee and place in tamp pictured above on the bottom-left. Push down with the cap of a juice bottle about the same girth as the tamp circumference.  Push as heavy as twice your elbow’s weight that’s 25-30lbs of pressure (People’s Coffee (2013). Peoples Coffee Barista Book; New Zealand. p42). When ready, slot into the “group head of the coffee machine,” seen above.

3)  Now get your latte glass, and press one shot delivering 30ml of “extraction.” A good extraction should be like a heavily-reduced gravy sauce, if any thinner, you haven’t applied enough pressure. Go back to step 2.

4)   Now let’s froth the milk. Full fat milk produces the best results but if you are watching your figure, trim milk requires a slightly longer process of texturing. You can adjust this later. Fill up the texturing jug shown above half way. Place the coffee machine nozzle just below the surface of the steam wand, turn the dial to release the steam. As the milk warms and grows, the nozzle should be kept at the top of the milk to continue to “stretch the milk.” (Remember from highschool chemistry, molecules of milk expanding but keeping its elasticity like polystyrene or dough). Once the side of the texturing jug feels too hot to touch, i.e. you can’t keep your finger on it for longer than a second, the milk is done. Turn off the dial immediately ….[from Godfrey, J. 2010, ‘How to Make Really Good Coffee.’ Auckland; Random House.p20.

1)   Swirl the milk in the texturing jug for 4 seconds, then remove with a desert spoon, the top layer of foam. Pour onto your 30ml extraction.

Here are NZ’s most popular coffees:

Ristretto - 70ml demitasse cup (the tiny cup), 30ml extraction

Short Black – 70 ml demitasse cup, 50ml dbl shot

Macchiato - 70 ml demitasse cup, 50ml dbl shot, a splash of textured milk by spoon on top

Latte -  220 ml glass, 40ml shot, 180ml lightly textured hot milk

Long Black – 150ml cup, 90ml hot water, 50ml dbl shot, extraction poured on top of water    undisturbed

Flat White – 150ml cup, 40ml dbl shot, 110ml lightly textured milk

Cappuccino – 190ml cup, 30ml dbl shot, 170ml textured hot milk            (ibid, p25-39)

Lastly, see some photos of a visit to Wellington Embassy Theatre, where we enjoy a good read, our favourite brew and for me it seems a lie down, see you next time and hope your coffees turn out great! Bon-appetite! 

Salmon, Capsicum, and Red Onion Skewers

This one is easy and quick to knock up in under 10 minutes. Chop up the ingredients listed below into small chunks and place onto the skewers. If you are using wooden skewers it pays to wet them first. This way they will not catch on fire once you put them on a barbecue or in the oven. Once you've made the skewers, pour a little olive oil onto each one and season with salt and pepper. 

Start up your barbecue or oven, which ever you like and place the skewers you've made in there for about 5 - 10 minutes. Job done. Next time I will add fresh prawns, which I reckon will take it over the edge. 

Ingredients & Equipment:
Capsicum (Any color)
Fresh Salmon Fillet
Red Onion
Salt
Cracked Black Pepper
Olive oil
Skewers

Growing Vegetables Update

Our veggies are growing stronger each day. The tomato plant has transformed into a monster and is threatening to overgrow inside our flat. The beans will need replanting soon and something to grip to. The green capsicum has only been planted a couple a months ago and already fruitful.

Beans

When will they go red?

We've become that 'tomato' flat

And the capsicum

Mackerel Fish Black in Bean Sauce

This one followed a mornings dallying around the vegetable markets whereby a local fish longer recommended mackerel to us, us being one half asian and one half eastern european we had never tasted this oily wonder, but we decided to give it a go. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be a preferred flavour the below recipe is a bit funky

Ingredients:
1 whole fresh mackerel fish - gutted and descaled 
3 whole lemons - sliced
10 garlic cloves - sliced
1 whole onion - sliced
5cm of ginger - sliced
Olive oil
Cracked Black pepper
200g black bean sauce (Can be sourced in Asian supermarkets)
Lettuce leaves
Spring onion - diced

Method:

Place the fish onto a foil laid into a baking tray. Cut slits in the fish on both side. Place the lemon, garlic, onion, and ginger slices inside the belly of the fish, and into each of the cut slits on both sides. Now coat the fish in some cracked black pepper and olive oil on both sides. Next coat the fish in black bean sauce inside the belly and on both sides until all of the sauce is used up. 

Place the fish into your oven set at 180degC. Cover the backing tray with foil and leave to bake for about 20 to 30 minutes. 

Serve on some lettuce leaves and garnish with spring onion. This is a fantastic dish that you can eat with your eyes. Be careful if you thinking of adding salt as the black bean sauce is already very salty, hence why I've left it out of the ingredients list. Also don't be stingy with the lemon as this is a very fishy. Unless you like it extremely fishy I would use heaps and heaps of lemon.

Honey and Soy Sauce Marinated Chicken with Spinach Salad

Honey and Soy Sauce Marinated Chicken

Ingredients:
500g free range chicken thighs
5 tbs Dark soy sauce
8 garlic cloves - roughly diced
1/5 onion - roughly diced
3 tbs of honey
1/2 tsp. cracked black pepper

Method:

Place the chicken into a tray. Rub all of the remainder ingredients onto the chicken. Cover and leave in the fridge to marinate for at least 12 hours. The longer you leave the better it'll taste!

After the marination is complete, bake the chicken in the oven at 180degC for 30 - 50 minutes. Make sure to check the juices run clear before eating it. Once you are satisfied that it is properly cooked, serve with some rice or mashed potatoes along with some crunchy salad. 

Spinach Salad

Ingredients:
4 cloves of fresh garlic - finely chopped
1/5 red onion - finely chopped
2 cups of spinach - soaked in boiled hot water for 5 minutes
1 cucumber - sliced thinly with a potato peeler
3 tbs olive oil
Salt & cracked black pepper to suit taste

Method:

Make sure you have a good potato peeler so that you can slice off nice cucumber strips. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a nice juicy piece of meat. Enjoy!

Pea and Tomato Salad

The fruits of our labour, S flew up to Auckland for work, so left me with the tomato harvest, they are delicious.

Ingredients:
Small tomatoes - as many as you like - quartered
Snap peas - as much as you like
Red onion - about 1/5 of a small onion - finely chopped
Olive oil - about 2 to 4 tbs
Salt & cracked black pepper to taste

Method:

First take out the peas out of their jackets and set aside. Don't discard the jackets. Dice each pea jacket into strips, make sure to remove the stringy edges as these don't taste very good though are bit rough to chew. 

Now in a large bowl mix together the red onion, peas, the peas jacket strips, the tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper. That's it! Have a taste and add some salt/cracked black pepper/olive oil to suit your taste if required. I can T=taste the hours of sunshine, warm and vibrant in my stomach.

Quick, and Easy Healthy Salmon Salad

I made up this recipe the other day as I was keen to eat something healthy, yet still delicious. Salmon is extremely good for you as it contains loads of vitamins and protein which help to reduce risk of heart disease and diabetes. This is super quick and easy to make, and you really just have to let the fresh ingredients speak for themselves.  

Ingredients:
Fresh salmon fillet - sliced in to chunks
Fresh lettuce leaves - torn
Bean sprouts - soaked in hot water for 2 minutes
Kalamata olives - sliced
Fresh bird's eye chili - sliced (you can leave the seeds in depending on how hot you want it)
Fresh spring onion - sliced
Olive oil - about 3 to 5 tbs.
Lemon Juice - about 1 - 2 tbs.
Salt & cracked black pepper to taste

Method:

You can use as much of the above major ingredients as you want, you simply can't go wrong here. Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl, let it sit for 10 - 20 minutes to let the dressing absorb all of the awesome flavors.

Serve along with toasted bread. Turkish bread works perfect. 

Salmon with Lemon Sauce, and Potato with Mint Salad

Ingredients: 
Salmon and Lemon sauce:
3 Tbsp of lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil or any other vegetable oil
200g to 300g Salmon fillets
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 cup full-fat cream
Salt & cracked black pepper to suit taste
parsley - added in the end for garnish 

Potato Salad with Mint:
Small potatoes
1 cup fresh mint leaves
Lemon juice 
Olive oil
Salt & cracked black pepper to suit taste


Method:

Salmon with the Lemon Sauce

Add cream, chicken stock, and lemon juice to a pot on high heat. Bring to boil and reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot with lid and simmer for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to suit taste.

Coat the salmon fillets in olive oil, salt, and cracked black pepper. Bring a frying pan to high heat. Fry the salmon on each side for 5 minutes. Serve the salmon and pour the lemon sauce over, and garnish with parsley.

I find this is a great dish as it is generally pretty healthy (the only thing that's not the best for your here is the full-fat cream), and take's almost no time to prepare.

Potato Salad with Mint

We ordered this at a local City Gallery cafe and were surprised at how well the mint complemented the potatoes. Add all the ingredients listed above together in a bowl. You can vary the amount of each of the ingredients depending on how much salad you want to make. It's hard to go wrong here. Mix well and serve. Sue's mum came over shortly after this and just missed out. Oh well 

Great dish for a dinner party.

Growing Experiment Continued

Our growing bug has caught on, and we have expanded. We've managed to obtain more plants for hardly any expenditure. Some of them as you can see from the photos are getting a bit sun burnt.We also finally have our first tomatoes. The pea plants have sadly been starved of all the nutrients as the huge tomato plant has stolen the show. We have also planted several capsicum, and runner bean plants seeds. The runner beans should hav been sowed Nov-Dec but we still can expect a successful harvest in the coming months as the weather continues to improve.

The Beginnings of a Growing Adventure

A few months back now we planted a single tomato plant and heaps of pea seedlings. The tomato plant almost never made it and I've had to mount a heat lamp above it to help it make through the cold. At one point half of the plant just disintegrated. All of the peas we planted (about 50 seeds) to our amazement came up. We decided to redistribute them and the process of doing this killed ALL OF THEM except for one last fighting trooper. Not put off though we bought more pea plants, and now I can safely say about 70% out of the ones we bought made it and have just brought the first peas! 

Here is a montage of our progress and hopefully the beginnings of our little growing adventure:

Super easy, but fantastic Martini

Ingredients:
1 double shot of of gin
1 double shot of  sweet vermouth

Mix the two together in a nice Martini glass and you have a very tasty drink. You don't need to go hard out and use a cocktail shaker, so don't worry if you don't have one. Here in Wellington it's sometimes difficult to get your hands on one. That's because Wellington is a booze town. I remember drinking these after work when I was flatting about 3 years ago, great times. Add 1 or 2 olives on a toothpick for a touch of class.

New Kum Den Restaurant (Melbourne) - Review

Moved to: 
323 Rathdowne St
Carlton

Victoria, Australia
Ph: (03) 9639 9857


Open every day: 11am–3pm, 5pm–11pm
Licensed and BYO.
Yum Cha: Sat/Sun/Holiday 11am–3pm

New Kum Den is Chinese Restaurant that used to be hidden away down on Heffernan Lane in the Melbourne CBD, Chinatown (note they have moved since then to the address shown above!). You can find China town on Little Bourke St just off Swanston st. When we arrived here on Thursday night the place was completely packed. They had two large tables in the middle and smaller four people tables around the perimeter. The noise level was extremely loud from everybody talking and laughing. The presentation of the restaurant is nice.

All the tables and chairs are timber with a glossy dark finish - nothing fancy but nice. It also has a fantastically large bar. This restaurant definitely does not feel like a cheap take-away joint that's for sure. The dinner menu prices ranged from $10 to $27 (AUD). On top of that there is also a lunch, appetisers and Yum Cha menu. The appetisers and Yum Cha cost around 5$ per dish, while lunch meals cost around 10$. Overall if you selected carefully you can eat at this place quite affordably.

The service here was good. We were given a table immediately and the waiter asked what we wanted to drink at first. Our jasmine tea and Heineken beer arrived almost instantly, and the waiter asked me if I wanted another Heineken shortly after I had finished it.

For our meals we ordered stir fried mixed seasonal vegetables, and stir fried roast duck fillet with mixed vegetables with ginger, spring onion, and snow pea.

For appetisers we ordered two sets of fried dumplings. We must have waited for about 30 minutes before our mains arrived. I think this is reasonable given that the place was flat out busy. However before that the waiter asked if our dumplings had arrived yet. When we said no the waiter brought them to us almost immediately.

Our meals finally arrived. The roast duck was cooked superb and the veggies with it tasted fresh and crunchy. The other mixed seasonable vegetable dish tasted a bit strange to us however, the baby corn tasted like it had gone bad. The broccoli also had a funny aftertaste similar to the baby corn. Maybe it is just me. I have not tried baby corn in over a year so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

Quality of Food: 7/10 stars
Quality of Services: 8/10 stars
Atmosphere and Presentation: 7/10 stars
Value for money: 6.5/10 stars
Average rating: 7.1/10 stars

Following photos from New Kum Den website:

Cafe Corretto, Melbourne (Australia)

225/227-229 Lygon Street, 
Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
PH: +61 3 9347 2300

Cafe Corretto is an Italian restaurant located in the middle of Little Italy, an area of Melbourne renowned for its restaurants with Italian heritage. It was a Friday night and we were starving. Our craving for good food was further fueled by alcohol. Wandering the streets like a couple of hungry wolves, we stumbled upon this little cafe, Cafe Correto. The place looked great, and it felt Italian. You can tell that everything including the tables, chairs, lighting, and the decorations were carefully selected to set the mood of the restaurant unapologetically naff. It was 8pm and almost every 
table was full. The service here was quick and friendly. We were seated right away, and shortly after our orders were taken. The prices here are higher than your average takeaways. You can expect to pay from $15 - 35 (AUD) for a main dish.

We ordered clam fettuccine and shrimp risotto. The food portions were reasonable, not too stingy but also enough to satisfy even those that are starving (and missed their lunch!). It all tasted amazing. Probably the finest food I've tasted so far in Melbourne. Even though the place was packed full, our meals arrived in only 20 minutes too. I think besides being a bit pricey this place pushes all the right buttons for me, and I would love to come back here again.

Quality of Service: 8/10
Quality of Food: 9/10
Atmosphere and Presentation:9/10
Value for Money: 6.5/10

Overall rating: 8.1/10

Lamb On Chapel, Melbourne (Australia) - Review

394 Chapel Street,
South Yarra
VIC 3141
(03) 9826 2442

Hungry for a night walk and a kebab, chapel street came to the rescue with what we heard was the best kebab place in Melbourne, complete with its own tandoor oven, all hot steam and loud buzziness, this intoxicating kebab house kept me from midweek meltdown. 

Quality of Service - 6.5 / 10 stars

Quality of Food -  8.5 / 10 stars

Atmosphere and Presentation- 6.0 / 10 stars

Value for Money - 8.0 / 10 stars

Overall rating - 7.3 / 10

Kanteen Cafe (Mlbourne, Australia) - Review

154 Alexandra Avenue, 
South Yarra, VIC 3141
(03) 9827 0488
Open Mon-Sat 7am-3pm; Sun 8am-3pm

  ‎

Ah, the muddy Yarra River, with all its bohemian charm. Being from New Zealand and used to lush green native ferns and mossy trunks with plenty of oxygen, the murky yellow moors of the yarra reminded us of the dry unpredictable terror of the Australian terrain. But also just how innovative these people actually are. 
This modern "Kanteen" is a lovely example situated on the bank of the Yarra River. 

Further testament to the imagination of the victorians, its considered how lovely a sunday bike ride must be, destination: Kanteen. You can rent these bikes for something like $2.50 and ride along the river bank all the way to the cafe. Its a very pleasant journey and the cafe your reward. 

The food here will cost about $7 to $13 and ranges from breakfast to lunch dishes. You can check out their menu here. You will find that it is simple, and delicately made with excellent quality ingredients. I cannot say how good the coffee is as its was a scorcher of a day and all we could think of was buying an ice cold drink. 

The cafe sets the mood perfectly by playing lounge music. Combine that with the nature views, the simple but elegant architecture, and you have yourself a very enjoyable atmosphere.

Presentation & Atmosphere: 8.5/10 stars
Quality of Service: 7/10 stars
Value for Money: 6.5/10 stars
Quality of Drinks: 7/10 stars

Overall rating:  7.3/10 stars

Sammy's Trattoria Bar & Pizzeria Melbourne (Australia) - Review

246 Sydney Road,
Brunswick
Tel: 9380 6311

Sammy's restaurant is located down the charming suburb of Brunswick. Besides what some may call tacky architecture this area of Melbourne is also known for its Middle Eastern cuisine, quirky shops, and cosy cafes. On the day though we did not eat kebabs, but instead decided to try out Italian. 

Sammy's does not look fancy but you get the feeling these people know how to make great home cooked style Italian food. Price wise this restaurant is not cheap. We paid roughly $38 for a medium sized The Works pizza, and Caesar salad. However what you can expect is a descent sized feed. The chef made sure to put in plenty of topping on the pizza, and tonnes of chicken into the salad. The anchovies in the salad was a strange choice I thought. You either love them or hate them. 

Both meals were well prepared and tasted delicious, but I would not say that it blew my socks off or anything crazy like that. They were just  satisfying, home down, dependable cooked meals. If you are terribly hungry and don't mind spending 20 bucks on a single meal then this place will make you happy. But if you are one of those people that expects exquisite fine dining experience than perhaps you should look elsewhere.

Quality of Food: 7/10 stars
Quality of Services: 7/10 stars
Atmosphere and Presentation: 4.5/10 stars
Value for money: 7/10 stars

Average rating: 6.4/10 stars

Da Hu Peking Duck Restaurant (Melbourne, VIC) - Review

171 Little Bourke Street, 
Melbourne VIC 3000
(03) 9663 3868

The Da Hu Peking Duck Restaurant is located in the heart of the Melbourne CBD Chinatown on Little Bourke street. A couple of our friends invited us for dinner in hope of ordering a whole Peking duck dish. We could not resist the temptation of engulfing an entire duck and gladly accepted the invitation. After walking a flight of stairs you enter a large size restaurant with roughly 20 - 30 tables. Everything from the clean white table cloths, to the delicately laid out cutlery and tissues has been well thought out and intricately presented. Here you can expect to pay 20-40$ for a main meal and 6-15$ for an entree or an appetiser.

We were seating right away and from my point of view I could see the awesome Chinese red gate that marks the China Town area just outside the front window, increasing my anticipation that this was going to be a truly authentic Chinese cuisine experience. For the mains we ordered one whole Peking duck, very spicy kung pow chicken, and for an appetiser I ordered cold chicken marinated in white wine sauce.

The food began to arrive after about 20 minutes. Interestingly for the Peking duck the chef actually came out next to our table and began carving it up in-front of our eyes. To me it looked like there was still plenty of meat left on that duck but for some reason the chef waved for the waiter to take it back. The amount of duck meat strips that were than presented at our table did not look like it came from a whole duck but more like only half a duck.

Nonetheless the waitress also placed a tray with what looked like very thin pancakes, a small bowl of specially made sauce for Peking duck, and various other bowls with salads. She than showed us how to take the duck strips and place it on a pancake, top with the sauce and the salad, and then wrap the pancake right around. The duck tasted amazing. It had the right amount of juiciness and the skin was perfectly browned and crispy. Make no mistake this was good duck!

In additional to the duck, the kung pow chicken and the black bean beef were also prepared very well. The flavours were wonderful, and the meat was cooked just right to the point when it was still tender, juicy and not too dry, whilst soaked in the complicated flavours of the red peppers, and black bean sauces. The only thing I was not too impressed with was the cold chicken marinated in white wine sauce appetiser. The chef just took his cleaver and cut the chicken into several slices, right through all the bones underneath the meat. This dish would have been much nicer to eat if the chef had bothered to remove the collection of bones from the meat.

The food portions here are moderate. Provided you order a single meal WITH rice you should be satisfied. I found that what we ordered was plenty for the four of us. In general this is an excellent, well presented restaurant that I would love to come back to again to taste some more of their authentic traditional Chinese food but only on occasions because of the hefty price tag.

Quality of Food: 8.5/10 stars
Quality of Service: 8/10 stars
Atmosphere and Presentation: 8/10 stars
Value of Money: 5/10

Overall Rating: 7.4/10 stars

A trip to Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne (Australia)

155 Victoria St,
(Corner of Elizabeth st, and Victoria st)
Melbourne Victoria 3000,
Australia PH: +61 3 9320 5822  

Trading Hours
Tuesday: 6am - 2pm
Thursday: 6am - 2pm
Friday: 6am - 5pm (general merchandise to 4pm)
Saturday: 6am - 3pm Sunday:
9am - 4pm  

CLOSED: Mondays, Wednesdays, Good Friday, Anzac Day, Melbourne Cup Day, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day.

Yesterday I took a trip to the Queen Victoria Market for the very first time. We badly need to stock up on fruits and veggies and I also just wanted to see it. It was 12noon and we were on a tram heading towards Victoria st. Getting there is easy. Where you are staying in Melbourne, make your way to the Melbourne CBD. The market is located right on the corner of Elizabeth st and Victoria st. Once you are in the city just jump on a tram that is heading in that general direction and you will be ok. Make sure to get some cash out as nobody at the market takes credit card

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, perfect day to go exploring the market. We first went through the dairy section, which is probably my favourite section. Here you can buy all sorts of cheeses, creams, salami, sausages, and much more. Its all premium quality

Next we made it out to the fruit and veggie section. This section tends to go forever, and as you walk across the road at the back of this section, you will find more fruit and veggies stalls. The service here tends to be a bit crazy, especially as the market starts to wind down and the stalls begin to close. People selling their goods begin to yell their heads, almost desperate to sell their stock before they head home. It becomes a yelling contest. They seem to think that the loudest stall will sell the most stock.

Anyways besides food there are loads of other stuff you can buy here, like clothing, pot plants, random merchandise, and much more. The price of fruit and veggies here is much lower than the supermarket rates, sometimes only a $1 (AUD) per kg. You won't find any good deals on bananas here though. Australia does not allow imported bananas so the cheapest price you will find here will be around 7$ a kg. The price of dairy and meat tends to be the same as at the supermarket, but sometimes you can find some good deals. We found a 500g of lamb steak for $7 (AUD), which we ate the same day after marinating with some Moroccan spices (also bought at the market)

Here are a few photos of our trip to give you a bit of an idea: