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Australia, Brunswick Street, Friends, Italian food, Italian restaurant, Matteos, North Fitzroy, Victoria
Lunch whilst in Melbourne
A really good friend of mine (one of my besties) lives in Timor Leste, so on one of her return trips home to Australia we decided to meet in Melbourne for a long weekend. I hadn’t seen Sandy for some time so I was very much looking forward to seeing her. Jane and I departed Canberra on the Friday at lunch time and we both used our frequent flyer points to upgrade to Business class – very nice! We started off with a glass of wine each in the Lounge.
Jane chose Matteo’s, an Italian restaurant after some searching on the internet and booked for lunch on the Sunday – its located in Fitzroy, a suburb about a ten minutes taxi ride from the centre of the city and in a very popular street that is known by most people who visit Melbourne (Brunswick Street) and there we met another good friend who lives in Melbourne.
The restaurant had a good feel from the outside and was really lovely inside with white linen tablecloths, great artwork and two fabulous waiters.
The menu is extensive and the restaurant also has a Lazy Sunday Lunch Menu for meat and fish eaters and for a little more $, comes with a glass of wine accompanying each course which is what my friends had and there is also the Chef Buddha Lo’s Spring Vegan Tasting Menu which as soon as I looked at I wanted. The vegan tasting menu comprised small dishes served over five courses. My first dish was a sweetcorn soup and I must say does not look all that great in my photo, but it was so tasty.
Second course was tempura zucchini flowers with a cashew ‘cheese’, tandoori-spiced beetroot, toasted nuts, seeds and grains. This was also very good and the cashew cheese was excellent.
Next was stir-fried asparagus spears, Otway shiitake mushrooms, steamed ho fun rice noodles and hoisin sauce. At this stage I was very full but knew I had two more courses coming…
My final main course was Miso-baked eggplant filled with bean curd and cauliflower couscous along with kohlrabi and a warm rice vinaigrette. I just love eggplant but must say this dish was not to my liking – I didn’t like the miso baked eggplant unfortunately. And probably because I was full I didn’t eat much.
The girls started off with 4 tastes…oyster ‘Kilpatrick’, tempura zucchini flower with goats’ feta, BBQ pork doughnut and a Queen scallop with XO condiment accompanied by a 2016 Serafino ‘Bellissimo’ Fiano from South Australia.
Their next course was a choice between a Bonito mackerel with asparagus, charred onion and a vichyssoise sauce accompanied by a glass of 2016 Port Philip Estate Pinot Gris from Victoria OR a seafood tortellini with Otway shiitake mushrooms and a miso consommé; accompanied by a 2015 Lawson’s Dry Hills Gewurtraminer from New Zealand. The girls chose the seafood tortellini dish.
Their next course was a quail ballotine roasted with streaky bacon with Chinese sausage, cauliflower puree and steamed leeks, red wilton and quail jus accompanied by a 2015 Clos Leon Bordeaux Merlot from France OR a pan roasted Flinders Island lamb fillet with a master stock lamb belly, grilled cucumber, watercress, wild garlic and a sansho pepper sauce and wine for this course was a 2014 Red Edge Degree shiraz from Victoria. Sandy and Jane ordered different dishes for this course.
Then it came time for dessert; mine was a passionfruit-lemon sorbet and coconut gelato with candy yuzu peel and a coconut ‘milk’ mousse – it looked fabulous on the plate and was very nice but I was still a bit too full to eat it all.
The girls were served a plate of three small desserts each; warm caramelised apple tart with macadamia praline, strawberries and cream and a vanilla bean ice-cream with blackcurrant sorbet and their final glass of wine was a 2014 Richards Muscat DBV from the Southern Rhone Valley in France.
We were the last to leave the restaurant having arrived at 1pm and finally departing at 4.45pm…there was just so much to eat, so much to drink and so much to catch up on…what a fabulous afternoon. We were all so full we decided to walk back into the city – only about a forty-minute walk but most enjoyable.
The hotel has a couple of upmarket restaurants and a buffet which is where we had our breakfast and lunch each day…so much choice – I usually had eggs on toast for breakfast and a cup of peppermint tea – a great way to start the day.
My usual choice for lunch was the hummus/tabbouli/vine leaves/Arabic flat bread and a delicious fattoush (salad with mixed greens and tomato).
On occasions we would sit in the foyer and chat and I would take the opportunity to prepare my photos for my posts…
One afternoon we enjoyed a late lunch in the foyer cafe after we completed a ride on the hop on-hop off bus, around the city. We ordered two burgers [Mark and Braydon] /fries [to share] and a salad [me] and vegetable samosas [to share] with coffee/wine and a couple of soft-drinks – oh my goodness I forgot how much hotel lobby cafes charge – it was incredibly expensive but good food and allowed us to relax in the air-conditioning so for us it was worth it.
My nephew and brother would then take a dip in the pool whilst I would sit on the lounge chair in the shade with a little esky which the staff provide that contains ice and a cold bottle of water. We didn’t last that long though as again it was so hot.
There is also a great gym which overlooks a lovely beach area within the hotel gardens…
Great cakes and pastries too…we tried a few of the Arabic sweets – delicious.
The rooms were also good; spacious with wi-fi all throughout the hotel…it was a great place to stopover on our way home.
At the beginning of this month, my friend Jon and I went to lunch at a restaurant I had not been to. Other friends had been and recommended it for breakfast but we thought we would try its lunch menu. The restaurant is located at the National Arboretum and features ninety-four forests of rare, endangered and symbolic trees from around Australia and the world as well as a cafe and restaurant. 
The Arboretum’s website says that many of the trees are still young but two of the forests are nearly one-hundred years old. Over 44,000 trees from over 100 countries are growing across the 250 hectare site, making it one of the world’s largest living collections of rare, endangered and significant trees. (I did not know that!)
Prior to the early 2000 Canberra bushfires, the Arboretum site was mostly covered in pine plantations and after those fires the local government consulted extensively with the community and experts about the best use of the large areas of land occupied by burnt-out pine plantations resulting in the Arboretum…
Both the cafe and restaurant are located inside the main building and we had booked the restaurant which has wonderful views of the local area and parts of Lake Burley Griffin.
The restaurant is very much open plan and has a small menu which did come along with a specials page. We decided on sharing some thick sourdough bread and butter and my staple; a bowl of fries – must say these were delicious so I probably ate too many.
Jon decided to order from the specials page. He had the chargrilled lamb backstop on a mushroom risotto with a lemon thyme jus followed by Eton mess with brown sugar meringue, whipped coconut and raspberry compote. Both dishes looked really good and Jon said they were very tasty- he hadn’t tried Eton mess before so enjoyed something new.
I chose from the regular menu and was a touch disappointed; actually rather disappointed! I chose the vegan tasting platter and I thought I would see a plate with all different types of vegan bites, but it was nothing like that – it really was just a large plate of vegetables with a little bit of tomato salsa on top. I mean I enjoyed the snow peas and fennel and the broccolini but must say it was a little tasteless. Anyway I ate about half of the vegetables and some more fries!!
About half way through our meal, a group arrived for High Tea which when served looked great, so I think if I had any visitors to Canberra I would return for the High Tea rather than the restaurant meals.
When my brother, nephew and I were in Swansea visiting our birthplace, we had dinner with our cousin Nigel at one of the restaurants at the Swansea Marina.
Nigel showed us where Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas have a home (Z-J was born in Swansea) and a similar home next door where Catherine had build for her parents; unfortunately both homes are obscured by huge walls and trees so we couldn’t see them. We then continued through to Mumbles, a local township which is the beginning of the Gower Peninsular’s coastline [our mum used to take us here to the beach when we were very young so it was lovely for my brother and nephew to see the area).
And beautiful Rhossili Bay – I can only imagine what the views are like on a summer’s day.
As you can see Rhossili Bay curves along an arc and the beach is approximately five kilometres long backed with sand dunes which unfortunately due to the weather we decided not to walk along.
By now it was time to head back to Swansea for our last night before we head out to Heathrow for Abu Dhabi…a great day especially as we got to have more time with our fabulous cousin Nigel.
Across the road from where I work is the Kurrajong Hotel. Its restaurant Chifley’s Bar & Grill is named after its long-time hotel resident, former Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley. I have been to this restaurant several times for lunch so I decided this was a good option for dinner as our international visitor was actually staying there.
The guest rooms have been refurbished and am told are quite lovely; overlooking the garden terrace and some with balconies.
I ordered the wild mushroom risotto with roasted hazlenuts but unfortunately I did not enjoy as it had a funny taste so I only ate a couple of mouthfuls – thinking back I think it might have had chicken or beef stock and I forgot to ask prior to ordering. My fault!!
My friend Jane came along as she wanted to speak to our international visitor about a project she is working on and ordered the confit duck maryland which came with braised apple red cabbage and a madeira glaze…she told us that this was the best duck dish she has EVER eaten….my photo doesn’t look that great though!
My boss ordered the twice cooked pork belly with cider apple compote and a side dish of herb roasted pumpkin and sweet potato.
Every art gallery I visit I always go to see the Impressionist paintings; I love them and remember many years ago I would buy the prints from various galleries and have them framed to put up around my home.
And the amazing sculptures….[not that I bought replicas of these for my home!]
We were very fortunate as when we visited the gallery, the MET Gala had recently been held with its theme of “China: Through The Looking Glass” so the displays were about traditional Chinese fashion – so with my love of China it such pleasant surprsise.
After the MET, my friends and I decided to stop by Grand Central Station as I had not been there on my previous visits to NY. Wow isn’t this just an amazing building; busy with people rushing about on their way to somewhere.
We stopped and enjoyed a drink and some snacks which afforded us the opportunity of checking out some of the people rushing to get a train or just enjoying a walk through this incredible station. 
And finally our last stop was a late lunch at Eataly – a magnificent marketplace where you can eat fabulous Italian food and drink Italian wine/shop for fresh Italian food; meats and cheeses/chocolates and biscuits/bottled sauces and absolutely everything Italian. I loved this place and my friends and I shared a pizza, some pasta and bread and a glass of great Italian wine. We walked around the marketplace after lunch and I could not believe the amount of foodstuffs etc that could be bought – truly amazing and there is even an Italian cooking school!
Sue's Fabulous Travels 
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