I can’t believe I’m so delayed with writing my blog. Our days start so very early and when we got back to the apartment, all we wanted to do was unwind. So I decided to do a quick recap.
Our last full day in Melbourne was last Friday, November 18 here in Oz (the day after my birthday). However, it was my “American” birthday. Nancy and I decided to celebrate in a gastronomic way. We went to quite a few well-known restaurants in the CBD.
Hardware Société – first order of business was to have breakfast here. It’s a French restaurant located on Hardware St. in Melbourne. There are only 2 locations and the other one is in Paris. The moment we walked in we were in for a treat. It was already close to mid-morning, yet the place was still very packed. We were lucky to get seated right away. We tried their Baked Egg Deux – loaded with chorizo, piquillo peppers, queso….it was amazing. We paired that with Fried Brioche (so we expected just a little piece of toast), but to our surprise, it was a mountain of bread with berries and cream, and hearty goodness. When I come back to Melbourne, or the next time I visit Paris, I promised myself to visit this place again.
Rice Paper Scissors – for lunch, Nancy got us reservations at RPS. Very difficult to show up and get seats here so reservations are highly recommended. On our way to RPS, we saw a big crowd lined up at Shanghai Street, famous for their Xiao Long Bao or Pork Soup Dumplings. We were tempted to go in line, but we decided to stick our RPS reservations.
Upon reaching RPS, we only order two small little appetizers – Sticky Pork Belly and Cucumber Prawn Salad. It was extremely reasonably priced and pretty generous appetizer portions. The prawns were so succulent and the pork belly just melted in my mouth. I highly recommend RPS.
Shanghai Street – since we only had appetizers at RPS, that gave us enough room to order Xiao Long Bao at Shanghai. So glad we did. I’ve had many XLBs in my life, but the XLB here was bigger than usual. The meat portion was quite generous. So juicy and flavorful. I paired that with vinegar and chili sauce. Game over!!! Delicious.
An Overdue Reunion – after our lunchscapade, we headed back to the apartment to rest for a bit and we got ready for the evening. We met up with one of Nancy’s college friends, Vanessa. They’ve not seen each other since the late 80s (over 25 years ago). They were seatmates (Alix and Almonte) during their first year at St. Paul’s College Manila. Thanks to Facebook, they were able to reconnect. When the opportunity knocked and we planned Melbourne as part of our trip, meeting up with Vanessa was part of the plan. She brought along Andrew, her husband, and we headed to Bohemian, a restaurant near the convention center and along the Yarra River. We decided on tapas and sangria which were just perfect knowing that we were still stuffed from our lunch. The food was great but it was the company that was even better. Both our families are big theatre fans and we all share the love for Hamilton. It was good to see Nancy and Vanessa catch up after all these years. Thank you, Andrew and Vanessa, for taking the time and meeting up with us. Next time, New York, perhaps? Cheers!!!
That was our Friday in Melbourne. We headed home directly after dinner and packed our luggage. Next entry, Sydney!
