Nik @ Nicholson

RNIS received a $20 voucher for food from Dimmi but paid for the rest themselves.

Nik @Nicholson is a new place opened on Nicholson st and is outside a tram stop. Here they were not too busy for a mid-week dinner.

The service here was slow. They seemed understaffed. To their credit, they know their customers well.

Here I tried their burgers with a fried egg. This was quite filling. And I wanted to try the chips too. But the chips were underseasoned and they were the frozen sort.

I really loved the patty. It was full of mushroom goodness. There was lots of lettuce in this and it looked massive when it came to the table. The brioche bun was really good and it had that cheesy goodness to it.

To go with the burger I had the Jim bean coke. Here the alcohol content was really strong. It worked well with the burger. The drinks are really cheap here. It's like $7-$9 per glass whereas in the city it is about $10-$12. There are no cocktails.

The next I come I would love to try a salad or a pizza! And dessert!

I wonder if they do happy hour. If so do lets us know.

The Joint Bar

The Joint Bar is a little backpackers bar and I first discovered them when they had their many drink specials. They are one level above the bottle shop and you can see the tram stop from above.

During the daytime, they are not busy but after work, they are busy with all the punters wanting cheap drinks and the sun. They have an indoor and outdoor area.

On Friday I had their Captains Morgans spiced rum as a pick me up. It really made my day then. It was only $5. I saw the food menu and decided I would come back today. Here everything is so cheap and they have a burger and beer deal for $12. How awesome is that! Normally in the city a burger and beer costs $20.

They have Smirinoff for $4.80 and some of their wines at $5-$7 as well as all of their beer for $7 during happy hour and evenings. After 5pm pizzas are $4 each.

The toilets are outside in the stairwell and there is a sign pointing to them. The toilets were just ok.

Seeing as I have promised my readers vegetarian for the month of January I went for a vegetarian burger. When it came it looked alright but then after a few bites the patty was very watery and the bun went a bit soggy. They used one of the frozen ones. The chips were very salty.

I would only come here for the drinks and not the food.

Chef Lagenda revisited

Chef Lagenda has changed ever since the last time I visited which was many years ago. This time I visited with six others and they had booked the table ahead. This time we were led upstairs to a private table for seven, which happens to be outside the bathroom.

 The bathroom is small and they have this lovely artwork from KL to make it welcoming for people. It's not often that you see the artwork in the bathroom. But I had to wait to go in there as there was a queue.

Chef Lagenda seems to fill from 6:30pm onwards and it was busy for a Sunday night. Last time I was there no wine was served. But this time they now have BYO.

Last time I was there, there was no courtyard. This time though there was a lovely courtyard.

Service was very friendly and they were really attentive.

They always have their complimentary tea which I always enjoy and the food was much better than Laksa King's. To start off with there was the roti. The roti was fluffy and it was lovely with the Nyonya fish dish. I tried a little bit of that Nyonya fish dish.

I quite liked their fried rice. It was just like the way that my mum would make it at home. Here it had prawns and lovely seafood.

I wanted to try the beef rendang but I had homemade beef rendang for lunch.

The white rice was just ok, but I did enjoy that pork belly. The pork was a tender melt in the mouth sort of thing.

Do come by this place if you are sick of Laksa King.

The Curtin Hotel

We went there as part of our Friday Happy hour in which we order an alcoholic drink and food.

The Curtin is a great student bar just outside of RMIT Carlton Campus. During January they are really quiet and other times they are always busy. Back in my student days I never went because I never drank and their food was quite expensive. Now it is quite the opposite where they are under $15.

Normally the cocktails are about $12 but because of happy hour, they are $10. The place is open for lunch and dinner.

My bartender seemed to know a lot about wines and bourbon. Here I had a really good Margherita which was made with a great tasting tequila. In fact, it was strong. It had quite a bit of lime flavor in there.

You can ask for a bourbon and coke here but no one really knew that. The bartender knows how to make a really good one.

To compliment it I had the Mexican corn which was nice but I would have loved cheese and more paprika on top.

Do come by to the John Curtin Hotel for their happy hour and if you are in that area as it is a great student pub with lots of local acts.

Bridie O Reilly's

This place is in South Yarra and its another Irish place. There seems to be quite a few Irish places in Melbourne. I didn't really like PJ's Sidebar all that much and its another Irish bar but I loved the other Bridie O Reilly's.

This place does some great specials and they have a huge beer list featuring a few Irish beers. And they seem to be doing well in that department with their popular pint special which is $7.

The Irish service is great and they mingle with their customers well.

I went on a Wednesday after my run and they had $12 special of pizza and beer. The beer they choose for you but you can choose your own pizza. Of course me promising everyone on Healthyintstudents site that I would have vegetarian, I did just that. And I only had to pay $6 for mine as I had the Entertainment book voucher. You can buy the Entertainment book off their site.

The pizza did take a while to make but it was well worth it in the end. It went well with the Brick Pale lager as it was not strong in alcohol or taste. The pumpkin was really good and the feta made the pizza taste really good. It was creamy. As for the tomato sauce, there wasn't a lot on there which is good.

Do come by this Irish place when you can and make sure that you buy the book from us to support the Salvation Army.

Seoul Seoul

Seoul Seoul is a place in Victoria st Richmond. I had a hankering for going there from not having been there for a while. Marathon training has eaten most of my time last year.

Victoria st has changed a lot. Here Vintage cellars used to be there and then there are more Westernized places opening up.

But it has always been the home of the Vietnamese and it will stay that way.

Here I had the bibimbab and it was all good but a little bit too bland for me. It was vegetarian. Even the lady at the other table said that hers was bland too.

I might give the Dosirock a try though another day.

The Imperial Hotel

RNIS received a free Good Food gift card, but they bought their own drinks.

The Imperial Hotel is in the city on the Parliament end. It was the end of the year and I invited kristian.barker to join me. He was yet to receive a present from me.

Here they were quite busy and it was quite some time before we got a table. They take the Entertainment book voucher.

Here food is really big. Kristian had two glasses of coke and I had two different types of beer. One was from Little Creatures and the other one was a City lager. The City lager tasted like weed as it was bitter. Kristian did not like this and after one sip he decided no more. As for my non-alcoholic, it was water.

We both had burgers and mine was vegetarian as promised to Healthy International students. This worked well with the Little Creatures Original Pilsner beer. I had been to Little Creatures before so I knew that this would work well with a burger. My vegetarian one had a hash brown in it which I thought was odd. Other than that I really enjoyed it. The chips were the frozen sort but they worked well with the HSP sauce.

Kristian enjoyed his burger and complimented me online. And he said thanks.

Do come here for good food.

Gyoza Gyoza in Melbourne Central

Gyoza Gyoza has opened up in Melbourne Central and when they had the $10 discount voucher I wanted to try the place.

I have had good food in the other Gyoza Gyoza stores so I had wanted to see. The other Gyoza Gyoza did not charge me $3.50 for pink ginger and they gave me a small pink ginger and not a big bowl.

The udon for $6.80 was small and alright. I prefer Emporium's one though.

They had a special of 5 Gyoza for $4.80 which is not too bad. Like the other place, they give out all the ginger sauce etc. But they forgot to let me choose which sauce.

The seaweed salad was nothing special. It was store bought. I needed my greens and irons to balance out the meal.

But the miso for $2.50 was very salty though. The one I get at Emporium is much better and less salty.  Its like they put too much miso stock in there.

The Agedashi tofu did wow me though. Here they were in cubes and they didn't use a lot of sauce though. It was freshly fried the way it should.

The oysters in yuzu sauce were fresh but they had too much sauce on them. The sauce drowned out the flavour. But I loved the tang from the yuzu.

Rating: 12/20-  overall disappointing. I hope that they can improve within time. 

O'Connell's Hotel

RNIS was invited by Dimmi to spend $20 and they paid the rest themselves.

The O'Connell's Hotel is in South Melbourne and it's behind the South Melbourne Market. It took us a while to find and we did a run around it earlier so that we were not late. During my first year of the marathon, I learned that coming on time to everything is important. And it's not too late or too early.

The O'Connell's Hotel is like being in the tramcar restaurant. It has that fine dining feel to it. Here they have a huge wine list and a lot of good wines. I sampled a couple whilst there.

They do cater for functions and they have a lovely area outside.

To start off with I had the granita oyster ($4.5). Here they were really lemony and small and they had that lemony tang to it.

The complimentary bread was freshly baked and I really enjoyed the creaminess of the butter.

Then the main which is gnocchi ($22) was very cheesy and I liked it. Here they had a bit of kale in there to give it that crunch. The mint was very lovely in there.

And of course, to finish off I had the basil ice cream ($4.50). Here it was very minty and full of goodness. It was not too sweet.

Do come by O'Connell's Hotel when you want to celebrate something special. Oh and happy new year!