Temperance Hotel

Temperance Hotel is in South Yarra and they had some amazing deals. But lately most of the Southside has been really quiet. The shops here are struggling and some of the restaurants here are the same.

Bar where the drinks are being poured

But the Temperance has had many people coming back and many functions going on. In fact their bar is always busy and the bartenders are always smiling. They never are pretentious. When the new guys don't know something they always ask. People are happy to ask the bartenders questions about the wine and beer and they should.

My pint was the Pure Blonde which is light in taste and calories and as for the food I had fish and chips. Friday is their local $15 fish and chip night. Here I had a huge plate of fish and chips. The fish was just alright but the chips were soggy.

The tartare sauce was good and the tomato sauce was even better. Normally I don't like tomato sauce but it worked well with the fish. Oh and the salad wasn't too overdressed. I could taste the freshness in the vegetables.

Rating: 13/20- darn the soggy chips! Oh well I'd come for a drink and a meetup with the Crosbie crew once in a while. That's if they do decide on holding it there.

Three Little Dumplings

Three Little Dumplings is a new place which has opened about six months ago.  Here they were not so busy on the dining front but they were busy with orders from Uber Eats and Deliveroo.

Here they are a cheap Chinese place with no msg in any of their stuff. But they microwave stuff as well as cook. Since I am going meat free this May I couldn't have any of the stuff at South Melbourne Market's night market as well as most of the meaty stuff here.

Here I had the prawn and chives dumplings and the tofu omelette. These meals came with free soup and tea or water. I loved them both but the prawn dumplings were a little bit on the smallish side.

The free soup was egg and corn with a bit of chicken soup. This was quite tasty. They should have brought that out first but she forgot.

The tofu omelette was moreish and it had a nice serve of rice underneath. They really do take care of their presentation.

Do come by this place when they are open. 

I love Pho Express

I love Pho Express is in Emporium in the food court. Here they have a lot of foot traffic but at Friday at 3pm there was not many customers.

You order and pay and then they give you buzzer or rolls if you ordered them. There is a nice dining table with a tree on it.

There weren't many vegetarian dishes to begin with except for the pho and rice vermicelli which I picked tofu instead of meat for no meat May. The tofu in there was the only good thing about this dish and this dish was $10. Everything else had waaay too much sauce and the vermicelli was too soft and watery for my liking.

It also had a bit of msg. For Vietnamese food I expect no msg. I can get better in Footscray and Richmond and others have reported that the rice paper rolls were no good. They were huge for starters. And they had so much noodle in there.

Anyway don't bother going here, there are much more other places in the city and Footscray and Richmond that are better than this.

Ta ta house and Melbourne Karaoke festival

Ta ta House is in Chinatown and around the corner from 206 Bourke st where the festival was taking place. Here at 206 many people came and enjoyed a free beer and singing. The free beer was from Sample Brew a new place in Collingwood.

The beers on offer

The lager was really strong and I came at a good time. The places around there were expensive so we headed to Ta Ta House as there was no line there (unlike Shanghai street). We ordered our food on an iPad and the waitress explained it to us. But we knew how to use it as I have been to many places with this system.

The man on the table in front of us ordered a whole bottle of wine for himself. He probably wouldn't be able to finish all.

We ordered vegetarian dumplings, wontons in soup and spring onion pancake with peanut sauce. That sauce was so nice. The pancake was so fluffy and good.

The vegetarian dumplings were piping hot when they arrived at the table. They had spinach inside.

The wonton soup was lukewarm but the wontons were lovely.

They should label their sauces as the ladies on the other table did not know which is which. But the service was very friendly and the food was good. Unlike the other reviews on zomato this place did not stink one bit.

Good beer week in Geelong

Geelong is known for its craft breweries and that is what Good Beer Week is all about. It is all about showcasing the best of what beer there is to offer and to show some of the best breweries to newcomers.

I had picked a really good day to do this and that was when the student protests in the city were on. Here I heard that they can be quite rowdy.

It is about an hour away from the city and a full fare ticket to and from Geelong is about $20 Myki money.

Our first stop was at White Rabbit brewery in South Geelong. Here they were showcasing their red beer as one of the Good Beer Week creations. I tried a pot for $7. This brew works well with mixed nuts.

Then I walked about their brewery learning about how they make their beers. White rabbit allows for this and when you get in the door for the first time you can see how they make their beers and the beer barrels.

Then over at Little Creatures Brewery just behind I tried their Fire beer for $6. This one was pretty firey. Then I also had a little sample of their Dreadlock beer which was really strong and coffee like. it was really strong in the alcohol.

I also got some chips to go with it. These were in a big bowl and were very salty for $9.50.

A tour around Little Creatures is $15. They are at 11am and 3pm. Little Creatures was opened in 2013 and their beers are the most popular at all the city bars and it is not hard to see why.

Furphy was the beer that was on promotion in Little Creatures and Gastrology had tried their Furphy beer.

Then we took a break and wandered around Geelong before heading to Blackman's brewery. Here at Blackman's brewery we went crazy and tried five beers in a sample size. We really loved the sweet cider.

Then it was time to go back to Melbourne. Our day had been really fun and we'd do it all again. Students do pop up to Geelong and visit the breweries when you have a chance over the mid year break. You might just learn a thing or two.