Arabasque cafe

This cafe is a little place on Elizabeth St near RMIT Carlton Campus. I had walked by it a few times and saw that they were always empty. I had always wanted to try but from the outside, they looked more like a Shisha bar.

That is until I went in and found that they were a friendly and very homely cafe.

 The owner told me that they were busy at night as they are also a Shisha bar.

The service was very friendly and the prices here are student friendly. For a start, they don't charge any more than $13 for a standard breakfast with lots of food. Normally in the city, it is $20-$22. And that's without coffee.

They mainly are a vegetarian place but they have just a few meat dishes.

Here their food is really healthy and Jordanian style. I never had this style of food before so I cannot comment much. I had the Jordanian style eggs which come with hummus and pita bread. And there are lots of bread in their freezer out the back. I loved the Jordanian eggs as it was so healthy. And that hummus is just like the way that my mum would make this at home with all the good fats.

The long black was just ok, but I loved the little sampler of chocolate bread for $1. It melted in the mouth and was not too sweet.

I would recommend this place to my students and any International students who live in Melbourne.

Hungry Bear

Hungry Bear is a new pizza place in town and they offered free pizza to all and a second free furphy for me.

But we paid for the arancini and the first Furphy which was $6.50. The arancini was on the small side and was $7. The last time we bought this was at the End of year run party and they were bigger balls. These were tiny.

Salt

Furphy

Arancini

The place is small and the old Chillipadi used to be there. I guess Chillipadi couldn't afford the fees and they left shop. Now Hungry Bear takes place. The owner is a lovely lady and her husband loves drinking beer. They really do know their beer.

The free pizza I had was good but tiny. I guess they wanted to do guilt free eating as too many people are overweight. It was Christmas ham with pineapple. Normally after 5pm it would be $5. This sized pizza is normally $14. Their pizzas take 90 seconds to make and the ingredients are fresh. All the ingredients are already prepared. All they need to do is put it in the quick oven which tells the server when the pizza is done.

I have had Furphy before and enjoyed it. This was not too bad and they had some fruity notes in there.

If you are around and are up for a drink come on by. I hope that they are featured as a bonus offer in the Entertainment book. 

Shaw Davey Slum

The Shaw Davey Slum has been there for a while now and they are featured in the Entertainment book. They are a student pub in Carlton which has cheap happy hours.

However, they have a minimum spend in the book which I did not know about. It turns out that you need to spend $30 on food alone and not the drinks part.

We got the three dishes for $22 and another arancini dish as well as a spiced rum for me and a coke for him. For the three dishes we chose the house chips, arancini and onion rings. The onion rings were heavily battered and not very nice. I don't recommend getting those.

The house chips were good though. They were crispy and crunchy and I loved the spiciness. I'd be happy to eat these without the aioli.

I loved the arancini balls as they were quite cheesey and gooey and not hard at all.

My spiced rum worked well with all the food with the exception of the onion rings.

Do come by to this cheap pub on a Friday afternoon.

Crust pizza bar

Crust Pizza bar is a chain store in Australia. And they are featured in the Entertainment book for 25% off the total bill for takeaway and dine in. Excludes online offers.

Here I went to the one in Lonsdale st and it is smallish. They weren't very busy as it was a warm night.

According to their claims of the pizzas take ten minutes to make- mine took a little longer as it was seafood. It was $14 with the Entertainment book voucher. And they forgot to apply the discount. It took them a little while to remember and when they did they gave me a free fanta.

But the seafood pizza was very nice. It didn't have too much sauce which I liked and it had a lot of fresh seafood. The base was just perfect.

Do come by for your pizzas and remember to buy the book off us as you'll save lots when you go out.

Bellota Wine bar

I have been to this place a few times and am hooked on trying their wines. They don't have much in terms of food but they do have a lot in terms of wine.

Their wines change weekly depending on what the Prince Wine store has on offer. I usually like white wines with oysters and raw seafood. It is the same with champagne. Then I like red wines and shirazes with pastas, cooked meat and seafood dishes. A riseling works best with prawn and chicken dishes.

The bar staff at the place is lovely and knowledgeable. Here they were training another new employee on all the wines and all the things in the shop. The atmosphere in the bar is warm and welcoming.

I love their oysters and the mingonette sauce as it worked well with the wine. The oyster itself does't seem to be fresh as I had a hard time getting it out of the shell.

The souradough bread that I had last time was lovely and divine.

Do come by for the wines and the tastings.