El Rincon

El Rincon is a Spnaish place in Queen Victoria Market. It has been opened for a few months now and already they are starting to see customers in the late afternoon. Here most people love a drink and free tapas.

I had heard good things from Gastrology bloggers about them and so wanted to give them a go. And give them a go I did. The manager and the wait staff seemed very friendly to their customers so I recommend my readers give them a go. And they seemed to know Spanish cuisine.

Here I had their egg omelette with chorizo, mushrooms and olive bread. There was salami in this and they must have run out of chorizo. But at least the eggs were good and the olive bread was just divine. It was moist and not too hard to cut.

The mushrooms were good and they had a little dash of extra virgin olive oil in them. I love Olive oil as it is good for your health

And unlike what some other bloggers say about the food sizes, this was a huge plate for $15.

Rating: 15/20- I really don't know what Penguin eats and other bloggers were on about. I wish that I was invited to try their dinner service with wine.

I would have liked to have tried the Spanish sweets but seeing as I am doing Febfast I cannot have any sweets.

Pickett's Deli

Pickett's Deli is new to the market and the latest foodie scene. They featured in this years Taste festival and is opened by Scott Pickett of Estelle. Here you can pick up many grocery items and presents for loved ones. As well as eating in and having their specialty meat and egg and bacon rolls. The one that I had was Mr P's roll ($12- it was an egg and bacon roll featuring Mr P's sauce).

Cake samples

Pastries on offer

Stove

Here the bacon was nice and juicy and the egg was just lovely. Not too oily and not too runny. Just nice. The bread too was a lovely soft roll. They do have an open kitchen and rotisserie so you can see how they do their eggs and rolls. The salads change daily depending on what they have.

I would have bought a juice or two but seeing as I am on Dr Susan's diet plan, I thought better not. They would probably be sweet and not good for you. I needed my good fats in my belly seeing as I run a lot.

I loved Mr P's BBQ sauce so much that I wanted to buy it, but they don't have any in stock until next year. Darn :(. They barely have enough for the tables and the hampers as they are so popular. Mr P also has other items such as mixed olives and tapanade.

Do come by on your next market visit as it sure is a foodie hit

The Churro Van at Victoria Market

For sometime now I wanted to check out the churro van but they were never open whilst I was around which was early in the morning. They are at the Queen Victoria Market on the Peel st side.

Here they have churros for $1 and hotdogs for $5 with the lot. For the hotdogs you can choose between pork or chicken and I chose pork. I love my pork hotdogs.

You order and then you pay and then you have to wait ten minutes whilst they cook the hotdog. But if you want a really quick snack then the churros are a good thing. The guy that served me was really friendly.

They are cash only.


I really enjoyed this and it kept me full for a while. There were no onions though but that's ok. The sausage was just cooked and it was piping hot. Note: I made a bit of a mess though so don't wear white as they won't put the hotdog in a paper bag. The sauces squirted everywhere.

Funkfish

Funkfish is a place in Victoria Market in the free tram zone. This is great for tourists and for the locals alike. Here they have $6.90 snack pacsk as well as regular meals and sushi. I'm not a fan of their sushi just looking at it and seeing how it was made. its usually dry.

They are in the food court and the service was nonchalant. They weren't really happy about having to wake up at 5am (or ealier) to get to the market. The market opens at 6am.

They serve wine with fish. Something which the rest of the market does not do.



This fish was good. I think it was a flake, but they were a bit heavy on the batter. I really didn't like the tasteless chips though. They were from the bain marie and had been sitting there for a while. I think they were the Birds Eye type.

Rating: 10/20- once is enough. I won't be making that same mistake again when there are other fish and chip shops around Melbourne.

The Luna Winter night market

The Luna night market is on again this year and it is always exciting as their summer night market. We talk about our experiences at this night market.

This is at the Queen Victoria Market and it is on every Wednesday night from 5pm-10pm. There are huge lines everywhere for stuff. There are not as many stalls as the summer night market and everything is undercover. Whilst in the summer there is sangria, at the winter night market there is mulled wine.

Warming up by the fire

I came after 7pm and there were huge crowds of people and no parking available. For those that live in the country you should take the train to Southern Cross station and then just walk. It is about a 20 min walk and you will be burning about 50 calories. If you walk back then you'd burn about 100 calories. And if you're like me and can't stomach a lot for dinner then you should do two trips if you can or share. I did two trips.

The first one I had just vegetarian curry at Drums café. It was just before 7:30pm that I got there. I wasn't served until about 7:45pm. My vegetarian curry meal was $10 and they do stellar meals. Roti was an extra $3

Now compare that with the second time where there were not so many people. The curry was much better at Autorickshaw and it too was a mere $10. All the ingredients were really fresh.There were no lines this time and I got my meal in a flash. I had time to enjoy a few short films from Swinburne University students and support their work.

Which stall do you like the best? Do comment below.

Yeah Red Aware

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

Yeah Aware is a not for profit organisation that educates young people on safe sex and Red Aware is one of the many campaigns that they run. They are a fun loving organisiation which runs workshops and online forums for everyone including International students.

It was founded in 2005 and has become strong ever since. Their aim is to teach and empower young people about safe sex.

They are about gender diversity and sexual awareness. They are based near Flagstaff station.

They also do many fun activities such as the writing on the Melbourne sign. RNIS has had heaps of fun volunteering with them and has helped them to raise a bit of money.

Although they get some of their funding from the City of Melbourne, you can donate online to make the world a better place. And next time if the Melbourne sign is up or if they are around do go say hi to the friendly bunch of people.

Malaysian Street Festival 2014

This year's Malaysian Street festival was on at the Queen Victoria Market on this very sunny and warm Sunday

And yes there were many people there. All of them were Caucasians and some were Asian.

Onde Onde-a Malaysian dessert. I didn't get this time as I wanted to try other delights

More Malaysian delights

Fruit salad

Cooking Char Kuey Teow

Trying coffee. On this hot day I would have liked to sample a cold one but oh well

It was fun. I managed to have fun eating durians in the durian eating competition. They required eight volunteers all to come up on stage and eat. The winner who finished first gets a prize and that is a voucher for a Malaysian restaurant.

The durian was sweet but didn't have a lot of taste. Durian can be quite hard to find in Melbourne (with the exception of the Asian markets).

I tried the rockmelon drink ($3). It was sweet and refreshing.

There was teh tarik ($4) from Mamak. The line at Mamak was so long as everyone wanted satay. In fact there were about 5 or 6 restaurants that served satay in a stick.

Samples of beef which was just ok

The drink special

The lemon drink with honey jelly was great at Passar Malam but again there was a long line and service was soo slow. There was one lady who got the wrong drinks and they had to change it. This for $4 tasted more like water with honey jelly pearls.

The entertainment was very good though. If only they had more seating in the shade for everyone, this would be great. I really liked the Malaysian band as they played really great songs from the heart. And the two girls on stage with the accoustic winged it for me.

Do come to next years one. I really enjoyed myself at this one. And do bring your own lunch as food there can can get quite expensive.

Suzuki Night market by Claudia

Yesterday I went to Suzuki Night market with Sally. This is my first time in my 28 years that I have been in Melbourne.

So when the opportunity arose for me to write up about this event and for Sally to visit the market at night we accepted it.

It was at the Queen Victoria market and its on every Wednesday night during the summer months. It was not hard to find. There were heaps of people at the market and we check out the bathrooms and there was a big queue. There was also a big queue at the atms for money, but luckily Sally and I made sure that we had enough cash before we came. There's a bank in the same building that I work in so that was easy.
There's heaps and heaps of craft and food stalls. We visited everything.

We mainly came for the food and the sangarias. Sangarias are cold Spanish alcoholic drinks. We really wanted to bring back some sangarias for another friend of ours but in the end we had to pass by the security guards and the guards asked us to leave it behind as it is alcoholic.

There was stalls selling Japanese, French, Spanish, Carribean, Australian etc. There was a few James Boags beer places too, but Sally and I don't drink wine.
There was a homemade lemonade stall but I just drank green tea before so we didn't have a chance to try this.

I had the paella ($12). It was yummy and it was not like the one at Simply Spanish. In fact this was better. This was much more flavoursome and the seafood was fresh. But there was a queue for it and I felt like pushing in as I was so hungry.

Sally's meatball roll ($10) was a little unappetizing for my liking and it was squashed. Its partially my fault.

Our Pork dumplings were delicious though and we couldn't fault them ($10). Yummy they were panfried.

I loved my potato twist ($6). Very flavoursome and I was easily full after this.

To top it off, I also had a lemon crepe ($6.50). yum. I loved that it came with ice cream. Very lemony which I loved.

We quite happily left the market for home after this. And I'll be back sometime soon.