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.

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.

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. 

Cafe Roc in short

The Roc Cafe and bar is in South Yarra and its in the Gold Class area. Movie patrons can enjoy a meal or a drink before their movie starts.

They also do functions and serve the Gold Class patrons. The bar is just exquisite.

Here I had a Chardonnay and fish and beef tacos. They have happy hour where all the wines are $6 and tacos are $2 each.

The fried fish taco was really good but the beef one was a bit soggy. The fried fish one was really crispy.

Do come by for a quick drink before the movie starts. We promise that you'll enjoy coming here

Newmarket Hotel's launch party

RNIS was invited and they did not have to pay.

Newmarket Hotel has been blogged about extensively by many foodies about their good food and wine service. But they have been too expensive for some.

Some sort of vegetarian pizza

I had wanted to try out their cocktails and cocktails I did. I loved their gin and tonic and their Aperol spritz which has champagne and liqueur. My friend had two rounds of orange juice and complained that there was no burgers. I in fact came early and got all.

First up was the chicken parma on a stick. This was cooked really well.

Then there was the cheese balls with the sweet sauce. I really enjoyed that sweet sauce. It worked a treat for a lot of people.

The two pizzas that we tried were a simple margherita and a ham one. I loved the simple margherita with onion in there.

Most people loved the chicken wings and that sauce. Ooh man they were the bomb.

The calamari was a bit a small and a bit oily.

The lamb was really good. I loved the harissa spice in there which gives it that nice kick.

The mac bites were fingerlicklingly good. So good that I had a huge bowl of cheesey goodness.

Do come by to the ever popular Newmarket Hotel and thanks for the invite Newmarket Hotel.

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.

POWR Kitchen

We had a Good Food gift card and did not have to pay.

POW Kitchen is in Fitzroy st in St Kilda and it was after our run that we went there. It focuses on South east asia flavours just like Cookie and Chin Chin. Except there is not a huge long line like Chin Chin. I haven't been to Cookie yet because they are too darn expensive for my liking.

 POW Kitchen has about 20 different dishes and a huge long wine and cocktail list. They also listed Aperol Spritz as one of them on the board.

The service there was very friendly and attentive for a Sunday afternoon. I don't  know who was complaining about the service but seriously good. The ladies were really friendly. The place was not busy.

To start off with we had a lemon, lime and bitters. This was a little bit on the flat side.

We also had prawn crackers with a really nice peanut dipping sauce. This sauce had chilli in it but not too much. Katherine initially thought that it was free but it turns out that it is $5.

Then comes the char kuey teow with fish cake and lots of it ($18). It also had lots of prawns and the noodles were not soggy. But there was no wok hei to it which I would have liked. There was a lot of chilli in this though.

Rating: 14/20- still a few things to fix, otherwise good.