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.

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. 

Good Luck Tea House

I got the $25 Scoopon which entitled me to spend $50 in store. But I also spent $12 of my own on another glass of wine and spring onion pancake.

Good Luck Tea House is on busy Chapel st and you would expect it to be busy with people as Chapel st is always busy, no matter what day or time it is. But Good Luck was really quiet tonight despite their Scoopon being popular. Their Facebook and Instagram are not popular and there are not many people visiting. In fact, someone said on Zomato that the food was bad.

Well, I digress. It was neither good or bad. Well, their signature Good Luck dumpling dish of 12 took a while to come and it was $28. Here the vegetarian, prawn and shark fin were cooked well. The siumai was a little bit undercooked as it was still pink. The Shanghai duck dish was ok. One of the chive dumplings was a little bit overcooked (it was a bit dry).This dish worked really with the pinot noir.

Sauv Blanc works well with seafood dishes and I had the scallop with ginger sauce. But the scallop was slightly overcooked and there was too much sauce. It overpowered the dish.

But I really liked the Spring Onion Pancakes. They were nice and flaky and really well done. This was the best part of the meal.

Rating: 11/20- soso.
But at least the service was friendly but very slow for a very quiet night. As for the bathrooms they are behind a door and up some stairs. And the floor of the bathroom is sticky.

Teatro at Southbank

This was supposed to my Week 46 treat as I survived the last 45 weeks of Marathon training. So I decided to go to Teatro a newish Italian place which Gastrology really liked.

Red Wine

Cutlery

Oysters

Cannelloni up closely

The bathrooms are on the right side of the kitchen as you walk in. The kitchen is an open one in which you can see everything going on in there.

The oysters were small but I really liked the sherry vinegarette sauce as it was so addictive. Here I had the Sydney Rock oyster and the Pacific rock one and they were so small. I have seen bigger at South Melbourne Market.Here these were $3.50 and $4 respectively.

They had their $15 lunch specials seeing as it was a weekday that I went. Here I had the baked cannelloni which was nice but a tad bit overcooked. And the focaccia was an extra $5 This was nicely baked a good dusting of salt.

The red wine worked well with the lunch and the cold weather today.

Rating: 13/20- if only their service was not slow. The place was quiet except for a big group of fourteen people and three other tables. One went up to pay.

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.

MFWF: Script bar and bistro

Script bar and Bistro is in Southbank where Melbourne Uni is and the Arts centre. On a Tuesday night they were not too busy and I was waiting for a tram which was inconsistent to take me to Golden Fleece which seemed far from my running track.

They have been inside the MTC for eight years and love the patronage of the theatre goers.

Here they love their writers and their cheese. I could be in cheese heaven. But they only have a limited menu for dinner and no specials. Although I did spy a $14 burger special.

The atmosphere is relaxed.

So I chose lasagna which is vegetarian with lots of cheese  ($27 for a small piece)and a shiraz ($9) to brighten up a cold winters night.  The bread was good and the butter was very creamy. The salt was lovely.

The shiraz worked well with the lasagna and in the lasagna I could hardly taste the kale. It was overcooked.  There was a lot of cheese and I enjoyed it.

Oh well if you are going to charge $27 it should have been a bigger piece. Oh well I'll probably come for the wine and cheese instead.

Ajisen Ramen in Hawthorn

Today there was another big protest at work and I wanted to stay away. It was the one about making education free.

Ajisen Ramen is a chain store and I heard some good things about it from Confessions of a little pigy and other bloggers about their good meal sets.

This store in Hawthorn was run by the Chinese.

Here they have all their meal sets under $15 with some of their premium ones for under $20. They don't come with miso soup- you have to buy it yourself. for an extra $2 per set. This miso soup was worth the $2 as it had generous amount of seaweed and other things.

I had the yasai bento and I have had better at Highpoint where there was lost of seaweed. Here they forgot the sesame seeds on the rice. The tofu for the yasai bento was a bit overcooked. It was a bit soft and it drowned in a lot of sauce.

I didn't really like the corn salad. It had waaay too much mayo in there and I could not taste the corn. The edamame was just ok.

Rating: 13/20-hmm I've had better ok. And Glenferrie has quite a few other places around.

South Melbourne Mussel Fiesta and Greek

South Melbourne Mussel Fiesta was on this weekend and whilst entry was free, food was not and alcohol was about $5-$10 a pop. Most bowls were $10 and very small. It was a 33C degree day and most people got alcohol and other sweet fizzy drinks but I was happy with my kombucha from Happy place. This was $5 but it was healthy and sugarless. A lot of other people got smoothies.

Kombucha

A sleepy dog

Mussels being washed

Mussels being cooked

Stage

Wine tasting

There was no where to sit at the market as there were not enough chairs provided and I did not know until I got there. People brought their happy furry friends.

I had ordered food on Menulog for Ela Re thinking that I would be able to eat it at the market. Turns out that there is no such luck so I ate my food at the place. The place is across the road from the market. They kept calling me four times, each time I was on the tram or running.

I ordered a feta and oregano chips for $6.90 (it was a big serve, but bland). The chips were the frozen sort.

The lamb souvalaki was good but the lamb was too chewy and for $9.90, I expected better. It was overcooked.

Rating 10/20- don't bother with Ela Re but do come to South Melbourne Market. And do enjoy the mussels on offer

Il Mio Pasta

Il Mio pasta is in a new food court in the city and like Charlie said was pretty average. I bought the Groupon before Charlie reviewed it, so had some high hopes.

The city is getting a few new places each week. Il Mio has been opened for two months and they were busy at 1:50pm but by 2pm they were dead quiet. One guy did not finish his pasta.

The chef frowned and looked like she didn't want to be there.

Their pasta is homemade and I loved the look of the green pasta.

They don't have their liquor license yet and someone said that they were open until 10pm in the evening. Hmm I wonder why the Groupon is only valid until 3pm? People come afterwards for snacks and coffee and maybe tea.

I had their Aglio E Olio with spaghetti and it was pretty bland. Vapiano's one is amazing and it has a lot of flavour to it. Even this was a small size for $12. I had to add vegetables and sundried tomatoes in there for an extra $2 and the Groupon does not cover this charge. RIPOFF!!!.

The pasta as al dente and there was no chilli in this :(. 

Rating: 10/20- nowhere near as close to Vapiano. Vapiano have better service better food and they can deal with crowds. They too have homemade pasta but theirs is a lot better

Mutekiya

Mutekiya is a Japanese restaurant and its at 708 Glenferrie Road. Here they are run by Chinese and they don't have sushi. Rather they are a noodle and rice restaurant.

They had just been opened for three days and the flowers were outside. When I saw the flowers I thought that a new Chinese/Malaysian place had just opened but I was wrong

I was greeted by a glum waitress. It was after lunch on a Friday and here they were quiet. In fact the whole of Glenferrie Road was quiet. Originally I was going to visit Osha Thai but it turns out that they have a happy hour special of beer and meal and I wanted to try the beer.

Back to Mutekiya now. The place is clean and small. The bathrooms are through a door out the back. You have to turn right and then look right for them. They are unisex and are clean.

Here I had their bento. It was $14.95 for your choice of chicken or beef, miso soup, rice, salad, fried prawn and takoyaki. The takoyaki was terrible. It tasted more like potato balls than octopus. The fake crab salad was awful. It had that very sweet taste to it. As for the chicken teriyaki there was too much to it and after a while the chicken was very tough. Also the teriyaki sauce was too sweet.

The prawns were alright and so was the rice but who could complain. At least the rice was real Japanese ones

The miso soup was the only thing that could save the meal, but where was the tofu?

Rating: 11/20- it was just ok. I wouldn't go out of my way to get there again unless asked.