Glenferrie road festival and Grilld

Glenferrie Road festival is a festival about wine, arts, crafts, food and coffee. But it is also about community with many of the gyms and community organisations taking part. In recent years I have heard that there is a waffle stall but not this year. This year they featured cakes and desserts in a jar, all of which look yummy but I can't eat it. Why you ask? It is because I'm trying to quit sugar.

So instead I take a look at all the non sugary options and there were a few except for the ones that have a lot of BBQ sauce to it. I tried Oporto's chicken and chips as they were samples and it was good. I really didn't like the sauces as they have no taste.

Getting there was no problem, there were trams, trains and the walk from Gardiners creek and Merri trail for those that are more adventurous. There wasn't any free water tank for people to refill their bottles. People had to buy their own drink which was $1-$3 and on a hot 26C day you would want to have water available.

Grilld had their beers for people to try as well as free avocado chips for those that bought a burger. So I went in and they were flat out busy. Here I had their field of dreams. I wanted to add an egg in it but the.y were flat out. And eggs cost an extra $1- $2. All the drinks they had were sweet except kombucha.

Inside Grilld 

The burger was good, but the lady's on the table beside me looked even better. It was a Mighty Melbourne.

Lulo 

Dog outside Lulo

Grilld had beers but I liked Lulo bar's sangria offer of $7 per cup and I was curious to try it. It is a red wine fruity drink. It is also really sweet and alcoholic just like Spain. This drink is a very popular Spanish bar drink. What I didn't know was that it has 16 grams of sugar in there.

Menu for a Japanese restaurant

Connect 4

$3 pizza slices

Another dog

On the top end of Glenferrie road there were more bars and craft stalls. Restaurants advertise their wares and promotions. Many dogs were out enjoying the fine sunshine.

Do go to next years one as this one was a lot of fun.

Mid Autumn Festival

The Mid Autumn festival is one of significance in China and Asia and here it is celebrated in Melbourne as many Asian students reside here. And also tourists come for many different things such as the Show and the footy finals.

It has been a long tradition to celebrate this at Crown and bring in the Westerners as well as the Asians. THis strengthens Melbourne's relationship with Asia and ties together all the different cultures. Furthermore the bond between the Australians and the Asians is strengthened through food and performances. This was a free event for all.

Pork sausage

Panda statue

At the dessert stall. I couldn't have any dessert

Costume contest

Ribbon dancing

Here there was the exciting dragon dance on Friday evening at Crown. Everyone enjoyed the atmosphere. But it was even better on Sunday where there were many workshops in which people can participate in. The one that got me the most was Healthyintstudents Zumba workshop. Here participants joined in and we all had fun burning off those excess calories from the delicious food. All the participants got a few free class vouchers.

Speaking of food there were many stalls which sold food for $5-$15. Most of the food was priced around the $12 mark. Much of the food was small hence many of them got lots more. But I didn't need a lot of food to keep me happy. I really liked the roti and the rice cakes, eventhough the vendor accidently left a calamari in there but I did not mind as it was not too chewy. Some of the calamari that I buy outside can be quite chewy. The roti was freshly done and it was like the one I had at Sambal Kampung except it was not too sweet.

On Friday and Sunday there were plenty of samples but Sunday I had more appetite due to running a tough 17km before. Hence I got to try the roti and the protein bar then. The protein bar was just ok.

There was a Buddha stall there but I wasn't allowed any photos sorry!

Anyway do come by to next years one and many thanks to City of Melbourne for this successful one.

Spring Fling festival

This festival happens every spring and it brings a huge crowd of kids, adults and pets. The festival is run by the City of Melbourne and it usually includes some of the government stalls. Meld has mentioned it a few times.

Olive oil tasting

Ice cream

The dessert bar

At the wine area

Salt for $5

Free fruit for all

300 Blankets is a charity to help the homeless

Plants for sale

Herbs for a gold coin

This was a fun Sunday for all.

 It was easily accessible by tram and its free for all. The food however was not and it was the usual standard truck fare. The dogs are cute and friendly to pat and the Lort Smiths Animal Hospital was wanting donations.

Mini cupcakes

It was a sunny day and it was not too cold and not too warm. The pollen count was quite low making this a good day out.


There were heaps of free fun for all from Bernards magic shop to the dog show and live bands. The adults had their own beer garden where they enjoyed SOL Lychee beer.

There was a Cultural stage where the kids got to have some fun on the stage dancing.

I enjoyed the chips by the Limonata stall which were selling their homemade lemonade for $10. I didn't see what all the fuss was about this drink seeing as it was so expensive. By three pm this place was busy and by 4pm people wanted to go back home on the tram.

There was a few food samples and MIHub was there promoting and selling their wares. One day I will have to check out their café in Werribee.

I am glad that I did check out this successful and interesting event. I can't wait for next years and it would be great if I could volunteer or work for that festival.

Many thanks to the City of Melbourne for putting this on.

Mid Autumn festival at Crown

RNIS was invited to visit the Mid Autumn festival by Leandro, but they paid for all of their own food. Leandro was a volunteer there and he volunteered at the info booth. He was happy being there and getting the free food as he always is.

As for RNIS, we didn't mind paying. However we minded the crowds as the space was too small for a huge crowd. Perhaps like the Flavour exchange they could charge an entry fee for this and then you'll get some tokens to spend on food and stuff. We spent $26 in total on food. As for drinks we had our own water bottle

For the memory game

the puzzle game

At the mooncake stall I saw this pretty sign

Food

Grilling calamari for people

At the dessert stall

Bao

roti

Some of the Asian drinks are too sweet for our liking.

To start off with we had the BBQ pork bao (2 for $6). It was not too bad and the buns were big and fluffy.

Then we went to Mabrown and got a roti for $4. This was nice and fluffy and I remembered that Gastrology said a lot of good things about this place so we would like to give them a go. But they are only open for dinner on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Then we joined in the fun on stage and played a memory game where we had to remember the sauces and the order in which they went. We did not go home empty handed; we won a goodie bag full of sauce, noodles, chopsticks and drinks all thanks to Yeos.

We also took a break and took a look at the kids table. The lanterns were expensive to make and inconvenient for us to take home. They were $15 but the money goes to charity.

The last thing that we bought was noodles from YES Taiwanese food. The noodles had waaay too much msg in it. But the good news is that everything there is vegetarian. Oh and we did like the sweet potato fries that we sampled. It was waaaay good.

We then received a complimentary cookie like everyone else to end the night on a sweet note.

Do come to next years one as it is set to be bigger and better than ever.