map coffee

Map coffee is a popular brand of coffee which is supplied to cafes, restaurants and other businesses. You can pick this up online at:
http://www.mapcoffee.com.au/
They come in capsules or packages. There are five different flavours to choose from, but the one I chose to try today is the decaffinated flavour. I tried it for free at my cafe.
The coffee capsule is easy to use. Simply just pop it in the machine and turn it on. You have to wait about 4 minutes for it to be done. You can buy machines from MAP too. They sell all sorts of machines depending on what you need.
My coffee was frothy and silky and it wasn't as bitter as Di Bella or Seven seeds. You do need to put sugar and milk in it but otherwise it is all good.
There is free shipping for orders over $50. Now you can make your own coffee at home and save heaps of money

Monsieur Truffe

It was a cloudy day with not much sunshine and I was heading up to RMIT Bundoora to help out with a bbq. So to break up the one hour tram journey I decided to get off at the corner of Gertrude and Smith sts Collingwood and went to Monsieur Truffe. I took the 86 tram from Bourke st in the city to Monsieur Truffe and to RMIT Bundoora.

Monsieur Truffe is a chocolate shop and cafe. It was recommended by the Age and Urbanspoon.com. Just like Max Brenner in the city it specialises in chocolate. But this is a much better version of it. I got to try some samples of chocolate truffles and I really liked the flavour of the raspberry, grand meriner and lime truffles. Next time when I'm here I should buy them.

some of the handmade chocolates that they sell

Miss Adriennely also inspired me to go there. I was going to try out some of the homemade ice cream as recommended in other blogs but was still full from breakfast.

So instead I ordered a hot chocolate and a macaroon ($7.30 altogether).

The macaroon ($2.50 each) was a bit small, but was well crafted. The guy there told me that it was handmade. I think they could have made it a bit bigger for that price.

The hot chocolate was small and decadent. It was presented in a small cup. The chocolate was not too sweet, but it may be a bit bitter for some of those who have sweet tooths.

The guy here was lovely, but the lady that served me wasn't as nice as the guy was. I think that she might be having a bad day.

Seven Seeds

Seven seeds is rated in The Age Good Cafe guide as being one of the best cafes around Melbourne. Many people raved about it on urbanspoon.com and Miss Adriennely really liked it.
It is really close to Melbourne Uni and RMIT Old Village. It is diagonally across the road from RMIT Village and its near the big roundabout. It is really hard to find it because it looks just like any other factory and it took me ages to find it. They need to put more signs outside or some outside tables to show that there is a cafe there.
But when I did find it looked just like this.

My lovely mocha

They are a coffee brand that brews their own coffee beans. They are for sale and they hold free public cupping sessions on Thursdays at 10am. But I can't usually make it because I'll be at work, but I can see if I can try and go. There are many different blends for you to try.
They do table service, but you sit at communal tables to eat. They don't have smaller tables. They also do take away.
Because they are mainly a coffee bar, they don't have much food on offer. They only have one vegetarian (or maybe two) on offer.But I did order two pieces of lovely fruit toast ($5.50) and with that it came with some amazing jam for me to try. I tried the Syrian fig jam and the blackberry jam. I liked the Syrian fig jam the most.
The toast was organic.
The butter for the toast was really creamy, which was good. I think that it is organic.
I also had a mocha ($4). I couldn't quite taste the chocolate, because the coffee really overpowered it. But what I did like was the art and the smooth texture of the coffee. It was really nutty.
So if you are nearby at Melbourne Uni, RMIT City campus and at the RMIT Old Village this is the place to try. I manage to get a small shot of the RMIT Village.

sushi sushi @ Melbourne Central and movies at Kino Cinemas.

I went to Sushi Sushi with my friend from the country. She was down in Melbourne for the weekend and we wanted to see a movie and have lunch. We went for a coffee at Hudsons and it was the same as before
1) Sushi Sushi- Ground level Melbourne Central.
Here this is a shop only selling sushi. This is a cash only place. It was really busy today, but did not excuse the rudeness and the crappy behaviour of our server. She was asian, young and her black hair was tied back and in a cap. Our server should have smiled and be really friendly and accomodating. I gave her the buy one get one free voucher for a salmon sushi box and it clearly explained it on there. When I asked for two salmon sushi boxes and one inari box she was a bit confused. We may have confused her a little bit, but that does not equate to not GIVING ME the other salmon box and instead making the inari box free. Also I should have been charged for the inari box seeing as we're paying customers. The rules and the deal in the Entertainment book clearly states this.
A tip to her: next time you serve someone and they wanted an extra box don't give them a look or be cross with them to give the impression that I just peed on your lawn.

Some of the sushi was not bad. I liked the inari sushi the most. The least one that I liked was the salmon sushi, this was really badly executed and the sushi fell apart.
The hand roll was a let down.... it was really squashed and horribly bad.
I will give this place the flick as there are much better and much cheaper sushi places out there. Go to Diane's sushi, you'll like this better than in here.

2) Kino cinemas.
45 Collins st
Melbourne 3000
Here this place is located in an open area shopping centre in between ANZ and Telstra building. It was a bit hard to locate, but eventually we saw the sign.
Although this cinema is small, it is actually owned by Palace Cinemas. There is one in Westgarth, Balwyn and Brighton.
Here the place is very comfy, cheap and clean. Unlike Hoyts where they charge you at least $17.00 and don't care about the comfort of their patrons, this place charges $13.00 and they keep the place nice and tidy and warm. Here they sell alcohol unlike Hoyts and Village and some lovely warm, homemade muffins. And they have their cheap movie days on Mondays where student tickets are $7.00. At Hoyts you can only buy alcohol for La Premiere movies.
They host a whole lot of international and local movies, not just the big blockbusters, unlike Hoyts and Village. Right now they are screening some films from the Melbourne International film festival.
The sound and the screen here are much better. Because this is a small cinema and a small theatre it is much easier to concentrate on the movie without all the chatter. And they really do enforce the " please turn your mobile off" and "no talking rule".
Students you should try and visit Kino and experience it for yourselves.