The art market by Katherine

The Art Market was on today and I finally had a chance to visit it. It is on for three days at the Royal Exhibition building and it is free entry. RMIT Link Arts was there and they were having an exhibition of their stuff.
There many people there especially families with their kids. It was really noisy there and there were so many balloons and unruly kids who got in the way.
There was a line for food at Miss Chu's. I spent about $21 for lunch and $3.50 for coffee.
There wasn't a lot of tables around so I ate and walked around visiting all the art stalls.
Many thanks to the City of Melbourne for this event and here are all the pictures. Enjoy.

Inside the free city circle tram which stopped outside my building and took me straight to the event. You can also take the route 86/96 trams or a train  (alight at Parliament station) to the event but you'd have to buy a ticket where as this one is free.

The Carlton gardens on the way to the Exhibition Building

Chemex is a type of coffee which is filtered and light in flavour. Hence it is easy on those that can't sleep at night when they drink regular coffee at 12pm.

I love the babbles above people's head. Its really cool and reminds me of a night market.

The rice paper roll demo

Here you can buy showbags for $10 or a big one for $15. Here are the contents of the $10 one. The $15 one has a gift in there which you can choose from a range of stuff.

I love RMIT's chalkboard sign. It is much better than their usual logo

Time out were at the event. They are a magazine telling you what is on in Melbourne and no they are not free. I can't remember the price for the subscription but they do have a yearly subscription. Signing up for their online newsletter is free.

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.

ECpot Cafe by Katherine

ECpot cafe is a Chinese cafe located in QV's food court outside of Officeworks.  It is in the heart of the city.
They have been here for years and when I first came to RMIT  I used to visit them.
It was not busy when I arrived. It was 2.30pm when I arrived hence there was a $7 afternoon tea special of a small meal and a tea/soft drink. I opted for lemon tea for $1 extra (I wonder why).
I had the prawns in puff pastry. Yummy.
They have a lot of meals all for under $11. Most of the meals include pickles which I saw being brought out. I really wanted to help myself to the pickles on the shelf. Note to the guys that work  there: don't bring the pickles out. There are some special lunchtime sets which included a drink with it but it was over when I came.

They do have a limited range of dumplings. There was no cheong fun on there which I would have there to be. :(. But there was char kuey teow and fried rice etc.
The tea came quickly but the service was really slow for a quiet restaurant. All the staff seem to just be standing around not doing much.
The saucer was a tad bit dirty but I didn't really notice until the end. Whoops.
I also sampled crumbed tofu with sweet and sour sauce ($5.20) and some of the guy's free rice. He did offer me some. Apparently they know the guy that is on the table next to me so they gave him some free rice that was a new flavour. It tasted like chicken so it must be hainanese chicken rice. Next time I might just have to order a small bowl of rice and some fried prawns. Or maybe Hainan chicken.
Next time I might just visit for lunch and I recommend thee to visit for some cheap student fare.