What do people do for a weekend in Melbourne? Well, I guess they start the weekend like I started it last night, going out quite late (for Melbourne, which is not a Sydney) with Gavan, and then sleeping in quite late. Not embarrassingly late - as it is harder to do that when you are a geust at someones house. I did get up in time for a quick coffee and then I headed into the city with Lisa (my other cousin) for lunch at Embla, a well reputed wine bar with incredible small plates in the heart of Melbourne. Again, heart of Melbourne means a 30-minute ride from my Aunt's place, so by 12:45 or so, we were at Embla (and yes, this does mean working backwards I got up at 10:45 or so... sue me).
Embla was great, they had a really nicely curated menu of elevated Australian small plates. Our favorite that we ordered was probably a pork sausage and rapini pasta with an incredible pistachio paste, or a starter of yellowtail sashimi, but all four dishes we ordered were excellent, and a reasonable size for a reasonable price. Embla is a very well reputed restaurant, but you wouldn't know it from the laind back vibe it had. Because it is nominally a wine bar, I did have a wine, which was excellent. But the food was better, and if anything the real reason to come here.
From there, we wandered around the many little lanes, alleyways and galleries that make up Melbourne's CBD. Melbourne is really known for these graffiti covered alleyways with many bars, cafes, bookshops, restaurants and the like. I do remember strolling around some of these in my prior trip, so I was delighted to realize that they hadn't been overtaken by corporatization and a lot of the places still seemed quite independent, rustic and lively. Admittedly, that isn't true of the massive Italian dining hall we went to for a coffee and dessert - named Brunetti, it was straight out of Milan by way of New York (in that New York has a lot of these). In the front was a full dessert bar, then coffee bar - but further back an area selling what looked like delectable paninis, pizzas, pastas. Given the time of the day, the dessert and cafe parts were far more busy - for us as well, adn the flat what was nearly as good as the custard muille-fuille I got.
From there, Lisa left to go back and leave me to explore the other NGV - the one that featured international art. It's a weird thing because on its face, this is the better museum - it is larger, really nicely curated, and was far busier (granted today is Saturday, and I went to the NGV-A on a Friday). But it isn't Australian - I guess if you are from Australia, getting to see a showcase of International art is great, but for me as a tourist, I like the local stuff. Anyway, the NGV-I was more than just a bunch of repetitive European stuff, but included a lot of Asian art, and even some US stuff (mostly in the "modern" sections). It was a lovely way to end my strolling in Melbourne. I hit up a quick bottle shop for a couple quick can pours, and then went back to my Aunt's for dinner.
After dinner, I ventured back out to meet Gavan for another night on the town. We replayed some of the hits (Apollo Inn was great again, we ended the night at Pulp again), but also tried a new spot in the Garden State Hotel - which is the type of place I probably would ahve loved 10 years prior. It was a few levels, it was packed, it had modern music and a lot of people aged 21-35. In taht sense it is perfect, but I do think I've graduated to more either one of two things - (1) elevated craft cocktails or (2) far more grimier club/EDM - this weird half-way is not the spot. Anyway, we spent most of the night at Apollo and Pulp, after a quick dalliance to the Ruca Bar at the Grand Hyatt, which was far more affordable than a Grand Hyatt Cocktail Bar would make you think.
Saturday was for action, and Sunday was for lazing. After a lazy breakfast at home (after waking up at a more appropriate time), I went back into town to wander around the one area I hadn't really yet - the Southbank. Melbourne in many ways has a London type thing where most of the sites, and action are North of the River - from teh CBD, to the Sports district, to bohemian neighborhoods like Richmond. Technically the Arts District and NGV-I are South of it, but that's close enough to the Yarra it is hard to tell. Well, I wanted to walk around, and what south of the river is great from is walking.
I carvedd out about a 90-minute trail for me through the city, starting at the NGV-I, shifting over to the large park that extends from the other side of it, cutting across to the banks of the Yarra (still very much within this park), and then down the river to the Botanical Gardens. This whole thing was lovely - granted I have gotten extremely fortunate with weather, but the Yarra was sparkling. The large expanse of green to my South was beautiful. On the other banks after a first few buildings was the tennis center - a dream of mine to attend in real. Given the weather, it was also packed with what I assume are 95% locals just enjoying Melbourne. That seems to be the theme - people just enjoy life in this city.
The botanical gardens were equally crowded, and surprisingly green and colorful despite this being the tail end of their winter. There were some nice lakes, sculptures, gardens, lawns, and it ended at the foot of the large, regal Anzac Day Memorial Shrine of Remembrance, just a nice little stroll through Melbourne's greenery.
From there I had a true Sunday lunch - going to a brewery and having a parma. Now, a brewery is probably more fancy than going to a pub and having the same, but the key was the parma - which is basically a chicken parm with ham as a layer below the molten parm. It isn't anything too novel I guess, but it was fantastic - at least the place I made it had breaded the chicken just brilliantly so the chicken retained a ton of juiciness, and the parm was perfectly molten. Just fantastic - as was their beer, and the views. The place was called Brewmanity, which had a little three-story brownstone type building, but the best part being their top floor was a semi-open rooftop with unobstructed views fo the city, A perfect place to enjoy a couple nice pites and a parma.
From there I went on my final walk of Melbourne, going up towards the river more on the upmarket side, first passing the large Crown Casino and then a series of upmarket residential buidlings, hotels, with bars, restaurants on their ground floors opening out to the Yarra. Again, i just remain continuously impressed by how interesting Melbourne's skyline is and how well it works despite having no real true skyscrapers. A testament to creative architecture.
That should've ended my time in Melbourne proper, but a colleague of mine who is from Australia was visiting his family down under and realized I was in Melbourne and suggested we meet for dinner. It was his choice, adn he picked well, having us go to a place named Farmer's Daughters, which served a lovely 6-course tasting menu of produce all from specific regions of Victoria - in this case the Gippsland (to the East of Melbourne). The food was fantastic, from truly maybe the best cooked trout I've ever had, to one of teh better venison dishes. The company was good as well. This was the perfect way to end my time in Melbourne proper (I'll do a full review later), and having a few drinks at home with Gavan and my Uncle was the best way to end the weekend proper. If this is what weekends in Melbourne are like, then sign me up.
