Melbourne

Melbourne is really quite beautiful - it's such a shame that Sydney always steals the spotlight just because it has that Opera House. I had a wonderful time walking by the beautiful riverside, exploring the art museums, and having an eclectic weekend of food.

First off, I ate a lot of ice cream. I was kindly hosted by my cousin Sherman and his lovely fiancee Christine, and Christine has an impressive addiction to ice cream. The most interesting one we had was from Il Dolce Freddo in Carlton, obviously a favourite of the locals with people pouring out of the tiny entrance. Its specialty is durian gelato, which was as stinky and overpowering as I expected it to be!! (I figured out the other day that I only really don't eat about 4 things on this earth, and durian is one of those) But I enjoyed the pandan & coconut, and also the mango - makes me wonder how an Italian gelato shop came to make all these Asian flavours.

One curiosity that I discovered whilst getting lost through the streets of the city centre was Lord of the Fries, a fast food mini-chain with questionable motives. Its mission appears to be the first vegetarian and gluten-free chain specialising in chips/fries, the idea being that it cooks very good chips accompanied by a variety of gloopy sauces. Fake meat 'burgers' and 'chicken nuggets' are also on offer. I had the unfortunate impulse to try some of these nuggets, accompanied by their Belgian sauce (basically really thick mayo), which were incredibly greasy and cloying, although the few chips that sneaked in were pretty good. Food aside, I really disliked the idea of this place - why worry about being gluten free when you're stuffing your face with a ton of grease covered with more grease? Actually don't get me started on the modern "allergy" to gluten... :p

Slightly outside of Melbourne, we spent a day in the Yarra Valley, famous for its wineries and also above average eateries. I know very little about wine, only what I like to drink, and I concluded a long time ago that I don't like Australian whites. However, I do love Australian Shiraz, which is interesting given that I drink little red wine usually. The wineries are certainly not a cheap way to buy wine (pretty much the same prices as you would get in the city), but I did discover sparkling Shiraz, which I could happily quaff away on a lazy afternoon in the sun.

Last but not least, my final day in Melbourne coincided with the Chinese Midautumn Festival, so obviously we had to do a Chinese dinner. I can't quite remember where we went, but it was in the Vietnamese area in the west side of the city (given that I was leaving from Avalon airport, which is certainly not part of Melbourne!!). My favourite dish was snowpea shoots (豆苗, possibly my favourite Chinese vegetable) with salted and century egg:

Also had braised pork belly with tofu (pretty good, but as you can probably see, the pork was very fatty:

Accompanied by a steamed bass and a plate of barbeque meats, it made four dishes - sorry mum that it is not a lucky number of dishes, but they were enormous!