Melbourne Part 4

My final Melbourne post! The Monday we spent in Melbourne was my 35th birthday. We started with a celebratory breakfast at Matcha MylkBar in St Kilda (also my first time going to St Kilda). Matcha MylkBar has a long list of very silly sounding hot drinks. I would have loved to try so many of them, but I only had room for two. I started with a warming Apple Pie Latte (applie cider, apple pie spice, cinnamon).



Ashleigh got the Potato Leek Rosti with Asparagus, Truffle Hollondaise and a Vegan Poached Egg. It was meant to have their new vegan fried egg, but they had sold out. She also got some Almond Fetta on the side.



I ordered the Heirloom Tomatoes, Fresh Avocado, Almond Fetta, Kale Pesto and Crispy Kale on toast, with a side of potato leek rosti and shiitake bacon. I know, I know. The vegan ordered essentially a fancy avocado toast. Also a vegan egg. The vegan egg I ordered cautiously as it is coconut based (and sweet potato), but after talking with them it transpired that it is more a coconut and almond milk blend, no heavy coconut oil or cream. So it didn't make me sick. It was pretty good in terms of texture, but taste wise is nothing like an egg. Definitely more a sweet thing (which they mention). Everything else was pretty nice, though the avocado was on top of everything and not on the actual toast! I had to move off the tomatoes to spread it onto the toast. I will make a mention of the toast, which was their own GF bread made from cactus flour. It was sensational!



I finished off breakfast with a sweet treat in my favourite colour - pink! They had cruffins (croissants baked into muffin shapes and filled), and I picked a strawberry filled one. It was no way at the level of the Smith & Deli croissants, but it was pretty nice! I also had a Beetroot Latte with it (beetroot juice, dehydrated beetroot, blood orange, chocolate), which was earthy and nice.





I would have loved to have tried some of their other lattes, like the carrot cake latte and the charcoal latte. And looking at their menu now I see they have a new latte that has peanut butter and purple sweet potato in it... can someone send me one of those immediately please?

After brunch, we went for a little stroll around the St Kilda waterfront.





We headed back into the city and checked out some of the free exhibitions at ACMI, as well as hitting up some of the cute geek shops in the city for Neko Atsume and Tokidoki Unicorno collectibles. For lunch I went to one of my favourite places, Supercharger. You can pick from a whole selection of different components to put together your lunch. I don't really remember what I picked, but it was tasty.



After this we had planned on going to the Art Gallery (which had so many cool things going on), however I was given the birthday gift of a crushing headache. So what actually happened is I had to go back to our room and lie down in the dark for two hours until it lifted. Oh well. At least it lifted in time for me to enjoy the Smith & Deli Strawberry & Cream tart I had been saving for my birthday.

For dinner we met up with my friend Jess and my brother (who was also visiting Melbourne) at Neko Neko, a Japanese place that has several vegan options. I love Japanese! Plus they have homemade soy iced matcha in adorable bottles!



We ordered everything to share. Starting with the Eggplant Dengaku and the Tofu Agedashi, both of which came with a fun plate with several different little mounds of different tasty things. They were both great, but the dengaku sauce was particularly amazing.





We also shared the vegan ramen. They make their own vegan ramen noodles, however as two of our party were GF we got it with rice noodles. I suspect it would have been better with the actual ramen noodles (also in other photos I have seen the gluten full vegan ramen seemed to have additional toppings), but it was still good.



Finally we got the Raw Okinomiyaki. This really in no way resembled okonomiyaki, but was more like a delicious (if rich) nut cheese terrine.



Afterwards we walked to Casa del Gelato for some dairy free sorbets.



Tuesday was our final morning in Melbourne, and we of course headed back to Smith & Deli one last time. This time I got the Egg McMartinez for breakfast. It has a tofu egg, bacon and cheese and chose aioli and BBQ sauce to go on it.



I had hoped to stock up on a lot of yummies to take home with me, but unfortunately they didn't have much. They are closed on Sunday and Monday, and it was early on Tuesday morning, so there wouldn't have been enough time for everything to be fully stocked I guess. I did get a mulled wine brownie to take home.



Then we headed off to the airport. On the way, we stopped at Lord of the Fries to get a second breakfast. I got the mini Tibet (tofu egg, cheese, mayo, mustard) with a hash brown. It was adequate.



On the flight home I was given another vegan meal, this time a warm curry wrap, though I didn't take a photo. Then it was home and into the furry embraces of my living kitties. I always love visiting Melbourne, the food is just so good. I am not sure when I will get a chance to get there again, but I will enjoy the memory of this trip for a long time to come.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Back in my second Melbourne post I shared a photo of Morgan, one of the cats that Leigh was looking after. This is Buster, the other cat. Super silly and fun.