Melbourne Restaurants and Bars - Eat Drink
From morning to midnight and back again, EAT/DRINK is ThreeThousand's guide to cafes, bars and restaurants in Melbourne. We know the best coffee because we drink 20 a day (each), we know the good restaurants because we can't cook, and we'll tell you where to find hidden bars and other places that still let you smoke so that we can ask you for a cigarette when you get there. EAT/DRINK is as voracious as our appetites and a much better filter than our livers, which stopped working a long time ago. Email your EAT/DRINK suggestions to: talk@threethousand.com.au
Roasters' Week
When I was a Christian, Mum would always invite a bunch of families back to our place after Sunday night worship for cups of International Roast. We had a humongous tin that lasted for most of the eighties, miraculously never losing its flavour. Ahh, it was the best of times.
The Roasters' Week program, despite its title, has no mention of that classic cuppa.
Arvo Tea
Sunday Reed may no longer be around to host her infamous afternoon teas, whiling away the hours in her heart-shaped garden, sipping on home-brew chamomile, but she lives on in the rolling green landscape of Heide and the gardens that she so artfully planted. Through the tomfoolery of time, Sunday and I could not have met in this life, however it is possible to become acquainted with her through the Food and Wine Festival's Arvo Tea.
An Evening of Offal
Offal, as far as culinary tastes are concerned, is deeply divisive. Melbourne, by a combination of empirical reality and a smug sense of multiculturalism, prides itself on the diversity and quality of its food. But there are so many people who, despite otherwise adventurous eating habits, recoil in terror at the idea of a "variety meat".
Edible Garden
There are two types of home gardeners in this world. There's the "Would you like some of these plums? Or a little basil? I've got so much growing out the back I don't know what to do with it all!" and the "Why is my mint dying? And how can I keep those little f*ckers from eating my lettuce?" According to Vinegar: 1001 Practical Household Uses, you can spray semi-eaten leaves with, you guessed it, vinegar.
Middle Eastern Bakery Tours
Sydney Road - that most literally titled of roads, that impossibly sluggish thoroughfare, home of many a discount fabric store and the esteemed Savers fashion emporium. The main stretch of Brunswick is known for many things, but the jewel in its crown must surely be the dazzling array of Turkish and Lebanese bakeries.
Next Door Diner
In 2007, Kati Bottomley realised there was nowhere to get a decent cup of coffee around her ‘hood, so she opened a sweet café called the Breakfast Club in the front room of her house. A few years on, she is not only sorted for caffeine and celebrity-themed breakfasts, but also a nice glass of Shiraz and pigs cheek on toast at her brand new bar/diner.
Mad Mex
Conventional wisdom holds that Mexicans come from the South, so how do you explain it when one that you've only seen up North in Sydney arrives in Melbourne? Well the thing is you can't explain it - but you can be grateful for it.
Mad Mex takes all the good things about Mexico: flavour, cheapness, Corona, and funny accents, while eschewing the bad things like disorganisation, drug lords and dirtiness.
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