MelbourneStaycation.com

Something exciting is happening in Little Lon.  For the first 100 years of Melbourne’s life, it was infamous as a “den of inequity” – reputedly bustling with prostitutes and opium.  From 1948, a clean up of this “street of evil” followed and the area became, well, fairly boring.  Melbourne institution Rue Bebelons started a change [...]

A Sydney photographer explores a different suburb of her city each week in the blog @52suburbs. She discovers a microcosm of the world in her own city. If you’re having a staycation in Melbourne, you can do the same. In this vein, I visited Bikaner Cafe in ‘Little India’, Dandenong. Named after a Rajasthani town, [...]

  Do you ever get cabin fever?  I find it sets in if I am at home for too long.  It comes on suddenly and then I really need to get out – to somewhere I want to go, rather than somewhere I have to go.  On a recent afternoon like that, I headed to [...]

We expected Harry Potter and his classmates to file into the dining room and take a seat at the long tables with their sturdy wooden chairs. However, if these wood panelled walls could talk, it would not be of wizardry, but of deals done and laws negotiated. We were at Parliament House, where all Victorian [...]

Fairfield Boathouse is a place where time appears suspended. Lazing on the picnic tables with the conversation of friends eddying about, I savour the sunny afternoon. Even the dalmatian at the feet of the neighboring table is sprawled out with his sleepy eyes resting above his front paws. My lazy mind drifts towards the waters’ [...]

Sitting cramped in my economy seat, and with many hours of flying left, I turned to the airline magazine to distract myself.  There was a photograph of a luscious strawberry covered torte.  I felt like biting into the photograph!  I thought to myself, where is this place? I scanned the article.  The answer was Hausfrau [...]

This is a story of a working collaboration between two women that spans more than a quarter of a century.  Together, they are Maria’s Trattoria.  One works front of house and the other back of house.  They have been providing hearty Italian meals and a warm welcome to Melburnians for more than 25 years.  This [...]

A tarot reader and $20 tagines beckon me to Mosq on a Tuesday night.  I like to curl up on the day bed and enjoy the Moroccan surroundings. This restaurant has been fitted out in style, with an ambience that promotes chill out time. The $20 tagines are a Tuesday night special: most dishes are [...]

Looks like lamb, tastes like lamb, but is not lamb!  Welcome to the world of Enlightened Cuisine.  This Chinese restaurant draws on ancient Buddhist cuisine and serves up a particular speciality: mock meat! The menu lists meat as well as vegetarian dishes.  However, the meat dishes are in fact vegetarian.  Confused?  Using ingredients such as [...]

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I have a thing for Stalactites’ fish soup.  It is a lemon rice soup (and I add extra lemon) with fish.  Every now and then, usually sometime between midnight and 3am, I get the craving and I just need to have it!  It often occurs after a [...]