Mia's Weekend Getaway: Mia Eats Australia - Sweet Treats!

As I've mentioned so many times in my previous Australia trip posts that I'll do a separate entry about sweet treats, here it is! Just in case you haven't noticed, I have a major sweet tooth! 

And my current obsession?  Macarons, AKA French Macaroons. 

Yup, these 3 macarons were from The Acland Cake Shop at St. Kilda, and they were at $2.50 AUD per piece if I'm not wrong. I've gotten them in Chocolate, Coffee, and Earl Grey (a flavour I always wanted to try). These macarons were somehow rather disappointing. Very sweet, especially the Earl Grey, which has this medicine kind of sickening sweetness to it (yikes!), and the macaron shells were all the way crunchy and very airy. IMO, a good macaron shell needs to be crunchy on the outside yet turns chewy on the inside. These macarons has failed to make the cut. Taste wise, were mediocre as well.

Next up was the oversized macarons at Queen Victoria Market, obviously selling at $2.80 AUD per piece unless distressed. I only bought one, and also my favourite salted caramel, to try out. Frankly speaking, they didn't look like a macaron at all because they're so big! They looked more like a mini-burger or a melting moment biscuit. Eating it was pretty tough too, because i couldn't crunch down in one bite. In the end I gotta bite off the top shell first then bite the bottom shell and felt like a kid eating a Big Mac, no joke.

Taste wise, they were definitely better than those at St. Kilda. The texture was more similar to macarons at Pique Nique, more solid and more 'cakey'. Taste wise, it's a pretty standard salted caramel taste. However, due to its size, I'll say it's pretty worth the money. *rofl*

Finally, my last macaron from the trip, La Belle at Chadstone Shopping Centre. 

 

The store reminded me of Laduree, very similar! 

 If i'm not wrong it was $3 to $3.20 AUD per piece (YS's treat so I didn't know how much it was!) and I got their Raspberry Chocolate. Selection of flavours wise, they were pretty similar with Laduree as well. And the taste too! A little too sweet (just like how Laduree is, to me) but texture wise was perfect. As you can see from the picture the outside of the macaron shell was crunchy and slightly crumbly while the insides were dense and slightly airy, moist and chewy. 

But then again, $3.20AUD/$3.80 SGD per piece? I'll rather go back to Canele, no doubts about it.

Then there's the melting moment biscuit from Hope Bakery at Sovereign Hill. I couldn't quite remember how much it was, but it should be $2+ AUD. Have always heard of this Australian sweet treat (along with their Lemington Cake) but couldn't seem to find any in Singapore. I'll say they tasted pretty good! It's like a layer of lemon-flavoured cream sandwiched in two pieces of buttery, crumbly shortbread biscuits. Rather filling for a sweet treat, too! I wouldn't mind having them again if I ever find them in SG. :)

And then, more Churros! This was the churros from the Spanish Doughnuts franchise with one of the branch at Southern Cross Station. They had a wide range of selection of churros (at different prices) and I just went for the simple, glazed churros at about $2+ AUD. This churros is definitely a better churros than the one I had at L'Olivio. I can definitely taste that it's made from a Choux pastry, and they were fried until crispy on the outside and still slightly moist on the inside. However, the sugar glaze was too much and it felt like my churros was totally drenched in sugar syrup. Would have better preferred a cinnamon sugar one, but I didn't seem to find it there.

Lastly, this was my final sweet treat/meal I had in Melbourne. French Crepes! The small cafe was located at a small alley near Flinder's Station, just 5 to 10 minutes away. Can't remember the name of the cafe nor their price listing, sorry about that. 

 First up, their coffee. I remembered ranting about their bad coffee standards and finally I found a better one.  But that's because I went for a strong brew (double shot, perhaps) of their Mocha, and comparing this to any other coffee in Singapore, they're still bad. I really gotta taste it really carefully to find the coffee taste 'hidden' within this strong brew. Else, I'll just think of it as an unsweetened hot milo. Melbourne is definitely not my coffee place. 

 My choice of crepes for the day, Chocolate Banana crepes! There's definitely a generous serving of sliced fresh bananas and a huge drizzle of good chocolate sauce. However, I'll very much prefer those Japanese style crepes with a much thinner crepe skin. These french crepes are made very very much thicker, about 2 to 3x as thick, and so feels kinda 'mushy' and 'uncooked' in the middle. Well, I'm definitely not much of a crepes person and YS insisted that this was a very well done french crepes. I could hardly finish the crepes in the end because the texture of the crepes just got increasingly sickening to me. 

And that's YS's plain butter crepes, which really looked like a badly made roti prata to me.

And this basically concludes my entire series of entries for my weekend getaway to Australia. :) 

Till then,

Mia

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Mia's Weekend Getaway: Australia - Queen Victoria Market & Immigration Museum

 And so it was decided that today (my last full day in Melbourne) shall be Museum day! If you don't know me, I actually love 'spamming' museums while on oversea trips. Don't ask me why, I just do. And it has been decided since the day I touched down that we shall kick-start the day with some Spanish cuisine. Paella and Churros. :)

And so we popped by L'Olivo, the restaurant near YS's apt for brunch.

 Pretty obvious that we were their first customer of the day. 

 And there, our paella (which obviously serves 2 even though it wasn't specifically stated on the menu) - roughly about $26 AUD. 

I was pretty disappointed the moment it was served. You probably can't see the reason from the picture, though. It looks more like a risotto, being very moist, creamy and cheesy. The rice was also overcooked for a paella, missing the good bite of a medium cooked rice (though will be fine for a risotto), and the traditional layer of 'burnt rice' (MY FAVOURITE PART OF A PAELLA!) was also missing. 

If I'm not wrong, saffron should also be used in paella, which gives it the distinctive taste and yellow colour. (Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.) But with all the overdose of creamy cheese, I can't tell whether saffron was used at all. 

It was tasty though, extremely tasty. The seafood were all well done. Nothing was overcooked, not even the squid! The rice was (as I've said) thick and creamy, flavourful and savoury. However, the distinctive saffron & spice taste of a paella was missing, probably due to all the creamy cheese. And so were my favourite rice crust supposedly to be found in abundance at the bottom of the plate. 

All in all, I felt I was eating risotto when I ordered a paella.

Tasty, yes. But I was hardly satisfied. 

And then, our Churros - roughly $9 AUD. And if you haven't read my review on Kaixo, I've spend $14 SGD on an amount equivalent to just 1 stick of this churros I had at L'Olivo.

Once again, the Churros were disappointing. I would have preferred the ones I had at Southern Cross Station, which I shall touch on in my sweet treats entry. They're really just huge sticks of doughnuts drenched in icing sugar and served with some chocolate sauce. 

Where is the cinnamon?

Where is the distinctive 'star shaped' sticks?

 Once again, I ordered Churros and was served normal doughnut sticks with chocolate dip. 

They were good, but.... bleah, I wanted Churros. Not the doughnuts I can find in my local bakeries. 

After brunch, we travelled to Queen Victoria Market for a quick look. And guess what I saw upon stepping into the market (apart from the store at the corner selling all sorts of tea)? Some huge ass macarons!

 

 And they sell unpretty, distressed macarons at $9 AUD for a box of 5 or 6, can't remember the exact number of macarons in that box. Else, it's $2.80 AUD per piece.

Basically I got pretty bored at the market because it's all food, food, and more food products. The Paella and Churros were still fighting for space in my stomach. So nothing caught my attention, even though I did buy a piece of the oversized salted caramel macaron. I can never walk by a store selling macarons and buy nothing. heehee....

So after introducing the paella and churros to their new friend, salted caramel macaron, we hopped onto the tram again and got off at Flinder's Station.

Reminds me of Harry Potter, somehow. Don't ask me why.

And our 2nd destination for the day is just right down the street. Immigration Museum :)

Adult admission will be $10 AUD but with a student pass, you can get a concession entry, which is FOC.

Other than the permanent exhibitions, which educate us on the history of Australia relating to the migrants' diversified cultural background (hence the name, Immigration Museum, duh!), we were also lucky to see two temporary exhibitions, 'Seeking Refuge in Nhill', which is a photographic exhibition exploring the struggles and achievement of the Karen community in Nhill, and 'Faith Fashion Fusion', an exhibition exploring the fashion, faith and identity of the Muslim community.

My favourite exhibition of the permanent exhibitions has to be 'Journeys of a Lifetime'. 

No matter when they arrived, all immigrants are linked by the common experience of a journey.

Over the past two centuries the immigration journey to Australia has changed from a perilous sea voyage of up to 3 months to a routine flight lasting up to 24 hours. Changing transport has not only shortened the journey, but made it more comfortable and affordable.
The journey remains one of the most memorable aspects of any immigration experience.
The Journeys Gallery, also known as the Long Room of Old Customs House, features a 17-metre replica ship where visitors can experience the changes in sea travel first hand from the 1840s to 1950s.
-Credits to Immigration Museum-

 As you walked through the 'ship' from one end to the other, you can really see the difference on board the ship from the older days of 1840s to the later days of 1950s.

Other than the 'boathouse', I also quite enjoyed the exhibition of 'Getting In'.
Getting In was developed in response to market research conducted at the Immigration Museum that found visitors wanted to know more about the process of getting in to Australia, what people went through, who was accepted and who wasn't, and the effect this had on society.
The exhibition does this by exploring the history of immigration policy and how it has changed dramatically over the past two hundred years. Four timeframes outline the main threads in immigration policy: the gold rush days of the 1840s to 1900, Federation to the end of the Second World War (1901 to 1945), then post-war to the early seventies (1946 to 1972) and finally 1973 to the present day.
-Credits to Immigration Museum-

I enjoyed the interview room the most, as you really get to 'interview' applicants who are applying to get in to Australia, and vet through their applications. It also kind of serves as a rough gauge to how much you of their immigration policies you have understood from the exhibition.

As for the temporary exhibitions, I enjoyed 'Faith Fashion Fusion' more than the other. Even though the Nhill exhibition showcased some really brilliant photographs, the interviews of the ladies of the Australian Muslim community, which touched on their experiences and achievements, exhibited at FFF was really enjoyable and worth watching.

And now some random snippets at the museum. There was this corner whereby the walls were stuck with passports from all over the world. 

But we couldn't find Singapore! :(

And guess what's on the menu for dinner?
KOREAN FOOD! :) We came to this korean restaurant in the vicinity of Flinder's Station. (Sorry, can't remember the name of the restaurant) 

And as usual, I always order my favourite Yuzu tea.....

 

Some pajeon (seafood korean pancakes)....  

 My favourite korean food ever, jjigae! This time I got some soft beancurd seafood stew. 

And YS's chicken bulgogi.

Not going to do much review on this. It's just pretty standard korean food, just with a bigger quantity at (of course) a slightly higher price as compared to Korean food in Singapore. The ingredients (seafood for my stew) were also much fresher in comparison. But taste wise, I can safely say it's the same standards. However, I'll much prefer the pancakes I can find in Singapore. The pajeon we had there was much thicker than I would like them to be, and very "floury".

Next up will be my final post on my Aussie getaway, a combined entry on all sweet treats I've eaten! It'll be like a macaron galore. So do stick around!

Till then,
Mia

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Mia's Weekend Getaway: Australia - St. Kilda Beach

Upon reaching Melbourne, we noticed that the weather was pretty warm and the sun sorching bright. I almost thought that I was back in Singapore. So YS decided to head down to the beach while the weather is warm. So we quickly dropped our overnight bags back at her apartment and rushes off to catch the tram to St. Kilda. 

 

A few random shots of the neighbourhood. YS is really lucky to be staying extremely near her college and there's countless eateries within walking distance from her block. 

Took a shot at the oncoming tram. :)

My memories were vague, but it didn't take us very long to get to Acland street (two main streets of restaurants, cafes and shops) of St. Kilda's. To be honest, I didn't quite like it here. I'm a quiet and peaceful place lover when I travel, and this place was just way too crowded and noisy, so much so that I couldn't even be bothered to snap photos. 

We were there at about 5 plus and most of the shops were closed, leaving only the bakeries and restaurants opened. 

Why aren't our bakeries in Singapore like this? Why, oh why? Look at the crazy amount of pretty cakes and biscuits in the display window! I bought 3 macarons here (Earl Grey, Chocolate and Coffee), which I shall do a review on with other sweet treats in a separate post. 

Finally, with YS getting hungrier and me getting increasing frustrated from the crowd, we randomly picked a restaurant and popped in for dinner. 

I got a tomato based bacon spaghetti for the night. Couldn't quite remember the name of the dish nor the price, but it was about $25 AUD. Pretty pricey for a 'standard' pasta, even though the servings might be 1.5x of what we can get at PastaMania. Plus, I remember this was one of the cheaper pasta in the menu. I'll prefer a Zuppa Pasta back at PastaMania anytime! 

After dinner, we decided to take a leisure stroll down the beach to 'burn off the calories' and enjoy the nice weather and awesome view. 

And somehow we got obsessed with our own shadows. ROFL. 

Following the footpath along the beach and trail of some expensive looking restaurants, and down the bridge that cut across the waters, we got to the breakwater that is home to many penguins!

 Not sure if you can see them, but I definitely can. They're a tiny breed of penguin, crazily adorable as they waddled around, hopping from rock to rock to locate their nests. This little guy up there probably got confused by the bright lights (one of the staff's cellophane paper on the torch wasn't good enough and she directed this really bright lights at it) and couldn't locate its nest. At one point it came so close to me, right at my feet.
So there, Phillip Island is not the only place you can see penguins! But of course if you want to watch a colony of penguins marching in, Phillip Island is still the solution for you. :)

Another place you can drop by at St Kilda will be the small amusement park, Luna Park. We didn't even enter for a look because I'm so not a rides person. I took a snap of the entrance because YS asked, "Don't you feel this place look like Da Shi Jie?" Rofl. Yeah, that amusement theme park (or whatsoever fun place) we had in the 60s?

 Lastly, I just had to show off my bed in Melbourne for 2 nights. See the Minnie Mouse inspired pillow case I've got! :)

Till then,
Mia

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