Aaron Irving – Nightshadow

So, while waiting for my father to negotiate the purchase of his new honda bike I went for a walk and discovered Dr Jekyll- a funky cafe in St Kilda (107 grey street). Anyway the place had a good vibe to it, looks funky, friendly staff and the menu looked good. I didn’t eat there unfortunately but will do soon. The coffee was awesome, unfortunately I didn’t see the brand. A nice rich deep and nutty flavor. Flavour! Stupid American spellchecking in this iPad app. Anyway, check out the cafe. A good little find, basically the corner of barkly and grey.

As most of you know – Melbourne has some damn good coffee. It has some crap coffee and a lot of average coffee, but yes, some damn good coffee. The problem is – you find a good place and then some toss* like Matt Preston writes a review and voila – busy as hell. Two of my favourite places have slowly declined in quality that much that I don’t even want to go there anymore.

Liar Liar in hawthorn, just hasn’t been the same since the owner sold it and moved on. The new staff just can’t cut it and I have actually had bad coffees from there. The vibe is just all wrong aswell.

Chimmy’s in Richmond – again just can’t cut it with the crowds lately. Cold meals, massive waits and then the coffee is more often average than not lately. Very disappointing based on how good it has been in the past. They have all their fresh-baked goodness though.

A lot of places are just dishing out mediocre coffees as they can’t handle the amount of people anymore… I blame the write-ups for all the extra people. It certainly can’t be the global financial crisis.

Anyway there is hope. The dancing Goat in the city. St Ali in sth Melbourne. Artichoke and Whitebait @ Monash. Jones @ Chadstone. Ilios at Richmond. The new merlo place in degraves. Di Bella in nth melbourne or at the vic markets. The green room @ Brunwsick. BBB also in the city and lat but not least, BBB’s sister – Seven Seeds at Carlton. There are plenty of other Gems around but Seven seeds takes the cake.

Definitely my pick of the cafes in melbourne at the moment.

One day soon I will do up a list of all the good cafes/coffee places to visit.

Awesome.

The piece, by Peter Greenaway, is pretty impressive. A unique mix of artwork, lighting, music and pojector/cinematography. Short (20mins) but sweet. I found the use of lighting/projector on top of a fixed painted image to be a pretty decent blend of skills. If you are in Melbourne – it is going on for another 2 weeks. http://www.melbournefestival.com.au/program/production?id=3505 Check it out.

SO – priorities. Trying to finish thing that NEED to get finished and sorted. Also trying to organise time better so there is minimal waste. Getting there.

Now some random thoughts – TV: is crap, especially in australia. There are very few shows I like to watch. Bones, rush, nciis and occasionally csi. SO there is now a new tv channel (on freeview) called GO. It is basically a second ch 9 tv channel – where they show all the shows they canned. I like the crap shows!

Cars: So, I’m a little sad. The proton is gone. traded in. But i’m over it. Got a used 5yr old peugeot 307 xse (2l, 5dr hatch, 100kw). It’s nice. the leather seats a tiny bit cold when your skin touches them after work and melbourne is 8 degrees. – but it warms up fast enough.

Melbourne is awesome – still love being here – even with the sporadic weather patterns. Last weekend was so beautiful on the saturday arvo at a chilli cookoff in a brewery in the yarra valley. The sunday was bucketting down in rain. c’est la vie. Still managed to visit one winery. p.s. coldstream brewery rocks.

Sitting in the lounge room watching soccer, chatting to steph, chilling (feel too sick to do any work) and yeah – the soccer is streaming through the mac onto the TV c/o iinet/telstra fox sports online. In case you haven’t guessed – the new premier league season has started. It is lookig interesting. Arsenal and liverpool are both playing well now, and Man utd is playing crap. WIll be interesting.

Haven’t watched b’ham or the wolves play yet – burnley was looking ok though.

So this morning I wander on down to the proton, which I have finally paid off the student loan for, and it was covered in ice. colder weather is starting to kick in. None of this crappy brissy ice on the windscreen, it was virtually covered in ice. c’est la vie.

damn students loans are evil, as soon as you are “expected” to graduate they hit you with bigger interest.. nothing compared to a normal personal loan, but still. I want to buy before the end of the year, need to save $$$$.

blah, almost time for the coffee van to arrive.

Crust Pizza (Burked Rd, Camberwell) is the worst gourmet pizza place I have been to. $15.50 for a piece of crap that ended up having half of it thrown away. The base was good, so they did well with the crust. that’s it. Perhaps they should sell bases to other pizza places. Anyway, my calzone was not much better, absolutely dripping in tomato juice and oil. Totally crap. Just thought I’d rant about it.

P.S. Here’s a photo to relieve your boredom from the above rant.

why do melbournites dress so casually, yet it still looks cool.

why do they drive 20-30kms over or under the speed limit, but never at the speed limit.

why does the monash-westgate bridge upgrade project have mythical “roadworks” underway with reduced speed-limits (for months).

why does indomart sell organic, preservative free 500g tubs of tofu for only $1.80.

why does gelsolin give me issues cloning one fragment, but not another.

why does PKR never abide by the rules.

why do coated peanuts taste so good.

why is steph so hot.

why does nastro azzuro taste so good

just a few questions I have thought of recently.

So, I haven’t been out in melb too much yet, but gradually doing it. Our adventures took us to the Abbotsford convent which was built in 1861 or something. Right near the centre of melbourne (Carlton), next to the Yarra.

We also managed to get to the Howqua river, near lake eildon, for a day.

Ahh (one of) my local asian supermarket is good. Fresh organic tofu, 1/2kg $1.50. KohKae coconut cream coated peanuts at half the normal price. Redbean buns, BBQ pork buns, $3 for 4. And the awesome cashew/honey candy thing.

This concept called seasons is quite interesting. Spending the last 23 yrs in brissy and the last quarter of a century up north really alters your view. Melbourne has seasons. stable summer and unpredictable "other". The other can be a mix of the three stereotypical seasons. Today is 9-20 degrees, rain, no rain, a bit of sun, the no sun.

Don’t get me wrong, I am liking it, just quite different.

p.s. I like tunes, and vanilla biscuits from floriana’s and wine and coffee and my new merrel shoes and my new couch from freedom that will arrive tomorrow and stephs return from her rural rotation TODAY!