My five readers are well aware that over the past year and a half I did nothing but mope around the house feeling sorry for myself, hating that I had a bad heel, and couldn't walk. And I ate a lot.
Then last month I went to the dentist, had a crown put in, and could only eat mush for a month. So when I hit Melbourne a fortnight ago, I was rarin' to go. Both footwise and foodwise.
I loved the Queen Victoria market. It is so huge, both indoors and outdoors. I purposely picked a hotel that was almost on the QV Market's doorstep just to be near the figs! I love fresh figs. They're sold in farmers' markets up the top of the north island but down here in Wellington, sigh, we never ever see them.
I shouted myself to a buffet lunch at the upmarket Observatory Restaurant at the Crown Casino Tower. I was in the act of demolishing my twelfth oyster direct-from-the-shell when I bit down on a piece of shell. I was petrified I might have destroyed my new $1650 tooth. But, crisis avoided.
At one restaurant - Othellos - I had to wait an hour and a half for my order. If I hadn't been trudging around Melbourne for hours already, I would have walked out, like so many other diners did. I was just pleased to rest my feet. On that day, there had been a marathon-y sort of race right through the heart of the city with thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people participating. I guess Othello's hadn't figured on so many people thronging the restaurants. The burger I finally got was nothing to write home about. I feel my order shouldn't have been accepted in the first place.
Below dessert choices from the Conservatory Restaurant buffet.
Below the Conservatory Buffet, Crown Towers
Some of the inside space at Queen Victoria Market.
My meal at Othellos Restaurant Melbourne
Below: a do-it-yourself pancake machine in restaurant at my hotel in Melbourne.
A pancake machine? Really? I pressed a button and a pancake came out! This reminded me of the food replicators on the sf tv programmes "Red Dwarf" or "Star Trek". Is it, perhaps, what classy chefs are really doing out back in their kitchens, and we pay through the nose for something called, maybe, "Pancake a la Posh".....?
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