[Melbourne 2022] Moons Licensed Espresso Bar @ Lorne (On Our Way to Twelve Apostles - The Great Ocean Road Trip)

It was the day of the Great Ocean Road drive adventure and it'll take us an approximate of about 4 hours if we drove all the way from Mornington Peninsula. Took the Sorrento-Portsea ferry to Queenscliff with our car so that we get a head-start to the Great Ocean Road drive. This cuts down our driving time to just under 2 hours. The ferry costs about AUD117 per car with 1 driver and 3 passengers. There was an online discount of AUD5.

The morning ferry ride was nice, with awesome views. We made a late lunch stop at Lorne before going all the way to Twelve Apostles.

Moons Espresso Bar

Reached Lorne at about 1pm and, I was quite hungry since our breakfast was kinda early at 9am on the ferry.  Chose the outdoor seats to enjoy the cold weather. Opted for a mocha and we decided to order brunch things from this cafe.

Mocha by Coffee Supreme @AUD5 (regular)

The mocha here was good. With latte art and thick foam. In fact, they had the thickest foam I've ever had from a mocha.

thicc

For food, we ordered the Bacon, Avo and Eggs, and some flatbreads. The visuals for these were impeccable!

Bacon, Avo and Eggs @AUD26

flowy eggs ftw

While I was awed by the visuals of the Bacon, Avo and Eggs, I realised that the pide had better flavours!

Reuben @AUD17

When I first saw the Reuben, my thoughts were "This doesn't look like a Reuben!". Like, the Reuben's that I had before, their pastrami doesn't look like the ones served at Moons. The version here looked more like a ham sandwich. But once I had this in my mouth, oh wow... it was like an explosion of flavours. The combination of sauerkraut, dijonaise sauce, pickles, cheese and pastrami, everything in there was just great. Tasty food, I like.

B&E @AUD16.50

The next flatbread we had was another Bacon and Egg (B&E). Hahaa! A sunny side up here instead of poached. Salty bacon, cheese and egg. What's there not to like?

yummy bacon and eggs pide

The staff at Moons were friendly and nice. Thank you for the awesome food, good coffee and clean washroom.

We walked a bit around the area after satisfying our tummies and there's a Selfie Lane, that's aptly named as it looked like the backdrop for a... selfie, what else! Hahaa!

Selfie Lane

nature came to visit

Moons Licensed Espresso Bar

Address: 108 Mountjoy Parade, Lorne VIC 3232, Australia

Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Moons-Licensed-Espresso-Bar/151388288234772

Business Hours:

Daily: 7AM–2:30PM

[Melbourne 2022] South Melbourne Market @ Coventry Street

We visited South Melbourne Market at least twice during our stay in Melbourne. Best of all, it has a food hall where there's table and chairs for diners to enjoy their food and drinks bought from the various food shops. We also did our grocery shopping for meats like lamb cutlets and beef steak.

fresh seafood

We became quite fond of Aptus Seafood. Kept going back for their lobsters and sashimi. Here's a look of what we ate from Aptus.

The scallops were kind of a gamble though. We bought two and one was sweet and the other was just bland. I had forgotten which type of oysters we had gotten but it was of a mid-range price. Plump and briny, and tasted best with a squeeze of lemon. The sea urchin was huge! Hahaa, it wasn't as funky as I'd thought it would be. Pretty nice but watch out for the some of those spiny stuffs that might break off.

scallops

yummy oysters

sea urchin

sashimi grade tuna, salmon and king fish

The sashimi of 3 types of fish was at about AUD60+. Averaging at about AUD2.50 per piece. Loved the sashimi. Fresh and naturally tasty even without soy sauce and wasabi.

I was shocked when we had lobsters on our first visit to this market. Lobsters for brunch? OK! I think it was about AUD47 per piece.

Mornay Bay Rock Lobster

cheesy

have a bite!

We tried the grilled lobster with cheese and another time, we had one which was more like a lobster salad. If you're very fond of cheese, then the grilled cheese lobster had plenty. If you're a fan of potato salad, then the lobster salad would be the right choice. Both have plenty of meat but you could taste more of the lobster flavour in the salad version. The potato salad was very good too! Both ways, we enjoyed every bite.

Lobster salad

food hall

let's walk walk

I loved walking at the outer market area to see the vegetables and fruits.

peppers and root vegetables

i yam what i yam

potatoes galore!

The coffee from Padre was pretty much to my liking. We got our magic from there. Thanks Hence for queuing for it!

magic

But what is this mysterious magic coffee that exists in Melbourne? Magic coffee is made when steamed milk is added to a double ristretto, made from espresso. Normally served in a 5oz cup (160ml). In comparison, piccolo is 3 to 4oz (85 to 114ml).

At the moment, I don't think there's any cafe/coffee shops that serves magic in Singapore. If you know of any, do let me know. Thanks in advance!

Definitely felt more alive after having coffee.

Oh, there's a nice Pie Shop here to satisfy our pie cravings. 

Pie Shop

Guinness Beef Pie

yummy beef pie

Chicken Pie

inner view of chicken pie

K is for...

Hence asked me to guess what does the 'K' imprinted on the pie stands for. I didn't go with them to buy so could only taste some to guess.

hmmm

Wow, this tasted even funkier than the sea urchin! Hahahaa. K stands for Kidney pie. Wookay, I wouldn't want to eat this again. Give me Guinness Beef Pie, anytime! The chicken pie was nice too but not my preference. The pie is about AUD10 for a one pax portion. There's family sized pies too.

Ivan said we must get the cannoli from Cannoleria. It was unforgettable for him.

Cannoleria

one of each please

pretty box of cannoli

Sicilian

Chocolate

One thing to note is not to leave out the cannoli for too long. Enjoyed the crisp shell and the various fillings. Loved that it wasn't too sweet.

We were intrigued by a shop that sells dim sim. So, we had to get some to try to verify if all fried dim sim taste the same.

let's queue for some dim sim

looks good

sesame prawn toast @AUD4.20

tasty prawn toast

The prawn toast was kind of pricey but it was surely tasty. Happy to report that the fried dim sim here was so much better than the other one that I had tried. Keke. Steamed one I didn't enjoy that much probably because it was already cold when I ate it.

pork dim sim (steamed)

pork dim sim (fried)

There are recycle bins around the market for us to dispose the empty containers etc. There's even special ones to dispose of coffee cups. 

recycle bin

South Melbourne Market

Address: 322-326 Coventry St, South Melbourne VIC 3205, Australia

Website: https://www.southmelbournemarket.com.au/

Business Hours:

Closed on Mon, Tues, Thurs.

Sat, Sun, Wed: 8am–4pm

Fri:  8am–5pm

Aptus Seafood

Website: https://www.aptusseafoods.com.au/

Pie Shop

Website: https://emeraldhillprovedore.com.au/pages/small-town-pie-co

Padre Coffee

Website: https://www.padrecoffee.com.au/pages/south-melbourne

Cannoleria

Website: https://www.cannoleriabythatsamore.com.au/

[Melbourne 2022] Top Paddock Cafe @ Richmond Victoria

A Melbourne icon, so how can we miss the chance to visit since we were within the vicinity. Although our bellies were still rather full from all the scones, vanilla slice and coffee earlier on...

The place was bustling with customers, not surprisingly since it was on the weekends when we visited. Lucky us, we managed to get a table.

menu

latte

affogato

Breakfast Salad

The breakfast salad sure looked pretty. Plus, it has kale. I love kale. The pumpkin puree was sweet and enjoyable. By the way, what is tamari seeds? Are they like sunflower seeds? It added crunchy texture to the dish. This salad came in miso dressing and with a poached egg. Overall, lovely flavours and I can't say no to more vegetables!

Ivan said we must try the hotcake. So we did. But I didn't know it would be this huge! Wow.

Blueberry & Ricotta Hotcake

The seasonal berries then, was strawberries. Presentation was on-point. And more toasted seeds! But I do think the addition of the flower petals was kinda cool.

The hotcake itself was denser than I thought it would be. But then, I haven't had any ricotta hotcakes for like.... forever. 

of blueberries, hotcakes and cream

The food was good and the staff are friendly. I was so stuffed after this.

Top Paddock Cafe

Address: 658 Church St, Richmond VIC 3121, Australia

Website: https://thetoppaddock.com/

Contact: +61 3 9429 4332

Business Hours:

Mon-Fri: 7am–4pm

Sat-Sun: 8am-4pm