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My lovely friend Martin came back from London recently and brought me a magazine with a feature on Melbourne. Now bear in mind that I haven’t been back ‘home’ since the Sidney Olympics and nostalgia doesn’t take long to hit.
The writer, Ruby Rockwell, spent seven days documenting her eating adventures in a lovely little article. I think I could have done a better job, so any editors out there, if you’re looking to commission a piece then feel free to get in touch: joanna@ephemeraldigest.com.
The following is a list of only some of the things that I could add.
Melbourne Airport – I practically grew up there. My mother was station manager at an airline and my sister and I would spend our Saturdays or Sundays there. I once found a game of Frogger with unlimited credit and had the most amazing afternoon.
Lygon Street – Pizza by the metre and New Zealand waffle cone ice cream. On hot muggy nights, we would drive to Lygon St and just get out and about.
Carlton – a particularly European area and I know we visited many family friends there but can’t remember if we stayed in a flat on top of someone’s shop for a while in between moving houses.
The alleyways in the city centre make up some of my favourite memories. Book stores, boutiques, jewelry stores, domed roofs and amazing tiles. Coffee shops and restaurants and windows with displays of lingerie.
St Kilda with its Luna Park where I’ve been at least once and ridden on the roller coaster. I also went to a Simply Red concert with my sister just near there.
Queen Victoria Market is where my dad used to take us and we’d come away with a box of manderins and Spanish donuts. There were so many aisles and so much food
China town. Swanston St. Westfield. Chadstones with my grandparents. Phillip Island to see the Penguins (not quite Melbourne obviously but still).
Myers, David Jones and the food hall for the fudge and random treats. Brunch on Keilor Rd. Coffee at Pellegrinis.
Brunswick St in Fitzroy became cool only after I left in 1993 but my sister showed me around and we went for a drink at a bar on a terrace. Smith St has much the same feel to it, nothing to me, but plenty of cool for others. Vague familiarity with Clarendon St in South Melbourne.
A quirky thing about Melbourne that could keep me entertained for days was the price of petrol. There is no (or at least there was no) blanket pricing schedule with slight variations. There were dramatic differences between service stations and days of the week. Petrol could be 70 cents a litre at one station and up to 90 or down to 50 cents in another.
Another Melbournian peculiarity is that pizza from local places has a layer of ham – not flat slices but small cut up bits. Bizarre.
Favourite memory of going to the independent Cinema Kino and watching Gas, Food, Lodging and then having lattes in small water glasses, as was the fashion, somewhere in the city with my sister. We also saw My Mother’s Castle.
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