Archive for August 5, 2009
The Elves in Melbourne!
I had to go to Melbourne for work on Monday, so I booked a flight for Yankee Elv and we went down a day early to take in the city. It was a good way to amalgamate travel costs and reduce emissions. We flew carbon neutral, which was surprisingly cheap, only $3.08 per flight, which is about a third of a tonne of emissions. It’s the first time Yankee Elv has been there, so it was fun!
So what kind of ELV-esque stuff did we see?
The Queen Victoria markets have a really big open-air section for fruit and veg, and one whole big aisle of it is for organic food. It was huge and pretty cool. If we lived in Melbourne we’d definitely shop there. In contrast, the West End markets up here have only a few organic stalls and they all cost a fortune. The ones in the Queen Victoria markets were fairly reasonably priced. Yankee Elv bought an orange for breakfast the next day.
The organics aisle at the Queen Victoria markets.
Melbourne is known for it’s cafe culture, so we tried out a place I’d never seen before – Hudsons Coffee. It looked like a one-off sort of place, but once I got inside and started ordering, I realised it was some kind of franchise, not dissimilar to Starbucks (with better atmosphere), which was a bit disappointing. It was cosy and warm in there though, and we’d already paid for drinks, so we stayed. I couldn’t figure out why they served our drinks in paper cups and our food in paper bags, rather than using crockery since we were eating in the cafe. Weird – and wasteful.
Disposable junk at Hudsons.
Speaking of cosy and warm, Melbourne is cold, and apparently even the locals agree. Why else would you see restaurants with signs advertising heated couches? I wonder how much energy that wastes…
Heated couches!
Public transport is pretty good in Melbourne, and a fair number of people ride bikes… probably about the same as Brisbane.
Trams and cycling and horses, oh my!
I’m not sure how I feel about the use of electric trams. I think they’re better than diesel or even natural gas buses (are they? fossil fuels still go towards the production of electricity), but the wires look ugly and they make the road rules weird! Plus, they scare the horses.
The trams scared the poor horses. Horses shouldn't be in the city anyway!
When I was working on Monday, Yankee Elv checked out this little veg*n fast food place called Lord of the Fries, right on the corner of Flinders St and Elizabeth St. She loved it – apparently the nuggets were particularly awesome. I like that there’s a veg*n food venue in such a populated place. It always seemed to have plenty of customers. I wonder if that’s because they don’t seem to advertise too much that they’re veg. When I was first in Melbourne and looking for a place to eat, I didn’t realise they were veg and I asked if they had any vege burgers. Needless to say, they looked at me a bit weirdly. At the time I felt like Indian though, so I didn’t get anything from there. I will next time though!
Veg*n fast food, Lord of the Fries.
And of course, no trip to Melbourne is complete with a stop at Taco Bill for dinner. Be warned though – although they make the most awesome chocolate mousse ever in the entire universe (that I’ve tasted), it’s not vegan (just vegetarian). I’m not an official convert yet.
Taco Bill and me.
Tell me about your favourite ELV-ish place in Melbourne!
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