12 Apostles, Great Ocean Road
Wee! I had the chance to visit the 12 Apostles! Naturally, a few of them aren't there for us to see anymore but it was still a beautiful sight to admire, especially with nice blue skies! It's a quick walk with different spots for you to take photos and if you want to enjoy the scenery even more, you can book a scenic helicopter ride for an even better view!
Mr Pilgrim, Chadstone (1341 Dandenong Rd)
Located on the rim outside of the shopping centre is Mr Pilgrim which is a nice little cafe with quite a few options for brunch. It's convenient when you're tired and want a break before you start your shopping spree again (which is exactly what we did!). It has a quiet ambience with a good mixture of liveliness and peaceful chattering amongst the tables. Even though it's only a stone's throw away from the shopping centre, it really takes you away from the hustle and bustle.
Do these make you drool!?! No? Well, they did for me! The moment I placed my eyes upon them, I vowed that I would get dessert no matter how full I might be after my meal. Well, it was brunch, so why not?
You've ordered at the counter and are now waiting for your food, so why not entertain yourself and others by playing tic tac toe? Actually, more than the game itself, I just had to take a photo of this because of the moustache pieces! They're so cute and funky! Needless to say, I played with the moustache pieces and lost most rounds haha!
Ever since I met my overly obsessed mango friend years ago, I've had this tendency to order a Mango Smoothie ($6.50) when my favourite option of rockmelon isn't available. However, this disappointed me. It was thick, creamy and milky with a nice fluffy and frothy texture but it had a really subtle mango taste that if you didn't know it was supposed to be mango, you wouldn't even notice that it was there. Although, this wasn't the best, it was cold and refreshing for a nice warm day.
After scrambling through photos on the Internet, we opted for Mr Pilgrim's Favourite ($15.50) which was gluten free. It's essentially their big breakfast option on the menu with mushrooms, sausages, eggs, bacon, tomato served with bread, Unfortunately, the bacon was slightly charred and the bread was a bit burnt and hard to cut. But the most unsatisfying part was the fact that the eggs were cooked thoroughly and so there was really no egg yolk oozing out the way I like it. Other than that, the sausages were soft and delicious and the mushrooms were amazing! I liked how thinly sliced they were and how juicy it was!
We've all got a soft spot for eggs, so when we chanced upon this photo on the Internet, we HAD to get it! This is the Spanish Baked Eggs ($14.50) which tasted wonderful! I would definitely recommend trying this! It was a tad bit oily and had way too many onions for the onion hater me but surprisingly, the onions didn't taste too bad. But the best thing about it was the soft and fluffy texture! In addition, every bite was so filled with flavour! It was slightly spicy with the chorizo sausage taste, which was wonderful and it complemented beautifully with the egg and cheese. It definitely tasted even better with the bread on the side! Be warned though, it can be slightly sickening after eating half.
Yes, I wasn't kidding, we got dessert too! Well, we shared this between four people so it wasn't overwhelming but dayum this was huge! It doesn't look too huge in the photo but I can attest that it was. It really was!! The Tiramisu slice ($7) was really good, it was very very creamy and was super soft and moist (which I absolutely adore!). Maybe a bit too much mascarpone cheese and coffee syrup for my tastes after having a couple of bites but it really brought out the flavour of it really well so I ain't complaining. It's one of those that'd make you really happy and guilty at the same time haha!
Il Gambero, Carlton (166 Lygon St)
After walking around Lygon St wondering where to dine amongst the crazy amount of shops to choose from, we decided to come to Il Gambero. Surprisingly, Lygon St felt like a Westernised version of Chinatown in Sydney where there would be at least one person outside of each shop trying to reel you in and promoting their menu etc. It felt really weird and interesting at the same time lol!
We had a few different pastas we wanted to try and so we grabbed the Mixed Pasta Platter (m $42.9) where we got to choose our choice of three different pastas on the menu served on a platter. After some consideration and discussion, we decided on (from left to right), the Pollo fettucine (pan-fried chicken pieces, mushrooms, spring onions and cream), Il Gambero fettucine (tiger prawns, garlic, fresh chilli, parsley, olive oil and a touch of napoli sauce) and Marinara spaghetti (clams, mussels, prawns, calamari, and scallops with olive oil and garlic).
The pasta here was quite good! Our undisputed favourite was the Pollo which had extremely creamy sauce that had a strong cheesy taste. If you're a fan of creamy cheese pastas, you'd definitely love this! The texture of the fettucine was well done and they were generous with the chicken, mushrooms and creamy sauce. I really craved for more!
It literally goes in order from left to right of our most favourite to the least favourite of ours haha. For the Il Gambero, it was a bit spicy but very refreshingly spicy which made it a big plus for me! It tasted like chilli mixed with tomato sauce and complemented well with the prawns as it didn't take away the freshness and taste of the prawns.
For the Marinara, we thought it came with napoli sauce but apparently that was optional and we didn't realise it and so this ended up tasting rather plain. It probably would've tasted much better if it had napoli sauce because the spaghetti was really soft and springy, it was basically the perfect texture! But as I mentioned, it had a subtle cheese and olive oil taste that really made it just taste like plain pasta with mussels.
After a long day of walking, we were famished by dinner time and thus we decided to get a Large Super Pizza ($20) as well. It had hot salami, ham, mushrooms, capsicum, olives, onions, prawns, pineapples and anchovies for toppings and we all thought it sounded really good but it was surprisingly unimpressive. I'm not sure if the olives had an alcohol taste or not but every time I bit into one, there was this strong and bitter smell and taste of some sort of alcohol that made this pizza very dissatisfying. I really liked that it was a thin pizza (I love these!) but the crust was hard and chewy. In addition, there sadly wasn't a prawn on every slice and the other toppings were a bit scarce as well. The sauce tasted just like tomato sauce mixed with some salt. Overall, I wasn't impressed with this.
If you're planning a visit here, I would recommend trying the pasta, especially the creamy one! But, overall, not too bad, not too good. I really wanted my pizza to taste better :(
La Roche, St Kilda (185 Acland St)
If you haven't noticed by now, my family and I love going around and trying out the big breakfasts everywhere and anywhere we can find. This time, my sister and her boyfriend recommended that we should at least try this place since we're all the way here in Melbourne and I have to say, it was worth waking up and crawling here like a zombie.
Sorry for the blurry photographs! Just realised that they were blurry haha! Obviously, I was so engrossed with digging in that I forgot to check whether it looked good or not haha! The Big Breakfast (normally $18 but is reduced to $12 on Saturdays and Sundays!) comes along with poached/fried/scrambled eggs on toasted Turkish bread with bacon, sausage, tomato and hash brown. I opted for the poached eggs because I ALWAYS get scrambled but I totally regretted it after seeing my friend's one (below)!
The poached eggs were tiny but pretty good. It would've been better if it was cooked for a shorter amount of time so that the yolk would ooze out more though. I was a bit sceptical about the Turkish bread at first but it went surprisingly well with the food! It was hard to cut but it was rather soft and fluffy. The hash brown was impressive. It was soft and lightly crispy on the outside, the way I love it! Bacon was pretty good, it was a bit dry but it was good with the fat hahaha! Surprisingly, the sausages were my least favourite because I usually love my sausages but this one tasted like one of those cheap sausages you buy that doesn't have much flavour and doesn't taste like any real meat was in it at all. However, it was nicely crisp outside and that made it taste a bit better.
This was the scrambled eggs version with a side of spinach!! Doesn't the portion look bigger and better?! I really regretted not getting the scrambled eggs after seeing it and once I tried a bit from my sister's plate, I wanted to cry! The scrambled eggs were so much better!! They were extremely soft and gooey and it felt like it was melting in goodness inside my mouth. I don't even know if that makes sense, but it was absolutely marvellous! I was really tempted to steal more from her haha!
Overall, I'd definitely go back to eat the big breakfast here when I visit Melbourne again in the future!
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