While some people crave chocolate, my cravings tend to be for savoury items like hot, fat chips or alternatively for spicy food. Food Safari the other night claimed that spicy food is perfect for hot, humid countries, as all the spices help stimulate the appetite. I don't know if that's true, but last Friday it was unseasonably wet and humid and all I wanted the entire day was spicy food. Lunch was with colleagues at a Korean restaurant, which kept me happy for a couple of hours. After work though, a few drinks with ...
Archives for 2007
For consistency in presenting a range of interesting repertoire I would have to nominate Red Stitch [again]. Red Stitch have mostly presented drama and strong drama at that. They wrapped their year with a scalding British play Motortown that took no prisoners. When they present comedy it is not usually light. Wild East by a writer that keeps defying the mainstream, April de Angelis, was a case of Red Stitch's 'funny peculiar' as opposed to 'funny ha-ha' comedy. Jack Goes Boating as a near exception. It felt like it was an offshoot of the Seinfeld school but in presenting it ...
Disclosure – one of the co-owners of Seamstress is my cousin. I don't "review", however this post might be more subjective than usual. Just for the record, no freebies were involved.Last week was my b-i-r-t-h-d-a-y. I felt a teensy weensy bit glum about getting older but knew that dinner at a restaurant would perk me up. Seamstress is located in a four-storey building on Lonsdale Street. In the building's past, there used to be an undergarment manufacturer, guilders, and a sweatshop. Nowadays, there's a basement bar, a ground floor kitchen, a first floor ...
Commit No NuisanceAlley off Bourke St (Near Spencer St), Melbourne'Commit No Nuisance', like, for example, tagging the wall next to the sign.
Old Newspaper signageErroll St, North MelbourneAah, the days of three major Melbourne Newspapers, page 3 girls, no advertising inserts or glossy magazines, and certainly no colour.
Wall ArtCaledonian Lane, Melbourne
On Saturday night we went out with some friends for some Korean food. There are a surprising number of Korean Restaurants here in Melbourne, although lately I noticed a few have disappeared. After discovering Seoul Garden on Exhibition St is no longer open, (and the building has probably been flattened by now) we walked back a block and spied the sign for Seoul House, upstairs on the corner of Lonsdale and Russell.
I like the idea of gardening. I love the idea of having a veggie patch and growing my own fruit and veg. Unfortunately, living in the inner city, we don't have enough dirt for a veggie patch. That's probably a good thing as I'm a terrible gardener. I still persist though. Mostly I grow things in pots – I tend to get all excited when the weather warms up and go to the garden centre and purchase potting mix, plants, and other associated planting items. All goes well for a few weeks, ...
I started a new job when I got back from my holiday, so I'm now one of those people who work in the city. Yey! Access to new shops and restaurants is very exciting. My credit card is a bit scared, but I'm very excited. The other week I had a lunch date with a friend, and her lovely 7 month old daughter at the European. The European is located on Spring St, next to the Princess Theatre. It's a moody little place – a long narrow dining room, black and white chequered ...
I don't know what happened to 2007. One moment it was shining before me, bright with everything that new years are supposed to be bright with, and then suddenly it was a long shadow streaming behind me. It's the sort of thing that makes you come over all philosophical, though I think some mischievous god has been playing with time.2007 has been a big year for Little Alison. After seven years hard
Following a previous post about some truly soul rejuvenating and memorable bowls of ramen we'd slurped on while on holiday in Christchurch NZ, Hungry Hamster left a comment enquiring about whether decent puveyors of ramen exist here in Melbourne. Well the short answer was that I really hadn't stumbled across that many to provide any decent recommendations. The best I could come up with was to
Lost in the WoodsGiven the synopsis from the media release that Brindabella is a "baroque fantasia", evoking both the "seductive danger" of the Australian bush and Jean Cocteau's film version of La Belle et le Bête (Beauty and the Beast) a lot of the audience were in for a shock. The publicity images were of pink draped and pretty young men lolling about in girlie underwear or less but what emerged was very different. In the event I was quite glad. Those images suggested to me more of an influence from Bavo Defurne’s films than anything by Msr. Cocteau.Using the ...
We went to see the Priscilla musical the other night and it was fabulous! If you enjoyed the movie you will love the musical. The singing was magnificent, particularly by the three main female singers (who sang all the songs that Bernadette, Mitzi and Felicia lip sync to). The costumes were gloriously OTT. I couldn't believe the amount of work put into some of them, particularly when several were only shown on stage for less than a minute. I was also happy to see that they had included the bus, Priscilla, on stage!As we were ...
Little Alison is still in reset mode. On Wednesday night she saw Lucy Guerin's Aether, a work of exquisite complexity and beauty, but can she find the words to describe it? (The audience is expected to shout out: "no, she can't!") It takes a certain answering complexity in the mind to respond to work, and for the moment - I live eternally in hope of tomorrow - TN has the aesthetic sophistication
I almost forgot about this one. Reports has it that 2007 was good. Hopefully I can still go. Check out Cherry Bar's myspace for more details.
Recently, my family and I had the pleasure of going to aka tombo sushi bar in Prahran.As usually, it was after a long discussion of:Who’s hungry now?When will we be hungry?What do people want to eat?Where should we eat?How are we going to get there?….we settled for aka tombo…I say settled because we called a number of places prior to aka tombo before we thought of it and reserved our table.In the end, I am sure we would not have enjoyed ourselves at another restaurant as much as we did at aka tombo.We arrived at 6pm, while the chef was ...
Corner of Grattan and Swanston Sts; 03 9347 0474Mark's is a great option for a cheap feed, close to the CBD. Most of the pizzas are around $8-9 for a medium size (example below). There's a set menu of course (with selected extras, including chilli and parmesan, at no extra charge), the option to create your own, as well as blackboard specials. The set menu is quite generic - margherita,
or something. One excellent election night show: Mink Jaguar at Pony, with a few othersOr another- the return of Sixfthick over at the East Brunswick Club The choice is yours.Personally, I'd prefer to be down at the beach with Mirka Mora. It looks like a lot of fun.She has great taste in swimwear, that's for sure.
Since being gluten-free, and also being very sensitive to MSG, I’ve found Chinese and Japanese foods to be mostly off-limits. Particularly due to their love of soy sauce, which almost always contains wheat. However, I was very thrilled to find out at a family dinner that many of the yum cha items at the Oriental Tea House are in fact gluten free - including some of their dumplings! And they were so delicious. I loved the Honey Pepper Eye Fillet Steak and the Chicken dumplings the most. The staff were very helpful - you need ...
Chamber of HorrorsA welcome return of Brian Lipson’s multi-layered theatrical extravaganza. His one man show that sets out to be a piece about the 19th century social-scientist Francis Galton but which turns into and fantasia on the nature of theatrical performance is as funny as it is fascinating. Galton is best remembered as the founder of Eugenics. In his time (the second half of the 19th century, Galton died in 1911, the same year as that other great English satirist W.S. Gilbert) his theories were considered cranky like Phrenology and all those other pseudo-sciences. Only the connection ...
Next week the MTC is running its sixth annual Hard Lines Play Reading Program, presenting selections from four new plays by Peter Houghton, Felix Nobis, Dina Ross and Nic Velissaris. It's the final play-reading overseen by associate director Julian Meyrick, who has coordinated the MTC's writers' development arm since in 2002.Meyrick is leaving the company at the end of this year to assume a
60 Hardware Lane, Melbourne; 03 9670 9939Hardware Lane is an unusual part of Melbourne. Diners accustomed to blithely opening unmarked doors, scurrying down hidden staircases and striding fearlessly along laneways to reach fabled restaraunts are, in this part of town, suddenly confronted by maitre d's making themselves, and the restuarant, as conspicuous as possible. There are some pretty
Band: The Killers with supports Howling Bells and Louis XIVVenue: Rod Laver ArenaDate: 14th November 2007Reviewed By: Lyn. Photograph by Mark Geisel.Tonight I saw San Diego ’s coolest new band, Louis XIV. A harmonised, dark eyed, sultry 6 piece all bloke band that formed in 2003. American garage rock!A violin was a nice change in a band and the backing singer Brian Karscig has an amazing voice, very melodic, almost to the point of sounding feminine. Not to say the lead singer, Jason Hill, wasn’t good - he was a rock dude, going off like a raw prawn out ...
The Madwoman of Chaillot by Jean Giraudoux, adapted by Maurice J. Valency, directed by Simon Phillips. Designed by Stephen Curtis, lighting design by Toby Sewell, composer Ian McDonald. With Melinda Butel, Mitchell Butel, Melissa Chambers, Julie Forsyth, Francis Greenslade, Sam Hryckow, Sue Ingleton, Bert Labonte, Alex Menglet, Stephen Phillips, Grant Piro, Greg Stone, Magda Szubanski and Kerry
Sound (and screen)Live experimental soundscapes, and soundtrack projectionsfrom the 2007 Sound graduatesSchool of Art RMITTuesday 20 NovemberDoors 8pm, performance 8:30pm$5at the Toff In TownSecond Floor Curtin House252 Swanston StreetCity
