I  looked for Orange or was it Red or possibly Red Orange Cafe.  A cafe I remembered that served a great breakfast.  It appears to have gone.  It is always a bit sad when somewhere you remember has disappeared without any goodbye.  It is like a  sudden hole in the ground that you have to navigate around.

I navigated into the Prahran Market and wandered into the Market Square.  This turned out to be an ideal place to be on Sunday afternoon.

There is live music, relaxed families, people eating and people who are just enjoying the music.

I shop at the market and have written about it before see here.  But this is my first Sunday Lunch/breakfast experience.  I say breakfast because I  always order breakfast at this time of the day.

Mojito’s had a breakfast special; two eggs any style, three rashers of bacon and two slices of toast for $8.90. I ordered this with the eggs scrambled and my usual flat white.

The coffee was good.  The band played.  The sun shone.  People chattered. The waiter with an Irish accent brought a bottle of water. There was a constant movement of people coming and going.  My breakfast came.  The scrambled eggs were just right, bacon tasty and the toast thick and firmly toasted.

There are other choices in the Prahran Market Square for Sunday Midday eating.  Cafe Egnaro serves focaccia and Prides

Cafe Egnaro

The Beangreen Vegetarian Cafe has salads of various combinations with chick peas and there are interesting looking fritters.

Beangreen Vegetarian Cafe

It was so pleasant and relaxing I was loath to leave but my glass of wine in the city called.
Mojito can also be accessed from Commercial Road.   The food is described as Mediterranean, Australian and Italian and they also have wood fired pizza.    I can only speak for their breakfasts.  It was the scrambled eggs that won me over.  So often they can be watery.

Where:
Market Place Prahran Market

Mojito Cafe and Bar 169 Commercial Road, South Yarra
Phone: 9826 6544

Mojito can also be accessed from Commercial Road.

Opening Hours:- Mojito
Every day from 8am for breakfast
Thursday Friday and Saturday until about 9.00pm for dinner.

Getting there:-
Tram 72  from the CBD
Tram 78 runs from Richmond to St Kilda along Church & Chapel Streets

Related posts:

1. Prahran Market –the food lovers market in South Yarra
2. Red Star Cafe right opposite The South Melbourne Market, Clarendon Street
3. Cakes and coffee at the Special Cake Shop – Chapel Street, Prahran

Pictures of last years market in the early evening  The Market is from 5 to 10pm

This year the market runs for another three Thursdays – March, 10th, 17th, 24th

My first visit this year will be on Thursday, that is 10th March – I’ll report back.

Getting there:
Trams 96 and 16 to St Kilda – Follow the smell of food. Last year the food was wonderful.

Opening Hours:-
5pm to 10 pm

Related posts:

1. St Kilda Night Market 2011–hang-out there during the last Thursdays in March.
2. St Kilda Beach Night Market – Thursdays
3. The Esplanade Market, St Kilda is worth a visit

In fact now I think about I only buy it at the Market. I still pop into Noisette’s on Bay Street, Port Melbourne for coffee and cake but I buy their bread at the South Melbourne Market.  It seems a very odd thing to do when I think about it.  But of course I have an excuse to buy cheese and other deli items while I’m in the South Melbourne Market.

My fruit loaf on my charming ‘marine’ chopping board – sourced in New Zealand

I’m not sure why they cover it in flour.  It’s not ideal if you are wearing  Melbourne black.  I take great care to bang off the flour before I slice it.

Pickadeli stocks breads from other famous bakers like Irrewarra and Phillippas but I can’t go past Noisette’s Fruit Sourdough toasted with morning coffee; large chunks of fig and apricot set off by currants, sultanas and orange peel.

I’m not the only one who likes it because I have been there about midday and found that they have sold out.  Of course for any market you need to be there early in the morning to get the selection.   South Melbourne Market is no different.

What:-
My Favourite fruit bread:

Where:-
Pickadeli South Melbourne Market:
At the end of the market near the car ramp and the light rail

Getting there:-
Tram:
96 (Light Rail) from Bourke Street, and get off at the South Melbourne stop. The market is about 2 minutes away.
112 Tram from Collins Street, get off on the corner of Clarendon and York Street.
Driving:
Melway:       Map 1C Ref E11
There is parking on top of the South Melbourne Market and some parking in the neighbouring street ( alot of street parking is Permit only, so watch out for that)

Related posts:

1. Red Star Cafe right opposite The South Melbourne Market, Clarendon Street
2. Prahran Market –the food lovers market in South Yarra
3. Urban Art – Frank Malerba – South Melbourne

You can see it yourself as you head along Cecil Street away from the South Melbourne Market.

It is wonderful to be able to see such eye catching pieces of art during an every-day shopping excursion or a walk around the local streets.  Frank Malerba was commission by the developer and the commission was approved by the Port Phillip City Council.

He says he drove around South Melbourne for a few days, “To see what it was all about.”

When you look at the art work does it say South Melbourne to you?
It has been up for over a year and looks exactly the same to me now as it did when I first saw it, months ago.  No deterioration.  Frank Malerba knows what materials to use for durability.

I wish more developers would think of the public and how we need visual feasts as we travel around our city.

My thought when I first saw the mural was, “Who is the lucky person who owns it?”

I assume if you own the unit it is attached to, you don’t own the art work.   And that you can’t sell the unit and then pack up the Malerba panels and take them  away with you.

I guess that can’t happen but it makes me ask who does own it and who is responsible for maintaining it?  The Port Phillip City Council?  Or is it the Owners Corporation’s responsibility? Perhaps someone will know.

One thing I do know is that it is wonderful to see such interesting art, by a well-known local artist, for all of us to view.

Developers:-  how about more of this?

To view Frank Malerba’s urban art on the corner of Cecil and Dorcas Street:-
Tram 96:-  (light rail)  to the South Melbourne Station.  Head for the Market.  Cecil Street runs from the  roundabout.

Tram 1:- get off at the corner of Cecil and Park Street and head to the market. – check out Dorcas Street when you cross over it.

Related posts:

1. South Melbourne Market – the best fruit bread in Melbourne
2. Red Star Cafe right opposite The South Melbourne Market, Clarendon Street
3. The Wayside Inn Hotel South Melbourne – good eating – with a new cook and new management.

That huge rambling and messy warehouse on the corner of Inkerman Street and St Kilda Road has closed.  The site has turned into a bike emporium.

The new shop in Carlisle has style compared with the old one and they have cut down on their stock.  I always believed that there was so much ‘stuff’ in the old warehouse no one would be able say exactly what was in there.

The new store has added style to a Salvo browse.  The shop is laid ‘out’.  The dressing rooms are no longer a sort of curtained box, designer gear  is in the front when you walk in.

Shoes are ordered on racks and someone keeps them tidy.

Home wares tend to be colour coded for example there is a shelf of blue.  Books are newer – less knocked about,  It feels cleaner and there are less of the things that no one is ever going to buy.  It also feels as if the place is dusted sometimes – perhaps regularly.

I have been told they are charging more that they did in the old warehouse. This could apply to their designer gear although my black Country Road singlet was $5.00.

Last time I was there they had a piano, which seemed odd because the shop  next door is a piano shop.  I was hoping some one in the large browsing crowd would play it.  If they did it was after I left.   I also noticed some crutches in one corner should you ever need any.

The Salvos, St Kilda:-
Opposite the City of Port Phillip Town Hall in Carlisle Street.

Opening hours:-
Monday to Wednesday 9.00am to 5.00pm
Thursday to Friday  9.00 to 7.00pm
Saturday 9.00a, to 5.00pm

Getting there:-
Trams No 3 or No 16
Get off at the stop on the corner of St Kilda Road and Carlisle Street.

Related posts:

1. Carlisle Street in St Kilda East is evolving. Check out the Carlisle Street Bazaar
2. Sacred Heart Mission’s Inkerman Street Op Shop adds new interest to East St Kilda
3. St Kilda keeps on changing with new apartments for old houses.

From the platform you walk into the old, red, brick station building left over from the time when this was a railway line.  It houses railway memorabilia.

Wader around and you get to absorb the experience of travelling along route 96  when the journey was taken by train.
There is much old railway paraphernalia to browse through and also, beautifully resorted and polished pieces of furniture.  Some of the pieces are huge and hidden under smaller things. It takes ages to see what is there.

A nice touch, as you walk up the concrete ramp from Canterbury Road into the quaint red brick building, is the ticket dispenser still holding those old cardboard tickets.  It is as if you should take a ticket to continue your journey though the building.

Some of my favourite pieces:-

Station clock.

Station trolley

A small back door from the store leads onto the light rail platform and the other end of the long narrow building becomes a coffee shop.  This is a relaxed and friendly place. The word homely could describe it.

It is an odd cafe to find in sophisticated Albert Park.  It is like wandering into someone’s kitchen and asking for a snack.

The kitchen runs behind the counter and if you arrive at the right time you can see the cook cum barista cum waitress taking a cake from the oven.  She makes all the food. The menu is simple, toasted sandwiches, cakes, biscuits, some large and beautiful meringues served with cream.

The coffee is good and the baked cheese cake one of the best around, there are papers and magazines to read, an open courtyard with more railway artefacts and the sound of the light rain swishing past to let you know that this is a station.

Coffee at Albert Park Station – Tram route 96

The Railway antiques are open daily 9.30 to 5.00pm

The coffee shop is closed on Mondays

Getting there:-
Ride the 96 tram to the Albert Park Station stop

Related posts:

1. The Good Life, and Good Food at Albert Park Lake
2. The Garden of Eden in Albert Park
3. Albert Park Lake and a new generation of swans – it has to be spring!

The cafe is long and narrow with a courtyard at the rear.  The red chairs are for outside, only.  Inside is cool and more sophisticated with a polished concrete floor and dark wooden tables and chairs.  The tables come in various sizes including a long communal table.

One wall is covered in posters advertising up-coming events and happenings, there is their organic coffee for sale and there are plenty of papers and magazines to read. It is a comfortable and relaxing atmosphere.

Breakfast is served all day.   We ordered one breakfast and two lunches.

The Nasi Goering looked good, the egg was perfectly done, the flavour everything it should be. $15.50

The beef hamburger had plenty of bacon and the egg just right but the beef was a little over cooked and on the dry side.  It  came with a side serving of caramelized onions and tomato sauce. $16.90

English muffin, bacon, egg and tomatoes was a  breakfast special  for $8.00 and was good value for the price.

There were fruit muffins available and cakes for afternoon coffee – the milk in the flat white coffee was silky but I like mine a little stronger, however you can’t please everyone and I didn’t ask for strong.  If you like it strong that would be the way to go.

Service was friendly and attentive with the waitress saying ‘enjoy’ when she delivered the food.  I found that rather endearing.  The Red Star Cafe, on the corner of Ward Street and Coventry Street, is a great place to sit and  view the action around the South Melbourne Market.

The Red Star Cafe opening hours:-
Mondays CLOSED
Tuesday to Thursday 8.00am to 4.00pm
Friday to Sunday 7.30am to 5.00pm
They serve organic fair trade coffee

Getting There:-
Tram:
96 (Light Rail) from Bourke Street, and get off at the South Melbourne stop. The market is about 2 minutes away.
112 Tram from Collins Street, get off on the corner of Clarendon and York Street.
Driving:
Melway:       Map 1C Ref E11
There is parking on top of the South Melbourne Market and some parking in the neighbouring street ( alot of street parking is Permit only, so watch out for that)

Related posts:

1. Gas Eateries and Supply Cafe – South Melbourne
2. Prahran Market Square, Mojito Cafe and Bar for Sunday Brunch/Lunch
3. A touch of France on Park Street, South Melbourne

I think it is best on Saturday.  The produce seems to be fresher as if it was whisked from the soil or picked from the tree that very morning.   It is also the day when the market is flooded with locals doing their weekly shopping – a great ambiance that is unique to this market.

Shopping  before the Saturday crowds.

It’s good to be there early on Saturday and miss some of the crowd but on the other hand from about 10.30 onwards the place is full of free nibbles – you can lunch your way around the stalls eating a bit here and there.  If you watch the shoppers you can see them sampling and snacking as they weave from stall to stall.

This is a produce market.    There is a hardware stall but it is about food: fruit and veg, meat fish and poultry, delicatessens, coffee, flowers and a very popular organic stall (Ripe the Organic Grocer), selling everything including wine and cakes made with organic ingredients. It is not a market for clothes and bric-a-brac.

A good place to start is Cleo’s.  It has an entrance off Commercial Road and a window full of bread.  You can wander through the delicatessen and straight into the market.

From Cleo’s I head to stall 108,  MJ Mow Gourmet Potatoes.  Every variety of potato is available including the increasingly popular kipfler and one I had never heard of before,  Purple Congo.  This is good to mash and because of its colour good to use as a decoration.    There is a flier available that  lists 17 varieties of potatoes and  their different uses.  It is fun to experiment and I do but I love my old favourite the King Edward.

Stall 116 is Damian Pike the Wild Mushroom Specialist.  Wild mushrooms are those that come up in  a field after rain and have the best taste ever.  There not always available – it doesn’t always rain.  The stall is interesting not only because of the selection of mushrooms but for unusual seasonal items like flat peaches from China which they say they stock.  I have never seen them but I believe they exist!

You can grab good coffee or dine on something more substantial in the Market Square which is partly covered and has a play ground for the kids.

Coffee in the Market Square.

Information:-

Damian Pike Wild Mushroom specialist Phone 0411 438 465

MJ Mow Gourmet Potatoes  Phone 0417 382 354

Market Web site

Address:-

163 Commercial Road, South Yarra

Opening Hours:-
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday – dawn to 5pm
Friday Dawn to 6pm
Sunday 10am to 3.00pm

Closed:-

Monday and Wednesday

Getting there:-

Tram:- 72 and get off at Stop 30

Train:- Take the Sandringham Line to Prahran Station and walk to Commercial Road.  It’s about 2 minutes walk

Related posts:

1. Prahran Market Square, Mojito Cafe and Bar for Sunday Brunch/Lunch
2. Red Star Cafe right opposite The South Melbourne Market, Clarendon Street
3. Cakes and coffee at the Special Cake Shop – Chapel Street, Prahran

This flurry of summer markets led me to forget the markets that just keep-on-keeping-on.

The Esplanade Market in St Kilda has been keeping on since 1970. And some of the stall holders have been there for most of that time.

The market runs  from Luna Park along The Esplanade to Fitzroy Street.  On my first trip to Melbourne, some years ago, I explored it with a family member and was fascinated.  I still have a pair of ear rings I bought on that visit.

This time these brooches caught my eye.

The Market advertises itself as a “Makers’ Market Place”.  That is the stall holders must be directly involved in the production of the items they are selling.  This makes for an interesting mix.

There is Jena Bedson’s pottery that she describes as ‘comic art’.

Much of the merchandise is familiar to me,  in that some of the stalls have been there for years.  Obviously the ones that stay the distance are quality and offer something the customers want.   Calypsoflash who sell pewter jewelery tell me they have been there for 38 years.  They now have their own website to display their creative pieces.

These architectural cards are stylish and beautiful.

There is a huge tourist-browsing population and many stall holders cater for them.   For example Matt Irwin’s photographs are there and have been since my first visit in the 1990’s.  Then I sent my mother a post card depicting a striking black and white  photo of one of Melbourne’s  trams.  She still has it and they are still on sale.

These magnets were doing good business – I bought 3 for $10.00.  They were delighting children who were spending $3.50 to go home with something cute and useful.   The stall holder creates the whole magnet from the painted design to the finished article.

The market is vibrant and most of the stall holders friendly.  They  will talk about their crafts and discuss in detail how they make the items.  If you are a craft person you can find inspiration – a sort of  “Wow, I could do that!”  But many crafts are time-consuming and for these people making and selling their wares a way of life.

Getting there:-

Trams 16, 3A and 79 to stop 31

Tram 96 to stop 138

Times:-

Sundays ( all year round) 10.00am to 5.00pm.

Related posts:

1. St Kilda Beach Night Market – Thursdays
2. St Kilda Night Market Thursday 10th March 2011 -O’Donnell Gardens
3. St Kilda and Sunday with the Busking Festival at the Sea Baths

The Carlisle Street Bazaar opened just before Christmas adding another retail experience to shopping in the piece of Carlisle Street around the Balaclava Rail Station.
This Carlisle Street Bazaar replaces a store where I often browsed.  It was one of those stores that covered an eclectic range merchandise – clothes, furniture, home ware, jewelery, gifts.    All this appeared to be individually chosen to give a cohesion to the store.  This space has now morphed into the Carlisle Street Bazaar.  It is as if the original store has re-invented itself and presented a new face to the world, the cohesion has gone but the atmosphere has livened up.

To me it is an improvement.  For one thing the space is lighter and brighter.   I found the old space rather gloomy.  The variety is better and it is more fun to browse.

Stock moves too.  There was a hand created metal pig and sheep when I first walked into the Bazaar and a few days later they had gone.  “Snapped up,” I was told.  They still have smaller roosters from the same artist.  They are the sort of patio/garden object that lift your spirits and cause you to smile.

So far the Carlisle Street Bazaar have been a constantly changing visual feast – new clothes, new displays, new bric-a-brac.

At this point the venture looks successful and it will be interesting to watch it evolve. I like the original art and would like to see more creative works for sale.

To discuss hiring space: – phone   0411598411.
Opening hours: -

Monday to Saturday 10.00am to 6.00pm.  The Bazaar closes at 5.00pm on Sunday.

Getting there:

Trams – 12, 3, going along Carlisle Street, first stop past St Kilda Road. 67 Tram get off at the corner of Carlisle and St Kilda Road  or a 78 that runs from Richmond to the St Kilda East end of Chapel Street.

Train – Sandringham line to Balaclava Stration

Related posts:

1. Salvos move to Carlisle Street, St Kilda and take on a new look.
2. Sacred Heart Mission’s Inkerman Street Op Shop adds new interest to East St Kilda
3. Eastern European Flavours in East St Kilda