Melbourne Trip!

I love Melbourne, every year as long as I can remember I have been over at least once, and really what is there not to love? The shopping is to die for, the bargains are fabulous, the food is incredible and then there is the atmosphere, the culture and if you go at this time of year, the Christmas window display at Myer is up!

So on Thursday we got to Melb at around lunch time. The weather was warm but it was a bit wet so we checked into our hotel and caught the train out to Brunswick. Admitedly we took a few wrong turns and ended up walking in the wrong direction, but my god there are some gorgeous bridal shops out there. Eventually we headed in the right direction though and we found what we were looking for....


This little pub is done up like an old 60's diner and is full of Harley and Steve McQueen memorabillia. The meals were huge and had a southern american influence and after a long morning and alot of walking - a decent meal was exactly what we wanted!

That night we were off out to Metallica so we wanted a quick and easy meal on the way. We were lucky enough to find a little thai place down one of Melbourne's famous alleys that was kind of like the Subway of stir frys, you chose your own vegies, meat, sauce and noodles and in 5 mins your dream sir fry was delivered to your table! I had a tofu and vegie stir fry with satay sauce and it was to die for!


The concert was brilliant, Metallica are one of OH and my favourite bands and they didn't disappoint - playing a set consisting of old and new stuff, revving the crowd up at every opportunity, I have never been to a concert where even those in the seated section stood up for the entire thing!

So after a big night singing our lungs out, we needed a sugar hit for breakfast the next morning...so on our way out to the Science Works at Spotwood we grabbed a couple of Spanish Donuts, we have seen the stand at the Flinders St Station a few times but never tried one before...


Why have we not tried these before!? I had a pineapple glazed donut and OH had a custard filled one. They don't look like your average donut as they are more of a log shape, and I am pretty sure they are fried in oil before they are glazed or filled, but my god were they good! And just one each kept us going till well past lunch! We had a ball at the Science Works too, it was so much fun trying out all the different displays and exhibits and we even learnt a few things along the way!

When we got back to Melbourne we had done a tonne of walking so we headed straight for the Lindt cafe, it was a beautiful day so we treated ourselves to a scoop of White Chocolate and Raspberry Swirl ice cream and a strawberry macaroon each for lunch. The lindt ice cream is unbelieveable....you probably wouldn't want too much more then one scoop because it is fairly rich, but it is heavenly and the macaroons were pretty damn good too!


That night we needed something savoury for dinner, so we hiked our way to the Casino in search of a steak restaurant we had heard of called (wait for it) SteakOut - not the most original name, but turns out, when you can make food like that good, who cares what you're called! I ordered a grilled chicken salad and mixed though a side order of roast pumpkin and kumara, oh it was good! OH found a 1kg steak on the menu and he had his heart set on that - see how happy he looks!


I think we have found our new favourite restaurant in Melbourne!

The following day was our last day, we were flying home at about 3pm so we decided to take ourselves out to breakfast...and quite frankly we were shocked that we had made it to the third day without going to the pancake parlour! I went with the simple lemon and sugar pancakes (it was a toss up between that and the strawberry jam and cream but when the waiter came I panicked!) and you know what they say, you can't beat the classics! OH had a caramel malt thickshake with his and we are now officially obsessed with malt, we only got home last night and already today I have been to the supermarket, brought malt and we may or may not have had several malt thickshakes....


And what trip to Melbourne would be complete without the obligatory bringing home of Krispy Kremes - purely because we don't have them here in Tassie and OH is slightly in love with them


And last but not least did I mention I got some fantastic bargains!!! I got some great deals on dresses - I swear I brought about $200 worth of clothes for $80, not to mention these gorgeous shoes!!!



And that my friends, was our holiday!

Till next time, Em x

A Day Off Work....And Finally - The Cupcake Shop Saga!

My god....I woke up today at 6am when OH left for work....I subsequently called in sick (potential for head to explode if I went to work, plus had lots of work to do on my Ebay store and several batches of cupcakes to make and decorate). Feeling quite happy and suprisingly full of energy for that hour of the morning, I decided to get up and make the most of it because honestly I can not remember the last time I was even awake at that hour. Turned on the radio, had a bit of a dance around the house (my favourite way to start the day!) and a few spins on the new pole (novelty still there!) and headed out to make my first cupcake delivery. Then I came home and sat down to finally finally finally put the rest of my jewellery on Ebay. I have been making and selling jewellery for a few years now and I have an ebay store http://stores.ebay.com.au/thegothicplayground (Sorry for the blatant advertising!) where I sell most of it between car shows and markets. The only problem is it takes so long to put all of it on ebay, once it's done it's easy because you just keep re-listing the ads, but it's just that initial outlay of work that can be tedious, not to mention finding the time to do it....with my old laptop it was taking up to 4 hours just to put 7 ads up...not cool, low and behold with the new laptop though I had done 20 ads before lunch and was mighty impressed with it. I had even sold my old laptop, listed it as being broken and only good for parts and someone offered to buy it straight away for 5 times my asking price! Very very odd, but spose it would be good for pulling apart and....doing technical stuff with!? Anyway, baked and decorated 4 batches of cupcakes to be delivered tomorrow...consumed far too much frosting and felt ill so went for a lovely stroll with OH when he got home from work which helped but still have that icky consumed too much sugar feeling. Drinking heaps of water to combat it though! I think I am going to have to do something like make sure I have a mouth full of chewing gum next time I make them because frosting appears to be my weakness and it just makes me feel rubbish.

And now OH is making salt and pepper chicken with a parmigiana sauce and roast vegies for tea while I am sitting on the couch typing this up and I am dead tired, such a fantastic day off though, didn't get all my stock up, but more then half of it. Not keen on going to work tomorrow, but sometimes you just have to don't you. I am so over my job at the moment. A few weeks ago they handed out a bunch of redundancies and just the way they went about it, I have lost all respect and motivation for the place. And all the cupcakes I'm making at the moment is just making me realise I don't wanna work in an office, I wanna DO something like something creative or something worthwhile, just something that doesn't involve being stuck in an office all day doing mind numbing paper work. I am too young to have a mid life crisis, but I definetly feel like I'm in the middle of one, I have felt like a little old lady stuck in a rut at the ripe old age of 24, like I'm slowly dying and losing my brain cells and my enthusiasm and watching my life disappear before me. I know the wedding should be something to look forward to, but it's only one day, it's going to be a fantastic one but after it's done I'm still gonna be me and it's time to make some big changes because this is the only life I've got and I intend on living it.

Now, the cupcake shop saga.....

Roughly this time last year a specialty cupcake store opened up in Hobart, for the first few months they were selling out by 1pm every day and the line was always massive, there was a massive novelty factor because let's be honet we don't even have Krispy Kreme down here and we only just got Cold Rock! Anyway, the shop was doing brilliantly. But in January this year it went up for sale....and it's still for sale but the price has dropped considerably because they need to get out. To me, it sounds cheap and like a fantastic opportunity, but it does need some serious changes. At the moment the cupcakes are brought from a supplier and delivered each morning, then decorated and put up for sale. And from what I can gather the general opinion is that the cakes themselves are not brilliant and that they are over decorated. I would like to change it up abit, make the cupcakes myself, decorate them myself in a simpler but still fun and elegant style. I'd also like to bring in a wider range, I know it's a specialty cupcake store but eventually the novelty will wear off and I think you need to sell other things like brownies and slices and fudges to keep it going and expanding your services to do personalised orders. Anyway I showed the information given to me by the real estate firm to the accountant at work and he gave me a list of queries to go back with. I am not sure now though, I mean it sounds like a brilliant opportunity and something I would love, but it also sounds like it might be quite difficult to keep your head above water. Just have to wait and see what the real estate comes back with. I mean I'd love to work hard and I'd love to be independant and work for myself and do something that makes other people smile, but there is a big chance of failure too.

If nothing else though it has shown me that I do have passion buried deep down within me somewhere and it's most definetly been ignited. Part of me also thinks that maybe rather then dive head first into a busy shop I should start small and make up some posters to put up at the Fun Factory and Kidz Biz and the workplaces of my friends and family, advertising catering for events like kids parties, high teas, kitchen teas, morning teas and specialty orders and take it from there....I don't know, do you guys think there would be a market for that sort of thing?

In reality what I would love is a retail store / cafe where I can sell my jewellery and some rockabilly, vintage, burlesque style clothing and accessories and have an old fashioned milk bar style counter where I can serve old fashioned homemade sweet and savoury goods - just simple but delicious food. I am aware that I need to work hard and work towards it and that I still have alot to learn, I know it's not just going to magically appear before me tomorrow fully funded for the rest of it's life...but I think it's a challenge I'm willing to take on.

Ok enough rambling, time for some photos!!



Some cute lil vanilla buttermilk cupcakes I made for OH's lunches. Simple but sweet, plus I wanted an excuse to use my new star sprinkles...he really loves being my test bunny!

Oh my god...this was the finished product tonight, salt and pepper chicken, parmigiana sauce, lil potato hearts (so very cute..and tasty! He is a good man xx) and roast potato and carrots....nom nom nom soooooooooooo delicious.

Next on the list is these Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes with lindt chocolate. I had red icing left over from the St Kilda ones so I used that and topped it with a milk chocolate lindt ball....mmmm lindt....they nearly didn't make it to the cupcakes, if they had been white lindt balls they definetly wouldn't have survived!!

Also some ferrero rocher cupcakes. Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting and a Ferrero Rocher to top it off....so much temptation in today's baking session!

And finally my proudest moment of the day! St Kilda Cupcakes! I have been so worried about these, they were a special request from someone I work with and St Kilda is an AFL team with the colours red, white and black on their jumper. Soooo I decided to do the red, white and black stripes as per the jumper but was a bit worried about the colours blending and what not but I was very happy with the final results!

Sorry for such an epic blog and for rambling!

Tomorrow...Happy Friday and Curry Chicken Crepes! My god I should write about something other then food over the weekend too, maybe some pics of my shoe collection!!


Em x