Cafe #9: Melbourne Central Station Food Court

Date: Sunday, 18 February, 2007, 3.10pm
Location: Melbourne Central Station, Melbourne
Ice cream: $3.70 - one scoop waffle cone, my favourite

I intended to find a tucked away cafe on my return from galivanting about the southeastern suburbs, but on my way out of Melbourne Central I saw a Baskin Robbins sign. A Baskin Robbins sign means one thing to me: peanut butter chocolate ice cream. This is a flavour difficult to find down under, outside of the purveyors of 31 flavours, as Australians don't have the same relationship to peanut butter as Americans do. Those Australians, however, who have discovered Reeses peanut butter cups are hooked for life.

Last night was a quiet night. I made Erin dinner - Mexican beans (canned), stir fried capsicum and spring onion, avocado, Cheddar cheese, rocket and sour cream on crunchy corn tortillas (I added mushrooms to my mix). We also went out for gelato, though the gelato bar was out of the jasmine flavour that Erin particularly wanted me to try and particularly wanted to eat herself. She was very annoyed and I had green apple and walnut flavours instead. The green apple was candy-flavour green apple but the walnut was goodly nutty. Still, not like Italy's gelato.

Today I attempted one incarnation of possible commuting combinations from Abbotsford to Monash. I took the train to Jolimont from Victoria Park, walked to Richmond and took the train to Malvern, then changed to the Pakenham line. All up it took me about an hour and fifteen minutes, and I have to add on the 10 minute bus ride from Huntingdale station to Monash campus. It probably wouldn't take quite that long because I'm pretty sure I didn't walk the most direct route to Richmond station across the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground, for the Americans). I had trouble reading the map - barely-there dotted line paths with no street names... In any case, I don't think the walk saves any time compared with taking the train all the way into Flinders Street Station and coming back out again on the other line.

On the way back from Huntingdale station I hopped off the train at around 4.30pm at Windsor to view another sharehouse. Another lovely renovated house with shiny hardwood floors and whitewashed walls and a new kitchen and bathroom. This one had the added bonus of being full of bookshelves and books. One of the housemates knew me from lip radio (she was a guest presenter on one show) and recognised me from TINA. She had been an English major. Both girls worked in publishing - for Penguin. (Hmm, handy...) The other, whom I didn't talk to much because another girl was there checking out the house as well, had studied theatre and art history. So it all sounds like a good match in theory, but I knew it was too good to be true. The girls were a bit over the whole interviewing thing, as, frankly, was I, so the talk didn't exactly flow and I didn't stay very long. They had already seen around 25 people.

It's another hot, hot, hot day - I've been drinking rather than eating - 'til now.