Our special birthday! Our day in St Kilda

July 18 was my husband Paul's birthday! He had to work on the day, so we decided to have a special birthday weekend last week. We thought about what we would do carefully and decided to go to our old favourite place, St Kilda. We asked Paul's parents if they wanted to come and Paul's mum joined us (dad had something to do..) so it became an extra special fun day.

We started our day in St Kilda East to get lunch. Last time we went there, we found a super nice burger shop called Ziggy's. We saw this shop on Broadsheet and it became our new favourite. Their Blue cheese burger is the best! We also didn't forget to get our old favourite bagles from famous Glick's (but not for lunch..)

 We took the burgers to the St Kilda botanic garden and had lunch there. It was lovely weather that day, so we had a wonderful time there. Nico also enjoyed playing with the play equipment.

lovely father and son

Lion King??

this is where we took our engagement photos 4 years ago!

 

 After lunch and play, we walked to the beach. We're not usually beach people, but we love walking alongside the beach - especially on a warm day in winter! We had hot drinks and walked on the pier while chatting. It was a really relaxing time.

 On the way home, we couldn't forget to get an ice cream tub from Messina in Windsor and a jar of salted caramel from B & P in South Yarra.

 This is a kind of our perfect day for us. Paul's mum really enjoyed it too! Don't have any plans for the weekend? Try this route and you will definitely love every part!

with love,

Allie

Our little trip to Mornington Peninsula

We’re just back from a three-day-trip to Mornington Peninsula. We took my mum there. Paul’s mum and dad went with us too and we all had lovely time!!!

 

Thanks to new Peninsula Link, it doesn’t take that long to go there, so many people go there for a day trip, but when you stay there a bit longer, you can see many more things. We booked our accommodation in Mornington this time. Last time we went there, our accommodation was in Tuerong and it was really lovely, so we wanted to stay somewhere hill-side, but we started looking for accommodation only about a month ago and they were all booked. In the end, we really enjoyed staying in Mornington. It wasn’t a busy part of Mornington but it was also close enough to convenient shops. We really enjoyed an evening walk along the beach there too. 

Our 3BR accomodation

 

Main Tourist Spots we visited

- Cape Schanck – We had lunch at RACV club there. 

 

 

 

- Point Nepean – this is such an exciting spot to visit! The combination of old historical buildings and geographical features is amazing.

 

- Arthur’s Seat – the weather wasn’t perfect, but we enjoyed the lovely view. 

 

- Sorrento pier 

- Cherry Farm in Red Hill 

 

Our all-time-favourite spots 

 

Ten Minutes by Tractor – ah we really looove this restaurant. They never disappoint us. If you haven’t tried it, this is a must-go. Don’t forget to make a booking beforehand. 

 

complimentary dish

 

Paul's dad is teaching Nico how to drive a tractor...

 

Ten Minutes by Tractor

1333 Mornington Flinders Road

Ph. 03 5989 6080

Red Hill House – Super cute homeware shop in Red Hill South. I've never left there without buying something… This time My mum bought me this.

 

And I bought this for Paul

bottle opener!

 

They have quite interesting kitchen tools. We have bought tomato knife and olive pitter before.

Red Hill House
169c shoreham road
red hill south

Our new finds  

 

Buckley’s Chance 

In Sorrento, all the cafés and restaurants are very busy so it’s hard to find a good one, but it seems like this one is a new local favourite. We enjoyed Pulled Pork Roll and BELT!

Buckley's Chance
174 Ocean Road Sorrento 

DOC 

Italian Pizza shop – they have a shop on Lygon Street too. We ordered margherita pizza, vegetable lasagne and focaccia for take away and they were all yummy! We got Ciobar (thick Italian hot chocolate) from their grocery shop too.

DOC
22 Main Street Mornington
Ph. 59770988

Our other favourites we didn’t make it to this time

Peninsula Hot Springs – Yes, Japanese people love Onsen (hot springs). 

Sunnyridge Strawberry farm – strawberry picking!

 

Nico had a great time with his nana, pa and baba (Japanese nana) too. He was exhausted by the end but we’re so proud of our little guy being a good boy all the time. (Well..of course he had some moments he wasn’t happy, but overall he was great!!!!) 

 

I can’t wait to go back there again.

 

With love,

Allie

Our favourite Melbourne - Bibelot (Chez Dré)

One of our favourite pastry shops in Melbourne is Chez Dré in South Melbourne. They make beautiful French style pastries. 

When we were deciding a cake for our wedding, we thought we didn't want a massive  icing cake which costs $$$$. The wedding industry is funny...even if it's the same cake, if you say "Birthday cake", that's $60 and if you say "Wedding cake" it's $600. 

Bibelot

We wanted a really yummy cake which our guests would enjoy. Then we went to the 'famous' Chez Dré and ordered their bigger cake, which was priced pretty normal. We asked for a little plaque "Paul and Allie" and just in case we didn't say that it was for our wedding ;) We ordered another cake from there too for our friend, whose birthday was on our wedding day and we got a plaque saying "Happy birthday ***" .

Bibelot

A couple days before the wedding, Paul called them up and checked the order and they said "You ordered two cakes, one says "Happy Birthday ***" and another says "Happy Birthday Paul and Allie" "! I'm so glad we double checked our order beforehand. Paul explained to the shop after all that it was actually for our wedding (they didn't charge us extra!) and we got the right plaque for our wedding day. 

our wedding cake!

On our wedding anniversary, we went to Chez Dré to get lovely cakes again, but we were surprised that they didn't have much of a selection any more. They just had tarts and breads..Although we were a bit shocked, just in case we asked the shop staff if that's all they had. And then they told us that their pastry section is now a separate shop called "bibelot" and it's next door! We were too busy with parenting to catch up with Melbourne trends...it must be famous by now but we didn't know that.

cakes we got from Bibelot

Well for those who are not really catching up with the latest trends, I'm sharing this info here;-)

Don't get disappointed at Chez Dré, just go next door.

Bibelot 
285–287 Coventry Street, South Melbourne 

Baba Sus

My sister-in-law Maria had her birthday just recently and we took her to our favourite café, Baba Sus in Glen Iris, for breakfast. The co-owner of this café is a Japanese chef (you can read about her here !) and the menu has some Asian influence.

Paul and I always share two dishes, a savory and sweetie. We ordered a burger and the Hong Kong Style pancakes ;-) Their food never disappoints us, the staff are friendly and their service is great!

If you are traveling to Melbourne from somewhere else, it's not really an easy spot to visit though because it's a bit far out from the city (about 25min by train) and there's no tourist attractions around there, but if you live in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne, this is a must-go place. If you take your friends there, you can definitely impress them!

with love

Allie