Eat. @ The Tea Salon

Emporium Level 2, 297 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne CBD ph (03) 8609 8188

For a fancier treat we had afternoon high tea at The Tea Salon a while ago.  (actually quite a while ago now!)  I went with my 2 older ones so it was a lovely girls' afternoon out!  It was a real treat for us to sit down and have some high tea together.  Macaron Monster loves sweets and they have both inherited my love of high tea!  We ordered the Children's high tea ($19.9) which really is one of the cheaper ones around.  It's served as chicken and mayo sandwiches, choice of one of their many different types of scones mini rose pannacotta topped with pink fairy floss, some fruit and a choice of drink.

The scones come in lots of flavours, and they chose a plain one with jam and cream and a chocolate one, that came with more chocolate to spread on!

The kids had some lovely and light lemon tea.

I had a pot of lovely english breakfast tea ($5.95) and also a couple of scones.  It was a very cute and special experience for the kids to have a sit down proper high tea and it was really enjoyable.

Whilst we did not find the treats at The Tea Salon to be memorably impressive,  the treats were nice and the kids really enjoyed the experience.  It's a nice spot for a treat during a shopping trip, and there's often a line of tired shoppers out lining up to do so!

Shop and Eat. @ Myer Emporium (Part 3)

287 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne CBD 3000

Part 3 of the places to to go at the Myer Emporium covers more eateries we've visited on our multiple outing to our favourite shopping destination in the city.  So in no particular order here we go........

We've been back to Charlie & Co Burgers multiple times now and are happy to report that their truffle parmesan chips are significantly improved since our last visit.

Ding Tai Fung has opened at the Emporium, but I have not had the patience to line up with the rest of Melbourne yet to try it (despite the fact that there are over 200 seats in the restaurant the lines are still too crazy!)  We haven't been too disappointed as our old favourite New Shanghai still have some pretty awesome Xiao Long Baos that hit the dumpling spot each time we've been craving for our favourite treats from Shanghai.  The wait here is very modest and the queues have calmed to a steady flow.

The kids always like watching the chefs weave their magic with the noodles and dumplings.

Our favourite XLB are consistently good and quite reasonable at $8.6 for a steamer of 8.  Perfect with that hit of vinegar!  Watch out for the soupy explosion when you bite into one.  

The panfried Pot Stickers ($11 for 8 pcs) are also really nice, the pastry perfectly crispy with a soft, tender pork centre.

We also always order the braised beef noodle soup to share.  The noodles are perfectly cooked and the broth is meaty without being overly oily, it's such a great comforting bowl, especially in this awfully cold Melbourne winter this year!

We like their milk tea and ice lemon tea but they are pretty pricey at $5.3 each.

The Oolong tea for $5.5 a pot is a good option for Hubby and I to share, plus it's quite soothing when we have too many pan fried dumplings!

The kids don't like chinese tea and the soy bean milk ($3) is a good option.

For sweets Waffee in the basement is a favourite of ours.  

Waffee = waffles + coffee of course.

Their waffles are sweet and crispy, and even Bubs is pretty good at holding onto one and munching on it as we wander around the Emporium without getting too sticky. 

We've always gone for the sweet waffles, either in its original flavour ($2.8), or with chocolate glaze ($3.3), which is obviously a tasty but much messier affair for my kids!  I often get a pack of 6 to take away, and they can be kept for 3 days and heated up in your toaster.

For a fancier treat we had afternoon high tea at The Tea Salon a while ago.  (actually quite a while ago now!)  I went with my 2 older ones so it was a lovely girls' afternoon out!

The Children's high tea is $19.9 which really is one of the cheaper ones around.  It's served as chicken and mayo sandwiches, choice of one of their many different types of scones mini rose pannacotta topped with pink fairy floss, some fruit and a choice of drink.

The scones come in lots of flavours, and they chose a plain one with jam and cream and a chocolate one, that came with more chocolate to spread on!

The kids had some lovely and light lemon tea.

I had a pot of lovely english breakfast tea ($5.95) and also a couple of scones.  It was a very cute and special experience for the kids to have a sit down proper high tea and it was really enjoyable.

Zumbo has a kiosk type outpost on the first floor for a quick pick up of a selection of his goodies.  My favourite is probably the pretty carrot cake ($9).  The slightly deconstructed carrot cake is a cute twist on the original.

Bubs however loves the Chocolate Mousse "Dots" cake with the oh-so-smooth chocolate glaze.

Upstairs at Yo-Art you can go for a frozen yoghurt in different flavours.  

Kids cones are $2.5 and an extra 50c for topping, or you can fill a bowl and weigh and pay at $2.8 per 100g.

Bubs tried a blood orange with hundreds and thousands which was really refreshing, whereas Mini Me had a more traditional mango one which had a great flavour.

Next door at Rice Workshop they have green tea and black sesame softserves for $2.  For a "special" treat you can get a flavoured waffle cone with the soft serve and it'll still only set you back $2.5 each.  The flavours are actually quite good considering how good the prices are!

I love that the Emporium is still expanding and adding new shops and foodie destinations all the time, looking forward to more to come!

Eat. @ Hopetoun Tea Rooms

The Block Arcade, Melbourne CBD ph : (03) 9650 2777

I love having a wander through The Block Arcade and we've walked past The Hopetoun Tea Rooms countless number of times.  Mini Me and Macaron Monster both always ask to have a break here but we've always been discouraged by the long line of people queuing for a table out front.  On this slightly cooler summer morning I organised babysitting for Bubs and took the older 2 here for morning tea.

The line for a table starting to build

Before going inside to sit down, we checked out all the goodies in the window.  There are usually about 2-3 camera wielding  tourists people taking happy snaps of the gorgeous, traditional sweet goodies at any one time and it's often hard to even get near the window on busy weekends!

It was seriously baked-goods-heaven and as you can see, I couldn't stop taking pictures either!

I always imagined that Hopetoun Tea Rooms is the type of place to go when grandmothers caught up with their uni-attending grand-daughters for tea in the city (yes, table on our left), and for  ladies to meet up and chat over old fashioned delights (table behind us).  And yes, a generous helping of interstate and overseas visitors kept the tables filled.

We didn't bring Bubs as bringing a stroller into this popular, crowded tea room would be seriously pushing the friendship.  Fortunately we beat the crowds and got a little table for the 3 of us without a significant wait.

The menu offered savoury breakfast dishes as well as the goodies on display.  We all had our eye on the yummy sweet stuff so did not try the breakfast fare and went straight to the treats.  (I sound like such a bad Mummy!  They did have a normal cereal-breakfast earlier, this is morning tea after all!)   We admired the interior of the tea rooms while we waited, it was very Old-English, with draped ceilings, opulent lighting and floral wall papered walls.

The kids shared a big ice chocolate, old fashioned style, in a tall glass with plenty of cream and vanilla ice-cream.

I went for a traditional English Breakfast Tea for this occasion, of course.

The Pavlova was heavenly with fresh and tangy fruit offsetting a fantastically light meringue with a lovely slightly chewy centre.

The Portuguese Tart was a highlight for Mini Me.  I have to agree it's pretty good, as the pastry was light and crispy, which I don't always get with my recipe.

The low light was the macarons unfortunately.  They looked lovely piled high in the windows, but  on the plate they were dry, hard, powdery and crunchy.  Macaron Monster has been starved of macarons as we haven't made any recently, but even so could only manage to eat part of the strawberry one.  Even at $2.5 each I couldn't bring myself to finish the unappetising cookies, quite possibly the worst I've ever tasted.  

Eat.Play.Shop. says - Go for the gorgeous pavlova, take-away a Portuguese tart, and leave those macarons for display only.

Toilets - The arcade has some

Highchairs - No