The Zeitgeist

Melbourne Post 4

The Lucky Coq on corner of Chapel + High Sts. This place is run by the people who run Bimbos under exactly the same premise with exactly the same pizza deals and menu. We found Bimbos to be preferred to this place though as the original and the best venue. Something about this place looked more contrived and pretentious, and far less spontaneous and relaxing than Bimbos.

An old W-Class tram snail-paces its way up La Trobe st as one of the new trams passes it in the other direction. Melbourne's tram network is the third largest in the world and recently privatised. The W-Class tram was introduced in 1923 and was the mainstay of the tram network for 60 years, they are still used extensively today. The other tram is one of the recently introduced C-class trams built by Citadis. The intersection in the picture is the busy La Trobe + Swanston intersection with RMIT University, Melbourne Central shopping centre and the State Library on respective corners.

Library is a small bar within the GPO/Lexington complex, resulting from the recent refurbishment of the historic GPO building, which contains 2 bars and a club. It is a fairly typical Melbourne bar but somewhat lacking in the character of some others, it feels a bit more commercial and fabricated. The drinks are expensive but clear spirit lovers will enjoy the fact that house Gin (South) and house Vodka (42 Below) are pretty good.

The Royal arcade which runs between Bourke and Lt. Collins Sts dates back to 1869. It is a heritage Victorian building and contains many obscure fashion boutiques and other random stores including the Koko Black hot chocolate bar, several beauty salons and a store selling Russian "babushka" dolls.


The State Library of Victoria was opened in 1856 and is situated along Swanston St between La Trobe and Lt. Lonsdale Sts. It contains 1.5 million books and hundreds of high school and university students cramming for their exams (around exam time), particularly kids from Melbourne High, Macrob and Melbourne and RMIT Universities. The lawns outside the library
are a popular place for people to meet and lie around on sunny days. Protest marches often start outside the State Library and it featuers a weekly Speakers Forum (for anyone to speak on whatever they want), which attracts a fair few nutters, tai chi demonstrations by Falun Gong protesters and ad hoc breakdancing.

Labels: food+drink, melbourne

posted by LX @ 1:52 AM Comments: 5

More Melbourne blogging

Continuing my blogging about Melbourne.

I shall try to blog about a combination of historical places, cafes/bars and things of personal significance to me. I'm sure I'll look back on these when I'm overseas and miss Melbourne a lot!















The historic Melbourne City Baths are located on the corner of Swanston and Victoria Sts, just outside the Melbourne CBD and very close the University of Melbourne and RMIT University.

The Baths now house an extensive fitness + recreation facility with facilities for swimming, weightlifting, aerobics and group exercise.

This building is a mainstay on the route from Melbourne Central railway station to Melbourne University and thus a common sight for many students like myself.




































Bimbo's Pizza in Brunswick St. On weekdays and nights, it serves its fantastic set of gourment pizzas at a flat price of $4. An absolute bargain. The place is a pizzeria with a very pub feel and doesnt close til very late. In addition to the part of the pub with tables + chairs, Bimbo's also has a busy lounge section with a variety of armchairs and a small circular enclave room with carpeted walls...

Bimbo's is very popular with students, as a result of it's cheap but quality food and gets a variety of revellers from Brunswick St to boot.















Xiao Long Bao and Red Bean pancake at Noodle Kingdom restaurant on Russell St. Melbourne has a very plentiful restaurant scene, particularly a variety of different Asian restaurants. Many of these restaurants can be found on Russell St and in the vicinity of Chinatown.

There are several Northern Chinese restaurants, Noodle Kingdom being a recent addition. We found the pancake to be quite good but the Shanghai Fried Noodles were quite bland and the Xiao Long Bao were lacking in soupy goodness.



Threshermans Bakehouse on Faraday St, Carlton. Its proximity to Uni and cheap, plentiful food options makes this a favourite with the uni crowd and a variety of Carlton thrifters, despite the food quality not being great.

The communal atmosphere including wide tables, cutlery buckets and stacks of newspapers/magazines gives this place a homely feel.

Labels: food+drink, melbourne

posted by LX @ 11:15 PM Comments: 2