It was 4th October, my last night in Melbourne. I was staying at The Sebel Heritage Yarra Valley. After working all day, we arrived that afternoon, checked-in, showering then going out for more product knowledge then it was time for dinner!

Bella Restaurant offers monthly seasonal changes to the menu and gourmet ingredients from local Yarra Valley produces. As I reading the menu, we had no idea where we should start. As it is a rare occasion, my colleagues determined to have most by ordering different main meals.

Our entree is Bella's Pruners Plate:

Consist of Yarra Valley rabbit terrine with strawberry jam on top, farm house cheese, duck pate (top right), tarragon mustard (below right), mango chutney salsa (below left),and garlic aioli (top left) with biscotti bread.

The bread was not too dried which I like. I love the rabbit terrine, mango chutney and duck pate. In fact, my colleagues scraped these until the other plates were clean while leaving the mustard and cheese.

Next is J's choice of main meal:

Grilled barramundi, garlic prawn brochette, baby peas, spring onions and confit lemon.

She said that the barramundi is absolute delicious and she liked it cook well done (her request).

Nest is L's order:

Boned & roasted baby chicken, truffle foie, pearls onions, creamed celeriac in natural juice.

The baby chicken was tender and soft. It seem just ordinary roast chicken. My friend said that it was not a special dish.

Mine is:


The veal was tender and everything was the right flavour. The only thing i didn't like is the fried bacon accompanying this dish. It seem not a match, I could easily separated the bacon from the rest of the dish. The mascarpone was melted a bit while we were taking picture each other's dish. I would suggest that the mascarpone should not be salted as it only highlight the salted veal. Love the mushroom, seem it was soaked with jus prior cooking and it was juicy.

All of us loved the dessert:


It's classic, but we loved the warm gooey dark chocolate in the centre while it was cold outside in the Yarra Valley. The ice cream was loaded with vanilla bean and it was delicious after you spoon the gooey warm chocolate souffle down. The butterscotch sauce was sweet as paired with these dark chocolate. As all of us are almost full, we could not finish the souffle. It was bigger than the usual and we loved the intense flavours. Next time I will definitely save more place in my tummy for the souffle.

It was full of fog at 8am on Sunday morning when we were hunting kangaroo picture with the golf cart. What a start for the amazing morning experience. I saw a shadow and shouted, "Kangaroo...!" My friend drove closer to the shadow and we saw a golfer. My friend said that I was hopeless over my over-excited spirit for seeing free kangaroo in the nature...&@^%^#^%&. We found a couple of kangaroo and more and more group of kangaroos around the golf course. We saw ducks, and some black bird with red beak around some golfers that morning. It is a great golf course, designed to blend with the nature very well.

We did have breakfast at Bella Restaurant. I love the breakfast as we were provided with fresh fruit like banana with passion fruit instead banana chips at most hotels do. Also, I noticed that the honey was in a standing glass container with some pieces of honeycombs. We also saw that the fog were flying around to disappear from Yarra Valley around 10am. Nevertheless, as we were running out of time for the massage session that morning, we could not take any picture.

The first thing that I saw is:







After some more minutes waiting and seem it will take more time to get the machine working perfectly on making mochi-yaki, I focused on mochi and daifuku display. I bought some mochi with different flavours and brought it home:


I got the brochure about these product and flavours after I bought these mochi. The brochure will help you decide which flavour you would like to buy. Had I read the brochure before proceed to ask the staff what flavours it is one by one on mochi display, I would not be embarrassed wasting time as there were some people queue behind me.

I was advised that these mochi will last 5 days in the fridge or 15 days in the freezer.

It is good to be eaten frozen, advised the staff. So I put the fresh mochi into the freezer and ate these after some hours. It is delicious, soft and cold, though some with sensitive teeth may not like it frozen. Even though it is frozen, you can bite it through without slicing it. I almost end up eating my fourth mochi that day...

Have a look at their website in here: Shu Shin Bou's Website

So, I had been to Melbourne on 5th, 6th and 7th October because of the product knowledge sessions. Of course, if you are there for work, then the company will provide transport, accommodation and food.

My first lunch was in The Treasury Restaurant at The Sebel Melbourne. I saw lots of businessman and businesswoman around the restaurant. The waitress are very attentive, always keep our glasses full and asking us if we would like more wine.

As we were late for the scheduled visit in other place, we only had our main meal and dessert. We had to skip our second meal. No entree that was ordered originally.



I like the fish, it was moist and soft. The bay scallop was cooked from fresh scallop and tender. When you eat food that fresh, it will retain its moistness during cooking. The sauce was tomato and some herbs (?) which tasted light and not too powering.



The next is our dessert. It had a parfait. I never tried a parfait before, moreover combination of coconut and pineapple parfait seem like eating a butterscotch withour sugar (?). It tasted like something delicious, nutty, a bit sweet and I felt like I can taste buttery flavour but it is not butter, maybe because it was coconut milk in the ingredient. There were some chopped fruit mixed with passion fruit to accompany this dessert.

The Treasury Restaurant from above. See what is next to left of the round tables? It is used to be bank cashier. The whole building actually was The Bank of Australasia, built in 1876. Most of the building has gone refurbishment while maintaining its orginal structure and decorations.

I went to the bathroom, located on upstairs. It provided Molton Brown hand wash and lotion, a brand from UK, which is great service provided. I love the Molton Brown's lotion perfume. Seem they are using naran ji Molton Brown? We were happy to lather our hands with lots of lotion and come out from the bathroom with soft, smooth and perfumed hands.

Labels: Melbourne, The Treasury Restaurant

I never been to Melbourne!

Since I started my University studies a long time ago, the cities I have been to around Australia is only Sydney, Snowy Mountain, Canberra and Gold Coast.

When I was about to go to Paris last year, a chat friend told me that Melbourne resembles European City. I though Melbourne may be a very interesting city after I visited Paris.

I saw an article about an Australian actress talked about difference between Melbourne and Sydney. She said that Melbourne is gloomy (like London) and suitable for her TV serials which tell stories about homicide in Melbourne. She said that Sydney is bright and sunny city. Moreover, there are lots of underground gangland or mafia wars in Melbourne in the past years.

Just earlier this year, my chat friend said that there are lots of drunken teenagers roaming around Melbourne CBD making troubles at a very late night everyday.

The Sixty Minutes did not help much, one of the program informed that Melbourne does have drunken teenagers who would bashed, kicked people and fighting without any cause around Melbourne streets in the night. Worse enough, there are 2 victims been interviewed. One lose his half forehead skull as it is bashed badly against tarmac, but he survived without forehead skull, just skin covering his brain on the forehead. Another victim got brain damage and been degraded into a big baby who could not take care his own life. His mom has to washed, taking care, and feeding him all the time. The brawls happened during a very late night.

As a result, the bar opening hours in Melbourne has been reduced so much and there are curfew for these teenagers to roaming around Melbourne at late night.

No wonder, my imagination is that Melbourne is a dark, gloomy city with lots of rains, unpredictable weather, gangland wars, and a harsh city.

However, I was very excited when my friend from Indonesia came in August and asked me to go with her family together to Melbourne. It'll be 2 days only, but I want to find out what's Melbourne look like?

Sadly, my friend's dad suddenly got weak and sick a day before our flight to Melbourne. So, I had to cancelled all plans in Melbourne and my plane ticket is gone.

I keep thinking that one day, I will be on a plane and fly to Melbourne in this year. While I reluctant to pay for the trip, somehow I'm very sure that I will be going to Melbourne.

Then, last week, my manager called me and other colleague. He told us that we are going to Melbourne for 2 days training during the long weekend together with 4 others that he already called before us. I was amazed and keep calm during the talk in my manager's office. After we back to the desk, we giggled and felt very excited.

The price? We have to learn more and more about product knowledge in Melbourne and give a presentation upon coming back, but I still feel excited on stepping into Melbourne for the first time.

I am happy enough as all accommodation and flight will be paid and taken care for. I will not wandering around late in the night as I love my comfy bed more than roaming in the dark. I would love to walking around in the daylight as I can see more rather than in the dark.

I never dream that I will eventually get paid for a training out of town. Looking back years ago, I was a very comfortable just staying-at-home-person. Now, I'd love to try something new, eating out (only for something good enough), going somewhere and eager to open my eyes for more adventures.