Today is my last day in Melbourne. I am flying out tomorrow morning, if not forever then for a very long time.
I chose Top Paddock as my last brunch destination. This was the most important decision, I think, as brunch is the most important meal of the day. And meals are the most important part of my day. Peen and Mangosteen, as I affectionately call Peter and Stina, were there, as was Eric, Jen and Sandra with her reindeer ears, in the Christmas spirit for the Swedish Christmas Market we were heading to after.
Photos are both Stina and I’s, on her ‘much better than mine’ camera.
Top Paddock was to be my last restaurant, and I was pretty happy with that choice. I went for my usual, Gin and Lime house cured ocean trout with goats curd, potato galette, pickled baby beetroots and poached eggs. My second favourite on the menu is the drunken gingerbread with berries and chocolate mascarpone. It was a close call, but I went the trout. Stina got the gingerbread so I was happy it was going to be on the table at least. It’s just so gosh darn pretty.
Eric got the soft shell crab burger, and as should be expected by now, did his best to try and ruin the shot. I have so many pictures with a thumb and a index finger creeping in from the edge, trying to steal what I am photographing. On purpose too, I might add.
Afterwards we hit up the Swedish Christmas Market as part of our series of multicultural Christmas markets, from all the nationalities of our group (well, all the nationalities that hold Christmas Markets in Melbourne). We were too full from Top Paddock to get waffles unfortunately, seeing as Peter had been talking about them since we arrived. But Stina did pick up some cloudberry jam! They have been telling me about these mythical cloudberries for months, and Peter even picked me up a can of cloudberry cider from Ikea on thanksgiving. I liked it, but they didn’t think it tasted much like cloudberries.
So Peter, Eric and I head back home, picking up some vanilla ice cream on the way, and proceeded to eat 3/4 of the jar of jam heated over ice cream. And then played rock band. Then Angela showed up with wine and cheese, so we continued eating and laughing until it was time to head to my farewell party!
Stina has been cutting the 515 clips worth of footage we have from my last 24 hours in Melbourne into movies – here is the first segment, only from 8AM-2PM!