I know this is meant to be a dinner blog. But we ate so much good food in Melbourne I feel I need to share other meals of the day also. Today we went to Shimbashi Soba & Sake Bar for lunch. They make their own soba noodles from scratch with organic buckwheat from Tasmania. We got there around 1:00pm and it was ridiculously busy. We managed to get a table outside in the glaring sun, not ideal but it was going to have to do. They took ages to serve us, and I was on the brink of becoming shirty, but luckily we ordered just in time. As we had been sitting in the hot sun for so long, I changed my order at the last minute from hot soba to cold soba. A decision I was glad I made. I ordered the tempura & soba set and Steve got one that had natto, yam, okra and a raw quail egg, amongst other stuff (also cold). Despite numerous trips to Japan, it was the first time either of us had tried natto – and I’m not sure we’ll be rushing back for more anytime soon. It kind of tasted like chemicals. Not pleasant at all. For those of you who a not familiar with natto – they are fermented soy beans, and they are incredibly sticky and smelly. By all accounts they are very healthy for you, but, yeah….very unusual tasting.

After lunch, we decided the best thing to do was to eat some more food, so we went and had a coffee and a cupcake at The Cupcake Family. I had chestnut and Steve had apple & cinnamon.

That night we went to Patrick and Bettina’s house for dinner. Patrick is Steve’s cousin for those of you taking notes. We had a tasty dinner of risotto, rocket salad and homemade chocolate & beetroot Icecream for dessert. We drank some wine and solved the problems of the world (well we thought so anyway) Thanks for a great night – you guys are awesome!