Tennis in Melbourne

I'm not sure how it all happened but some time last year the City/Country Tennis Club decided to take a trip to Melbourne for the Australian Open. Boof and Helsie made it all happen - that's how we found ourselves at Brisbane Airport on January 18, meeting up with the other six members of the Country team to catch the plane to Melbourne. Our City team friends had caught an earlier flight. We shared a taxi from the airport into our motel, all jammed in tightly due to the size of the carry box that Gibbo took down to bring some Orpingtons back for Andrew. It became the source (and butt) of many jokes over the next three days. Boof kept the taxi driver entertained. We booked in, freshened up and met downstairs, dressed for the special dining experience that Kat had booked earlier in the week at Longrain. First though, we walked to a lovely old pub near Federation Square and sampled a few different types of beer in an upstairs lounge. At one stage we had the whole room to ourselves.

Longrain turned out to be a delicious dining experience. A table for 14 was set in the middle of the room. The restaurant is in a 100 year old converted warehouse (heritage listed former horse stables) in the heart of Chinatown - "the impressive red brick building stands on a classic cobblestone street". According to its' internet blurb, it has a hip yet welcoming atmosphere (it did) and warm, friendly service (it didn't; our waiter was a bit too cool). We had a banquet style meal, with three plates of each menu item being brought out at a time for us all to share. Portions were generous. Each dish was as delicious as the last and we all had personal favourites. The menu included Betel leaf topped with prawn peanut mint & chilli paste, freshly shucked oysters (Gibbo had mine), eggnet with pork prawns, peanuts, bean sprouts & sweet vinegar, s&p squid with sweet soy & ginger, slow cooked green curry of grass fed gippsland beef with bamboo & thai basil, crisp rainbow trout with shredded banana blossom & a roasted eschalot dressing, caramelised pork hock with chilli vinegar & deep fried eschalots, stir fried asian greens and rice. A very impressive selection of desserts came last - a range of tastes and styles, all really delicious. My favourite main dish was the eggnet salad - it was so fresh and clean tasting and the mix of flavours was a real delight in my mouth. The eggnet was a novelty too. I enjoyed the caramelised pork too although I couldn't eat too much of it by the time it came out. (When I got home I searched the internet for an eggnet salad recipe and found one on the SBS website so I want to give it a try sometime).

Over the three days we did a lot of walking. We had four sessions at the tennis, two day and two night. We saw Tomic, Federer (twice), Nadal, Dellacqua, Stosur, Ivanavic and Djokovic. The tennis centre is really impressive and works well. We caught trams, took a little ride on a water taxi and had breakfast twice in the same trendy little cafe, Benito's on Little Collins Street. Our last breakfast was at a cafe on the Yarra at Southbank. We walked to the Victoria Street markets and then trudged to Lygon Street where we had a drink in a dingy bar and lunch in an Italian restaurant ("come in, come in, i look after you!"). We spent a couple of hours at the Little Creatures Dining Hall (really a Beer Hall), located in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. It's housed in a building that was originally the Fitzroy Stables (what is it about stables with us?). It is a huge cavernous space filled with long wooden tables, cosy booths (I love booths), industrial fittings and an open front kitchen. It peddles its' own brands of beer and Pipsqueak cider. Not a lot really happening there for me but the company was good and the atmosphere, happy and convivial.

We made sure we had a plan for each day so as not to waste our time. We flew back home on the Wed night and G and I drove to Toowoomba and stayed with Ken. We didn't end up bringing any chooks home - the contact is a Country Fire Authority District Co-ordinator and there was a pretty bad fire on the last day we were there so he couldn't meet us with the chooks - so the cage went down empty and came back empty. It made for good conversation anyway.