A Good Food listener named Kellie made a map of all her favorite cheap eats in Melbourne. If you’re planning a visit, definitely check out her recommendations.

It’s not a secret that Australians are one of the biggest consumers of meat in the world.  Evan and I saw it first hand when we visited several markets in Adelaide and Melbourne.  These large indoor markets (Adelaide Central Market, Prahran Market and Queen Victoria Market) have multiple butcher stalls with loads of meats (beef, chicken, rabbit, goat, kangaroo, emu, and more) in all cuts (loin, shoulder, chops, offal, and more).  It also seems that their dogs reap the rewards of such meat consumption.  We saw numerous vendors selling …

Evan and I arrived in Melbourne yesterday and immediately realized that being here is a perfect way to ease ourselves back to reality.  It’s a bustling city, much like Seattle or Portland.  Aussies describe it as “funky,” which it is.  Across from our hotel is the Prahran market, which we are consistently mispronouncing.  The market is gorgeous, with fruit stalls, prepared foods, meats, fish and cheese from around Australia.  Queen Victoria Market in central Melbourne is similar but about three times as big.  We are continually astounded by the …

Yesterday we visited the farmers market in The Barossa, which is an indoor market made up of individual vendors.  It’s not produce-driven as much as it is artisan food makers.  There is a cheesemaker, a couple of bakeries, lots of jams and sauces, olive oil, etc.  Evan had one of the best egg sandwiches ever.  It was a fresh fried egg on a roll with bacon.  Bacon here isn’t heavily smoked like ours, and it’s not as ham-like as Canadian bacon.  It’s really good.  We picked up some olive …

We saw a kookaburra at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens – reminded me of that children’s song…

Our next stop in the Barossa was a visit to Maggie Beers’ Farmouse.  Maggie is like the Australian Julia Child / Martha Stewart / Evan Kleiman all rolled into one.  She’s warm, engaging, talented and a little scatterbrained.  She and her assistant cooked a squid dish, roast chicken (which she called “chook”), pumpkin and salad.  Dessert was “rough puff” pastry with frangipane and plum.  Since we were pressed for time, Evan and some others joined Maggie in the kitchen.  We dined on the verandah overlooking a pond with Maggie’s olive …

So we’ve been here in So. Australia, what, a month?  It’s only been 3 days?  You’ve got to be kidding!  Our schedule is so packed that each day seems like a week.

For example, yesterday….it was yesterday, right?
We got up, drove from Adelaide to the The Barossa Valley (gorgeous by the way), where we were treated to an orientation to the famous wine country at Jacob’s Creek with a breakfast degustation menu.  Yes, a degustation menu at breakfast.  it included, smoked salmon, venison, rock lobster, fried sweet cream….and, of course, the …

Aussies put beets on their hamburgers. There. I said it. Beets. On a burger. Sometimes it’s pickled, like in a relish, but most of the time it’s just sliced boiled beets from a can. We haven’t had one yet, but I did have a burger at an upscale restaurant called The Lion Hotel in an old Adelaide brewery. The burger had bacon, egg, an herbed beef patty, mayo, lettuce and tomato. I’m not sure how I feel about beets on …

Meat pies, Shepherd’s pie, lentil pie, sweet pies, mince meat pies… they LOVE pie down here and so do we!
Pie at the Adelaide Central Market