The Days of a Silly and Ordinary Girl! :D

[Travelogue] Melbourne: Day 4 (3/3) | Pidapipo | sillyandordinarygirl

By Lasmarya Hadi Purwanto - June 14, 2019

Hello!

Remember that I have ever mentioned about a hidden gem that we found during our night stroll in the CBD area, that deserved its own blogpost? If no, you can get a glimpse of the teaser here.

And, let me present you (again), Pidapipo! They have a cool website, btw!

Okay, so, on our day 2 in Melbourne, we found this very chic Gelateria on Degraves St, and surprisingly, had our mind blown by how good it was! Wait, let me quote my own words "we're super glad that we ended the day with the gelato that was sooo good...., and I think it was one of the best impromptu decisions we made during our trip in Melbourne." Well, yes, that was what brought us back here!

pidapipo melbourne | sillyandordinarygirl

We had the whole gelateria for ourselves the first time we're here!

Ordered their Pistachio and Dark Chocolate gelato, and fell in love with them right away!

As a big fan of ice cream and gelato, I fully recommend their gelato!

The flavour was so authentic, and not too sweet to my liking! So yuuuumm!

(Walk along this alley, and you'll find Pidapipo almost at the end of it)

(I love the façade! Not the usual square window but a round one, how unique is that! Okay, gotta admit, I like everything about this Gelateria right here, omg, getting so biased already!)

Just like Kate Reid with her Lune Croissanterie, Pidapipo is helmed by also a great woman, Lisa Valmorbida. When she decided that she wanted to make artisanal Italian gelato, she went all out. She headed to Italy to attend the best gelato university in the world, Carpigiani Gelato University in Bologna, where she learned that :

"All gelato must be made from scratch on site. Small batches only. There is no good gelato without great ingredents. Fruit is fresh, never frozen with no artificial flavouring, ever. All recipes must be precisely calibrated to create uniform creamy texture and intensity of flavour." - pidapipo.com

After graduating from the university, she worked in some of the best gelaterias in Italy and learned every important detail about making, keeping, and even scooping the gelato. I guess this is where her magic comes from. Attention to details, first-hand experience, and a dash of creativity brings the sparkles to Pidapipo.

The gelato store is said to have 20 flavours of gelato made fresh from scratch each day, using the very best ingredients and stored in pozetti (shiny lidded stainless steel containers) to maintain optimum quality. So, totally no worries about having "meeh" taste gelato, this I can promise. *wink*

Oh btw, I'm guessing that the staff were Italian too, since they spoke to each other in (what I thought was) Italian. And for both times we came in, we were served by the female staff shown in the picture, and she looked so pretty. I wondered whether all Italian are (always) so good-looking?

We encountered some queue the second time we got here, but most were take-aways, so we still managed to get some seats. Sadly, there was no Pistachio and Dark Chocolate that I loved so much that day, so we had Hazelnut and another variant of Chocolate (not Dark Chocolate), but they were also soooo good!

So there you go, now you have every considerable reason to come visit this gelateria and get happy by having a scoop (or maybe double)! :d

Pidapipo Gelateria

8 Degraves Street

Melbourne VIC 3000

Noon-11 pm

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[Travelogue] Melbourne: Day 4 (2/3) | Puffing Billy + Chin Chin | sillyandordinarygirl

By Lasmarya Hadi Purwanto - May 31, 2019

Hell-O!

Picking up from the last post about our experience tasting "Australia's finest croissant" in Lune Croissanterie, here I am back with the remaining story of the day.

So after having our tummy filled with French pastry, we went back to CBD area, got on the train from Flinders Street Railway Station to Belgrave Station, that took us around 1 hour and 10 minutes, and had a short walk of around 2-5 mins to Puffing Billy Railway.

Puffing Billy is Australia's preserved steam railway and has been operating since the early 1900s. As one of Melbourne's major tourist attractions in the present, this century-old steam train was first constructed to open up remote areas in Victoria, running from Belgrave to Gembrook, crossing over the timber Monbulk Creek Trestle Bridge and making its way through the lush rainforest of the Dandenong ranges.

We pre-booked the return tickets (Belgrave-Lakeside) for the latest trip at 14:30 from the website, that cost us AUD 57 each, (but as I check the latest price in the website, it is now AUD 59 for adult). Do notice that the tickets that we bought was from Belgrave-Lakeside, and not Belgrave-Gembrook. The Belgrave-Lakeside return journey takes 3 hours, while the Belgrave-Gembrook is 5 hours. (Detail information can be found in their website: https://puffingbilly.com.au/visit-us/the-journey/ )
There are only 2 trips available for Belgrave-Gembrook which are at 11:10 and 12:20.
It is highly recommended to pre-book your ticket online as they only keep very limited tickets for on-site purchase.

Okay, so here comes my honest opinions about the train ride.

First of all, we chose to ride on the second car after the locomotive, as we thought maybe we'd get better views and the car wouldn't have much 'turbulence'. However, we realised later that it probably wasn't the best idea after all. We didn't realise it at first but on our return trip back to Belgrave, we noticed that there were bits of either coal or burnt wood on our laps. (Steam engines work by burning coal or wood to heat a boiler that is partially filled with water. - azcentral) And either the smoke or the pieces of coal/wood blacken some parts of our faces too, *imagine the faces of mechanics or blacksmiths after working in the workshop, but a lot less black for us. I don't know whether it would be the same or not if you're sitting in the cars far behind the locomotive. Yet I still think it's wiser to avoid the front cars if possible.

Secondly, the steam train was a good 'first-time' experience for me. That being said, I had some fun, and I did enjoy my ride to some point, especially when we're passing through the nature, also the slight nervous feeling when we're moving through the timber bridge. It was fun enough. But I don't think I would want to ride it for the second time. We enjoyed the first hour, we stood up and we marveled at the lush surrounding along the way, but for the remaining two hours, we literally just sat down and chit-chatted. BUT, it might be a whole different experience for families. We had seen some families with children on the ride, and the kids loved it so much.

Back in the town centre, we had our dinner at a Chinchin, a famous Thai/Asian fusion restaurant in the CBD area which is just one block away from our hotel. There's a queue in front of it, and we had to wait for around 30 minutes to be seated in the bar, I don't know how much longer we should wait if we insisted on waiting for a table, cause there were so much crowd!

But, one that I can tell you, it was definitely worth the wait!

The food was AWESOME, we ordered two dishes, and both were so delish although I can only remember one of them, which was Rendang Curry of Wagyu Beef Cumin, Coriander & Toasted Coconut (AUD 28.5). Now you understand why it's hard to remember the name of the meal, right?

The meat was so tender, the spices made the whole meal so perfectly flavorful, so yummy! If you happened to be in Melbourne, Chinchin is a must!

Unfortunately, as the lighting in the restaurant was very very dim, no pictures of the dishes that I took would do them any justice. I tried to tone up the brightness but meh, they didn't look appetizing at all. So I chose not to upload any. You should have a try of the foods yourself, and you'll know what I mean. :P

Chin Chin

125 Flinders Ln

Melbourne VIC

3000, Australia

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[Travelogue] Melbourne: Day 4 (1/3) | Lune Croissanterie: Australia's Best Croissant? | sillyandordinarygirl

By Lasmarya Hadi Purwanto - April 08, 2019

Bonjour!
A bit of French to start the post, as we're going to indulge ourselves in the heaven of croissants!
*yeeaaaaaayyy* Are you with me? Are you ready? Haha

So, so, before we get started, I'm gonna share a bit of the back story. So, bear with me first, okay? XD

As I mentioned several times before, Diana was the one who made the whole Melbourne itinerary, (in which she did very good job btw, fitting everything into our 5 days short trip, I'm super proud of her). When she's almost done, she showed it to me and asked for my opinion, I said "all good, but can I add only one thing?" *with puppy eyes sticker (since we're chatting through Line)*,"can we please squeeze Lune Croissanterie into the list?" I knew she had put so much effort in arranging the itinerary, and I knew it won't be easy to find any slot to fit it in, but but but, she said "yes" not so long after, and I felt I could hug her right away.

And you know what, I'm really glad I made the request.

We first checked out from our hotel early in the morning, and we checked in at the second hotel on the Flinders Ln, this time at the CBD area, before heading to Lune. So, when we got there, it was almost lunch time, around 10-11 a.m. and the croissanterie was already packed with crowds. It wasn't even weekend, but the queue was real. Not only locals, but also tourists, came to have a taste of the so-called "Australia's best croissant", which some even said, "one of the best in the world" too.

The Lune itself is located in a brick warehouse in Fitzroy with the glass room in the middle, named "The Cube". All productions are made in the Cube, where they maintain the perfect room temperature to bake the best croissants. There are two stone slabs, one serving as display and cashier, while the other one serves coffee, water and cutleries for dine-in.

This was my first time seeing a cake/bread display without any glass separating us, don't you think it makes all the croissants look even more tempting this way? :d

As it was quite crowded, when we first got in, there were barely any seats for us. But fortunately, not so long after we made the purchase, there's a tiny corner that became available, and we directly secured it, as we surely didn't want to eat while standing.

Almond Croissant ($9.20) and Cruffin

(p.s.: I'm sorry I forgot what the cruffin was, I remembered it being seasonal menu)

The Almond was soooooo good, it was mindblowing, the buttery flaky croissant getting along very well with the crunchy almond, I don't know how to better describe it, but it stole my heart in the first bite. As an avid fan of croissant, I raised four thumbs up for this one.

The Cruffin one had a very nice texture to it too, with the generous filling inside, but flavor-wise, it was a bit too sweet for us. Maybe we should try another cruffin the next time we go there. (Ha! I'm already thinking of going back, ckckckck)

While we were in the middle of savoring our pastries, an elderly couple found their seats beside us. They were Asian, one from Malaysia and the other one is from UK, they both moved to Melbourne and have been enjoying their lives there. They told us that it was their third time coming to Lune and they were shocked to see the crowd. The first two times, they came early in the morning at around 8, and they didn't have to queue.

So, there you go, the tips to beat the crowd and the queue: Come Early!

The man also told us that the founder of the croissanterie was a former Formula-1 engineer, so when she got her hand into baking, she always makes sure everything is done in precision. WOW.

So here I am, writing this post, while also doing some research about Lune's founder, Kate Reid, who used to be a F1 aerodynamicist. She studied engineering for five years, moved to UK to work for F1, but when she realized the job wasn't for her, she got depressed and fell into anorexia. She returned to Melbourne in May 2008, started a new baking job in a bakery in Melbourne, for the love of baking, but had to quit also as the long working hour was too much for her body. Then, she got a new chance working as a baker for a little local cafe, that only required her to work for four hours every morning, and here's where she regained a little bit of hope. One day, she happened to read a coffee table book and opened a double-page photo of a stack of pains au chocolat at a Parisian boulangerie, Du Pain et des Idées. She closed the book, went to a travel agent, and directly booked a ticket to Paris. She visited the boulangerie, and was eventually accepted to intern by the owner.