Shaun Tan book signing, Mediterranean Wholesalers and Foodie, Glen Waverley

Whenever we go somewhere, I always like to surf the menus, and the supermarket range. I would go to interesting looking restaurants, peer at the menu on the window and imagine what I would order if we were to visit that restaurant. Stomach space is limited, so of course visiting every restaurant in the area on the same day is impossible so the next best thing is to look at the interesting dishes on the menu of each restaurant! With the supermarkets, I love to explore and buy new unusual items to eat at home. Especially in specialty markets, it is like visiting a foreign country without leaving Australia. 

 

A new grocery store opened in the Glen Centro, called Foodie. There is also one in Hughesdale, which I have not visited before. The one in Glen Waverley looked like an ordinary grocery store selling dried goods and fresh vegetables at the front, but it is really quite expansive. It has several food stalls selling mixed rice dishes, Japanese street food like yakitori and sushi, Hong Kong hawker food like roast meats on rice. The prices are on par with restaurants and cafes but it has a food court feel to the dining experience.

It also has a fishmonger, complete with tanks of live fish and butchers selling chicken, beef including premium meats like wagyu and pork. 

On the same day, we were in Brunswick so I stopped by Mediterranean Wholesalers for a browse. It has such a wide range of dried pasta that all the types of pasta in Italy must have been represented in the store! It also has a variety of biscuits and sweet snacks that I could not resist and bought a pack of chocolate wafer biscuits. I also bought some porcini bouillon that perfumed my whole bag with wonderful savoury smell of the fragrant mushroom. 

We visited Beinart Gallery to see Shaun Tan, an Australian artist who had won an Oscar for an animated film. He has drawn a number of books, The Arrival is my favourite and strikes a chord with me. Read it if you have not! Later, we went to A1 Bakery for some pizza on incredibly delicious Lebanese bread, drizzled with olive oil. It was light and tasty. 

The Foundry is a new open space park on Frith St near Victoria Street. It was built on the old Fletcher Jones factory and was previously a foundry. It has a half basketball court, an outdoor ping pong table, a BBQ and beautiful architecture. This new park had just opened a month ago in September and looked marvelous. It seemed like a good use of previous industrial space, but I wished there were accessible green space rather than fenced up tree saplings and paved areas.