The Queen Victoria Market has been an institution in Melbourne Australia for over 125 years. With over a 1000 stalls selling just about everything from fresh meat, fish and vegetables to clothing, housewares and the unusual the market attracts tens of thousands of shoppers every day. Built on Melbourne’s first cemetery the market covers seven hectares of the city with most of it undercover. The market opens Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays with a huge Sunday market which sells mainly fashion and variety items being the biggest day. Over the warmer months a popular night market is held on Wednesdays where there is gourmet food, wine tasting and plenty of entertainment. A trip to Melbourne is not complete without visiting the QV.
Many of you may know the name Casa Bonita from the South Park episode where Cartman tricks Butters into hiding for a week so he can go in his place to his favorite Mexican restaurant. In fact Casa Bonita is a real Mexican restaurant located in Lakewood, Colorado (just like the fictional South Park). Casa Bonita was once a chain of restaurants but only one now remains. The restaurant seats 1100 and has attractions like cliff divers, caves, flame jugglers and Mexican dancers, making the South Park depiction of Casa Bonita fairly accurate. The Restaurant is designed to look like a Mexican Village and its big seller is the all you can eat dinners. The video above is of the popular cliff divers diving into the restaurants artificial lake. If you ever get to Casa Bonita let us know what the tacos are like.
We know what it’s like when you go on holidays, the diet goes out the window, you have a few extra beers and large meals. Well, Check out this restaurant in Hofheim, just outside Frankfurt Germany. Called Waldgeist this restaurant specializes in XXXL meals all washed down with the German favorite a supersized beer. The snitzels here don’t even fit on the plate correctly and 4 people could eat the one burger and still be full! Hit the next page for their website, its in German but the pictures and all the XXXL’s across the menu should give you an idea if you cant be bothered translating it via bablefish. If you are near Hofheim make sure you detour to Waldgeist and if you are on a diet just have one beer, a 2 litre sized beer.
Shomben Yokocho or Piss Alley as it is better known is a interesting collection of small huts and restaurants squeezed between train tracks and the huge Odakyo Department store in Shinjuku Tokyo. It’s not the most beautiful lane way you will come across but is still a far cry from how it looked before a tragic fire in 1999 which destroyed much of the area. But the atmosphere and the aromas still remain and it is one of Tokyo’s best hidden treasures for great food. The area was once a notorious area with illegal activities including sex, gambling and dodgy booze deals but today only about 50 metres of the strip remains. The restaurants are no larger than a standard lounge room and the food is cheap and sure is good, with some of the city’s best yakitori. The area got its lovely nickname due to the lack of sewerage in the area, but fortunately things have changed and plumbers have cleaned up the area. For those after a bit of a alcoholic treat when visiting the area try a Karai Shochu its a vodka like drink which has extremely hot chilli peppers dissolved in it… only a brave person will go back for seconds.
Got a few Euro spare change kicking around in your pocket and got the munchies in Amsterdam, well a croquette shop will do the trick. Scattered through the Dutch city are great croquette shops full of stainless steel vending machines. Choose the tasty croquette you want to eat, whether it be meat, curry, vegetable cheese or some other tasty morsel, pop your Euro in the slot and simply open the door to a hot and steaming crumbed croquette. They are delicious! The staff works behind the vending wall of vending machines and all the service is automatic, that is unless you want to try the tasty Dutch version of potato chips, Pommes- complete with mayonnaise which can be bought from a staff member and is usually served in a clever paper cone.
At this restaurant known as ‘s Baggers in Nurnberg Germany you wont find any waiters to take your order or to bring drinks to the table, instead you will find a touch screen computer and something that looks like a food rollercoaster that bring food directly to your table. When you get a table at this futuristic restaurant you make your order via the computer at your table, your meals is then prepared by humans (not robots) in the upstairs kitchen and sent on a ride to your table. The restaurant claims that the system cuts costs and improves efficiency making for an overall better dining experience. The food served is called Franconian Style which is an old German style of cooking the name baggers comes from a potato fritter style dish. Read the rest of this entry »
The worlds biggest event starts today in Munich, the 174th Oktoberfest. The celebrations will commence with the traditional tapping of the barrel by Munich’s Lord Mayor at 12 PM making way for over 6 million visitors to the festival over the following two weeks. Over six million litres of fresh German beer will be drank along with quarter of a million pairs of sausages, half a million roast chickens, plus paddocks of oxen and more pretzels than you could point a stick at. There are over 12,000 staff employed over the festival with 1600 waitresses, some can carry a dozen full litre beers at once. The huge tens seat over 100,000 people in total at any one time and with all the beer and food the site needs over 1800 toilets.
With Oktoberfest starting in Germany in only a couple of days we thought we would start the festivities a bit earlier here at Tripandom. We found this great sausage restaurant in Nurnberg in a city which is known for the world’s biggest Christmas market and remembered it’s nasty past where it was the birthplace of the Third Reich- but probably its biggest call to fame is the home of the Bratwurst sausage. There’s probably no better place to try one of these tasty morcels than at the Bratwursthausle. The restaurant cooks their bratwursts in three different ways- you need to try all three – they have roasted ones called the Brat and poached ones in a hot vinegary wine sauce with onions which they call saure zipfel they aslo do a rauch which is a tasty smoked variety all covered with Nürnberg senf which is a delicious mustard then wash them all down with a couple of litres of Nurberg’s best beer and have you got a great dinner on your hands. Read the rest of this entry »
You can dream up just about anything and Harrods Department Store in Knightsbridge London will be able to source it, gift wrap it and even deliver it. The store is one of the worlds finest selling an amazing range of products. To shop in their store it is nothing short of an event they have seven floors and 300 departments packed with some of the finest products you could wish to buy. The food hall in the basement is extraordinary (and in many cases just like its prices) this beautifully tiled hall sells food from the four corners of the earth the range is incredible. Visitors beware there are doormen on every door ensuring no undesirables or badly dressed people enter, no backpacks, no torn jeans and no revealing skimpy costumes are just a few of the items forbidden. As tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the tragic death of Diana Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed (the son of Harrod’s owner) we must mention the moving shrine at the emporium dedicated to the both of them – this beautiful tribute is well worth a visit.
Its hard to believe but the King of Rock and Roll Elvis died 30 years ago today at his Graceland estate in Memphis Tennessee USA. Today Graceland has been transformed into a lasting memorial to the King, tours of the house where he lived and loved are available where you can see the famous jungle room, Elvis’s den, kitchen even his fridge. The huge complex also features museums shops and other somewhat kitsch attractions and for something really special you can get married at the Chapel in the Woods which is Graceland’s own Chapel a perfect setting for an Elvis inspired wedding. The chapel like much of the huge complex was built after the King left the building and some might say they are really only cashing in on the Elvis legend, but its all fun and it sort of suits the style of Elvis. Opposite the Graceland mansion is a magnificent collection of Elvis’s possessions including many of his automobiles and motorbikes. His custom jets the Lisa Marie and the Hounddog II are also on display. There are of course plenty of his stage costumes including his glasses and those amazing jump suits, and guess what there’s plenty of gift shops where you can buy some interesting Elvis merchandise including Elvis Cookbooks, photos, DVDS, key rings, you name it you will find it. Read the rest of this entry »
