Foodie Trails Melbourne {Foodie Culture Tour}
Post Last Modified – August 17, 2023 ¦ gr8traveltips.com
A Review Of Our Foodie Trails Melbourne Tour
Table of Contents
Taking a local 🚶 walking food tour when we travel to new destinations, is one of our favorite things to do. On our visit to Melbourne, Australia a few seasons ago, we had the distinct pleasure of taking the …
A unique opportunity to explore the local culture and sample some of their; 🍜 traditional dishes, on this superb 🚶 4 hour cultural walking food tour.
Foodie Trails Mission Statement
I always prefer to select and support local small businesses when choosing tours of any kind, when we travel. After reviewing the 🌺 Foodie Trails 🌺 website and the excellent selection of tours they offered, this independently owned small business seemed just perfect!
Combined with their repeated accolades for excellence on {TripAdvisor} and elsewhere over the years, their 🧆 Foodie Culture Tour, 🧆 was just what we were looking for.
They are also a fully licensed boutique travel company, trading under the name of; 🏖 Beacon Holidays. As a travel operator, they can offer personalized and unique holiday experiences, together with a cultural and foodie aspect added.
Foodie Trails Melbourne Mission Statement for all their tours offered is …
“Bringing people together through stories, experiences and food to celebrate diversity.”
A Closer Look At Our Cultural Food Tour Experience
With Melbourne known for being a vast 🏙 multicultural city, it goes without saying, that this is a; ❤ Foodie Lovers Paradise.
With a diverse number of immigrants now living in the city, with it comes unique opportunities for locals and visitors to experience their; culture, customs and of course, their food!
Melbourne Immigration Museum
It is estimated that the {State of Victoria} in Australia, is now made up of a vast number of immigrants having come from more than 200 countries from around the 🗺 world.
So, starting our tour at the 🏛 Melbourne Immigration Museum, seemed ideal!
After meeting our tour guide (Dhwani) and fellow travelers, we began our tour with a visit inside the museum. A chance to view the many exhibits and a very unique way to start our; 4 hour cultural tour.
An opportunity to learn about and review some of the stories of early immigrants to Australia, arriving from all parts of the world. A closer look at what they experienced and endured at that time.
After a brief visit, it was time to head outdoors, and make our way to our first eatery on the tour.
Caffe E Salumi
Just a short distance from the Museum, our first stop of the day was for a cup of freshly brewed ☕ coffee.
This tiny Italian cafe and Panino Bar is very popular among locals, offering freshly made 🥙 Panini and more.
It was an unusually cool and windy day in the city, so starting off outdoors with a cup of java was excellent! 🙂
Historical Mitre Tavern
As we continued walking, we made a brief stop at the 🍺 Historical Mitre Tavern, down a small side street downtown. Established in 1837, this structure is now the 🏠 Oldest Standing Building in Melbourne!
Initially a residence, it is now a long standing tavern located in the business district of the city. Surrounded by and dwarfed by 🏙 high rise buildings, it’s quite the unique site!
Just a small piece of history and great to see the building preserved over the years!
The Block Arcade
Continuing on our way, Dhwani led us into the; Block Arcade. This is a very popular shopping arcade in the city. The {Block} is also an historic part of Melbourne.
Filled with interesting shops, we got a chance to step into a very unique business, selling exotic teas from around the world. The interior and architecture of this arcade is just; fabulous!
Continuing our walk through the arcade, we reached our second stop and time to sample some – food!
Brunetti Cafe
Entering an extremely popular and busy food fair, here we sampled some delicious pastries from the; Brunetti Cafe. This Italian Cafe is a classic 🥐 Pasticceria Institution, 🥐 in Melbourne.
They are known for serving the finest Italian; 🍰 cakes, desserts, pastries, pizzas, pastas and coffee.
The pastry samples Dhwani selected for us were absolutely delicious. No wonder this is a favorite establishment among locals in the city. 😎
The cake selections also looked amazing!
China Red Restaurant
Time to carry on to the colorful; ⛩ Red Gates of Melbourne’s Chinatown in the cities; {CBD} or Central Business District. Today, 🏮 Chinatown’s historic buildings offer some excellent Asian; eateries, bars and fashion boutiques.
This is Australia’s Oldest Chinatown, and our guide led us into a very popular eatery here called; 🥢 China Red.
This restaurant is very unique, in that you can actually order your selections right from the table on a 💻 computer screen, mounted on the wall beside you.
Dhwani gave us the choice of what we would prefer to try, with some suggestions of course!
How about some honey garlic 🦑 squid, accompanied with tasty 🦐 shrimp dumplings to start? ❓ Followed by some Stir-fried 🐊 Crocodile Meat in Ginger & Onion Sauce, with spring rolls to wet your appetite!
The menu at this establishment is filled with fresh and authentic Chinese dishes. Our choices were very unique, and something that we would not normally have ordered on our own.
A great way to try something new and to experience!
Cham’s Yum Cha
Making our way through 🏮 Chinatown, we made a quick stop to browse through another and very unique; International Convenience Store. Filled with goods that you would never see in your typical corner store for sure, very unique!
It was neat to see and browse the isles looking at all the various food items, spices and much more. 🙂
Rice Paper Homestyle Vietnamese Food
From Chinatown to Vietnam, time to try some 🍘 rice paper rolls, from another local favorite establishment; 🌾 Rice Paper.
These rolls were huge and filled with either; vegetarian options, or non vegetarian. We sampled both and they were excellent. One roll would be a meal by itself.
They were huge!!
Along with our rice paper rolls, we sampled some of their signature freshly squeezed 🥃 Sugar Cane juice. Very tasty and very sweet! 🙂
By this point, our stomachs definitely were at the breaking point.
On this tour, you have plenty to eat, so make sure you arrive hungry!
Melbourne is filled with interesting {side lanes and alleyways}, all throughout the city. Many of them have excellent; restaurants, bars and shops to browse the day away.
Really something unique and cool to see in this city, other than your typical dirty back alleys found in most other cities around the world.
Flora Indian Cuisine
With our bellies bursting, we made our way to; Little India. Walking by the spice shops, retail outlets and more, I really started to have the feeling that I was back in India.
There’s a very large Indian population in Melbourne and with that, some excellent restaurants as well!
To finish our tour, Dhawani led us into the; 💮 Flora restaurant. Just another hidden 💎 gem in the city, only the locals would know about. We tried to manage sampling traditional; Dosa with a side of Masala, as best as we could manage.
Very tasty and a favorite traditional dish, among the people of India.
Just when we thought we had enough, out comes dessert – sweets of course! 🧆 Gulab Jamun and Jalebi.
Gulab Jamun was my absolute favorite dessert, throughout my travels in India a few seasons ago. Small cake balls soaked in a delicious sweet sauce, and in most cases served ♨ hot.
I like sweets and they are absolutely delicious!
For those with a real sweet tooth, Jalebi is your ticket! A crispy, sweet treat that is a very popular street food in India.
Great with Chai Tea. 🙂
This was a superb walking food tour throughout the {CBD} District of Melbourne. It was a great way to; see, experience and taste some of the flavors of the city introduced by the varied ethnic communities.
The walk is leisurely and enjoyable, with many stops along the way. There’s plenty of time to enjoy the sites and take 📸 photos, as you walk the streets and alleyways of the city.
Recommendations
I always recommend experiencing a cultural food tour when traveling to new destinations. This tour will not disappoint and you will leave with full stomachs!
A “Must Do” while visiting Melbourne!
Included in your tour is;
➡ A visit and introduction to the Immigration Museum, including admission;
➡ 5 Tastings with the history behind the foods and flavors of all establishments visited;
➡ Visit local spice shops to learn about the spices and ingredients used by the different regions;
➡ A Friendly & Informative Tour Guide.
We had a wonderful time with our very friendly guide {Dhawani} from Foodie Trails Melbourne, along with our fellow travelers on this tour.
Below, I have listed 🌺 Foodie Trails Melbourne’s official website for your convenience, where you can access much more detailed information on all the tours they offer.
You can also check availability and make online reservations as well. 🗺 Be sure to check out the {Google Map} box at the bottom of this post for Melbourne Australia’s exact location. 🗺
I’ve also listed the 🌺 Official Victoria Australia Tourist Board’s website link below, to their page on the City of Melbourne for your convenience.
It’s filled with excellent information to assist in your travel planning to the – “Land Down Under!”
🦘 Visit Victoria – Melbourne 🦘
😎 Safe and Healthy Travels!
Although our tour was in collaboration with Foodie Trails Melbourne, rest assured all content and opinions are that of the author and reflect my personal experience only.
All personal 📸 photographs on this post are the property of gr8traveltips.com and are copyright protected. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. 🚫
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