Welcome to Thornbury

Yesterday, I decided to take Brandon on one of our classic blind dates. It turns out there are some distinct disadvantages and advantages to doing a blind date in Melbourne. One disadvantage is that one can never be fully unaware of where one is, because the trains quite loudly state the stations as you approach. So even blindfolded and with his poor hearing, Brandon would have an idea of where he is. Another disadvantage is that if the train is very full, it's not safe to blindfold someone. I can't give safe directions quick enough to get off the train and mind the gap unless we're sitting near the train doors. So, most of the time on our date Brandon had to go unblindfolded and just look down rather than out the window. 

One advantage is that there are so many suburbs to check out and things to do in Melbourne that it would be hard for Brandon to guess what we are doing next, even while being able to loudly hear the next station coming up on the train. Another pseudo advantage is that I don't even know how to get to some of the places we may go on a blind date, so we're kind of both on a blind date as I try to decipher a map. Oh, the adventure! 

The first place I brought Brandon was Welcome to Thornbury. I was a little worried that he'd figure out what we were doing, because this place had been mentioned to us by the same legendary barkeep who recommended the beer festival and taco restaurant. But, no need to worry...he had forgotten all about it. So, we entered Welcome to Thornbury, "Melbourne's first permanent bar and food truck stop". It was a really cool set up; they had done a lot with just a fenced in concrete slab and building. The building hosted a bar with taps repeated three or four times for easy access. The outdoor area was transformed by tables and chairs with umbrellas and tiered wooden benches that could be used as seating and table space. The benches also snaked around the open space so that both sides could be used comfortably. And then of course there were food trucks. There were five trucks the night we went: Sliders on Tyres, Super Taco, Pasta Face, Let's Do Yum Cha, and Crepes for Change. Can you guess which ones we went to? Yes, of course we went to Super Taco! And, for something different we also tried Let's Do Yum Cha. 

So, what was the verdict? At Let's Do Yum Cha, we chose one of their bargain meals where we got to choose 5 things for $11. We had a spring roll, a pork dim sum, chicken dim sum, and two vegetable dumplings. They were all delicious, but the spring roll was our favorite. As for the tacos, we chose the three taco deal and tried a Flathead (fish) lime taco, a four mushroom goat cheese taco, and a fried chicken and cactus taco. The chicken and cactus was by far the best! In fact, we agreed it was one of the best chicken tacos we'd had in awhile. So good! 

Blindfolded at Welcome to Thornbury

Hargreaves Hill ESB. One of the better beers we've had in Melbourne

Let's Do Yum Cha food truck

Eating our dim sum, dumplings, and spring roll

Super Taco food truck! Inevitable for us to try.

Mmmm. Tacos.

Amazing what they've done with a concrete slab...maybe Grand Rapids should consider this??

We saw batman on the way back to the train

The next blind date location was just a few stops back towards city center on the train line. Brandon and I had been wanting to check out some Australian bands, so I had found a free indie rock/punk/electronic/who knows what? show with three bands at the Tote. We showed up a bit early and saw a band warming up, which turned out to be Oscar Galt and the Eventual Somethings. We were the only ones there, so it was a bit awkward, so we decided to leave and find some ear plugs for the show. We had to walk a few blocks before finally finding a grocery store in a slightly sketchy area of town. Then we had to stalk down a sales associate to find the ear plugs. With our ear plugs in hand, we returned to the venue only to find out that the band line up had changed, they were not starting for another 30 minutes, and there was now a $5 cover. We decided to call it a day. Constantly being in new places and trying new things can get quite exhausting. Things didn't quite work out, but it was a good try and we did hear 30 seconds of one band! That counts, right? Kinda? Not exactly. At least, we had fun overall and the whole experience made for a good, more-comedic-the-next-day story. 

At the Tote before it all went comically down hill. Never dull.