An evening in Federation Square

Csaba and I took our first evening on the town last night quite successfully. After a little internet research we decided to take the train to
Federation Square in downtown Melbourne, a great area with Restaurants, Bars, Theatre, Museum, and even a las vegas style casino. We decided to make the most of checking out the area by coursing out our meal over a few different restaurants. First stop was EQ a busy hip restaurant and bar with a blend of popular cuisine. We noticed everyone ordering a yummy looking plate of 3 dips with bread so we followed suite. totally yummy there was an eggplant dip, carrot dip (my fav), and a spicy creamy dip each topped with a few kalamata olives. We are totally hooked. Once we had finished that we walked further down along the Yarra River where there are tons of restaurants are until we came to Walter's Wine Bar. I love me some wine so we stopped in, sat at the bar and got a half dozen Tasmanian oysters along with a glass of Verdejo for me and a manhattan for Csaba. We met a really nice guy who had recently moved to Mel from Toronto and had a nice chat with him. Once we finished we were off again to check out some more scenery. We headed down to the casino to see how it stood up to the ones we had seen in good ol' LV. It was quite nice with lots of shops and pricey restaurants inside.


From there we decided it was time to sit down for a real meal. We settled on Seagrass a nice looking restaurant down a bit from the casino. There was a bit of a wait at first so we decided to order a bottle of wine before we were seated. To my delight there was a bottle of Chenin Blanc from Vouvray, France. Apparently we didn't look like we knew what we were talking about because the waiter tried to bring me a different bottle of Chenin first. He also didn't know how to properly open it which disappointed me a little. It was quite a nice bottle a little bit sweeter at first than i expected but definitely very tasty. At dinner Csaba had a few more oysters with a sangria sorbet on them and then a snapper. I had a spatchcock dish which was yummy. We shared an awesome dessert to finish. Espresso gelato on a mocha cookie and a chocolate mouse in a tube that tasted like a chocolate lollipop it was all hardened chocolate sugar. Our waitress was really nice and told us about a number of cool places to hang out and get a drink which we plan to check out tonight. She even drew us a little map! Getting used to tipping in this country is very weird because there is no real answer to what the standard is. You all know me and how crazy it makes me when people visiting from other countries don't know what the custom to tip is so i really want to be sure I'm leaving what is expected. Sounds like nothing is expected some is nice. Totally vague.
Here are a few pictures from along the Yarra river to give you a feel of the area.