Qantas A330 to MEL - Yarra Run, Tapas with Friends, and Steak at Rockpool Bar & Grill

[yflyer]

An early arrival just after 6am in the morning...



I staggered off the plane half asleep...

On previous trips to MEL, the time taken to clear arrival formalities ranged from super quick to hour-long waits, depending on both the immigration and baggage queues.

However, there is now an automated system for passport checks, available to those holding Australian, Singaporean, and several other nations' passports.

You used the kiosks lining the corridors to scan your passports, answered questions on the touchscreen, and then received a small printed card, which you then used to clear the automated gate, where your photo was taken. After that, you collect your baggage and proceeded for customs inspection. This was a great system with much shorter queues than the previous manual system.

I had no checked luggage, and was out through customs checks very quickly. There was no queue at the taxi rank outside the terminal. I slept in the back seat of my taxi on the way into Melbourne, and was in the lobby of the Westin Melbourne by 7.15am. As far as travel time was concerned, this was a best case scenario!

To be continued!

[yflyer]

The Westin Melbourne is at a very central location, at the corner of Swanston St and Collins St.



It has modern, and very elegant, public areas.



It is not a large hotel: I only learnt after check in that there was no SPG Lounge on the premises (Platinum members are offered a full breakfast or SPG points as amenities), but there is a decent wine bar, an upscale restaurant and an indoor swimming pool.

There was a subway construction site along the street outside the hotel at the time, however it was nicely boarded up, and was quiet in the mornings and evenings, so it proved not to be disruptive at all.

Although it early in the morning, way before check-in time, my room was available, and I was upgraded to a deluxe room, on the 5th floor, on the side of the hotel facing Collins Street (Pictured below). I picked the full daily breakfast as my SPG Platinum amenity for my stay.

[yflyer]

The room was large...







...and had a small balcony, that overlooked Collins Street and part of the Melbourne skyline...a very pretty view...





The bathroom was huge as well.



Heavenly Spa toiletries...



Beautiful glass tumblers on the bathroom counter.



Both a bathtub...



...and a shower stall...

[yflyer]

The indoor pool looked quite inviting...



...and the gym looked decent as well...



There is also a sauna...



So far so good. An impressive hotel room, and a great base when visiting Melbourne.

Quirks? Just two:

First, the room has several fiendishly difficult-to-find light switches and power sockets. They are there, but are just not easy to find...especially in a jetlagged or tired state.

Where, for example, are the switches for the reading light, and the master room light switch? They were on the wooden console/chest next to the bed in the picture below...but where exactly??



The second? The room service menu consisted of entirely Western selections, and except for a Lamb Rogan Josh, there was nothing else remotely Asian or Oriental on the menu. A surprise for multicultural Melbourne.



And even more surprisingly, the full breakfast buffet, while tasty, was 100% Western as well, which seemed unusual in Australia, where most other large hotels would have at least a few Asian selections in the breakfast buffet.







Of course, we were walking distance from Chinatown, with all the Asian food you would want, whether Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean or Malaysian, right at your doorstep.

All that said, I found the Westin to be a very good hotel: I thought my room was wonderful and the location unbeatable.

[yflyer]

On the second day of my trip, I found some time in the evening to head out to the Yarra River for a run.

This was not the first time I had done this. I had visited Melbourne many times in the distant past (And posted previous MEL TR's too), but this was my first visit in years, and I was keen to retrace my steps along favourite running routes along the Yarra River.

The same would go for eating places too, some of which covered in this TR are "reruns". I would probably be more adventurous on future trips, but this time round I just wanted to head back to my old favourite restaurants...

I headed out of the Westin in the early evening, and headed down Collins Street...



...before turning left at Swanston Street, towards Flinders Street Station...



...whose beautiful red and yellow brick architecture was complete obscured by construction hoardings, while it undegoes repairs, restorations, and a new paint job.

I crossed over to Federation Square...





...before turning left, to the East...and jogging along the northern bank of the Yarra on a pleasant, cool evening...

[yflyer]

This is a wonderful running route, especially if the weather is pleasant...



I headed eastwards, passing various sports venues, including the Rod Laver Arena, where the Australian Open Tennis championship takes place, as well as the MCG - the Melbourne Cricket Ground, one of the shrines of the sport of cricket.





After heading east along the Yarra for about 3km, I crossed a bridge over to the other side, and headed back westwards towards the city on the southern bank of the river...



By then, it was getting dark...



There were pedestrian/cyclist paths on both sides of the Yarra, right through the city...it was getting quite crowded with pedestrians, but it was still possible to jog along the path...



Crown Casino, along the route, is one of Melbourne's landmark buildings...



Outside the casino, as I jogged along the riverside promenade, fireballs shot skywards. This happened every hour in the evening, as part of the casino's signature Gas Brigade Fire Show...



...I don't know if there is any truth to the urban legend that when the fire show first began, the flames tended to roast any pigeons or birds close by...

[yflyer]

I jogged past the Crown Entertainment Complex towards South Wharf, where to my surprise I noticed that my much loved Hilton South Wharf hotel had changed management, and was now a Pan Pacific.



A beautiful cyclist/foot bridge across the Yarra...



Once again, I crossed over and headed back to towards the city, and ended my run not far from Flinders Station, a short distance from the Westin.



Total distance that day was 12km...a very pleasant run, and my preferred jogging route when in MEL...

[yflyer]

The next day, I met up with fellow SQTalkers Kyo and SQ228 at Movida, a modern Spanish/Australian wine and tapas bar at Hosier Lane, not far from Flinders Street Station.



This place was literally 5 minutes walk from the Westin, down a narrow lane which had walls covered with Graffiti (Of the artistic kind...).



I had actually gone there the previous night as well for drinks and a few tapas after my run...

The menu consisted of both tapas / small plates, and larger sharing portions, called Raciones...



The other thing this place had was a great list of sherries...seated at the bar counter, I essentially pointed at the list of sherries and asked the friendly bartender to pour me glass after glass of different sherries to taste...







...while sampling the tapas...





That was the previous night, where I was a solo diner...

[yflyer]

On this evening, a cold drizzly day, it was great to be indoors in Movida's warm cozy surroundings once again...



...where I was thrilled to meet up with fellow SQTalkers Kyo and SQ228...



(Photo posted with their permission)

SQ228, as his handle implied, was based in Melbourne, and found time to join us although he was in the midst of launching a solo photo exhibition...

As for Kyo, I seem to run into him quite often in various places...and on this occasion he was in MEL, and ready to sample some of the city's culinary pleasures...

As a group of three, we could afford to order a wide selection of items from the menu...we picked off item after item, rapid fire, from the menu...at one point the waitress taking our order said "That's quite a lot, do you want to remove anything?"

"No, let's go with all of those...", Kyo replied, confident in his (and our) ability to polish off everything we had selected...

The tapas started arriving, each a small and beautiful bite-sized creation...and oh so delicious...









Zucchini flower stuffed with spanner crab...a must try when available...



Bistec tartare...



And those were just the tapas...soon the larger raciones began to arrive...

Arroz con pulpo, Spanish rice cooked in bisque with calamari and octopus...



Roast duck breast ...



Ultra tender beef cheek...

[yflyer]

Dessert was a delicious creme caramel...



...and churros to share...



A wonderful evening with friends, in a place I would always want to return to when in Melbourne.

[yflyer]

On the last evening of the trip, I took a walk along the Yarra from the Westin to the Rockpool Bar & Grill for dinner...



On an early Friday evening, the F&B outlets on the South bank of the Yarra were busy, with everyone ready to start the weekend with a round of drinks and dinner...



The Rockpool Bar & Grill is one of Neil Perry's restaurants, and is housed in the Crown Entertainment Complex.



While Neil Perry is a restaurant genius, with many delicious things on the menu here, I was here for one thing only: their dry aged steak cooked over a wood fired grill.

At the entrance, you could see large hunks of meat being dry aged on the premises.



At my table, the menu, printed on a large sheet of paper, was presented to me face down, with a large painting of a cow (Bull?) on the other side...





The menu was quite extensive, and it was agony to read through the menu, seeing so many old favourites from previous meals here, that I simply would not have space to eat...



...I would just focus on steak today...



I zero'ed in on Cape Grim 36 month old dry-aged ribeye on the bone, and asked for it medium rare...

As for starters, I opted for 2 oysters.

A decent selection of wines available by the glass...

[yflyer]

A glass of Grosset Rockpool Riesling 2016 to start...



The Clyde River Rock oysters tasted ultra-fresh, with very good flavour, and went well with the Riesling...

[yflyer]

Another Grosset wine, their "Rockpool" Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon 2015, to accompany the steak...



...and then what I had come here for...



Cape Grim 36 month old dry aged rib eye on the bone...served pre-sliced, which is a great way to assure the correct level of doneness.

A selection of different mustards and sauces, including harisa, and barbeque sauce, as well as bearnaise and horseradish cream were available...I asked for a bit of each.



I also ordered a bowl of boiled mixed greens with lemon and olive oil on the side.

There are many excellent steakhouses in the world, and many different styles, breeds and cuts of beef, but among all of these, the steak here counts as among the most incredibly delicious that I have eaten.

Maybe even the most delicious I have ever tasted.



This is not a claim I make lightly: I enjoy a good steak, and have had many over the years, whether in dark wood panelled US steak houses, or Japanese style, with marbled cuts of wagyu...

Those are all delicious, but the dry-aged, wood fired, steaks at Rockpool are special.



The dry-aging gives them a light texture, and very deep flavour. The wood fired grill somehow gives the meat a delicate, delicious aroma and taste that no other restaurant I have been to has been able to replicate.

I have eaten the steaks here (And in their sister restaurant in Sydney) probably more than 10 times over the years, and fully plan on coming back for more any time I am around.

[yflyer]

A fairly short dessert menu...



I asked for a recommendation, and the young, warm waitress suggested the gingerbread...

After polishing off the steak, I thought her suggestion was a good one -- it looked lighter and less indulgent than the other options.



A tasty dish, and a nice way to finish.

This is a fantastic restaurant. One of those places that I would go to repeatedly, just to try different things on the menu. And if you like steak, you owe it to yourself to try the steak here.

To be continued!

[zilchster]

I would actually recommend Town Mouse or Hell of the North.

Maybe Chin Chin or Mamasita just for the fun of it.

Gazi or Jimmy Grants (for a fuss free meal).