Baby Friendly Cafes : Gippsland Lakes

As you may or may not know we recently returned from a camping holiday to Mallacoota.

Yes our little family experienced the great outdoors, toasted marshmallows and attempted to catch a fish or two. Well hubby was in charge of the 'fishing' department as it's not really my forte'

I'm more into checking out the local markets, op shops and of course the lovely little country cafes.

We happened to dine in a few and although they had some baby and child friendly features they just didn't have all 5 "hey bambini" features. You know the box ticking ones that are needed to make it onto our site like highchairs - change table - entertainment - room to move and menus.

So to be fair l thought l'd let you in on where we dined anyway and some of the kid friendly features they had.

Yarragon Country Style Bakery
Yarragon
Change Table - Breast Feeding Welcome (ABA Sticker shown)


Serenity Cafe
Mallacoota
Box of toys - Babycinos


Wharside Cafe
Eden
Kids Lunch and Dinner Menu - Highchairs

Stay tuned as we did happen to find a baby friendly cafe/resturant that did tick all our boxes and it happens to be our FIRST review for the Sydney-NSW area.

House Work

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing
is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.

~Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints, 1966

Happy Easter

Wishing everyone a happy and safe Easter!

We are off on a family camping holiday to fish,
toast marshmallow's and sit in country pubs.

Take care on the roads and may your
Easter days be filled with chocolate!

Enjoy!

xo

Family Dining In Footscray

This week we welcome Kate Christie from Babysitters and More as our guest blogger. Kate is the co-founder and Director of Babysitters and More and when she has time between school pick up and emails she loves to take the family out for dinner.

My family loves going to Footscray for dinner on a Friday night – it is FAR better than getting take away! Our eatery of choice is First Taste Soup, a Chinese (Cantonese) Restaurant located opposite the Footscray Market in Hopkins Street. While the decor is not exciting, it is certainly family friendly – no need to worry about spilt drinks, staining the table cloths (there are none) or annoying fellow diners (pretty much local families). The menu is extensive and has recently been added to with a dozen or so delicious Thai dishes. The service is quick and friendly with lots of staff on hand so that you don’t have to wait.

But, like any great restaurant, it is the food we keep going back for. My weekly favourite is the Chicken Curry Luksa – a nice hot spicy dish full of lovely slippery noodles, lots of chicken, a handful of coriander and perfectly cooked boc choi. A huge side dish of Chinese Broccoli cooked in Plum sauce doesn’t last long with the kids around – chop sticks fly everywhere as they pile their plates with lovely green crunchy veg (I can’t believe this, it is a battle to get them to eat broc at home!). My kids also have their favourite dishes including Chinese Sausage Hot Pot, Honey Pork, Satay Chicken, Mixed fish Hot Pot, Dumpling soup with 8 or 9 delicious prawn dumplings bobbing in the broth, Prawn Ball and Pepper beef Hot Pot. The first time we took our kids (all under 10 years old), they were a little wary of the food – but now they experiment each week with new dishes and great gusto! Our kids are now experts with chop sticks and love the hot tea resident on each table in a silver thermos.

The walls of First Taste Soup are decorated with colourful vases of pickled fruit – cute and corny. If you don’t mind this and can tune out the ever present singing contest on the two TVs, First Choice Soup should be your next choice when looking for a fantastic, and cheap, meal. Our family of 5 barely cracks $50, and we have never managed to finish a full meal yet!

{Thanks for sharing Kate! We can't wait to try this little gem out!}

Melbourne Cafes Photo Blog: PART TWO

As promised Part Two of our guest blog by Rebecca Hughes.

Rebecca Hughes is a Melbourne based photographer specialising in interiors architectural photography, editorial photography and portraiture.

She has been capturing Melbourne cafes and sharing them on her blog for over a year now.

If you missed Part One you can find it HERE

1000 £ bend
361 little lonsdale st
melbourne

Brilliant for some reprise form the corporate world of
the CBD, great place to chill out with a book or your
lap-top with lounging grungy, arty types...

switchboard cafe
manchester unity building
220 collins st
melbourne

Switchboard is another centrally located CBD cafe
- a great destination when you want to impress out-of-towners
with Melbourne's unique cafe scene. Love the use of tiny spaces to
create quirky seating and serving areas. Love the setting
within the majestic Manchester Unity Buildings foyer too.

market lane coffee
shop 13, prahran market
163 commercial rd
south yarra

This is a brilliant place to go if you simply don't get
all the 'specialty coffee' fuss- this is where I have experienced
the most 'blow me away' coffee ever.It is made with
passion and the whole enterprise feeds off true
passion for great coffee from bean to cup.

three bags full
cnr nicholson + mollison streets
abbotsford

Apart from the great coffee I love the unique
design features in this place. Some places are just put together
seamlessly and this is one of them. My favourite stop off when
en route to IKEA or Collingwood Children's Farm!

wall two 80
280 carlisle street (rear)
balaclava

I have to include wall two 80, on account that it was my local
in St Kilda East when I first moved to Melbourne in the late '90's.
It is also a six degrees design, and one of their first, I believe.

Merry Monday

{A Creative Mint}



Merry Monday!

Enjoy these flowers on us!

xo

Leroy's Cafe

To entertain the kids Leroy’s has a sandpit
complete with toys, fake grass to play on, a mini slide,
hop scotch, a mini race track and large chalk board.

Kids are welcome to roam while parents enjoy a coffee.

To read more about this FAB cafe see our review HERE.