Saturday 23 May 2009

Two years of Melbourne Gastronome

Cremorne tiki

So today marks the two year anniversary of Melbourne Gastronome. Last year the one year anniversary was completely forgotten by me, sandwiched as it was between Bar Lourinhã and Auction Rooms. But I've remembered this time!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to all of my readers (an extra special thank you to those of you who leave comments!), and to those of you who've written to me offering your thoughts and recommendations. I'm really glad some people seem to enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

Cremorne tiki

My favourite feedback on the blog that I received recently was from a lovely girl who excitedly told me: "my brother got lucky because of you!". Apparently he wanted to wine, dine and impress a girl, so turned to his sister for a restaurant recommendation. She browsed Melbourne Gastronome and selected Maha on the strength of my review. So he took the girl to Maha and apparently it was a huge success. :)

Oh, and ONLY 24 MORE SLEEPS until my trip to New York and San Francisco! Thanks to those of you who have given me recommendations. If anyone has any more foodie tips for either city, they'd be greatly appreciated.

I'll leave you with my favourite terms or phrases that people have entered into Google, with a search result that brings them to Melbourne Gastronome. All of these search terms are genuine and date from the last three months, since I did my previous roundup of hilarious/dodgy search terms.

First, a few questions:
-'do koreans like nasi lemak'
-'parsley bolting how to stop'
-'how to kill caterpillars on mint plant'
-'is heinz spaghetti on toast unhealthy'
-'can peking ducks be trained' (not if they're wrapped up in pancakes they can't)
-'what does a herb mullet look like'
-'what are the gigibaba light bulb'

If anyone knows the answer to any of these questions, please chime in!

I love the really long/complicated phrases some people type in. Bonus points for the final one for colourful use of punctuation.
-'where is orange mushroom in a quest called to a fool a liar'
-'melbourne fashionista streets blog fashion lawyer chapel, degraves, albert coates'
-'bo & hope from days of our lives will be at melbourne's crown casino may the 2nd or 3rd'
-'waiter in london, restaurant for women only!!! ladies aww!'

Quite a few highly specific Melbourne-based searches this time:
-'melbourne restaurants starting with d' (??)
-'where to buy the container for sauerkraut in melbourne'
-'im looking for a restaurant that turns into a bar later on, in melbourne'
-'need a wonderful venue for 80th birthday in melbourne'
-'magic mushroom locations melbourne' (!!)
-'nearest competitor of movida restaurant in melbourne' (um... Movida Next Door?)
-'where can i buy a nice stew in melbourne'
-'melbourne restaurant you can get all dressed up'
-'melbourne restaurant if you can eat plates of dumplings then they are free hawthorn' (seriously, does anyone know where this is?)
-'melbourne restaurants friday night cute boys' (seriously, does anyone know where this is?)

People seem to keep mucking up the names of George Calombaris' restaurants:
-'hell eric republic greek restaurant melbourne' (LOVE this one. Hell Eric Republic would be a great name for a restaurant!)
-'the press gang restaurant melbourne' (err, I think you mean Press Club. But thank you for bringing back memories of my favourite tv show from my pre-teens - I had SUCH a crush on Spike when I was eleven!)

A few more favourites:
-'rhododendron salmon trout'
-'auction junkie melbourne'
-'blog site on the melbourne dinning scean' (sic) (sic)
-'hell's angels house lower templestowe'
-'eyebrow woman cottesloe' (who is this woman??)
-'rich ladies that lunch in richmond' (where would they lunch? Richmond Hill L&C and Church Street Enoteca, I guess?)
-'manhattan apartment with clawfoot bathtub'
-'muesli ocean beach'
-'jokes about pimms lemonade'
-'toffee fabulus vodka wikipedia'
-'industrial strength vinegar melbourne'
-'review melbourne 27 year old girl press club'
-'claire cupping' (at the time this search was done my post on coffee cupping with Slightly Intense Thirty-Something Metrosexuals was the #1 result. #7, by contrast, was some really poorly-written babysitter/teenager girl-on-girl erotica.)

Speaking of which, the prize for dodgiest search terms for Autumn '09 was going to be a three-way tie between:
-'mum with no pants on'
-'melbourne mums porno' and
-'cheapest brothels in melbourne'

But then yesterday, someone went and typed in:
-'incest mushroom tub'
Hold the front page, we have a winner. Truly, the mind boggles.

Let me know if any of these were YOUR search terms! :)

Urban/Rural = fabulous
Postmodern urban/rural intersect at Collingwood Children's Farm

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

u shd try manna cafe at 603 toorak rd toorak. its at the manse in the toorak unting church. cool idea and great food!

Jackie said...

Congratulations Claire! And have an awesome trip!

MildlyCrafty said...

Happy 2nd Birthday Melbourne Gastronome! Love your reviews!

Geez some of those search terms are really weird!!

I loved Press Gang too!

thanh7580 said...

Keep up the good work on the blog.

There are some seriously funny search terms there. It's amazing what people try to find using Google. I must admit I type some really strange search terms when I can only know snippets of the information.

I'd love to know where you can eat free dumplings though, mmmmm.

Ourmanintokyo said...

Thanks Claire! Melbourne Gastronome is an awesome food blog and all the hard work you put into it is much appreciated. Looking forward to the next two years and beyond.

gen said...

CLAIRE!!! Firstly, Congratulations and hay 2nd birthday! Secondly, hilarious! I cannot get over the way people use google and the crazy things that deliver people to MG.

"'bo & hope from days of our lives will be at melbourne's crown casino may the 2nd or 3rd'"

Honestly, WT?? How on earth did that tie to you?!?

Thanks for the yummy reading, the support and the giggles and keep up the good work.
x

Barbarella said...

Congratulations on 2 years!
Marlow and Sons, Brooklyn is somewhere I've heard is great. Can't wait to hear your tips when you're over there, I go in September.

Esz said...

Happy Blog Birthday! :-D

Your blog is definitely my number one spot for finding good local restaurants. It helps you only live around the corner from me ;-)
I wouldn't have found Setto Bello without the review on your blog and its one of our favourites now.

THANKS! And may you have many happy blog years ahead of you!

Jasmine said...

Happy birthday Melbourne Gastronome! Glad I could celebrate it with you Claire.

claire said...

Hi Anonymous, thanks for the tip. I'll bear it in mind if I'm in the area.

Thanks Jackie! My new shiny super high tech passport arrived yesterday, I'm very excited.

Thanks MildlyCrafty! Always good to find another Press Gang fan. How great were all those hilarious Lynda/Spike verbal showdowns??

Will do, Thanh. Let me know if you find the free dumpling place!

Why thanks for your kind words, Ourmanintokyo! :)

GEN!!! Good to hear from you, my dear. And thanks for your blog birthday wishes. As for the search terms, I can't remember how the Bo and Hope linked to me originally (I just tried regoogling it but of course now only THIS page shows up)... glad you like these search terms roundups. I'm thinking of doing them every three months from now on. x

Hi Barbarella, thanks! I'll add Marlow and Sons to the NYC notebook. :)

Thanks for your kind words, Esz! Glad you like Settebello. I particularly like sitting at their outside tables - at lunchtime they catch the winter sunlight nicely.

Aw, thanks Tashie! I liked how we decided to celebrate the blog's birthdat when the clock struck midnight. That Gingerbread Man cocktail was soooo good! xx

Emily said...

Happy Birthday Melbourne Gastronome! And awesome work on the blog Claire! Love it!

I've had so many brilliant nights out dining with mates at places i've read about on your blog and i always look forward to new entries - Thanks so much!

fennb said...

Happy 2nd anniversary!

You've introduced/motivated me (and my friends) to go to lots of wonderful new places.

Keep up the amazing work (you'd have to be getting towards being/if not already the #1 food blog for Melbourne and/or Australia).

I now will only ever call Colombaris' latest "Hell Eric Republic" and cannot look at peking ducks on Victoria St the same way again.

Incidentally, I was also wondering about the Gigibaba light bulbs (but thought googling directly for it was a bit optimistic).

We did, however, ask the lovely peeps at Amsterdam St, who have similar light bulbs, where they get them and apparently they're available from http://www.beaconlighting.com.au/.

Hopefully that optimistic person will google one more time and might actually get their answer :)

Cheers!

Fenn.

claire said...

Aw, thanks heaps Emily! I'm very glad you like reading the blog and that you and your mates have had some great dining experiences because of it. Any particular highlights?

And thanks to you too, Fenn. I just *love* that you did the research on the lightbulbs! I'll look out for you at Hell Eric Republic :)

Johanna GGG said...

congratulations on your anniversary - wish I could say I have been able to go to some of the wonderful places I have blogged but it is mostly vicarious at the moment - sigh! But I still enjoy it and love your photos - those crazy search terms

Agnes said...

Happy anniversary Claire and hope you have a fantastic trip. :)

With the question "how to kill caterpillars on mint plant" - I don't know the answer, but I wish I did! Caterpillars have utterly and completely stripped my mint. Little buggers!

OohLookBel said...

Happy birthday to you! You make me wish there was a magic portal that could whisk me from Sydney to Melbourne!
And lol at your google searches (I got one on my blog that read 'I ate a brownie and it was undercooked').

Lucy said...

Congrats, gorgeous woman, on turning two!

Also, excuse me, but HOW exciting will your trip be???

None of those search terms have been mine, 'fraid to say, and I wonder if the 'jokes about pimms lemonade' came up with anything. At all.

claire said...

Thank you for your kind comments, ladies!