Spencer's Guide to Port Melbourne

Too much pizza?

2010-08-12T16:34:00.001+10:00

Is it possible to have too much choice when it comes to pizza? Well I would argue yes, at least when it's at the expense of other eating-out opportunities. Port Melbourne does pretty well for cafes; come lunchtime you have a reasonably varied selection of places to grab a light bite, but after dark things aren't quite so balanced. Cue superfluous pie-chart:

This is a distribution of establishments, besides pubs, on or near Bay Street that routinely serve food (either eat-in or take-away) in the evening. As you can see, we're well catered for south-east asian food, pizzas and fast food. But where are the restaurants for those of us who like their food a little more spicy - say Indian, Middle Eastern or Mexican? After all, South Melbourne has the Spirit of India, Ceylon Curry House, Bengal Tiger, Bedi's and Funky Curry 3. Albert Park has Gharana and Kamel. Whilst St. Kilda has Rangoli, Tandoori Times, Amigos and Blue Corn Cafe. Heck, even Middle Park has the (highly recommended) Roti Man.

So if you're thinking of starting up a new restaurant in Port Melbourne, how about following the success pattern of neighbouring suburbs?

Indian Mirchi

2010-08-29T16:04:00.001+10:00

The balance between Port Melb and neighbouring suburbs when it comes to spicy food options has recently gotten even worse as yet another Indian Restaurant has opened in South Melbourne. The owner of Indian Mirchi on Clarendon Street apparently also plans a branch in docklands (another area with alreay existing competition).

When will some entreupenial type notice the huge gap in this market on Bay Street?

Bay Street

2010-07-19T18:29:00.002+10:00

I stumbled across this site whilst diligently researching for this guide (OK, I was bored). It gets 2nd spot in Google's results for "Bay Street, Port Melbourne", which is quite an achievement considering it has virtually no textual content. What it does have however, is a very smooth sliding street-level photograph of both sides of Bay Street, complete with markers for businesses (who I assume it hopes to persuade to pay to advertise).

It kept me amused for at least five minutes, however it does seem to have a couple of fairly major flaws. Firstly the photos were taken during construction of the Bianca complex, and so don't include any of the shops that have since opened there. Secondly, for some reason it only extends as far as the town hall, when most people would probably say that the Sloany Pony marks the true end of the shopping strip.

Animal Kingdom

2010-06-12T16:45:00.004+10:00

There's been a lot of hype recently for the release of Aussie gangland movie Animal Kingdom featuring, amongst others, Jacki Weaver as the super-scary Cody mother

How is this relevant to Port Melbourne? Well in the scene where Pope forces Joshua ('J') to wave a gun at the hoons, they are shown driving down Beaconsfield Parade, before they turn into Pickles Street.

Cat Food

2010-06-26T18:32:00.001+10:00

A peculiar feature of the original Spencer's Guide was a, wholly unscientific, comparison of local supermarkets ... based on their cat-food pricing. Port Melbourne is not lacking in chain grocery stores, and here is how they currently stack-up when it comes to stocking-up on Whiskas:

Coles (6am - midnight)
$1.00 (special offer)

IGA (6:30am - midnight)
$1.49 (special offer)

Thomas Dux (7:30am - 9pm)
$2.50

7-Eleven (24 hour)
$2.75

Empty Bowl

2010-06-05T12:32:00.000+10:00

No sooner had I decided to start a guide to the better things in Port Melbourne than one of my favourites goes tits up...

Up until recently, the terminally under-promoted Bowl of Soul served up some of the most fantastic burgers I've ever tasted (meat or vego). They offered an astonishingly varied menu of very fresh, very colourful and very tall burgers. However they didn't do chips, they didn't always open, and sadly most of their target market lives on the other side of the Yarra.

Don't Panic

2010-06-01T12:25:00.001+10:00

So, after a two-year respite as I'm about to embark on a second volume of this guide I'm reminded of the words on the cover of Douglas Adams' well known guide. If you think about it, "Don't Panic" makes for a pretty good default answer to any question, kind of like a 404 error page for humans. So Port Melbourne, don't panic, you're about to gain a new-fangled blog on the wonder-web ... I trust you know where your towels are.