Victoria St this is not: Hanoi’s famed Cha Ca La Vong Restaurant

My father is this blog’s first foreign correspondent. On assignment in Hanoi just the other day, his camera phone snapped these images of how I wish Victoria St could be. I tell you, if you went to many places in old South East Asia and bought the entire fitout — well, perhaps not this restaurant’s — and installed it into some shell in Melbourne, you’d make a killing. This is the yellow fish restaurant. That’s all they sell, but it’s packed out. They don’t waste this stuff on the tourists, but very expensive and increasingly-difficult-to-come-by sauce made out of the eyes of particular insects is the traditional accompaniment. You just can’t buy this stuff in Victoria St, along with so much else of Vietnam’s glorious cuisine. More photos here.

Victoria St Vietnamese Lunar New Year Festival


What are festivals coming to in this city? The Swedish Fair at the Swedish Church is what you might call a good festival, and the festivals out in the sticks which are genuine community celebrations by Buddhists, Hindus, Tibetans and Whathaveyous are beaut. But so many festivals are just so crud: the Lygon St Fiesta, the Antipodes Festival, and to a lesser extent, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year Festival which was on yesterday. A festival is not a row of shops allowed to sell their things at outside tables, a stage with a band, and an Ikea van with some vaguely pan-Asian decorated kitchen. Am I being too harsh? Mine was a short visit. What do other people think? Continue reading “Victoria St Vietnamese Lunar New Year Festival”

Denton Hat Mills designed by William Pitt

The Denton Hat Mills in Nicholson St (1888) were designed by William Pitt, the architect who also designed the Rialto (1889), the Victoria Brewery (1882, pictured, now the Tribeca Appartments), the Princess Theatre (1886), the old Stock Exchange (1891), the Alderfleet Building (1888, now part of the ANZ), Church St’s Empire Works factory, as well as others, some destroyed. All this I know from the truly excellent website Walking Melbourne by Sean Fishlock where you can find on one page all the buildings built in 1888 — that was the year for building in Melbourne — or all the Victoria St buildings featured.