Herr Nguyen may be off to Seoul — good for his korea — and so we finally got round to driving over to Footscray to check out the thing that makes Victoria St look like a pale imitation. That thing is the Vietnamese market. I had long thought the Nguyens had been taking the train to the Footscray Market proper, but discovered that there is a second exclusively Vietnamese market, established in 1992. If you hanker after overseas travel but are short of cash, you could go and stay the night in Little Saigon. Once inside the Vietnamese Market, it only takes the ignoring of a small amount of English writing to suspend disbelief. Continue reading “A trip to Footscray — the true Little Saigon — with Mr Nguyen”
Stickyrice gave Victoria St pho the thumbs up
Noodlepie‘s is a beautiful blog (just check out the detail in “The Vietnamese pate mystery“), but it’s Saigonese (and its author seems to live now in Toulouse which is going to make it hard for him). My interests lie more with Hanoi. Sticky Rice covers the food of Hanoi excellently, and in trying to find anything of interest about the Footscray Vietnamese Market in English on the web just now, I came across evidence that Mr or Mrs Rice came to Melbourne in May. The Ricester sampled our pho and declared it to be Saigonese in style and damned good too. It’s his photo — yes, I’m lazy.
Collingwood Town Hall Tour missed
Asleep at the wheel again, I missed and was ignorant of the Collingwood Historical Society’s Town Hall tour, but the Abbotsford Editor went along and reports:
“P. and I went to the Town Hall tour by the Collingwood Historical Society. Round the house, and round the house and up the tower we went with excellent commentary from former mayors and the author of a biography of the architect who designed town halls in Maryborough, Daylesford, North Melbourne, Northcote and Fitzroy. He obviously had a good line in civic architecture. We even viewed the golden trowel used for the foundation stone, and a descendant of Langridge spoke of his forebear’s contribution to civic life.
There were reminders of the good old days when Labor had all the seats on the Council, but still had a caucus meeting beforehand to decide how to vote. It now seems as absurd as it was then. Ex-mayor Jenny Backholer recalled the air thick with smoke at all meetings and the Council fridge being plundered for after-meeting drinks. No ghosts appeared, which is not surprising considering the very heavy attendance. The November annual CHS walk is unmissable and congratulations to all the organisers for the hard work in preparation. It is a pity that some of the grander rooms in the Town Hall have been subdivided into cubbyhole offices for the present staff.”
Thanks to Bronwen Hyde for the beautiful photo.
