Yarra Valley Road Trip Part 1

Yarra Valley is another popular location to make a road trip to when you're in Melbourne. Luckily for us, it's a place that can be covered in a day's trip. Some of Melbourne's wineries, chocolatiers and cheese farms can be found there and it's worth a visit when you're craving a change of scenery. 

The ride there was a snooze; thank god for highways. As we exited the highway, we passed by Coldstream Brewery. Since everyone could use a break, and because someone needed a toilet, we pulled up a for a pit stop.

It wasn't a microbrewery, like I thought it would be. It was, however, a pretty chill place on a lazy Wednesday morning, and there was plenty of space for everyone. 

We had a Coldstream Pale Ale, since we're using the restroom and all. I thought pale ales would be light, but this was as bitter as any dark ales I had tried. Damnit Calvin, should have stuck with the apple ciders. 

We reached Yarra Valley around lunchtime, so we promptly went straight for Innocent Bystander. 

Lovely. Just in time for lunch too.

We had the thin-crusted Spicy Pork Sausage Pizza ($22), which is made on order. 

We also had Parmesan and Truffle frites ($10), which had a few precious shavings of parmesan over the fries. The truffle oil was undetectable. 

The Pan-Fried Market Fish ($20) was also recommended to us by the waitress, as was the Roast Lamb Rump ($22). The lamb was really good, soft and tender, with no trace of the smellier versions that I dislike. I particularly enjoyed the baby carrots, which were roasted to perfection.The portion is quite small though, so I'm not sure why these were labelled under the section "To Share". 

For desserts, we had the Flourless Chocolate Cake ($7) accompanied by a glass of Moscato. I wasn't crazy over the cake, though my sisters loved it (well, until I made them my version, which is now agreed to be indisputably better. They rolled their eyes when I told them that at the restaurant though.) 

I loved that they had a Wine Tasting bar in the restaurant, and customers can wander up to the bar to sample their selection of wines. 

They also had a Bakery near the front of the restaurant selling baked goods, and the breads looked beautiful. We were so enamoured by their looks that we bought a loaf of Turkish Bread ($5). There were fresh breads at the back of the restaurants near the kitchen cooling on the bread pans, but they refused to sell those to us and gestured to the front of the restaurant. 

All in all, I wasn't too crazy about Innocent Bystander. Presentation-wise, every dish looked lovely, but the taste was unremarkable. For the quality of the food and the serving size, the price was pretty steep. The taste of the Turkish bread was disappointing as well, and I'm not sure whether I'll be back to try the other pastries. I liked their Moscato though, and bought a bottle back home.

If my blog posts don't make much sense, now you know why. Tiramisu recipe here!

After our less-than-stellar experience at Innocent Bystander, we had one more ace up our 
sleeve: the White Rabbit Brewery that shares the same carpark with Innocent Bystander. 

The interior of White Rabbit was very welcoming, and with the many many boxes of alcohol, I feel instantly at home. The lovely lady manning the booth offered us samples of the beer they have at hand before we make our purchases.

The White Ale was really impressive, and the Pale Ale was pretty good too. The Dark Ale, on the other hand, was too bitter for my liking. A bottle runs for $4, and a 6-pack was $20. 

I didn't find out what a slab was, but it could be something worth investigating...

Must-Try:
Pale Ale (according to my noobish alcoholic taste buds)  


 

Click here for Part 2!