It’s Friday.

It means that it’s a day to go jaunting around Melbourne to discover its glorious suburbs. So I jump into my car and decide to drive to the eastern leafy suburb of Mont Albert.

The Mont Albert Village in Hamilton Street is a cute strip of old shops that are a mix of early 1900s, 1930s and 1950s. I ignore the modern eyesores in-between them. Thankfully they’ve kept the Mont Albert train station and renovated it as opposed to knocking it down. Melbourne is undergoing a massive public transportation rebuild at the moment because the city is growing quickly so old stations are being demolished to be replaced by concrete grey and steel brutalist structures that affronts my eyes.

I parked on Hamilton Street and walked up and down it. As there aren’t many shops, it was a quick trip. I was more interested in the fascias and old window frames of the shops. I love the copper trimming (I wonder why it hasn’t been stolen 🤔), the tiles and the clouded glass. Very old fashioned.

I stopped at this one to have a look at the photos. What a great idea! I could do the same with my old family photos – not stick them up on windows – but stick them on a backing board of some sort and then hang them up on one wall.

I stopped in at the Maison Cafe on the corner and had a sultana scone freshly out of the oven with a large extra hot cappuccino. The staff were very friendly and it was lovely to sit there and read Maupassant’s Les Dimanches D’Un Bourgeois de Paris in preparation for next week’s French 🇫🇷 Book Club.

Next stop I headed to Box Hill Central nearby. Box Hill is a suburb that has a predominantly Asian population. Many apartments and businesses are Chinese owned or investments. Rather than debate this aspect of the suburb, I wanted to visit the centre and see a variety of different Asian foods and stores.

It was around 10:30am and the food court was pumping. Crazy busy. Everyone was eating their breakfast of large steaming bowls of noodles. Many shops are entirely catering to Asian tastes and don’t have English signage. I contemplated if firing up Google Translate to translate the signs would be deemed polite or not but then I figured, let’s just go with the flow. No one cares anyway. I can just ask anyway.

What I loved were the Japanese food stalls that sold food that was a delight to look at.

As I had eaten the scone for morning tea, I wasn’t that hungry although I made a mental note to come here another time when I’m hungry. There was sushi, sashimi, pork buns, bao buns, dumplings, boba tea, moshi rice desserts, taro, red bean paste sweets…. My head was spinning with all the food choices!

There’s a Japanese croissant place that has a queue outside it. I wondered what the fuss was about. Look at these!

Nearby is the Hokkaido Cheese Tarts. These Japanese tarts are popular and I got in the queue to buy a pack of six. I was reminded of the book Shogun by James Clavell with the Portuguese in Japan many years ago who set up trading and tried to get them to change religion too. Methinks these were actually what the Portuguese left behind in Japan.

I bought a mix of original, Yuzu, salted caramel and matcha.

A wonderful morning pretending to be in Asia. My Portuguese/Japanese tarts will be eaten tomorrow as desserts after our family lunch.