Good Gosh, Good Gnosh: Birthday Indulgence

I love to eat good food on the best of days, so when my birthday comes along I take it up a notch and it becomes a nonstop eatfest - no fingertip is left unstuffed! A few years ago I went to my favourite restaurant for lunch and then went back for dinner! My sister and I decided to go to the Lindt Chocolate Cafe on Collins St (www.lindt.com/au/chocolat-cafe/) to start the indulgence wheel rolling. I tried the hazelnut hot chocolate. OMG best hot chocolate I've ever had! The waitress brought out a milk jug of frothed milk and a smaller jug with thick, glorious, melted Lindt chocolate. I would've quite happily eaten the chocolate by itself!

After our sweet tooths were more than satisfied, we decided it was only fair to balance out sweet and savoury by going for brunch. We wandered down through the lanes and went to Issus cafe (8/10 Centre Place, Melbourne 3000) because they were serving all day breakfast. I've been here before - they have a good solid menu and reasonable prices. I went for the Eggs Issues, but later found out it was a typo - it's meant to be Eggs Issus (I wondered why the eggs would have issues...). Two poached eggs on a muffin with bacon, avocado and hollandaise sauce. A great breaky, however we made the mistake of ordering a side of mushrooms, which was a complete ripoff - $3 for a tablespoon's worth! But apart from that, it was a good breakfast.

No birthday is complete without a cocktail, so we sipped pre-dinner cocktails at Double Happiness (double-happiness.org/) which is an Asian inspired cocktail bar in China Town. My cocktail contained chilli vodka - a sure fire way to slow your drinking speed!

For dinner we went to one of my favourite restaurants, HuTong Dumpling Bar (hutong.com.au). We shared scallop dumplings, garlic, chive and prawn dumplings, pork shao long bao, scallops with ginger and oyster sauce, prawn and eggplant claypot, and barbecue pork ribs (in running with the indulgence theme!). The portions were very generous, the staff were attentive and corkage wasn't extortionate - all factors which made our night just wonderful. It's a keeper!