Date #12 - Weekend Brunch - Balderdash

Image Courtesy: Urban Spoon

N and I have been to Balderdash Cafe (295 Bay St, Port Melbourne), many many times so I thought I should add it to our list of dates. Weekend brunch is something we both love to indulge in as I can never poach eggs, let alone more than one at a time as well as someone at a cafe can.

At Balderdash I generally switch between ordering the Corn, zucchini & haloumi fritters with crushed avocado (pictured above) and a poached egg and the Avocado, lime & goats cheese on turkish bread, topped with a soft poached egg topped with a poached egg. N always orders eggs benedict and we both love to add on a LOT of sides. They are very quick to serve you and are consistently very good. They have a large communal table and lots of smaller tables too both inside and out.

Afterwards we do sometimes try and go for a walk up the street to try and work some of it off, but usually I try and go to the gym beforehand as after a big brunch I don't want to do much!

Cost: 
Balderdash Cafe: Corn Fritters $14, Eggs Benedict, $16, Tea, $4 x 2, + lots of sides

Total cost: $52
Night of the week: Saturday

Date rating: 9/10

Verdict: Always always love brunch and will definitely be repeating this date as we have done many many times before .

Date #11 - Outside In Cinema & Melbourne Vietnamese Noodle House

Image Courtesy: State Library of Victoria

For our latest date I decided to take N and I to Outside In (State Library, 328 Swanston St, CBD), the free cinema put on by the State Library of Victoria every few weeks on a Wednesday night. It is very good for a nice cheap date. They call it outside-in but the cinema is entirely enclosed, they set up multiple deck chairs and about 10 bean bags if you are early enough to snaffle one. N and I saw Summer Wars, a japanese-animation movie, it was good but it did start to drag a little bit at the end. They let you bring snacks in so we both had chocolate almond magnums, delicious!

For dinner beforehand we went to Melbourne Vietnam Noodle House (251 Swanston St, CBD) as we have been many times before because it is cheap and more importantly super quick which is what we needed. N had the hokien noodles and I had the beef salad and we split some rice paper rolls. The salad was good but not as good as they usually make. Their rice paper rolls are always delicious and I highly recommend them.

Cost: 
Melbourne Vietnamese Noodle House: $19
Dessert: $6 (2 Magnums)
Movies: Free - just make sure you book at least the day before as they issue tickets
Total cost: $25
Night of the week: Wednesday

Date rating: 8/10

Verdict: It was a nice night out, it would be improved if we'd liked the movie even more, it was good but just dragged at the end. A very cheap date night though to do again.

Date #10 - Movie Date & Snag Stand

Image courtesy: Weekend Notes

For our latest date N and I decided on a very traditional dinner and a movie date as we had both wanted to see the new Batman movie The Dark Knight since it came out. We didn't have much time before the movie started as we had booked to go at 7.30pm on a work night so we needed to grab something quick to eat so we decided to go to the Snag Stand at Melbourne Central (Cnr La Trobe & Swanston St, CBD).

I had the 'Backyarder' which is a beef and tomato sausage on a roll with coleslaw, bbq sauce and cheddar cheese. N had the 'WeissWurst' which is a german sausage on a roll with sauerkraut and mustard. We both ordered chips on the side, mine with truffle aioli, N's with curry ketchup. It was AMAZING, we split the snags which was easy to do and very date friendly as they come cut in half already. N's could have used some tomato sauce but overall it was good. The chips were out of this world particularly with the truffle aioli which gave it a slight mushroom taste. I wasn't a big fan of the curry ketchup, it sort of tasted like curry powder mixed in with tomato sauce but it was still edible.

We saw The Dark Knight at Hoyts in Melbourne Central. Whilst we both enjoyed the movie we both definitely didn't enjoy seeing it at Hoyts. N had been given a movie voucher and we had tried to book online the day before to see if that night but they don't take online bookings with vouchers so we had to go in there and book it for the next night to get a good seat. We bought 2 choc tops and a bottle of water and it was over $15, which I know is pretty standard movie prices but when you have a $50 voucher you would think it would cover the cost of 2 tickets and some movie food.

Cost: 
Snagstand: $26.60
Movies: $55
Total cost: $81.60 (with the voucher it cost us really only $31.30)
Night of the week: Monday

Date rating: 7.5/10

Verdict: It was a good date night, we both very much enjoyed the movie and the food but I would definitely not choose to go back to Hoyts any time soon which is why I've rated the date lower than it deserves.