Are you sick of working towards that bikini body? Do you need just one solid long weekend off the treadmill? Well forget heading across the ditch for a shopping excursion and just bring your stretchy pants, because I’m about to stuff you full of places to stuff yourself full on a weekend in Melbourne.

A toddle around town

On good advice, we started our evening at ornate bar The Carlton on Bourke Street. A previous express junket had brought us to this address before, but we swished right past The Carlton and up onto the rooftop for a few drinks with the Australian GLBT media. Why didn’t they tell us about this gorgeous little gem? Despite the lush reds and enveloping booths surrounding the bar, this place was cool as a cucumber; a welcome respite from the heatwave outside. Choosing to not sit around on the deck, we hid away inside amongst an array of taxidermied animals – an emu with a pearl necklace and an enormous 80-year-old giraffe to name a few. After a few gins and the sight of a lot of food passing by, we headed around the corner for a bite to eat.

Cookie, just around the corner on Swanston Street, is an absolute hive of activity. By the time we arrived, the sun had set and the heat wave was subsiding, meaning that we could vie for a spot on the deck as soon as one became available. There, the wine began flowing like the conversation, so we began to order a number of small plates. Chilli squid, spicy cashew salad, steamed fish and rice noodle rolls were in order, but were gone in the blink of an eye. The same can’t be said for the revolving door of wines that came over the table – wines that made us forget time even existed.

At the end of the night

In New Zealand, the best you can hope for in the middle of the night is a soggy, saucy kebab or a slapped-together burger that you either end up dropping, wearing or finding on your bedside the next day. In Melbourne, the stumbling masses head towards the glorious Lord of the Fries – a scrumptious spot to eat burgers the size of your head, enormous hot dogs and nuggets galore. No one seems to notice the place is 100% vegetarian, and if they do, they don’t seem to care; it’s just that good. Pick up a Lord of the Fries snack on the way home and we can assure you of a lessened hangover the next day. Maybe.

Fitzroy puts on the Ritz

Melbourne has often been referred to as the festival city, and on the day we visited hipsterville Fitzroy, this was proven. The city council had shut down a street to make way for the loud, colourful and oh-so-tasty Johnston St Spanish Fiesta – a festival that appeared to have the odd stall, but was focussed on exactly what we were focussed on… food! Huge paellas were on display alongside places to get spiral potatoes on a stick – not sure what they were about but they tasted good! With the Melbourne heat wave still in full swing, we decided to duck away from the heat and into a nearby dining hall, where it was time to try and do a little more of what we came to do.

The Little Creatures Dining Hall is a huge converted site that maintains some of the building’s industrial look. Huge high ceilings, exposed brick and high hanging lights provide a nice backdrop to the tasty local beers and freshly cooked snacks and meals that crank out of the kitchen. We very surprisingly decided to skip the meals this time and hold off until we ventured down the road to another local hotspot, the Vegie Bar, another place we’re told disguises soy as delicious meat.

The description of the food places was almost as accurate as the directions around Melbourne, with trendy Vegie Bar proving that you don’t have to kill a tasty animal to make things that taste like tasty animals. Huge portions of stir fry with fake duck arrived soon after, next to delicious gyoza and stuffed mushrooms, leaving us wondering if perhaps this “eat all weekend” idea wasn’t so well thought out. But we powered through and polished off the lot.

In our 12-round, bare-knuckle fight with a whole day of food, we finished off with some delightful drinks at the Tiki-themed Blue Tile Lounge, that didn’t see us coming when they put out the nightly “$2 Pots, 5-7pm” call. An initial plan to really make the most of this special soon fell by the wayside as the mixture of sunshine, heat and enough food to feed a third world country for days set in. We had so much more in our food and drink itinerary… but sometimes, nature – along with the size of the human stomach and liver – has other plans.