South Melbourne Market @South Melbourne, Melbourne

After a visit to National Gallery of Victoria, we decided to take a stroll (~30mins) to South Melbourne Market (since it’s on the same side of the river). It was a good exercise for us since we had such a filling breakfast and good time to catch up with each other as we chatted along the walk.

I have been to Queen Victoria Market every time I was in Melbourne, but had never come to South Melbourne Market. Google describes it as a Lively indoor market with stalls for produce, meat & seafood & cafes serving global fare. The market has been opened since 1867, and will be celebrating 150 years next year! It is the quintessential village market, a place where people come not only to purchase fresh food, but to meet, eat, drink, shop, discover, share and connect.

The food stalls are on the outer rim of the market while the fresh food stalls occupy the inner portion of the market in a grid layout. Since it was already lunch time, we quickly found ourselves an empty table at the eating corner and went to look for food.

Wifey and I shared a paella from Simply Spanish (they won the Best Paella Outside of Spain this year!) because we saw the big pot brewing as we were passing through when we first came in, and could not resist. And boy were we glad that we did!

The paella rice was fluffy and not mushy, and full of seafood flavours. There were plenty of squids, mussels and some prawns with lots of corns, peas, and carrots to make it into a complete meal.

We try not to have too much carbo whenever we eat, but the paella rice was so addictive, we just had to keep putting spoonfuls (or forkfuls since there were only forks provided 🙂 ) into our mouth!

Post lunch, it’s coffee time. And I must say that Padre Coffee has got one of the best coffees here in Melbourne. They have 6 branches around Melbourne and the baristas here at South Melbourne Market were super friendly when they posed for pictures!

Skinny Flat White

Kombucha

Beautiful staff front

Wifey had a refreshing Kombucha from Happy Place which specializes in healthy on-the-go meals, snacks, smoothies, and juices.

We continued to wander through the market before making our way to South Wharf for some shopping!