My Style (and Travel) Diary - Breakfast at The Hardware Societe

Hello!

Tom and I have been back in Perth for over a week now and I've finally found a little time to have a look through the many photos of what turned out to be a seriously awesome trip to Melbourne and Tasmania. 

These photos were taken on our second day in Melbourne, in the short time we had before jetting off to Hobart.

Of course we had to have breakfast (it's our

thing)

and The Hardware Societe was top of my list of places to try out.

We weren't disappointed! It was a cute little place with butterflies on the walls and lovely pendant lights, and our seat at the bar area gave us the perfect view of all the yummy food being prepared. 

 I chose the Brioche French Toast while Tom went for a more savoury option with the Croque Madame. Both were delicious! (Although we probably ate a little too much and were both feeling uncomfortably full by the end... I guess that's a sign we enjoyed the food though!)

It was a little chilly in Melbourne, so it was a jeans and t-shirt outfit for the day, with my lightweight navy trench coat over the top. Simple and comfy, but classic - and dressed up tad with a slick of red lipstick (I've been loving red lipstick lately).

Hope you're having a great night!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

Top - Roxy

Jeans - Seven for All Mankind

Coat - United Colors of Benetton

Shoes - Roxy

Bag - Jigsaw

The Foodie Post - Rabbit in the Moon

A few weeks ago, Tom and I (along with our trusty breakfast buddies), headed to

Rabbit in the Moon

, a little place in North Fremantle, for a delicious Sunday brunch. 

It was our first time at this cafe and I have to say I was pretty impressed from the moment I walked in - all the decor is just so bright and fun!

Aside from the lovely interiors, I was also pretty pleased with the breakfast selection (which is really the important part) - as it had a few slightly different options, along with the usual eggs/bacon/avocado (you know, the standard breakfast situation).

I have to admit, I chose my meal - the Coconut Mango Chia Pudding - based on the gorgeous pics I'd seen on

Instagram

, and luckily I wasn't disappointed, either by the taste or the presentation - just look how pretty that thing is - almost too beautiful to eat!

Tom was also very happy with his choice of the Kaya waffles - "American style waffles with creamy kaya puree, sweet maple, popping candy mascarpone topped with seasonal fruits" - Popping Candy?! Yes please! :)

Our friends chose the more typical breakfast of Eggs Benedict and the Baked Eggs, and both received the thumbs up.

I have to say that the service was great too, with all the staff being really welcoming and friendly, (and I didn't feel too awkward taking so many photos!)

We haven't been back yet, but it's definitely somewhere we'll return to and I recommend checking it out if you're looking for a new breakfast spot in Perth!

Hope you're having a great day!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

The Foodie Post - A Healthy Chocolate, Banana and Strawberry Smoothie

Hello hello :)

Today I have another "Foodie Post" to share with you!

I literally just whipped up this smoothie about an hour ago, and it turned out rather well (if I do say so myself), so I figured I should document it before I forget the recipe! 

(Plus I had a punnet of fresh strawberries from the farmer's market and couldn't resist the opportunity to photograph them - strawberries are just so photogenic!)

I used almond milk for this recipe (I've been trying to eat a little less dairy lately) and it tasted great! I find almond milk works really well for smoothies and gives them a nice, slightly nutty flavour. I also used frozen bananas so the smoothie would be nice and thick without needing to add any yoghurt. 

The cacao powder adds a nice chocolatey-ness, but needs a bit of sweetening so I threw in two dates which worked perfectly. Obviously you can adjust to taste - this is just what I happened to use today.

Ingredients:

(Serves 2)

*2 frozen bananas

*A handful of fresh or frozen strawberries

*2 teaspoons of cacao powder

*2 dates

*Approx 300ml almond milk (adjust depending on how thick you want your smoothie)

*Cinnamon to sprinkle on top

Blend together, sprinkle over a little cinnamon, and there you have a yummy, chocolatey fruit smoothie!

Hope you enjoy - let me know if you give it a try :)

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

PS: You could even turn this into a healthy version of ice-cream if you wanted to just pop it in the freezer for a while!

Melbourne Travel Diary - Day 3

As you can probably tell by now, Tom and I love our food (particularly breakfast food) and we tend to plan our days around where we're going to eat! 

We'd been recommended a place called

Chez Dre

in South Melbourne, so we caught a tram and headed off in search of this French-inspired patisserie/cafe. Located in a revamped warehouse, the setting was perfect and of course the food ended up being delicious! I definitely recommend the french toast if you visit! 

Once we'd stuffed ourselves with food, we had a look around the South Melbourne Markets, and then caught a tram to St Kilda where we enjoyed some sunshine while walking along the beach, before going in search of the famous Luna Park (admittedly just for the photo - we didn't actually end up going inside!)

Then it was off to Chapel Street for some shopping (at least that was the plan). I've already mentioned this in a previous post, but we ended up walking almost the full length of the street before finding the actually "shopping area", so by the time we actually reached this part we were exhausted! - It's a long street!

 It was really fun just strolling around exploring the area though and coming across cute little places we wouldn't have found if we'd just caught a tram. My favourite find was this little bookshop that reminded me so much of something out of Harry Potter. The bookshelves towered to the ceiling and were all higgledy piggledy, and there were cats just strolling around or curled up in a chair! 

We walked through the Botanic Gardens on our way back and it was such a beautiful place, although it was starting to get dark by this point  so we didn't get to fully explore it - we'll be back though!

We ended the day with dinner at

Movida

- a Spanish tapas bar. The food was seriously

so good

and I highly recommend it!

So that's it for our Melbourne trip! I didn't take many photos on our last day (but it was a pretty similar thing - lots of eating and walking around exploring!)

I've actually just bought tickets to see Taylor Swift in Melbourne in December so I'm excited to be going back in a few months (although still kinda annoyed that she's not coming to Perth!)

There's still so many things to see and do there, so if you have any suggestions for next time, I'd love to hear them! 

I actually "vlogged" some parts of the trip too and have been slowly putting the clips together  (my editing skills need a lot of work though), so I'm toying with the idea of putting that video up.

I love watching vlogs on YouTube so I am kinda tempted to give them a try myself... we'll see if that actually happens :)

Anyway, I hope you're having a fab day!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

Melbourne Travel Diary - Day 2

We started off our second day in Melbourne by heading to the train station (stopping for coffee in Hosier Lane) to make our way to a cute little breakfast place called 

Little Big Sugar Salt

. I'll admit the only reason I picked this place was because of their Instagram photos, and luckily we weren't disappointed! 

The food was delicious - Tom's croque monsieur was the best, but my pancakes were pretty good too, and that blueberry (plus a tonne of other ingredients that I can't remember now) smoothie was so yum :)

After breakfast we walked around exploring the area and then of course had to do a little shopping!

We ended the night with dinner and a long walk (a

lot

of walking was done on this trip!) along the Southbank. A pretty awesome second day and a great way to spend my birthday!