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I was on my company budget for the first 5 days. Next 8 days, no way am I ever going to spend $15 per meal! So, travelmate and I decided that COOKing is the next best deal!

List of food stuffs purchased for 8 days:
1 bottle of 4 litre water
2 bottles of 3 litre orange juice
2 bottles of 1.5 litre Coke
1 bottle of 330ml Coke
3 bottles of red bull
2 bottles of white wine
2 bottles of Tasmanian Beer
2 packets of Kettle chips
1 packet of Nachos
2 packets of microwaveable Lasagna
2 bottles of Leggo's cream sauce
2 basket of sliced button mushrooms
200grams of shaved ham
2 round bread
1 Double Brie cheese
1 Brie cheese
1 can of Chunky Beef stew
1 packet of DIY Japanese creamy soup (from Singapore's Daiso)
4 eggs (Free)
3 potatoes
4 corns
1 packet of ready-made fried rice
1 packet of Diana's sauce
1 packet of Black Pepper Steak sauce
1 packet of Kangaroo steak
1 packet of beef steak (Too bad the Rump Steak was not on sale)
2 McDonald's lunches
1 McDonald's hotcakes breakfast
1 Vietnamese Beef Noodles from Mekong at Swanston Street
1 plate of Big Breakfast (Omelette, mushrooms, avocado, bread, etc)
2 Fish & chips

Day 1
Lunch: Vietnamese Beef Noodles @ Swanston Street
Dinner: 2 packets of microwaveable Lasagna
Snacks: Double Brie, Penfolds White wine, Chips

Whilst waiting for Wen to arrive, I made my way to the supermaket to settle dinner. Bought a packet of chips to snack and 2 packet of microwaveable lasagna.

Wen arrived, rested and we made our way to the city, with only one goal in mind - Check out if Mekong, the Vietnamese restaurant @ Swanston Street is still in operation. That would be our late lunch! We were absolutely delighted to make our way in, looked at how physically, there isn't much changes. Yet, I was sort of amused that orders are taken from PDAs. The waitresses saved the trouble from shouting the out loud. She doesn't even have to walk to the counter to place our order.

Anyway, lunch was GOOD. The noodles tastes just as good as 8 years ago. It went so so well with the Vietnamese iced coffee. To 'die' for. Haa! Then we went to the supermarket to get some drinks (juice & wine) and cheese.

Dinner was settled via the microwave - 2 packets of lasagna.

Returned to the room to chat over double brie and white wine. Slept really well.

Day 2
Lunch: Big Breakfast (Omelette, mushrooms, bread, avocado, etc)
Dinner: Carbonara Fettucine with ham and mushrooms
Snacks: Remaining chips and 2 Tasmanian Beer (yucky!)

Slept till I decided I need to go toilet pee. Hee! By the time we set off, it was already about 1030am, I think. We took a slow stroll to St Kilda's beach. I felt that I have been to Melbourne 3 times and yet never been to the must-go St Kilda's flea market. The weather was getting quite scorching so we stopped by to purchase a bottle of coke at a rather steep price. Prior to the flea market, we decided that our stomachs were calling out to us so we stopped by for brunch - Big Breakfast.

After St Kilda's beach, we went to Queen Victoria Market and got 4kgs of nuts! On hindsight, if I knew, IF I knew that I would be going to stay at the backpackers opposite QVM, I wouldn't have bought the nuts so early! Gosh! Lugging 4kg of nuts back to Prahan, Chapel Street was hellish!

Anyway, we were SO hungry after all the lugging so we had quite an early dinner, 7pm. Early because sun sets only at 8pm. Haha!!! Made Fettucine in Creamy Carbonara sauce. We added about 100gms of shaved ham and load of fresh button mushrooms, a MUST.

Now you see it. Now you don't! Yup! I gobbled it up!

Day 3
Lunch: Roasted Chicken and Orange Juice
Dinner: Carbonara Fettucine (Remaining chicken, ham, mushrooms) and Orange Juice

Before we hit the Motorway, we dropped by supermarket to get a roasted chicken for our lunch. After driving about 2 hours, stomach growled. Stopped at a carpark and start gobbling the chick down! Hee.. I tackled the thighs, friend tackled the breastmeat. Very good partnership here..! Hahaha!!! Btw, chicken's cheap and tasty!

Dinner at Port Campbell was at 9pm. We quickly packed our daypack and left our luggage in our boot (Shh.. Haa!), went to our room, put our stuffs and went to the lovely HUGE kitchen to cook.

We didn't finish our lunch so we used the oil from the chicken to fry the remaining of our button mushrooms. Added that oil to the water to boil our Fettucine and we had a HUGE plate of Carbonara Fettucine filled with mushrooms, remaining ham and chicken. It was YUMMY but a little too much for a late dinner.

Day 4
To-go Lunch: Chips
Sit down Lunch: Fish and Chips
Dinner: Chunky Beef soup and 4 eggs

On our way to the Grampians, we WERE searching for food BUT couldn't find any. All we saw, along our way was houses. I asked my friend, do you think we can just knock on their door and ask for food? Hahahaha!!! Well, thank God we had chips and nachos so that became our on-the-way-fill-stomach type of lunch. When we arrived at Halls Gap, we decided that even if we were not hungry, we better eat something. Got into this US-drama-looking quiet restaurant and got a plate of Fish and Chips each (which tastes a little hmmm... too fishy for my liking).

At Grampians, we lodged ourselves at Tim's Place and opened the can of Chunky Beef soup. Cooked the 4 eggs we got with compliments from our previous backpackers. It was yummy! Amazingly, we eat our eggs the same way. I adore the yolks. :P

Day 5
Lunch: Ice cream, remaining chips and nachos
Dinner: Ready made fried rice (thumbs down) and DIY Japanese creamy soup (thumbs up!)
Snacks: Nachos

Returned to Melbourne City. On the way back, we didn't feel like eating. Somehow, personally, no mood for food like Fish and Chips. So after our short trekking trip, we had an ice cream each and the drive back, we finished our remaining chips and opened our packet of nachos.

At City, we went to grocery shopping and bought stuffs to cook for the remaining days.

We had cravings for rice so we got ourselves a packet of ready-made fried rice. I put in a little too much water and the rice was a little too soft. Then again, even if the water was of a good amount, I do not quite like the taste of the fried rice - too much garlic. The packet of DIY creamy soup was good. We threw in carrots, mushrooms and potatoes for our carbo and it tastes really nice!

Conclusion: I am very asian. Hmm.. or am I very Cantonese? I love soups!!! Haa!

Day 6
Lunch: Round bread + ham and coffee
Dinner: Kangaroo steak + Diana's sauce topped with corn, mushrooms, carrots.
Snacks: Cheese and nachos

That's how simply we settled lunch. :)

Somehow, the Kangaroo steaks were really cheap so we went for it. Side dishes were carrots, corn and mushrooms. Pan frying the steak and mushrooms with butter was very nice. Fatty maybe. But nice. Our supply of orange juice never seem to run dry. :P

Day 7
Lunch: McDonald's Angus and Quarter Pounder burger. It was YUMMY! The beef was so juicy.
Dinner: Beef steak + Black Pepper Steak sauce topped with corn, mushrooms, carrots.
Snack: Remaining cheese, nachos and Brown Brother's white wine

Finished up the remaining Fettucine too! Only thing wasted of the entire trip was half a chunk of butter. :P


Day 8 (return home)
Breakfast: McDonald's Hotcakes and remaining Orange Juice
Lunch: McDonald's Grand Angus small meal
Dinner: Singapore Airlines

That's about it! All in the name of saving money and having fun, we cooked! Friend and I decided "If we can do it in Oz, we can do it in Sg." Will definitely do so.