My favourite commercial gallery in Melbourne, Utopian Slumps represents a group of early to mid career Australian and New Zealand artists. Exhibitions are always intriguing and the opening nights are great for people watching.

Live music in Australia can be pretty expensive as bands have to travel a long way to get here. NSC has a lot of great up coming bands and they are more affordable then most other venues.

This Hare Krishna restaurant has a rotating menu of delicious, inexpensive vegetarian food. The atmosphere is always peaceful and the perfect place to sit is by the window overlooking Swanston St. I recommend the eggplant lasagne if you see it in the window display!

Serves two of my favourite things in awesome amounts of excess. Platters of fried chicken (the best one is coated in chilli sauce) accompanied with barrels of house beer.

The Vodka Bar is a surprising spot for a good coffee during the day. But when the sun goes down, it transforms into a place where pierogi and absinthe are plentiful.