A travel writer who had previously avoided Melbourne for 37 years revisits the city after receiving an offer from Visit Victoria to experience it as part of a familiarization tour. The writer initially declined such tours but found Melbourne impressive across food, coffee, and pub culture, highlighting exceptional experiences like top-notch cuisine at Rocco’s Bologna Discoteca and Uncle The’s Vietnamese pho. Beyond its attractions, the article underscores Melbourne's appeal through its friendly locals who engage warmly with strangers.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-15,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Why this leaning score
This article does not take a side on a contested political
question, so it has no leaning score. That is an
answer rather than a gap: a match report or a rescue can be warmly
or critically written without being left or right, and scoring it
anyway is how approval of a subject gets recorded as a political
position.
No political leaning scored for article 11957 · logged 2026-09-15
Earlier this year, I wrote an article about how, despite being a travel writer, I had never been to Melbourne.
asserted
I → write → Melbourne
This was less about throwing shade at what is an already sun-deprived city, and more about my woeful attitude to domestic travel.
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what → throw → travel
Well, some people took that personally; none more so than the folks at Visit Victoria, who offered to bring me down to Melbourne to eat, drink and show me what I had been missing out on.
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I → take → what
It should be said that I don’t normally take these sponsored trips (or “famils” as they’re known in the parlance of the trade – short for “familiarisation tour”).
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they → say → tour
It’s not the most financially sensible move of my career but I’d rather experience somewhere as most people would – at my own expense, without the obligation and expectations of the media tour.
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people → ’ → tour
But I couldn’t resist the temptation to write a joke about how you had to pay me to go to Melbourne, so here I am, in Melbourne, sipping an incredible coffee, nursing a terrible hangover, and all I can say is that the joke is on me.
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joke → resist → me
And that’s coming from a guy who had to make an emergency trip to the dentist on a casual Friday afternoon, all thanks to a suspected cracked tooth.
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who → come → tooth
After spending my life thumbing my nose at domestic travel, the irony of being able to walk into the dentist, wave my private health insurance card around, and walk out of there with my weekend saved was not lost on me.
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irony → spend → me
Dental work aside, Melbourne is the kind of city that I would swoon over if it was in any other country in the world.
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it → swoon → world
The coffee I’m drinking isn’t from anywhere trendy, nor does it have a name that makes me think that I’m about to suck the ink out of a fountain pen, but it is the best coffee that I’ve had all year (thanks Commune).
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I → drink → that
All the meals have been exceptional, including a tiramisu from Rocco’s Bologna Discoteca that has ruined tiramisu for me, and a beef and tripe pho from Uncle The’s that was just as good as any I had while I was living in Vietnam.
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I → include → Vietnam
My God, the pubs in Melbourne are like lightning in a bottle, and the reason why I feel so deplorable today is because the pubs here are the kind that make you wilfully ignore tomorrow.
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you → feel → bottle
But you already know all this.
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you → know → this
Everyone will tell you that Melbourne is the place to go if you want to eat, drink, and have a good time.
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you → tell → time
The thing that I didn’t know about Melbourne, and the thing that now brings me the most shame for not coming here sooner, isn’t the food, nor the coffee, but the people who call it home.
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who → know → it
Melbournians seem to exude charm, and enjoy life without letting their good times come at the expense of those around them.
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times → seem → them
People here actually made eye contact with me (shocking, I know), and no matter where I went, I’d always end up talking with the strangers sitting next to me.
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I → make → me
It is a refreshing change from what I’m used to in Sydney, where so much of life is lived with the kind of blinkers on that make you blind to everything other than the race that you’re running.
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you → ’m → that
Hell, even my dentist was giving me tooth-appropriate restaurant recommendations while she was digging around in my skull, and it was people like her that made Melbourne so memorable.
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Melbourne → give → her
For someone who travels as much as I do, I’ve been oblivious to how beautiful people can be in my own backyard.
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people → travel → backyard
They might look like me, talk like me, but they’re not like me; they’re nicer than me, and it shouldn’t have taken a hundred passport stamps for me to see that some of the best people I’d meet were only an hour-and-14-minute flight from home.
uncertain
I → look → home
I’m sure when Visit Victoria sent me to Melbourne, they didn’t expect the star of my article to be a random dentist (shoutout to Dr Tikku), but then life is full of surprises and the people of Melbourne have been one of them.
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people → ’m → them
They’ve shown me that Australia is not the monolith I always thought it was, and how a domestic trip can be just as eye-opening as an international one.
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trip → show → one
Of all the (too many) beers I had in Melbourne, the beers at Molly Rose were the best.
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beers → have → Rose
The Aporia
