THE STARS
NTS Naarm, closed-mouth smiles, "Wuthering Heights"
A brief announcement before this week’s STARS: Next Saturday afternoon, we are heading to Sunshine to run an event at the Brimbank Writers & Readers Festival. In partnership with the festival, we are commissioning one writer to produce an original piece of reportage for publication in The Paris End. The subject of the piece must be connected to the Brimbank area, though the writer may be from anywhere. In other words, we want YOU and your ideas about the region. For more information, come along to the festival and read our pitch guide.
★★★★★ Ballarat Railway Station Refreshment Room
Recently, on the way to Ararat, TPE stopped by this delightfully anachronistic spot in Ballarat’s nineteenth century railway station with one laser-focused purpose: to cosplay the 1945 British romantic train tragedy, Brief Encounter. (The heart-wrenching movie is currently streaming for free on SBS On Demand—what are you waiting for?) This is not an updated renovation done in a ye olde style, but the real deal. The Refreshment Station’s walls were a charming yet dingy Victorian yellow. The wooden bar was patterned with Hellenistic accents. The neon-lit glass food cabinets displayed unappealing fried goods in one section and unappealing newspapers in another, placed right in front of the mustard and tommy sauce bottles. There was even an internet kiosk, a seemingly defunct navy and orange thing shaped like an ATM with a clunky keyboard at the front. Ignore the low ratings given to the Ballarat Railway Station Refreshment Room on basically all online review sites. Get a beer and a bag of lollies there next time you’re in Rat City and make eyes at the nearest person in the fenced-off alcohol section.
★★★★ Shrubs drink
At some point in the next month or so, there will come, seemingly out of nowhere, jabbing through the misty grey firmament, a hot day so scorching that the zoomers will take off their prematurely-donned ushankas, the millennials will shrug off their cardies, and the parks will be thronged with picnickers. On this day, you must go to Assembly (the cafe has two outposts, one in Carlton, one in North Melbourne) and order a “shrubs.” It’s a vinegary fizzy drink made from seasonal fresh fruit and served ice cold in a tall plastic glass. Delicious. The other day, we had the sour cherry and vanilla—it was like a refined red cordial, and a third of the price of a natural wine.
★★★ NTS Naarm
