Ballarat Restaurant Tips by Kate-Me

Restaurant Name: Jade Inn Restaurant

This small, attractive yet simple restaurant serves has a combination of Malaysian and Chinese dishes.
I highly recommend the lunch box specials - rice & 1 main meal - same as the dinner menu (minus seafood) but for only Aus $5.90 (US $3)
The price is average for lunch box specials - just about all of Ballarat's approx 12 Chinese restaurants offer this - but Jade Inn has the widest lunch special choices and the nicest. I think it's all in the special spicy sauces.

Favorite Dish: I recommend the combination meat dishes (especially if the huge range of choice leaves you unable to decide) My favorite is the combination with mongolian sauce.

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Theme: Chinese/Dim Sum
Comparison: less expensive than average
Prices: less than US$10  » Currency Converter
Phone: (03) 5331 2011
Address: 12 Sturt Street Ballarat
Directions: at the bottom of Sturt St, just before Bridge Mall starts. (on the other side of the road from the Visitor Information Centre)

Restaurant Name: La Porchetta

La Porchetta is an inexpensive Pizza restaurant chain offering pizza & pasta dishes at reasonable prices compared to other restaurants.
It's on a first come, first served basis (no bookings) and they don't accept credit card (hence the cheaper prices, they say). And it's always bustling busy. No BYO is the only slight disadvantage. Due to the busy nature, service is fast, but that's ok because generally Australian's don't linger so long over meals as Europeans. Great family restaurant.

Favorite Dish: The pizzas are all rather nice - not outstanding, but good for the price.

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Theme: Pizza
Comparison: less expensive than average
Prices: less than US$10  » Currency Converter
Phone: (03) 5331 1902
Address: 825 Sturt Street
Directions: 800 block Sturt Street

Restaurant Name: Atlantic Hotel

The Atlantic Hotel is extremely popular with the older generation, partly because it offers quite traditional Australian food in a restaurant industry that's increasingly becoming more trendy and multicultural with its food, but also because it has a buffet of salads and vegetables besides the meal you order, and at around $8 for 2 courses (Soup and choiceof about 8 Mains or Main and Dessert) it is quite affordable for parties of Pensioners. The service is good and fast (particularly if you arrive at 12 noon, which is advisable since it's so popular it's nearly always full - and best to book ahead)
Always a few families to be found there dining too.

Favorite Dish: Roast of the day is always a popular one. I also really like the Chicken Parmigana or Beer Battered Fish & Chips.

For dessert, the individual plum puddings with custard and icecream or cream are delicious.

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Theme: Buffet
Comparison: less expensive than average
Prices: less than US$10  » Currency Converter
Address: Skipton Street Ballarat
Directions: approx 5 mins drive from the city

Restaurant Name: Gee Cees

Gee Cees always seems to be bustling and quite vibrant (though with a polished wooden floor it can get a little noisy inside).
You can go there for just a cup of coffee and cake, or lunch or dinner. There's a fairly extensive menu to choose from.
Also a bonus, in the summer you can sit outside and look at the garden in the middle of Sturt St, enjoy the sunshine (or dine outside in the evening) or just watch the traffic go by.
It's quite a historic building - it used to be called the Golden City Hotel (golden because so much about Ballarat concerns gold).


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Theme: Other
Comparison: more expensive than average

Address: Cnr Sturt St & Dawson St Sth, Ballarat
Directions: opposite St Patrick's Cathedral

Restaurant Name: Peter Lalor Hotel

The Peter Lalor is quite a typical Aussie pub, and is named after the most famous and well known historical figures involved in Ballarat's famous 1854 Eureka Stockade uprising.
At the bar you can have basic 'Pub Grub' meals at reasonable prices (ie, sausages & bacon, ham steak & pineapple, steak) or more formal/varied dining in the dining room next door.
And, there's live music Friday and Saturday nights from about 9.30. pm (usually no cover charge)


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Theme: Pub/Brewery
Comparison: about average
Prices: less than US$10  » Currency Converter
Address: Cnr Mair & Armstrong St Nth
Directions: opposite the Civic Hall

Restaurant Name: Le Cafe

Le Cafe, despite what its name suggests, isn't French. Unfortunately we don't have any French cafe or restaurant in Ballarat, even if right near this place we have a bakery called "The French Kitchen" (also not French).
However, Le Cafe does serve a wide range of crepes (including the Aussie hawaiian - cheese, pineapple and ham - which I guess the French would call a Croque Monsieur on a crepe....;-)
It's not over priced (compared to other non-French creperies I've seen, and I rather enjoyed my Hawaiian crepe.
They also have French coffee syrups on hand which you can have in your coffee, and a range of ice creams which appear to be French, so it's a nice spot for a Francophile like myself.

Favorite Dish: I had a Blue Heaven milkshake as it's just about my favourite flavour, wherever I go in Australia.
What's in it? I don't think it's blueberries. It's a pale blue in colour, tasting like a cross between vanilla and something else...but I don't know what else is in the syrup.

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Theme: Coffeehouse
Comparison: less expensive than average
Prices: less than US$10  » Currency Converter
Address: Corner of Pleasant and Sturt Sts, Ballarat
Directions: only about 500 mts from Lake Wendouree, and about 1-2 kms out of the centre of the city, heading West up Sturt Street (the main street)

Restaurant Name: Le Cafe

I've said that Le Cafe is not French, but it does have a nice look inside (especially all those cakes behind glass!) and I noticed some French bottles of Syrup on the counter, which you normally just don't see


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Theme: Other

Address: Cnr Sturt & Pleasant Street, Ballarat

Restaurant Name: Pipers on the Parade

Recently the group of volunteers I work with at Ballarat Tourism and I took a familiarisation tour around Ballarat, and Pipers was one of our stops, to try out their Coffee and have morning tea.
It was a beatiful winter sunny day, almost warm enough to sit out on the decking and look at the lake. The building is quite beautiful, in Edwardian style, and until most recently, was called The Pavillion.

Favorite Dish: We rather enjoyed our coffee and muffins and the service was good.
Pipers is open every day, though I believe not in the evenings, as they also cater for functions.

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Theme: Coffeehouse
Comparison: about average
Prices: less than US$10  » Currency Converter
Address: Wendouree Parade
Directions: directly opposite the Botanical Gardens at the Lake

Restaurant Name: Country Mouse

Country Mouse is a very interesting combination... when you're in the front of the store, it's the homewares that dominate, with quite a lot of vintage stuff, very nicely presented, and once out the back, it's the cafe you notice, very nicely presented (see cupcakes for example, which are bought about 3 times a week in Melbourne by the very dedicated owner who's very passionate about what she does).
I believe they also hold small parties there as well, and do some catering.
It's quite an amazing place...not too many people could make this kind of a specialty shop work in a small city like Ballarat, I believe.

Favorite Dish: While there with some fellow Ballarat Tourism volunteers, we sampled the coffee and scones and cream, which were lovely. (Didn't get to try the cupcakces...which are a bit expensive, but the presentation and the pastel coloured icings are lovely and I guess the cake transportation has to be taken into account).

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Theme: Coffeehouse
Comparison: about average
Prices: less than US$10  » Currency Converter
Phone: 5332 2091
Address: 451 Doveton Street North, Ballarat
Directions: about 3 blocks north of the main street, on a corner.
Website: http://www.countrymouse.com.au/