ShakeAway Melbourne

[squirmelia]

Melbourne has a ShakeAway.

Readers from UK cities such as Southampton and Bournemouth, who are in need of their milkshake fix when in Australia will be relieved to know that ShakeAway Melbourne has now been confirmed by me as existing.

It is located in Highpoint shopping centre, Maribyrnong, and opened in May 2008. I took the 57 tram to get there, which passed a wall with Rage Against the Machine lyrics on it, Crisp Pizza, and a tree with purple blossom.

The ShakeAway stall is on the 1st floor of the shopping centre, and is painted in familiar blue and yellow stripes. The flavours are slightly different to those available in the UK: UK menu and Australia menu. The UK has cucumber, where as Australia has avocado. The UK has weetabix, where as Australia has weetbix. The most popular flavour at ShakeAway Melbourne is predictably tim tams. Other flavours not available in the UK include: freckles, polly waffle, violet crumble, hedgehog slice, iced vo vo, kingstons, golden rough, fruit tingles, and party mix.

There are other flavours that would be more familiar to UK ShakeAway visitors though, such as Cadbury's creme egg, coco pops, custard creams, curly wurly, and liquorice allsorts.

Similarly to in the UK, Melbourne ShakeAway also sell vegan shakes, and I've seen ShakeAway mentioned on a few vegan food blogs in Melbourne, such as This is Vegan Melbourne.

A regular milkshake costs $5.95 in Melbourne, and £2.70 in the UK, so not much difference there, but a large milkshake is cheaper in Melbourne - $7.10 as opposed to £3.70 in the UK.

After much contemplation, I chose to drink a tim tam and rhubarb milkshake. It was satisfyingly chocolatey and rhubarby, although many lumps of rhubarb had to be scooped out of the cup, as they were too large to be sucked up the straw.

Comments

[several-bees.livejournal.com]

The tree with purple blossoms was probably a Jacaranda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacaranda). If you time it right, you can sometimes go for a walk down a street of jacarandas, all purple and fuzzy overhead, and then come back from the other direction a few hours later with the bulk of the blossoms on the ground and squashing under your feet.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes, it does look like it was a jacaranda! Thanks for identifying it for me. I asked someone at a Flickr meet today what kind of tree it was, but they didn't know.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

what, pray tell, is hedgehog slice?

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

oh wow, those are gorgeous!

[elethe.livejournal.com]

I had never heard of them and now I am jealous! I want dairy-free, gluten-free shakes! Fortunately I [probably] have a part time job starting in the new year that is fairly close to Croydon, which apparently has a branch - so I will make every effort to visit one soon.

In fact Croydon is only one bus away from here anyway (a long bus ride, mind) so I really could go there any time I wanted.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Maybe it is like hedgehog crisps? Although actually, I saw some today, and it looked chocolate-flavoured as opposed to hedgehog-flavoured. Recipes online seem to reveal that it tends to be a mix of chocolate, biscuits and nuts.

[franzferdipants.livejournal.com]

Damn, I was at Knifepoint today too, apparently walking right past a store of deliciousness in complete ignorance. But I will definitely drop in next time I am there.

[tlrmx.org (from livejournal.com)]

Mmm, Shakeaway.

Now you have me wanting milkshake and I only barely got up.

Sounds like you're enjoying yourself, which is very good. Hopefully you will bump into an Australian business person in Shakeaway thinking to themselves "If only I could hire someone to sort out our usability testing who is also familiar with British culture, especially kids TV shows from twenty years ago" and they'll hear your accent and hire you on the spot.

[nickmurdoch.livejournal.com]

I can't believe London still doesn't have one!

[ruudboy.livejournal.com]

There is a similar place in Greenwich, called Shake It, which doesn't seem to have a website for me to link to.

[solitarywalker.livejournal.com]

Wow. Cool. When i go to an ice cream place, i almost always get a milkshake, but they haven't got such exotic flavours, and i don't know of any specifically shake places here.

[fluffymark]

Yay yummy milkshakes! Glad to hear it exists and is as good as the UK ShakeAway. :)

[scaryj.livejournal.com]

Damn! I have never seen a Shakeaway. Where do these places exist?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I always thought it a shame that I couldn't find any in central London, but yes, Croydon is supposed to have one, so you should check it out. :) Not sure exactly what flavours are gluten-free and dairy-free though.. cucumber? ;)

[elethe.livejournal.com]

Well there are five or six mentioned on the website. Strawberry, anyway.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

It is tricky, because there are many distracting other food/drink places on the way there, such as Bubble Cup.

At the moment, ShakeAway have Christmas themed shakes, such as plum pudding and mince pie.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Would you drink avocado flavour though? :)

The business person will probably ask me which TV characters I was fond of when I was about three years old, and I will reply, "Mooncat", and it is then that they will hire me to test the usability of software for cats who live on the moon.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

How many flavours do they have there?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I think they're mainly in the south of England and one in Australia and one in New Zealand, so probably not quite north enough for you. :(

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I forget ice-cream places sometimes do milkshakes! In Melbourne, ice-creams are often called gelato, and occasionally they have flavours like lamington, or spotted dog.

[solitarywalker.livejournal.com]

There's a gelato place a little ways from where i work, which i go to once in a while, especially in the summer... they do have some interesting flavours (and what's available varies by the day), but they don't sell shakes.