A $100 Weekend in Melbourne More than once during my attempt at a $100 weekend in Melbourne, food came to my rescue. Last summer, Melbourne, Australia's graceful, lively and remarkably clean second city, was named the most livable city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit. That's a catchier selling point than my former impression - the Australian city without a famous opera house - and made it an appealing spot to try a frugal weekend. And though it is also ranked among the world's most expensive cities, that survey apparently didn't take into account the fact that you can buy a kangaroo steak marinated in bush plum sauce at a supermarket for 8 Australian dollars (just slightly more in U.S. dollars) and grill it free in a public park. I was also drawn to Melbourne by a friend, Patricia Salazar, whom I met in 2010 when she was tricked into showing "a friend of a friend" (that is, me) around her town in Colombia, not knowing I was a journalist. She had since moved to Melbourne, and far from holding my trickery against me, she offered me her apartment for the weekend while she stayed with her boyfriend, Wes McCarthy. Patricia and Wes accompanied me over the weekend, which was both wonderful and posed a dilemma: how would I thank them for hosting me, yet force them to pay their own way? That $100 - about 96 Australian dollars - only covers yours truly. Again, I found my solution in food - Vietnamese, in this case. But we'll get to that. Patricia's apartment was across the street from Flinders Street Station, an elaborate Edwardian masterpiece in brick red and golden yellow that serves as the hub of public transit in Melbourne. Its beauty helped to allay the pain of buying a somewhat pricey 7.60 dollar daily transit pass within. The great tram and train system, easy to understand and quite efficient, allayed it further. First stop was the Queen Victoria Market, a covered bazaar selling fruits and vegetables, knickknacks and noshes five days a week. I appreciated efforts to label produce by state: North Queensland basil for 3 dollars a bunch; Victoria artichokes, three for 5 dollars. We had lunch at the food court - I grabbed a calzone-like Turkish pide for 7.50 dollars and spent 75 cents on an apple and a pear to save for later. I skipped the more expensive kangaroo prosciutto but not a "KANGAROO - NEXT 5KM" sign that for an Aussie buck was a no-brainer memento (wombat and koala versions were also available). Wes made a note to return to the ReWine stand, where bringing a bottle back for a refill saves you a few bucks. I have a strict but simple rule on museums for my $100 weekends: go to the free ones. In Melbourne, that was a breeze and constituted our main Saturday afternoon activity, thanks to the two museums in funky Federation Square: the Ian Potter Center of the National Gallery of Victoria, which houses the museum's Australian collection, from aborigine shields to contemporary Australian paintings; and the Australian Center for the Moving Image, which featured a universal history of cinema, including those proto-slide projectors called magic lanterns; early, crude attempts at film; and the history of Australian TV (parts of the country got it only in 1971). But the unquestionable highlight of the Center for the Moving Image was the video game area, where visitors can - I would say must - play Space Invaders on an ancient Atari, arcade versions of Missile Command, and Super Mario Brothers on an early Nintendo system, all free. For a dose of seriousness after all that play, we ended the afternoon at the Shrine of Remembrance, a memorial to Australia's war veterans. It was time for dinner. These $100 weekends are easier in cities with lively immigrant neighborhoods, and Melbourne is rich with them. I decided to forgo Chinatown and Little Saigon for the scrappy commercial center of Footscray, easily accessible by tram and packed with an odd combination of restaurants: Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Sudanese, Chinese. Footscray still has a reputation as a "bad" neighborhood, but I generally find such reputations exaggerated. Indeed, all fears were unwarranted: the neighborhood was a bit run-down, but also a food haven. It was nearly impossible to pick from block after block of restaurants, but we finally went with the "go to the crowded place" technique and ended up at Hung Vuong, a modern-looking Vietnamese spot with prices that topped out at 10 dollars an entree. That's even more impressive in Australia, where tax is included and tips are not expected. All of this meant that I was able to treat my hosts to dinner. We enthusiastically shared a spectacular spicy beef and pork pho; some marvelously crisp, hot spring rolls and crunchy, cool lettuce leaves to wrap them in; and a tasty grilled chicken dish. Total cost: 28 dollars. We ended the evening at Section 8, a bar nestled in one of the vibrant alleys of downtown Melbourne. They might be the city's coolest features, variously filled with coffee shops, graffiti, bars or some combination. There was a bit of a wait to get into the bar, but an outdoor space and Australian beers for 5.50 dollars made it a worthwhile one. To finish the evening, Wes took us to his go-to Irish pub, P. J. O'Brien's, a packed house with live music and dancing and 8-dollar Carlton drafts. Saturday total: 58.35 Australian dollars. Remaining: 47.65 dollars. Joined by their friend Diego, Wes, Patricia and I headed to St. Kilda, the hip beachfront neighborhood in South Melbourne famous for its Coney Island-like Luna Park amusement park and its row of old-fashioned "continental cake" shops on Acland Street, interspersed with cool brunch spots. Continental cakes turned out to be European-style pastries, which are arrayed in dazzling and diet-challenging window displays. Inside, the shops evoke a different era: in one we spotted a group of women of a certain age festooned in festive, floral red hats and purple dresses, clearly having a grand time. We chose Acland Cakes because it combined a cheap bacon-and-eggs platter with row upon row of cakes. Little did we know we would also fall in love with our sassy waitress, who called me a "naughty boy" after I beseeched her to add a coffee to our order long after she had put it through. I splurged for an almond slice for myself and a Florentine cake for the table (bringing my meal to 20 dollars total). It was an unusually lavish gesture for someone with a frugal agenda - but an easy one thanks to all the free options Melbourne had to offer. Afterward, we wandered the weekly Esplanade Market waterfront crafts fair. Patricia seemed interested in the market's broad selection of paintings and jewelry, though I was more taken by a set of cuff links made from an old Apple keyboard key and Scrabble tile. In Melbourne, every weekend brings some sort of festival, and usually more than one. I was a week late for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival and a week early for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, so we settled for dropping by the Viva Victoria festival, which celebrates the city's multicultural charms. Still stuffed from breakfast, I passed on the Mauritian chili cakes and Polish sausage and Indonesian satay and Chilean empanadas - but not on the chance to have my picture taken with Ranger Roo, the mascot of the Victoria state parks. We eventually worked up an appetite, and headed to a Coles supermarket, where 40 dollars (including my last remaining 10) bought more than enough food for our foursome: kangaroo steak (7.50 a pound), kangaroo burgers, the makings of an elaborate salad and wine. We headed to a park near Wes's apartment, one of 20 scattered around Melbourne that have public grills, including some well-placed ones along the banks of the Yarra River. Wes did the grilling, with the confidence of a man who knows his way around both a kangaroo and a public barbecue (I couldn't help but refer to it as a "kanga-cue"). The meat, cooked to about medium, somehow maintained a pliancy I associate more with a rare steak. It was a grand meal, and although it left me no money for the rest of the evening, Melbourne had yet another free attraction to offer: fairy penguins. We returned to St. Kilda and went out to the breakwater at the end of the pier, where the pint-size penguins make their home. As a few of the foot-tall fellows wandered out from beneath the rocks to gasps from the crowd, it was hard to imagine that any of the onlookers would trade hanging out with penguins for a view of a fancy opera house. Sunday total: 37.60 dollars. Weekend total: 95.95 dollars, about $99.95. A picture caption on April 22 with the print version of the Frugal Traveler column, about a $100 weekend in Melbourne, misidentified the structure shown behind a passing tram. It is the Visitor Center, at right, with St. Paul's cathedral at left. It is not the Flinders Street Station, which was not shown, but is opposite the center. An article on April 22 about a $100 weekend in Melbourne misstated the amount remaining at the end of Saturday for the writer's expenses for Sunday, and a correction in this space also gave incorrect figures. The amount the writer was left to spend on Sunday was 37.65 Australian dollars, not 47.65 dollars, which is equal to about $39, not about $49.