Petition Beer Corner, Perth, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

The redevelopment of the the Treasury/State Buildings at the Corner of Barrack St and St George's Terrace has been one of the most anticipated I can remember since the opening of Brookfield Place gave us a plethora of good dining options in the CBD. Although all eyes are on Long Chim, and the COMO the Treasury restaurants like Wildflower and Post look to be aiming at a more fine dining market, Petition is arguably the most ambitious multi-concept restaurant and bar in the precinct. A restaurant, wine bar and beer hall across three large separate rooms, Petition dominates the Barrack St side of the building with three distinct experiences. Although we had a reservation for dinner at Petition Kitchen later in the week, we decided that a catch up with some friends was a perfect excuse to check out Petition Beer Corner.

Hot Star Large Fried Chicken, Perth, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

In spite of being fairly frequent visitors to the Asian continent, Alissa and I have never tried Hot Star's famous Large Fried Chicken. There are branches of this famous Taiwanese chain in Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok, however limited time or the call of something else exciting has always meant that while we've been aware of Hot Star as a dining option, the stars have never aligned for us to visit one of their establishments overseas - or even over east for that matter. Given Perth's booming dining scene, we should have known it was only a matter of time before Hot Star would come to us. Opening in June this year, a lot of holidays and a busy work schedule delayed our visit to this fried chicken mecca, however a catch up with our friends Jason and Verity served as perfect excuse to finally dine at the Barrack St branch of this famous chain.

No Mafia, Northbridge, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

As much as Alissa and I love degustation dining, such meals are often the most draining of all when it comes to writing about them - and its all the worse when there are multiple back to back. Such was the case in August this year; with the month spent writing about epic degustations in Sydney at Cafe Paci and Sepia as well as Nomad's Shared 9-course menu, I just had no energy left in me to write about any of the meals we'd had in Perth over that month, and when September came around I mainly just wanted to write about, well, burgers. A Sauma post is still on the back-burner from then, and an incredible Il Capo meal at Lalla Rookh accompanied by a marvellous bottle of Barolo will sadly go undocumented as we were so busy over the month that we forgot to take down notes!

One place we visited during that time was No Mafia in Northbridge, and for that meal we had made extensive enough notes to be able to come back to months afterwards. A spur of the moment decision driven by the better than expected tax return we would be getting, Alissa and I drove into the city to finally dine at this pasta-free Southern Italian restaurant we'd been wanting to try for months.