Lung King Heen (Weekday Dim Sum Lunch), IFC, Hong Kong (Alissa and Don Eat Asia)

During our honeymoon, Alissa and I had the great pleasure of dining at Caprice, the then 3 Michelin Starred restaurant located in the Four Season Hotel in Hong Kong. Almost two years on, our dinner at Caprice remains one of the best meals of our lives, with the excellent standard of cooking equalled by some of the finest service we have ever experienced in a fine dining restaurant. With such fond memories of our meal at the Four Seasons, Alissa and I had often wondered about Lung King Heen - the hotel's 3 Michelin Starred Chinese restaurant - especially since it was the place where Mak Kwai Pui worked as a Dim Sum Chef before going on to open Tim Ho Wan. Particularly keen to try the restaurant's Dim Sum selection, Alissa and I made a lunch reservation at the first Cantonese restaurant to ever be awarded the top star rating.

MoG @ Home #3 - The Fat Duck (Ministry of Gluttony at Home)

Before I really knew much about Modernist cooking, I knew about Heston Blumenthal. Unaware of the pioneering (and arguably even more impressive) work of Ferran Adria and his peers, watching Heston's Feasts for the first time was a true eye opener. Fresh as I was out of art school when the first season aired, I saw someone working with food in a way that seemed closer in spirit to early 20th century Modern Art than any cooking that I'd seen before. Like the optimistic visual artists of the pre-war era, Heston's belief that anything was and still is possible was a comforting thought in an art world that to me at the time seemed jaded and cast adrift into a cycle of pastiche. And the fact all the new technologies, techniques and ingredients meant anything truly could be possible made it all the more impressive.

MoG @ Home #2 - Eleven Madison Park (Ministry of Gluttony at Home)

Regular readers of the Ministry may have noticed an almost month-long gap between posts between mid September to mid October. There were several reasons for this absence; moving offices, three birthday parties and a weekend away down south certainly contributed somewhat to a lack of writing time, however the biggest reason for the break was this cookbook.

Caprice, Four Seasons Hong Kong (Alissa and Don Eat Asia Day 3, Part 3)

Living in a country without a Michelin Guide, the idea of dining at a 3-Michelin Starred restaurant can seem like an unattainable holy grail. Sure, we've got some truly exceptional restaurants in Australia but the allure of the prestigious Michelin Star remains. So when we realised that Hong Kong had a guide with a few Three Star restaurants, it was inevitable that we'd have to make a gastronomic pilgrimage to at least one of them. Almost immediately I was drawn to Caprice - the French restaurant  headed up by chef Vincent Thierry (formerly of Le Cinq) and located in the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel. Listed as the No. 12 Restaurant in S. Pellegrino's Best Restaurants in Asia (and no. 73 in the world) and No. 20 in the world on the Elite Traveler list, the consensus seemed to support my immediate impression and I made reservations almost 6 months ahead.

Otto e Mezzo Bombana, Hong Kong (Alissa and Don Eat Asia Day 3, Part 2)

When I was in art school, I used to proudly proclaim myself a maximalist. More is more. As such, when we decided that our 3-Star Michelin experience would be a degustation dinner at Caprice I couldn't help myself – we had to have lunch at another 3-Star restaurant too, and on the same day. In making the decision, we didn't want to do another French restaurant so L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon was ruled out. Additionally, as much as I would like to try Lung Kee Heen we already were going to be experiencing Tim Ho Wan and the cheapness of Tim Ho Wan was enough to convince us to go with the 1 Star dim sum experience instead (plus we had to have those buns). That left us with Otto e Mezzo Bombana, the only 3-Star Italian restaurant outside of Italy, and home to Umberto Bombana – a man so famous for his advocacy and use of the white truffle that he's even called 'The King of the White Truffle'. As luck would have it, we timed our honeymoon and trip to Hong Kong during what is white truffle season, meaning Chef Bombana's seasonal white truffle menu was available for our selection.