Post, Perth, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

With a busy Summer doing everything from performing at PIAF, starting a new hiking blog called The Long Way's Better and being a bit frugal as we save for our trip to Tasmania at the end of the year, the celebration of Alissa's birthday served as an excellent impetus for us to head out and tick another restaurant off our State Buildings dining list - Post.

Miki's Open Kitchen, Margaret River, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

With the weather warming up over the Summer months in Perth, the cooler climes of the South West beckon - even more than they usually do. Alissa and I had already spent Christmas and New Year's in the Great Southern, and a weekend away with friends in Margaret River was another chance to escape January's run of high 30°C days. While we were down for a belated edition of our annual Christmas Cookoff competition, Alissa and I took the opportunity to tick another Margaret River restaurant off our list of places to try - Miki's Open Kitchen, a Japanese restaurant that came highly recommended.

Long Chim, Perth, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Of all the restaurant openings in the recently refurbished State Buildings, none has been as highly anticipated and hyped as Long Chim. And with good reason - it has been 20 years since Australian born Chef David Thompson last had a restaurant in Australia. During those 2 decades, Thompson has gone from strength to strength - his Nahm in London became the first Thai restaurant to be awarded a Michelin star. Although the London branch is now closed, Nahm in Bangkok was ranked the #1 restaurant in Asia on the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants List in 2014, and continues to be highly placed. Additionally, Thompson's uncompromising authenticity and encyclopedic knowledge of Thai cuisine has made him an international authority on Thai cooking; his book Thai Food is the Larousse Gastronomique of this most complex of Asian cuisines. Throw in his much loved SBS food series Thai Street Food and its beautiful companion book, and its easy to understand why the fact Thompson chose Perth for the location of his next restaurant is such a big deal. Having dined at Nahm late last year and being massive fans of his cookbooks, Alissa and I invited my parents Alan and Maya to join us for dinner to see if Long Chim lived up to our lofty expectations.

Petition Kitchen, Perth, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

A few years ago Alissa assisted friends as a set designer for an immersive theatre piece called Pollyanna. Staged in the Treasury Building during 2012's Fringe World Festival, it was great to see these long empty spaces reactivated for use. As we watched the works to restore the building to its former glory take place in the ensuing years, Alissa and I often wondered how the spaces would look once the restoration was complete. With the multi-concept bar and restaurant Petition taking up most of the space used for Pollyanna, we were particularly interested to dine at Petition Kitchen - especially after hearing that chef Jesse Blake was an acolyte of Andrew McConnell (of Cumulus Inc. and Cutler & Co fame). Excited by the promise of a new restaurant and keen to see how it stacked up after our meal at Petition Beer Corner just days earlier, we booked a table for four as a catch up with our friends Justin and Sarah.

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.

Shadow Wine Bar, Northbridge, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

With Alissa and I having travelled a lot in the last 6 months, it seems like a long time since the Ministry of Gluttony has had a chance to really focus on our continued coverage of developments in Perth's food scene. With a glut of posts from our Sydney trip spilling over into a glut of posts from Bangkok and Hong Kong, its nice to finally be out from the over east/overseas backlog and be able to shift our focus back to our hometown. The timing is particularly momentous as this month marks two years since our first post as the Ministry of Gluttony, as well as our second wedding anniversary and four years since our first date. To mark the occasion, Alissa and I decided to make a booking at restaurant we've had our eye on for some time - Shadow Wine Bar in Northbridge.

Sarawak Hawker Cuisine, Willetton, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

As much as we love trying new restaurants and visiting unexplored areas in unassuming suburbs, Alissa and I also keep a selection of local restaurants on rotation as regulars for the nights we can't be bothered to cook or drive any great distance away from home. Kai has always been our most visited go-to, however our restaurant of choice for the Singapore/Malaysian Hawker niche has been in a state of flux over the two years. Initially, we used to go to Bull Creek Hawker until we discovered Kitchen Inn, however we felt that the standard of food and service dropped significantly after Kitchen Inn moved to a bigger premises. Thankfully, a tip off lead us to Ah Mei Cafe, which became a fortnightly favourite for their handmade Bakmie Special noodles. Unfortunately, we found that Ah Mei was recently sold and the new owners no longer offer the handmade noodles we used to know and love. Having recently picked up the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide, I read about a recently opened Hawker restaurant in Willetton that specialised in Kolo Mee and Chicken Rice. Both amongst our personal favourite dishes, Alissa and I decided we had to given this new restaurant a try. What started as a single visit has ended up being more than a few occasions, even bringing my parents along to get their opinion last weekend.

Chimek, Fremantle, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Some dishes seemed destined to be stars of Instragram Food Pornography. From strikingly beautiful desserts like Sepia's Chocolate Forest or something idiosycratic like a Cronut or Tim Ho Wan's crispy take on the Char Siu Bao, these dishes can be found at restaurants at every level from street food to fine dining, but all share one common characteristic - they can be eaten with your eyes. As the prevalence of Food Porn has increased, restaurants seem increasingly driven to make their food interesting looking. The benefit of this is that presentation is given a lot more attention than it used to be, however the down side is that sometimes the visuals are more impressive than the actual taste of the dish itself - and at worst are really just an exercise in viral marketing.

A restaurant that has recently been featured on many a Perth foodie's Instagram feed is Chimek, a stall located in the Fremantle Markets known for their 'famous' black coloured burger buns and Matcha Cheesecake. The Food Porn move definitely worked; Alissa and I were definitely intrigued, and had to find out for ourselves whether Chimek's food was as good as the visuals suggested.

Short Order Burger Co, Fremantle, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia

Friends who know my deep love and almost religious fervour for Ramen Noodles are often surprised by my lack of regard for the western fast food equivalent - the Burger. It's not that I don't like Burgers of course, its just that I'm so often let down by how ordinary even supposedly gourmet burgers are; the amount of times I've asked myself 'is this that much better than McDonald's?' and answered in the negative vastly outweighs the times I've said 'yes'. My image of the Platonic Form of a Perfect Burger is not particularly unreasonable or unusual either - soft brioche style bun, a flavoursome and tender patty cooked rare to medium rare, cheese and pickles, not overly sauced or sloppy and not so big that its hard to take a bite of. And yet, that perfect combo is a real rarity, with the Merrywell Burger the only burger I've written about on the blog that fits the bill. That is, until now.

Sepia, Sydney, New South Wales (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

2015 really seems to be Martin Benn's year. After years making his mark as the Head Chef of Tetsuya's, Sepia - the 3-Hatted restaurant owned by Benn and his wife Vicki Wild - has been named Sydney's best restaurant 3 times in the Good Food Guide in its 6 years of existence, and was voted by a panel of critics, fellow chefs and restaurateurs as the best in the country. Winning the One To Watch Award from San Pellegrino's World's 50 Best Restaurants will undoubtedly mean Sepia's stature is likely to grow internationally, so our eating excursion to Sydney seemed eminently well timed to dine at what is undoubtedly Australia's restaurant of the moment.

Nomad, Surry Hills, New South Wales (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Nomad at Surry Hills was one of those unexpected finds that pop up when your search for one thing on the internet leads you to something seemingly unrelated. While planning for our upcoming Bangkok trip, I was looking for a travel write up published a few years back where a journalist was taken on a food tour of Bangkok by David Thompson (some people have all the luck!). I found the article in question, but also found a short interview with Thompson where he nominated Nomad as his current favourite place to eat in Sydney. As we just so happened to have a Sydney trip planned before our adventures in Bangkok, this was a very serendipitous tip, and after reading about Nomad's wood fire-focused cooking and the restaurant's hyper artisanal approach to everything from polenta to charcuterie, it was settled - we had to booked a table for two at Nomad.

Cafe Paci, Darlinghurst, New South Wales (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Alissa and I almost had an opportunity to try the food of Pasi Patanen back when we first started the Ministry of Gluttony. Fresh from our honeymoon eating our way around Asia, we took a brief break from the gluttony upon our return to Perth, before deciding to try the Tuesday night experimental dinner at Co-Op Dining in East Perth as an early Valentine's Day meal. At the end of the meal, we were alerted to the fact that the Tuesday after was going to feature a Riesling Rocks event dinner, with Pasi Patanen flying over to collaborate with Co-Op's chef Kiran Mainwaring for a special one-off menu paired with Riesling - our favourite white varietal. Having spent most of our money overseas and having just dined at Co-Op, it was a bit too soon for a return visit, however reading up about Patanen and his semi-permanent pop-up restaurant left me very intrigued. Located in a building that was former Mexican restaurant Cafe Pacifico, Pasi simply dropped the 'fico' and rechristened it Cafe Paci - a wildly experimental and relatively affordable degustation restaurant. It was only meant to last a year, however when we discovered Cafe Paci was still going strong it became one of the first restaurants that we booked for our Sydney trip.

Momofuku Seiobo (Bar Menu), Pyrmont, New South Wales (Alissa and Don eat Australia)

When creating the shortlist of places to check out during our trip to Sydney, Momofuku Seiobo was one of the places that I knew was non-negotiable. As long time fan of David Chang (I even cooked a dinner of Momofuku Ko dishes late last year), a visit to a Momofuku restaurant has been on my restaurant bucket list for many years, and I was not going to let the opportunity to cross one off the list pass me by. The only problem? We had already reserved degustation dinners at LuMi, Cafe Paci and Sepia months in advance, and with other banquet/chef's choice menus at Ms. G's and Nomad also planned, Seiobo's reservation window of 20 days before the requested date came a bit too late to an already crowded and expensive party, and I didn't want to cut any of those other meals out of our plans either. Thankfully, Seiobo had a perfect compromise; their small 5 seat bar offers a limited bar menu for walk-ins, and features that most famous of Momofuku dishes - the Pork Bun. With the promise of Pork Buns and other dishes in the more casual Momofuku style of Noodle Bar and Ssam, Alissa and I set off early for dinner in Pyrmont to avoid any potential queues for the bar.

Tim Ho Wan, Chatswood, New South Wales (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Okay, something that I've just got to get out of the way first - just because a certain restaurant in a chain has a Michelin star does not mean that by extension all branches of that restaurant are Michelin Starred. Some branches will invariable be better than others and even a chef as illustrious as Joel Robuchon - who has more Michelin Stars than any other chef in the world - cannot claim to have consistent 3 Star level restaurants in every territory with a Michelin Guide. Likewise, if a restaurant with Michelin stars has a branch in a territory without a Guide , it may well be Michelin Star quality cooking, but it is not by definition Michelin Starred cooking.

While Tim Ho Wan's ventures out of Hong Kong never outright claim to have stars for each outlet, they push the Michelin angle very, very hard as a selling point. However when not even all the branches in Hong Kong can claim stars, there is something disingenuous about people referring to it as Michelin Starred Dim Sum. Still, having actually eaten at the impressive Michelin starred branch in Sham Shui Po as well as the less incredible but still good Orchard Rd branch in Singapore, the idea of a Tim Ho Wan in Australia really excited Alissa and I, and we were very interested to see if the recently opened Tim Ho Wan in Chatswood would live up to the standard to which its marketing aspires.

Gumshara Ramen, Haymarket, New South Wales (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

While in Sydney for work a few years ago, I was fortunate enough to try a bowl of ramen so intensely porky and delicious that it was life changing. After sitting over a giant bowl of literally Pork, Pork, Pork and more Pork, I called Alissa and my parents up to tell them I'd just eaten the greatest bowl of Ramen in my life, and jokingly (but also half seriously) added that I was also about to have a heart attack due its rich unctuousness. Along with the more refined (and possibly even better) Hakata Ramen of Ichiran in Hong Kong, that bowl has been a high watermark for Tonkotsu - and Ramen in general. Called Super Mega Ramen and the most deluxe and impressive bowl sold at Gumshara Ramen in Sydney's Chinatown, Gumshara was the top priority of places to check out again while we were over from Perth for a week. Having eaten a lot of Ramen in the years since - and even written a guide to the different Ramen Joints in Perth - I was interested to found out if Gumshara was as amazing as I'd remembered it being.

Harajuku Gyoza, Potts Point, New South Wales (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

With such finite time while on holiday and seemingly endless things to see, eat and do, I like to be a very researched and well planned traveller. For our 2015 trip to Sydney, I booked all our major meals months in advance to avoid missing out on some of the more difficult to book places, and worked out journey times and opening hours for places that didn't take bookings so we could be there to beat the queues. I've mellowed out somewhat from the extremely detailed planning of our honeymoon however, and now fill some spaces in our schedules with the words 'Something Simple' - code for a meal that does not require a reservation, queuing or even any pre-planning to visit. Flying into Sydney in time for a late lunch, Alissa and I agreed that Something Simple was called for, and went with whatever we could find close to our hotel. As luck would have it, just two doors down from our hotel was Harajuku Gyoza - a cool looking Izakaya-style bar specialising in Gyoza and Beer. With its convenient location we decided to visit the place twice, and the following is an overview of both our meals.

LuMi, Pyrmont, New South Wales (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Although there has been a fair amount of cross-pollination of French and Japanese cuisines in a fine dining context, the crossover potential of Japanese and Italian cooking is relatively underexplored. Inherent conservatism and striving for authenticity may have kept playing around with Italian food off limits for a long time, however the strong focus on umami in both cooking traditions make many Italian and Japanese culinary ideas strongly compatible. 

With Modernists like Massimo Bottura having shown that one can be at once progressive while deeply respectful of cultural heritage from within Italy, its been interesting reading about a similarly progressive and open style of Italian cuisine developing here in Australia. Only having been open since September last year, LuMi and its head chef Federico Zanellato have already become critical darlings for the restaurant's innovative Japanese influenced take on Modern Italian. With Zanellato's resume including stints at such culinary meccas as La Pergola, Ryugin, Noma and Attica, LuMi was high on our list of places to check out while on a culinary tour of Sydney - so much so, that it ended up being our dinner on the Sunday of our arrival.

Eat No Evil (Pop-Up Restaurant), Mosman Park, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Regardless of best intentions and levels of gluttony, the chances of trying every single truck of the annual Food Truck Rumble in the Perth Cultural Centre is near impossible. Alissa and I had to make our choices, and inevitably some food envy set in when we heard of great dishes from some of the less busy trucks while the half hour wait for a Mac and Cheese Toasted Sandwich proved to be far from worth the absurd wait. One of the trucks that we kept hearing praise for was Eat No Evil, a truck with a mission 'to create a food experience that brings people together, breaks down barriers and gives an interaction with local ingredients and dishes that will inspire you to try something new and really think about what your eating.' Although we had considered trying to find the truck in the ensuing months after the Rumble, a meal from the Eat No Evil truck never eventuated. So when our friends Jarrad and Lexi invited us to a dinner at Eat No Evil's Pop-Up Restaurant at Good Things Mosman Park, we immediately jumped at the chance - what better way to try their food than to order the entire menu in a tasting format for $45 per person, with BYO for a very reasonable $5 a head?