Friends of Mine, Richmond, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

I'm not big on going out for breakfast, so when I do I want it to be as worthwhile an experience as going out for lunch or dinner. In my hometown of Perth, there are far too many breakfast joints who treat breakfast like its a blank cheque to mark up simple dishes like Eggs on Toast without offering any particularly creative alternatives. During our visit to Melbourne, I was keen to give breakfast a fair go and see what the city had to offer. While researching places to go, I stumbled upon a list of Matt Preston's five favourite Breakfast spots from the Herald Sun online. The Herald Sun is a horribly right wing paper that I wouldn't normally be caught dead reading, but that first photo of the Banana Bread from Richmond's Friends of Mine had me transfixed. After reading what Preston had to say about the place, it was pretty much settled; Friends of Mine was on our list of breakfast places to check out.

Nhu Lan, Richmond, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

If one can fall in love with a sandwich, banh mi is that sandwich. I think I grew bored of sandwiches as a food sometime after the 100th sandwich of primary school, yet banh mi - with its combination of French baguette, cold cuts, herbs and vegetables - is magical and addictively tasty. As Anthony Bourdain so eloquently put it, banh mi is 'a symphony in a sandwich'. The call of great banh mi is so strong that Alissa and I bypass inferior but closer stores and drive a relatively long distance just to eat at banh mi specialists Nhu Mai in our hometown of Perth, and popping into one of Melbourne's best was high on our list of priorities while we were over.

If you do an online search for the best banh mi in Melbourne, and Footscray bakery Nhu Lan comes up repeatedly. Unfortunately, the week we were in Melbourne was also a week of closures on the rail and tram system heading towards the Footscray area, making the task of getting from Preston to Footscray a little more difficult than it was worth. Thankfully, Nhu Lan's other store in Richmond proved a more conveniently located compromise.