Petite Villaine, Denmark, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Two years ago, Alissa and I visited Rockcliffe Winery for lunch. Back then, their cellar door restaurant was Silas Masih's Pepper & Salt - arguably the best and most interesting restaurant in Denmark - and Masih's spice-driven fusion cuisine combined with the ambiance of Rockcliffe's idyllic vineyards and gardens made for a very satisfying, lazy afternoon in the South West. By the end of that year, Pepper & Salt had moved out of Rockcliffe to take up residence at Forest Hill. I understood the move - Forest Hill's grand dining room is one of the best you're likely to find at any of WA's best cellar door restaurants, but I felt a bit sorry for Rockcliffe in a way, and hoped that the restaurant space would once again house a restaurant worthy of its setting.

Swings Taphouse & Kitchen, Margaret River, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

I've said it before and I'll say it again - pizza is an easy dish to make at a mediocre level (hence its ubiquity), but one that is very difficult to truly master. The dough, the thickness of the base, the type of oven, the temperature, the amount of toppings on top - all these variables greatly influence the final result, and while exotic and clever pizza topping combinations are obvious ways to make a pizza appear better, if the fundamentals of a great base are not achieved first then half the battle is already lost. Its for this reason I seldom seek out pizza, but when our friends Cam and Nadia said the Swings Taphouse & Kitchen made the best pizza they'd eaten since they lived in Italy, I knew it was something worth trying. We initially thought of saving it for future Down South holiday, however after a car breakdown meant another three nights in Margaret River, Alissa and I decided to pop into Swings for a late lunch.

Morries Anytime (Lunch and Breakfast), Margaret River, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

In spite of only having been established less than 3 years ago, Morries Anytime has become something of a Margaret River institution. It so well known and popular - the most blogged about restaurant in the region - that it feels like its always been there, and yet for all the regular visits Alissa and I have made over those same 3 years, we've never tried the food at Morries. With two nights set aside staying with our friends Cam and Nadia in Margaret River, Alissa and I were keen to rectify this oversight by trying the lunch and breakfast menus of 'Margaret Rivers first all day, anytime hospitality venue'.

Laundry 43, Busselton, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

My Father's previous job had him travelling to Bunbury and Busselton fairly regularly. My Mother would tag along and spend the day exploring the many shops and cafes before meeting up with my Father after work for dinner. One of their favourite places to eat was Laundry 43, a restaurant they would often rave about long before we picked up a copy of the Good Food Guide and discovered it to be the best rated restaurant in Busselton. While Alissa and I travel down south at least twice a year we are never in Busselton for dinner, so when planning our January 2015 trip we decided to stay the night in Busselton partly (but let's be honest, largely) for a chance to finally try this much celebrated local favourite. 

The Old Crow, Northbridge, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

The Old Crow has been on our wishlist for, well, almost as long as we've had an actual written wishlist of places to try. In spite of being open for little over a year, this Northbridge restaurant has built up an enviable reputation for delicious, crowd-pleasing American-inspired Soul Food, and has been a consistent fixture on Urbanspoon's 'Talk of the Town' list (sitting at #1 at the time of writing). With glowing reviews from friends, other bloggers and professionals alike, Alissa and I were pleased a catch up with our friends Justin and Sarah (who joined us previously for a meal at Pleased To Meet You) served as a good opportunity to see for ourselves if The Old Crow lived up to all the hype.

Public House, East Perth, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Public House was one of those new Perth openings that flew under the radar for Alissa and I. Perhaps it was because they opened in November 2013 while we were in the mad scramble leading up to our wedding, or because its East Perth location is far from being along one of our regular thoroughfares. Whatever the case, we were kicking ourselves when we realised we'd missed out on their Nose to Tail dinners as part of Eat Drink Perth, however we added Public House to our ever-growing list of places to check out. It took us about 2 months, but on a cold and wet Friday night in July, Alissa and I finally made our way to for a 7pm dinner.

Varnish on King, Perth, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Before I even stepped through the minimally signed front door for the first time, Varnish on King had already impressed me. Being a typically congested Friday night in the Perth CBD, I had opted to use a combination of train and bicycle to get there instead of driving in. Unsure about the attitude Varnish might have towards cyclists parking their bikes out the front (even some casual restaurants in Melbourne can be a bit dickish in this regard), I decided to head a bit further down to the Wellington St end of King. As I was chaining up my bike, a man approached me.
"Hey mate, which way are you going?"
Uncertain of the guy's motives, I gestured vaguely up the street; "That way."
"There's been a lot of bike theft on King St recently. If you want you can chain your bike out the front of my bar and my bouncer can keep an eye on it for you."
The bar was of course Varnish on King. The guy (presumably the owner or manager) could not have known at the time that I was dining there, but the thoughtful and unpretentious attitude started everything off on the right foot, and set the tone for the entire evening.

Pleased To Meet You, Northbridge, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Alissa and I have very fond memories of Harvest in North Fremantle. We started dating just before I went away on an eating holiday to Hong Kong, India and Singapore, and upon my return our third date was a lovely dinner at Harvest. When we got married in November last year, our plan had been to book a table at Harvest on our return from our honeymoon, however owner Clinton Nolan had sadly closed this wonderful restaurant a few months earlier to focus on his casual eateries. We've visited Nolan's other establishments, really liking the vibe and extensive selection of alcohol on offer at Who's Your Mumma while both being a bit underwhelmed by the packed like sardines crowd clamouring for the good-but-not-that-good food at La Cholita. So when my quest for the best ramen in Perth revealed Nolan had recently opened Pleased To Meet You - a new ramen-serving,  Asian-inspired joint on Roe St - it quickly moved up the priority queue as a place check out.

The most striking feature of the restaurant's front facade is how utterly non-descript it is. Following a recent, somewhat pretentious trend of including only the most scant information about a place, Pleased To Meet You's main signage simply boasts its address, with a small liquor licensing sign above the door giving the only indication of its name. When the New York Times made seemingly dubious claims of Perth being more of a 'hipster heaven' than Williamsburg, this is the kind of hipster bair practice that gives the writer's assertions some credence; you really have to be in the know to know this place even exists.

Pinchos, Leederville, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

'It's a trap!'

                                                         - Admiral Ackbar, Return of the Jedi

Admiral Ackbar's infamous words of wisdom come to mind when I think of tapas. On paper its deceptively cheap, but all those small morsels can add up to a surprisingly large bill if you're not doing the math as you go and are looking for a decent feed. On more than one occasion I've thought, 'wow... I could have gone fine dining for these prices'. I don't mind paying top dollar for a meal and I'd happily pay for expensive tapas if I knew that was what I was getting myself into,  however comparing the degree of technical skill on show at places like Co-op Dining or Restaurant Amusé to the more casual/conventional cooking on display at some mid-level tapas places I can't help but feel a little ripped off, especially when its deceptively listed as a 'cheap eat' on Urbanspoon since each plate is $9, but they don't tell you you need 10 to make it worth your while. So when I heard that Justin Bell of Jus Burgers fame had converted his old Snags and Sons location in Leederville into Pinchos - a tapas bar that was legitimately cheap - I had to see this for myself. We don't find ourselves in Leederville very often these days, so a detour on the way home from Joondalup proved an excellent excuse to pop in for a casual Sunday night dinner. 

Typika, Claremont, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Perhaps its the memory of hellish morning drives to UWA in my university days, but Stirling Hwy has long been my least favourite road in Western Australia. That this narrow stretch of road is called a highway is a cruel joke, and with its unwinnable combination of buses pulling over in the left lane and cars turning right without turning lanes in the right, the constant stop-start lurch means there is no street in Perth with a higher chance of rear ending a BMW than Stirling Hwy. I don't have much patience for infuriating road conditions, and as such I seldom make a trip out to the Claremont area since the very worst of the traffic bottleneck occurs there.

Of course I'll make an exception for good food, and this was what found us in Claremont on a rare work free Saturday for Alissa. I'd heard about Typika during the last year, and the mention of duck steamed lotus buns was enough to convince me we had to try this place out. Typika serve lunch every day except Sundays, so since I have work during the week and Alissa usually works Saturdays this was going to be our only chance for a while to try their lunch menu.

Having arrived at 11:30am in case there was a crowd, we were able to be seated immediately upon arrival at one of the tables in the brighter front section of the cafe - my choice since it would be beneficial for photography.

That said, the place had sufficient tables available for us to have sat in the moodier space to the rear of the venue.

As with Bread in Common, interesting lighting concepts abound in this space, the most striking being the conical flask light bulbs hanging over the high chair share tables.

Since we were early for the midday start of the lunch menu, we started with a round of coffee and some snacks. Being artisan roasters, I expected quality and my usual order of topped up long macchiato/strong latte did not let me down as it was a well made coffee at a perfect temperature. Personally, I think I like the bean at Bread in Common better but as Alissa astutely pointed out, its more a matter of a personal preference than once being inherently better than the other. If you like a softer, mellower flavour this will probably be more to your liking.

Being summertime, Alissa went with the 'naked' iced coffee. This was a nice and refreshing iced coffee, its 'nakedness' denoting it was not one of those super sweet monstrosities that are more sugar than caffeine.

Alissa loves a good sweet potato chip, so we had to order a serve of their mixed Chips. The serve may have been small for $6, but it was absolute quality - easily the best fries I've had since the last time I cooked Heston's triple cooked chips. These tasted like they were at least twice cooked, and the difficult task of making sweet potato chips as crispy as regular potato was passed with flying colours. Excellent aioli too.

Our other snack order was a serve of their Onion Rings. I've had better, more flavoursome versions of this dish, but these were excellent nonetheless - far better than the familiar mass produced version found at Hungry Jack's and less oily that the greasy version often sold by fish and chips joints.

12 o'clock came around and it was time for our very pork-centric lunch. The first share plate to arrive was the Pulled Pork Quesadillas.  These maintained the high standards set by our snack orders, the pulled pork nicely seasoned and the Quesadilla pockets both crispy and yet still malleable.

The element that really raised it as a cut above was the grilled corn, capsicum and avocado salsa. This was top notch, its refreshing juiciness complementing and enhancing the flavours of the pork and cheese.

The current Typika menu did not have the duck lotus buns. Instead, it went full Momofuku and did their version of the famous David Chang Pork Belly Buns. Here the pork was made in a char siu style as a point of difference, served with (apparently) pickled cucumber and (apparently) chilli jam. If the cucumber was pickled I didn't quite taste it, though I was very happy to find the cucumber thinly sliced. The sauce on top did not taste like chilli jam to me - I could have sworn it was hoisin. Other that these seeming discrepancies between the menu and what was served, I was very satisfied with the results.

The pork belly had a lovely fattiness that bordered on bacony, and the salty-sweet flavour of the sauce combined with the freshness of the cucumber resulted in a dish that was very, very tasty. The buns may not have been as soft as those at Ippudo, but the flavours were bolder. Different, but neither was necessarily better than the other. Alissa was a little disappointed as she was expecting the version I make at home, which is basically banh mi in a steamed bun and thus includes coriander, carrot and mint but she admitted later it was probably a case of having expectations it would be something that it wasn't. Oh well - her being disappointed meant I got to eat two of the three buns so I was definitely happy!

The Verdict: Excellent
When I went up to pay, the woman at the counter looked at what we had ordered and said, 'you guys had a really good lunch'. And she was right - the food we had that day was of a consistent standard in share plate cafe food that was well thought out and executed. Considering our meal and drinks came to under $60, I was satisfied with the price too. I don't know how often I'd be heading out to Typika considering its location and the lunch menu being unavailable on Sundays, but it impressed me enough that I'd brave a drive down Stirling Hwy for a return visit. Recommended.