Vegie Bar, Fitzroy, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Vegie Bar needs very little in the way of an introduction. A fixture of Fitzroy's vibrant restaurant scene, Vegie Bar has been cooking contemporary vegetarian food for over 20 years, and still draws crowds 7 nights a week (or at least every weeknight I've walked past). When my friends Jake and Tegan moved to Melbourne it was one of the first places they were taken to, and when I came over to Melbourne to see Prince in 2012 they passed on the knowledge for one of the most memorable meals of the trip. Alissa had also enjoyed a meal at Vegie Bar before we had met, so when planning our 2014 Melbourne trip it was one of the first restaurants locked in.

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.

Wonderbao, Melbourne, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

It amazing just how popular the humble bao has become. I remember watching an episode of Play School when I was in Year 1 which included a multicultural 'through the round window' segment showing children our age eating dim sum. Pretty much the only person of Asian descent in the classroom, there were a lot of naive comments from the rest of the class that the dumplings and bao looked 'ewwww, gross!'. Fast forward over 20 years and love for the bao has exploded; the Momofuku bun elevated it into the mass public consciousness in the west, and the west even elevated Tim Ho Wan's brilliant take on the char siu bao to a Michelin Star. We've eaten a lot of bao in the last 6 months alone -the aforementioned Tim Ho Wan in Hong Kong and Singapore, Momofuku variations at Typika, Ippudo and Shop Ramen, and a very interesting Beef Tongue Ruben version at Pleased To Meet You - so when I discovered there was a place specialising in bao in Melbourne, it quickly made the list of places we had to check out.

Hopetoun Tea Rooms, Melbourne, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

As forward-thinking a city as Melbourne is, its also a city that proudly conserves its institutions. Established in 1892 and located in the historic Block Arcade on Collins St, Hopetoun Tea Rooms is a link to Melbourne's booming turn of the century Victorian past. Being mad for all things vintage*, tea and sweet, its long been a culinary destination on Alissa's wishlist, so when our tram stop conveniently dropped us off outside the Block Arcade, our quest for a cup of coffee turned into tea, scones and tarts. Just look at that incredible display!

Shop Ramen, Fitzroy, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

One of the great things about writing a blog is that you get to share your favourite meals with others. Its nice to know that I've help point people I don't even know in the right direction of great Roast Goose Noodles in Hong Kong, or the incredible fusion food of East Indies in Cochin, India. Though not specifically a blog for the gluten intolerant or for vegans, I do like to point people with dietary requirements in the right direction of satisfying meals as I feel no one should have to settle for boring food. So its one of the great food tragedies that up until now, I've never been able to share a bowl of ramen with vegan friends. I tried at Ramen Ya in Melbourne and had a decidedly un-vegan egg placed on the rice our friends Jake and Tegan had ordered, and the horrible stir fry served to our friend Gita at Zensaki in Perth was topped with bonito flakes. All these times my friends have had to go with a non-ramen alternative while I waxed lyrical about how incredible ramen is. When I heard that Shop Ramen made a Vegetarian Ramen that could easily be made Vegan by removing the marinated egg, it was the perfect opportunity to introduce my friends Jake and Tegan to a dish that is more than just a favourite, but an obsession (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

Cutler & Co, Fitzroy, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

With degustations booked at Vue de Monde and Attica for our Easter Melbourne trip, a visit to Cutler & Co. - or any other expensive fine diner for that matter - was not originally part of the plan. While the $130 asking price for their dinner degustation (excluding the inevitable wine and tea) is far and away the cheapest of the three, I was thinking a more upper-middle priced restaurant like Hell of the North's $65 'Let Us Feed You' would be more economically sensible as a third premium meal for the trip. That was before Melbourne resident friends Tash and Lloyd hipped us to Cutler & Co's Sunday Lunch - a casual four course meal, with the first two courses consisting of multiple share plates and a selection of main and dessert options for $75. Convinced that this was a great opportunity for us to fit a Cutler & Co. meal into our schedule without totally blowing the budget, the initial plan was for all four of us to share the meal together, however with Tash busy with the tail end of Melbourne Comedy Festival, I ended up making a Sunday Lunch reservation for two.

The flagship restaurant of chef and prolific restaurateur Andrew McConnell's restaurant empire that includes the wildly popular and successful Cumulus Inc, Cutler & Co's adamantly non-descript exterior belies its interior's elegant mise en scene by McConnell's wife Pascale Gomes-McNabb, whose design aesthetic is very sympathetic to the unfussy but refined quality that is the hallmark of McConnell's cooking.

Hammer & Tong, Fitzroy, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

It's quite well known amongst my friends that I don't like going out for breakfast, especially in the (largely) overpriced breakfast market of my home town of Perth. Having worked in a cafe during my uni years, the place would be positively heaving with morning customers on weekends. I couldn't help but marvel at the prices people paid for food from a largely unimaginative and pedestrian menu, including paying $6 for two pieces of toast made from bread they could have literally bought from Brumby's and toasted at home. Considering you can get a whole banh mi for $5, it just doesn't make any logical sense. I understand some people don't like to cook first thing in the morning, but considering I can whip up eggs on toast in under 10 minutes or something more complicated like Eggs Benedict in 45 minutes (including making hollandaise from scratch), I'd rather cook breakfast at home unless it means going out for something that is altogether more imaginative.

Po' Boy Quarter, Fitzroy, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Its amazing how far the humble food truck has come as a viable and alternative business model to the traditional fixed address restaurant. Last month my post on Perth's Food Truck Rumble skyrocketed to my most read post in a matter of days, and the Rumble itself was so successful that the queues at peak reportedly stretched out to an hour. Glad I got there early.

Melbourne's Po' Boy Quarter is an example of that success story realised and come full circle. Started as a food truck by a couple of people who wanted to bring some New Orleans soul and culture to Melbourne, the Gumbo Kitchen food truck has been serving N'Orleans soul food since late 2011, and in June 2013 expanded the business to a traditional brick and mortar outpost as part of the increasingly exciting foodie landscape of present day Smith St.

Attica, Ripponlea, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

When it comes to restaurant reservations, I'm a pretty organised guy. For our honeymoon, I secured tables at all the more difficult to book restaurants months in advance; the then (3 Star-Michelin) Caprice in Hong Kong was secured 6 months ahead, Otto e Mezzo Bombana and Iggy's reservations booked within the first week of their booking windows being opened for the dates we wanted. I even kept a file with all our 20+ reservation confirmation emails printed out just in case we confused times or a restaurant forgot to take our booking down properly. What can I say; I'm a planner by profession.

So when I realised I'd missed the first two days to book a table at Attica, I was filled with a deep foreboding that we'd totally missed out on getting a table for our Melbourne trip - even with a range of dates for the restaurant to select from. The third day in a reservation window for a table 3 months away should not normally be this hard to secure, but such is the frenzy since Attica's incredibly successful 2013; voted #21 in the world on the S Pellegrino List, The Good Food Guide's 2014 Restaurant of the Year and a Chef of the Year win for Head Chef Ben Shewry. David Chang recently went so far as to say Shewry is doing 'god's work in Melbourne', so actually getting a reservation at Attica is kind of a big deal. With all this hype, most of the dates I had wanted were totally booked out, and the only date available did not have a table for two.
"What do you have?"
"We have a table for 4 or for 6."
"Okay, I'll take the four."
"You know you won't be able to split it..."
"That's okay... we'll make it work!"

Vue de Monde, Melbourne, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Vue de Monde has been on our restaurant wishlist for sometime. Alissa had been wanting to go since her friends raved about it years ago, and after I enjoyed an impressive meal at the more casual and traditional Bistro Vue, I really wanted to see for myself how good Shannon Bennett's flagship restaurant was. With this in mind, it should not be surprising that a reservation at Vue de Monde was high on our list of priorities when planning our first trip to Melbourne together, with our reservation made before we even booked our flights over.

Gelato Messina, Fitzroy, Victoria (Alissa and Donovan Eat Australia)

In the culinary battle for Australia's best foodie city, I've always felt that Gelato Messina was a massive feather in Sydney's cap, and one that Melbourne just did not have as good an answer to. For those who have not been fortunate enough to try Messina's exceptional gelato, their aesthetic is best exemplified by the process that goes into the making of their famous Apple Pie Gelato, where pie pastry and apple pie filling are made from scratch, giving their gelato a reality of flavour that simply cannot be found in lesser, essence/extract based ice cream. With an artistic, almost Heston Blumenthalesque drive to discover new wild and wonderful flavours, Messina are probably the best gelateria in Australia, and the opening of a Fitzroy branch in 2013 gave serious leg up in the Sydney/Melbourne intercity rivalry.

Kokoro Ramen, Melbourne, Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

For regular readers of the Ministry, I don't think its any secret that I'm a little obsessed with ramen. To me, great ramen is a truly wondrous thing; a surprising combination of culinary skill and precision that nevertheless seems so effortless when served up, and results in an utterly delicious, casual and approachable eating experience that is generally fairly affordable. If arteries and weight gain were not an issue, I'd probably live on daily steaming bowls of tonkotsu broth and ramen noodles, and its a dish I always have to try when visiting new places. When we arrived in Hong Kong as part of Alissa and Don Eat Asia, Ichiran Ramen was our first port of call, so it seemed only fitting that the first meal of our Melbourne trip would be a ramen joint.