Kojonup Bakery, Kojonup, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Just as progressive dining experiences like Wills Domain amd Foragers are recommended parts of a tour of the South West, the town bakeries of regional WA are a charming slice of classic Australiana that simply cannot be ignored. Many seem to make wild claims of award winning greatness, and there can be heated debate about which bakery really makes the best pies. While Alissa and I have not written about any of these bakeries before, we have visited a number of them during our many visits through the South West. As you'd expect, some are justifiably praised while others are somewhat overrated. We had the worst, most burnt coffee at one bakery during this trip, and on an earlier holiday we found another seemed very much caught up in its success to the point that they even told us that no photography was allowed, as if their menu was such a major trade secret! Considering they advertise all the pies that won them awards all over the outside of their premises, this secrecy seemed utterly laughable.

One bakery that I do really enjoy visiting is the Kojonup Bakery, a quiet achiever on the Kojonup main strip on Albany Hwy. The bakery is simple and honest looking, having none of the flash of some of the other bakeries in the Great Southern, however their Pies and Sausage Rolls speak for themselves.

Gourmandise & Co, Albany, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

One of my favourite things to do in the lead up to a holiday is to scour the internet for tips and leads on interesting dining experiences, and then getting all the leads together and creating a schedule of places to check out. For the Busselton to Margaret River leg of our holiday through the South West, many of our meals were planned and booked months ahead, however as Alissa and I were staying with her parents for a whole week in Denmark, we decided to keep our schedule a bit more loose and adaptable. Using Denmark as our base, Alissa and I headed out to Albany for a day trip to visit the National Anzac Centre, have dinner at Joop Thai and try out Gourmandise and Co - a 'place for a good coffee and a simple lunch' recommended to us by Chris Zalokar after our excellent dinner at Foragers in Pemberton.

The Flour Factory, Perth, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

The last time the Google Streetview Car drove down Queen St was in November 2007. Although the Queen St of today is still dominated by the imposing power of the Brutalist carpark located where the road meets Wellington St, the grainy, low fidelity images seem to come from another time. While its heritage building proudly displayed its year of construction, 1907 was not yet the name of a fine dining restaurant and bar, the corner of Queen and Murray St was a construction site and the building that would house Venn Gallery was the home of WA Hospital Supply.

Clearly seeing the future prominence of the streets that surround the area of the Perth City Link, some of Perth's most savvy restaurateurs have obviously seen an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the new Perth, with none perhaps being as wildly ambitious as Andy Freeman. Opened last year on King St, Varnish on King's focus on whiskey, wine and some of the best, more refined bar food in Perth had us gushing so positively that it remains the most read post at the Ministry of Gluttony. Others obviously agreed as Varnish was recently awarded Best Small Bar in Australia by Australian Bartender Magazine. To follow this up, Freeman and business partner Sam Astbury opened the late night Sake and Dumplings themed Darlings Supper Club on the Northbridge side of the future link earlier this year. More food focused in appearance than Varnish, Alissa and I found Darlings' food paradoxically less impressive, so when we heard about the opening of Freeman's third opening in the area - the bakery, butchery and fortified wine focused Flour Factory - we were interested to see how it fared.

La Panella Bakery, Preston, Victoria (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Local knowledge cannot be underestimated in the hunt for good food. Sure, picking up a copy of the Good Food Guide might help you find interesting places that even the average local may know nothing about, but there is a certain depth of knowledge that comes with actually living in a city; I know that my ability to find interesting middle-of-nowhere suburban gems in Perth is greatly enhanced by the fact I live there, and I have to resign myself to the fact that discoveries like a ex-Vue de Monde chef cooking at a Melbourne bowls club are the kind of surprise finds that a tourist is unlikely to just stumble upon.

When making arrangements to stay with our friends Jake and Tegan in the suburb of Preston, Jake informed me of a nearby bakery that we had to try. Prior to him becoming a vegan, I used to jokingly tease Jake's preference for burgers and junk food as being 'the rearguard of the culinary arts', in contrast to the avant-garde of Molecular Gastronomy. Its a term that has stuck - in spite of the Dude Food trend suggesting that he was perhaps just really ahead of the pack.
"It's a bit rearguard, but their vegan pies are very convincing... or at least we find them to be," Jake informed me over the phone.
Interested to see what local knowledge can uncover, I added La Panella to our schedule of places to visit. Located on Preston's High St, the tired and dated appearance of the bakery's facade comes complete with missing letters in the 'Hot [Br]ead' signage that adorns the wall. This place is vegan? Where's the green paint job that signifies healthiness and sustainability? Where's the hipster-pleasing industrial chic with the Edison-style light bulbs? It looks a lot like any old school no-frills run of the mill independent bakery, which makes the fact its food is largely vegan all the more remarkable.

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.

Jaylea's Patisserie, Willagee, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Its amazing how quickly things can change. Towards the end of 2012 my department at work moved from our offices in O'Connor to Cockburn Central. While I was based in O'Connor, Alissa hipped me to a patisserie 5 minutes away in suburban Willagee that was famous for their award winning pies, with their signature being a very gourmet beef, blue cheese and porcini pie. Then called Jaylea's Patisserie and Lunch Bar, its shop front didn't exactly scream 'quality patisserie', yet tasting many of their pies it could not be denied that they were indeed very good at what they do. After moving to Cockburn Central Jaylea's was no longer a convenient lunchtime option, and it was a lazy public holiday weekend that eventually brought us back 15 months later.

We found that Jaylea's had had a significant rebrand, moving from its location in the middle of the Archibald St shops to the corner space that once housed a realty office. The ugly font and the 'Lunch Bar' designation were gone, replaced by a much hipper style more in keeping with the kind of image a classy yet accessible quality patisserie should project.

To the left of the shop is a lovely mural that makes a lot more sense next to the patisserie than next to a realty office.

The interior design of the space again follows a very contemporary style, with lovely brickwork along the walls, marble counters and the consistent use of their signage font.

When I was here last, I had an awesome cherry pie. We didn't see one this time, but their cake display was impressive nonetheless. The vivid colour of the macarons was very tempting indeed!

But of course I was here for the pie, and since they had the Beef, Blue Cheese and Porcini Pie available, I decided to forego non-beef eating to try it. 

The pie was as delicious as I remembered it - nice, chunky pieces of real beef mixed with the umami flavour of porcini make for an excellent, up-market spin on the usually tasteless mushrooms of a standard steak and mushroom pie. Best of all though is the generous injection of blue cheese, its stinky deliciousness providing even more flavour to the proceedings. I've had better pastry at other bakeries, but as a whole this is a truly impressive pie.

Alissa was not quite feeling the idea of a pie for breakfast, and went with a nice Ham, Cheese and Tomato  croissant in the display. The quality of the croissant was very good but was very much what you'd expect from this fairly standard filling combination - definitely not quite up there with the incredible croissants at Salon de Joel Robuchon in Hong Kong. Still, Alissa was very satisfied with her breakfast.

With the cake display calling to Alissa, we decided to have a sweet treat each. Not wanting anything too huge and my favourite cherry pie not available, I went with the Chocolate Mousse Cake. I'm more of a fruit-based dessert fan, but this was a good chocolate mousse cake - smooth, airy and with a richness that ensured I was well and truly full by the end of it.

Having worked at a few cafes Alissa is something of a connoisseur of carrot cake, and on the drive home went over all the criteria for a good one. The cake has to be moist but dense, sweet but not sickeningly so, filled with a decent amount of nuts and carrot and topped with a good cream cheese icing. Jaylea's Carrot Cake ticked all the boxes, and left Alissa very satisfied.

The Verdict: Very Good
It's always great to see a local business doing well, and returning to find the new Jaylea's doing very well was a lovely surprise. While they are justifiably most famous for their posh pies, they're strong performers across the board - their carrot cake definitely impressed Alissa and I was happy with my chocolate mousse cake. Though it was not available this time the cherry pie they make is amazing - if you're going for a sweet dish please try it. Considering we got our breakfast for about $17, its very good value too. For northerners, I wouldn't suggest driving all the way just to eat here, but for those in the inner south Jaylea's are well worth it.

Bread in Common, Fremantle, Western Australia (Alissa and Don Eat Australia)

Our initial plan for Australia Day was to have lunch at Typika in Claremont, but with friends coming over for dinner we couldn't afford the drive out to the western suburbs. Plus the fact they were closing at 1pm and advertising an all-day breakfast made us a bit worried that the exciting lunch menu would not be available. Instead, we decided to pay a visit to another coffee and casual dining establishment that is fairly new to the Perth dining scene - Bread in Common, located on Pakenham St in Fremantle.

As much as I'm never in Fremantle these days, my childhood and high school years were spent as a Freo kid. I've seen this city change for better and worse - I remember where Fossey's used to be, or when Watsonia's original store on High St was still open, alongside many shops and failed businesses that now live on only in the collective memories of long time residents. As a formerly safe haven for free parking, my family had often parked on Pakenham St, and I remember the converted warehouse this is Bread in Common when it was still a marine engineering company, as a lot of Fremantle's West End used to be.

Seeing it now, with its herb garden, benches and bicycle rack outside, its hard to imagine the brick exterior had been hidden under a layer of horrible render - if you look at it on Google maps, its almost unrecognisable. 

This charming façade immediately proclaims itself as very hip and very now, and the interior again showed that a great deal of time and effort has gone into design and aesthetics. 

Its very pretty in that West End, reclaimed warehouse post-industrial way - a similar aesthetic to the very hipster-trendy Gordon St Garage. But of course hipster flair will only get you so far - sure, newness and wanting to be seen will get that initial crowd through the door, but its the food that will keep the business going once the new kid in town trendiness wears off. 

While we perused their menu, we ordered our coffee - Alissa a cappuccino and a long macchiato/strong latte for me.

Having seen a Synesso espresso machine on our way in, we knew it was going to be good coffee and we were not disappointed - this was the best coffee either of us have had since Iggy's - not overly hot or bitter, the milk not overly steamed and fluffy. This was faultless coffee.

Being a place based around bread, we decided to go with a serve of their mixed bread plate for two, along with hand churned butter and the very interesting sounding Whipped Pork-Pistachio, Fennel spread. As with the coffee, this was fantastic - easily the best bread we've eaten since Caprice and Otto e Mezzo in Hong Kong. When you consider that I'm comparing their bread to two 3 Star Michelin restaurants and that we've done quite a few fine dining establishments in between, that's high praise indeed. 

The butter was very tasty (though not as good as the butter at Caprice), but the real star was the Pork-Pistachio spread. This was just incredible, combining one of our favourite meats and two of its good friends into a smooth, delicious spread. I'm more a noodle person than a bread fiend, but this spread on some quality bread everyday for breakfast could make me a convert.

We additionally ordered some polish sausage, pickled chilli and some tomato chutney to go with the bread. These were very good, but nothing really surprising - especially when you compare it to the charcuterie plate at Vasse Felix.

We had originally ordered separate mains, however Alissa's main was taking longer to make so they brought out mine to share - not how we intended, but not a deal breaker either. My order was Squid, Watermelon, Green Olive, Pork Crackle, Oregano, and was as delicious as that combination sounds. The pork crackling was like unctuous croutons on top, and the squid had a lovely char flavour to them. This green olive tapenade gave it a salty-bitter kick which was cut nicely by the freshness of the watermelon. This was a great combination of flavours wonderfully executed.

Swordfish, Coriander, Wild Rice, Pawpaw, Green Mango, Chilli was however not quite as successful. The fish was cooked wonderfully with a nice char to the sides and a rare interior, and the salad and rice were very tasty. The problem was that it was extremely salty, with the darkish sauce (hoisin?) overriding the otherwise balanced dish. Which was a shame given how expertly cooked the fish itself was.

We hadn't planned on a dessert, however our greed got the better of us and we decided that we'd share a plate. While the Peanut Mousse, Chocolate Brownie Ice Cream, Raspberry, Oreo was supposedly the most popular of the desserts, we decided the fresher sounding
Peaches, Goats Curd, Lemon Verbena, Cashew Crumble was more our cup of tea. And it sure was - this was an excellent dessert. The peaches were presented two ways (fresh and poached) and along with the candied cashews provided the sweetness for the dish. The strongest elements of the dish were the sorbet which gave the dish a cold sweet tartness and the goats curd which seemed to be a panna cotta since it had the surprising consistency of soft tofu.

The Verdict: Excellent
There was the misstep of the salty Swordfish dish (both as a dish and coming out later), however in every other way Bread in Common succeeded at proving they weren't all style; they actually had a lot of substance to back it up. Bread and coffee were outstanding, and the squid and dessert were examples of well executed dishes based around considered flavour combinations. While we felt it was a bit early for a glass of wine, we were impressed to see many of our favourite wineries represented - Marchand and Burch, Single File, Stormflower and Forest Hill to name a few. We'd definitely love to come back here for some good conversation, good wine and good cheese with friends in the future. Definitely a new favourite in the Freo area.