Pappardelle, Blue Swimmer Crab and Chilli  @ Press* Food & Wine
Press* Food & Wine has only one pasta dish on the menu and it is absolutely delicious. The star of the menu is their house-made pappardelle with blue swimmer crab, tomato, cream, chilli and garlic. The pappardelle pasta is freshly made in house every day. The flat, thin and delicate strands are cooked al dente and covered evenly with a creamy, rich tomato, chilli and garlic sauce with chunks of fresh, sweet blue swimmer crab meat throughout. The sauce is flavourful and packs a punch with a slight heat that lingers on the palate, but not enough to deter one from going back for another bite. Pasta and seafood lovers will be impressed.

Laksa @ Sungei Road Laksa
This is one of the few laksa stalls that still cooks over charcoal fire. It's served Katong style, with just a spoon, no chopsticks. Scoop up the pre-cut rice noodles along with the spicy coconut gravy. It's a humble dish, just topped with cockles, fishcake slices and beansprouts, but so comforting. The easy-to-drink gravy gets its umami punch from dried shrimps and a killer sambal. This started out as a humble pushcart in 1956 but sees long lines daily now at this coffeeshop stall.

Sangria @ Bubo Bar
Probably the best sangria in town. Nicely presented in two colors (the orange juice at the bottom, the red wine at the top), this sangria has a secret ingredient that make it better than other sangrias in town: Cointreau! So instead of the sourish aftertaste, it is beautifully sweet (but it gets you drunk faster, too). The glass is relatively large, so it might be a good idea to get just one to share, depending on how much you usually drink. And since you are there, make sure to check out the Bubo Cake store next door, and have one of their amazing cakes!

Grilled Octopus, Smoked Chorizo, Two Poached Eggs, Hummus @ Harvest Espresso
In this seasonal summer dish there's a really generous amount of octopus, and its cooked perfectly. The hummus is plentiful which is nice to see and I love that the smoked chorizo looks more like a hamburger patty. It's so meaty and acts as a perfect base to hold the other ingredients (including those two spot on eggs which burst forward with tantalising yolk porn as your fork pierces the surface).

Fried hot chicken sandwich with gravy and peas @ The Old Crow
The Old Crow is pure southern hospitality with their big bold flavoured dishes and their quirky suspender wearing staff. This dish is absolutely decadent - a thick piece of crisp fried chicken encased in beautifully freshly baked bread and smothered in a river of rich gravy and peas.

Red Duck Leg Curry @ Botherambo
Botherambo is about authentic Thai and Vietnamese cuisine with innovation and surely one of the best Thai restaurants in Melbourne. Botherambo have entered the bamboo belt in Richmond/Abbotsford where Asian food dominates the scene. Botherambo is a standout from the crowd with the distinct influence of maestro chef Kam McManamey (ex BangPop). This is a classy fit out and the food shows flair and technique while honouring the main ingredients. You're likely to have food experiences here you won't get elsewhere. A highlight for The World Loves Melbourne is the Red Duck leg curry featuring baby corn, wood ear, snake beans, krachai, thai basil. The sauce on this is a medium heat but so compelling. The Duck leg was cooked perfectly in the broth.

Atomic @ The Grand Trailer Park Taverna
The Atomic Burger is a chart topper and definite contender for best burger in Melbourne. The Atomic has taken on legendary status in Melbourne featuring Premium Aussie beef pattie, American cheddar cheese, chilli cheese kransky, crispy bacon, BBQ sauce & truffle cayenne mayonnaise on a lightly toasted brioche bun. This is juicy goodness that is so right. From the photo above you can see it's a substantial burger with lashings of caramelised onions and bacon and chilli cheese kransky. The Chilli cheese kransky is like having another patty, and combines wonderfully with the beef pattie. The crispy bacon is another highlight, living up to its name and in generous proportion. Grand Trailer Park make their own sauces and they are tangy and complement perfectly. The cheese oozes over the patty while the kransky already has cheese and chilli in it. This is a burger with several talking points. So good.

Duck Tacos  @ Quan Lam Linh
Tuesday nights are taco nights at this street-side roast duck outfit deep in the wilds of Ho Chi Minh City's District 2. Every night of the week, Lam Linh's husband and wife team, Tuan and Trinh, serve their spit-roast whole ducks stuffed with móc mật leaves (a member of the citrus family) with a delicious fragrant homemade black sauce. On Tuesdays, the Californian owner of the nearby Saigon Tacos factory delivers fresh-off-the-griddle soft corn tacos and bottles of authentic Mexican taco sauce to Lam Linh to create the ultimate -- and sublimely delicious -- street food fusion food. With the tacos on hand, Lam Linh's north Vietnamese duck experts prepare platters of their melt-in-the-mouth roast duck, filleted and deboned, with each roasty-brown morsel ready to be plunged into a bowl of black sauce, then a bowl of spicy red taco sauce, laid on a soft, chewy, warm taco and blanketed with fresh holy basil, Vietnamese balm, slices of cucumber and a dollop of chunky fresh salsa. What happens next is a heavenly symphony of Vietnamese and Mexican, poultry and corn, and sweet and spicy, best washed down with a cold Saigon Red beer.

Banh Bao  @ Quan Ca Can
These hefty dumplings with their soft fluffy casings evolved from China's baozi, or pau cakes, so it seems fitting that the best banh bao in Ho Chi Minh City are in District 5, the Chinese district. Quan Ca Can does the traditional Vietnamese banh bao filled with delicious spiced minced pork and quail eggs, and it also does very tasty chicken and vegetarian options. All versions have high quality ingredients, a fact that's reflected in the price -- and the taste, which is head and shoulders above the standard dumpling. The sweetish dough is lighter, fluffier and more heavenly and the fillings more flavourful than the average banh bao.

Pho  @ Pho Binh
During the Vietnam War, this humble noodle soup shop was a front for one of the resistance cells that planned the 1968 Tet Offensive. While some of the family served bowls of fragrant beef and chicken pho downstairs, the northern sympathisers plotted the Tet Offensive in a secret room upstairs. Pho Binh still serves pho from its small shop in District 3, but nowadays the planning room upstairs isn't such a secret and it's possible to go up and have a look at semi-official museum.