I dined at the Rolador cafe recently with a friend for lunch, we have been there many times it is our favourite spot to eat in Hamilton. I love the quirky atmosphere at Rolador, it has this trendy arty kind of feel to it with all kinds of interesting decor like mismatched chairs and strange ornaments and I think I even spotted a collection of vintage spoons on display there once. The menu really matches the whole feel of the place, with all kinds of varied options to suit almost everyone, if you have any specific dietary requirements or are on a strict diet this would be a good place to go as they have lots of vegetarian and vegan and gluten free options and some organic things too. Everything on offer seems to be pretty healthy and even the sweet things like the muffins tend to come with nuts or berries in them or wholegrain or that kind of thing. My friend had her toddler with her for lunch and they actually had a little basket of kiddy toys and books which was great to help keep them entertained. I ordered a polenta loaf which is a light lunch option and it comes with some avocado and salsa on top. The food came out quite quickly on this occasion as it was reasonably quiet day but normally I tend to find that there is a bit of a wait as they are generally very popular and I have often tried to go there for lunch and they are full. Unfortunatly there was a mistake made with my order, I was given a similar dish to the polenta which is avocado salsa on Turkish bread, which was still quite tasty and I didn't mind it but I would have preferred the polenta. The lady was very nice and polite about it though and offered to replace it with the right dish, but I was simply too hungry so I just opted to have the Turkish bread instead. Rolador can be fairly good value with decent portion sizes, it just depends what you order really and there are often daily specials up on the chalk board. I love this place for the food and atmosphere but my only issue is that often there can be a wait they could do with some more staff at busy times.

I have visited Hunter Healthy spines a few times after a recent surgery left my back quite sore from being immobile in bed. The chiropractor was very thorough and even requested I get a full back x-ray before treating me so he would be able to access my spine properly. He preformed a number of evaluations on my initial and even follow up appointments to establish if my back was improving. There is a high level of customer service at this place, with the staff calling to follow up after my first appointment and to see how my back was going. I required a few appointments to fully correct my back so it wasn't a quick fix, but it did eventually help reduce my back pain and discomfort. The chiropractor took a more gentle approach with his adjustments and wasn't very rough at all but I would have preferred a more dramatic approach to have my back corrected in less visits. Overall Hunter healthy spines is pretty good, the receptionist and chiropractor are very friendly and professional, but I thought the prices were a little expensive with my initial consultation around $100 and subsequent appointments are a little less.

I visited the Beresfield bowling club family dining area recently with my husband and daughter. I ordered a Chinese dish of battered prawns and calamari with stir fried vegetables and sweet chilli sauce, which I believe appears on the menu as chilli seafood. My dish was very tasty and the seafood was cooked perfectly. The sauce was very nice but had a reasonable amount of spice to it so it might be too hot for some people. The serving size was generous and I very much enjoyed my meal. There is a range of meal options available but most of them are Asian style dishes which they seem to specialise in, there are less things like pies, steaks etc, although they do have some schnitzels which is what my husband ordered and he enjoyed his meal too. We didn't have to wait long for our meals to be ready, which was good, and this club also has a small café section where I was able to get an espresso to have with my meal .The prices I found to be a little high for a bistro style eatery, the meals were around $20 with several meals above this price too. Although I recall there were a few chefs specials available. For my daughter, my husband and I our total bill for 3 meals was around $50 or a little more. Although the meals were very tasty and of a good size.

I recently visited the restaurant at the Sydney Junction with on a Friday night with a group of about 20 or so people for a friend's birthday. They offered a good variety of meal options including vegetarian and kids meals. To spite the large number of people in our group they were very quick with bringing out most of the meals, and they brought out the kids meals among the first ones brought out so that was helpful in keeping the kids happy. Unfortunately my meal which was the vegetarian crepe came out last and I had to wait awhile for mine but at least they brought the other 19 meals out quickly. Everyone seemed to enjoy their meals and thought they were tasty, although my vegetarian crepe was a little disappointing, as the filling of the crepe was quite bland and watery with a red pasta sauce in it that wasn't very tasty. Although it was edible and the chips that came with it were quite nice and crunchy. The meal sizes were quite generous and I don't think anyone would be left feeling hungry after dining here. The meals were great value they were very reasonably priced, with quite a few menu items for around $10, which is what my crepe was, and even the more expensive meal options were only around $20. Overall I was happy enough with the service and value and meal options I just didn't much enjoy my own meal but it was okay.

I have visited Cino's cafe many times and it is one of my favourites. Most recently I went there a few days ago for morning tea with a friend and I had the coffee and cake deal, with the gluten free 'ferrero rocher' cake. The cake was rich and delicious and presented nicely and served with cream. This cafe always tends to present the meals and desserts well. I was impressed with the variety and range of cakes and sweets, with a selection of rich chocolate based cakes like mud cake and chocolate mouse cakes as well as a few different types of cheesecakes and there is normally at least one gluten free cake available,which I prefer as I am a little intolerant to wheat. This cafe provides table service and every time that I have went there without exception, the waitress has always come to take our order quickly, which is really good. Also even though this place always seems to be fairly busy when I normally visit on weekday mornings or lunch times, the food never takes very long to come out, so they are very efficient. I also like that they provide a bowl full of complimentary breath mints at the front counter which is handy when you want to get rid of coffee breath and its a nice touch. There is a good variety of foods on the menu including a few different vegetarian and gluten free dishes, plus there is always something different on the specials board each day I come in. My favourite dishes are the breakfast meals of the Que'bec style french toast with strawberries and the 'bananarama' dish which is banana and nuts and cinnamon and cheese on toast for breakfast and I normally add strawberries to these when I come in for breakfast. Overall I would rate Cino's highly, the service and the taste and presentation of the food is great, the only way that I think they could improve is increasing the size of some of the lunch and breakfast meals, although the cake servings are a good size if you are coming in for morning or afternoon tea. They also need a few more tables and chairs in there as it is often really busy in there and on a number of occasions I have had to wait a little while for a table, but at least as it is inside the shopping centre I was able to browse at some shops while I was waiting for a table to become free.

I visited this chiropractor clinic a little over a week ago as a new patient. I was very impressed with the service here, the chiropractor took plenty of time to get some thorough information about my back and overall health and asked me about any past injuries in order to ensure he gave the appropriate care. He told me that he offers remedial massage also and he incorporated some back massage into my treatment using a heated massage machine that helps with muscle tension. My back had been fairly out of place and I was in quite a lot of discomfort prior to seeing the chiropractor, yet by the following day I was feeling much better with significantly reduced back pain which was great, and my back muscles did feel better too. I was able to get in for an appointment at fairly short notice and the prices were really great value, I paid less for an in initial consultation here than I have paid for a follow up consultation at another chiropractor in the past, even though an initial consultation goes for longer. The chiropractor was very friendly but professional. This place is definitely worth a visit!

Approximate cost: $45-$65

I am a new patient at the Beresfield surgery, I have been a few times myself so far and I have also taken my 10 year old daughter about twice. I see the female doctor however I have taken my daughter to see both the female and male doctors there, and they are both quite friendly and thorough and professional. I was impressed with how on my first appointment the doctor was quick to order some common blood tests such as cholesterol and blood sugar levels and also to check blood pressure, as I have found many GP's in the past in other surgeries haven't bothered with doing overall health checks like these so I appreciated her taking the time to do this. The doctor also was happy to take the time to talk through health concerns and offer some practical advice for me, and make a referral to a specialist. I feel as though both the doctors here are quite knowledgeable and seem to have genuine concern for patients. The appointment prices for myself was about the average, but I think it was money well spent, and I was also pleasantly surprised to find that when I took my daughter there her appointment was bulk billed, as they bulk bill for children, which is excellent. The waiting room is clean and has a big TV in there too and plenty of reading material, but I have found that for all my appointments so far they have been running on time and I barely had to wait so that is good to see.

I dined at customs house with my husband and two of our friends recently, we went for lunch on a Sunday. We dined in the fine dining area, inside the hotel where the tables had some nice white tablecloths and flower arrangements, but not in the function area as we were not at a function. It was the first time I had dined at Customs House other than at a friends wedding, so I didn't know what to expect. As it is a hotel I expected more of a pub/club kind of limited menu with just things like roasts or schnitzels available, but I was pleasantly surprised to find some quite tasty sounding fish dishes and also a duck salad with some really creative ingredients like hazelnuts and mandarin on the menu. I am not a fan of red meat or poultry dishes in general so I asked the waitress who served us if I could get a special dish made up, something not on the menu, I ordered the duck salad as the salad itself sounded like a tasty and unusual mix, and I got them to substitute the duck with prawns. They were happy to oblige and my meal was a really interesting mix of flavours and very tasty. I ordered a dessert too, it was some kind of french dessert, I can't recall the exact name of the dish but it was a rich chocolate gelato style of thing and it was very dense and had a good solid flavour. I thought the presentation of the dessert and the main was quite impressive, the waitress was fairly attentive and I certainly couldn't fault the quality or taste of the food, which was also served quite quickly. The only issue that stopped me from rating this place 5 out of 5 stars for dining was just that for a place that describes itself as fine dining I didn't think the atmosphere and decor was quite up to that level, as i didn't notice any art on the wall or fancy light fittings or anything like that, the waitress was wearing some kind of denim dress which made things look more casual I thought, and also the toilets, though clean, weren't the best in the sense that I think the bathroom could benefit from some more modern renovations. All in all I had a good experience here though, and I would recommend customs house to others for the great food.

I have been visiting 'Do Drop In Cafe' very frequently for a couple of years now, since they started up. I always come in at least once a week, but often I am in there at some stage every day. This is my local cafe, and although I don't know the owner operators personally the staff there do always make me feel very welcome and at home while I'm there. It's the kind of place that if you visit it often the staff will automatically remember exactly how you like your coffee, and it has a real homely comfy atmosphere to it. There is always newspapers and magazines ready to read while waiting for your meal, and no matter which staff member who serves you they always seem happy to lend you there ears for a couple of minutes to have a chat. They have really reasonable prices, with quite a few light meal options for around the $5 or $6 mark with things like rolls and sandwiches and breakfast wraps ranging from around $5 to $8 or $9, with some slightly more fancy options available too like gourmet wraps and some salads and then there is a specials board with various different things too which can change from week to week, so overall there is a good selection of meals especially for such a small venue, at very low prices compared to many other cafes. Most recently I ordered a coffee and the 'vege burger' which is one of my favourites on the menu there, it is light and tasty and pretty simple, its just a vegetable patty with salad and sweet chilli sauce on a roll with cheese I think. As usual the staff were friendly and efficient, my meal and coffee came out pretty quickly which it normally does. The only area in which I think this cafe could improve slightly is the selection of sweets and desserts, they do have some nice milkshakes and a very small selection of cupcakes and slices and some packaged cookies, with the slices etc differing daily, although I am a big chocolate fan and I tend to find that the slices available are rarely rich or chocolate flavoured ones, generally they are things like carrot cake. There is also still no full sized slices of cake such as mudcake or cheesecake and I would like to see a variety of cakes like these to select from. However if you just want a meal or coffee its great and you can't beat the friendly service.

Approximate cost: $5.50-$15

I went to sass on smith beauty recently after I heard about it via an email and discount coupon sent from an online discount voucher site that I am a member of. I had not heard of sass on smith before that, but I'm glad that I found it! I had a microdermabrasion facial done on my first visit, then I returned two weeks later for just a straight microdermabrasion treatment, which also included something called sonophoresis. To describe it briefly, microdermabrasion is like a deep exfoliating treatment with a special machine and it is supposed to help with problems like fine lines and pigmentation, while the sonophoresis is a gentle electric current type of device that uses soundwaves of some kind and seems to help with the signs of ageing. I very much enjoyed my initial facial, it was quite in depth and went for over an hour and included the typical things like cleansing, having a mask and moisturiser and a massage on my arms and hands as well as the microdermabrasion and the soundwave treatment. The lady was quite friendly and gave me a skin consultation too looking at my skin under a special light, so all in all the facial seemed quite good value and included alot of things and was very relaxing. I was also impressed how they did my whole neck and decolletage area too. The results were impressive for my very first go, my skin seemed to look kind of plumped and my fine lines on my forehead weren't visible for a few days afterwards but they did eventually show up again, although a few treatments are recommended, I was told, to sand down the fine lines. On my second visit when I had just the microdermabrasion done only a few days ago the lines on my forehead did look to be improved again and they haven't come back as pronounced as they were before my first treatment so I think I will definitely keep coming there. After the second time a friend of mine had told me that she thought my skin looked more glowy. Even the basic microdermabrasion without the facial included some moisturiser application and a few other things so I was pretty pleased once again with the good value as compared to the prices and whats included at some other salons for microdermabrasion as people I know have told me about what they typically get. On my second visit the lady who did the service was a different person, the business owner I think, and she was also friendly and approachable. I would give this salon a great rating overall, as the staff, the results and the prices charged were all good, and my expectations for reducing my fine lines were met well I think.

Approximate cost: $69-$130