Sea Salt is a fish and chip shop that also does sushi. I've been buying both from them for several years now, and have never had a dud meal.

Their sashimi is fairly pricey, but excellent quality - a case of you get what you pay for. These people know how to select the best-quality fish, and they know how to slice it. I'd like to see a bit more variety in their sushi packs, but I can't fault the quality of what is in them. I used to work nearby, and I'd regularly take a sashimi pack back to my desk for lunch.

The fish and chips are also very good - the best I've found anywhere in the inner north. Beautifully crisp and golden - clearly, they change their oil a lot. The fish is perfectly cooked, the chips are excellent, and the calamari nicely tender.

Service is brisk and efficient, and the premises are bright and spotlessly clean.

Ambience leaves a bit to be desired. The shop is tiny and crowded, and made even more so by the presence of three or so little tables and stools. Eating inside is an uncomfortable experience - there's barely enough room to move. There are more tables outside, and it's pleasant enough there in warm weather, but the tables are often full, and in midwinter even the heaters can't compete against the Antarctic chill. I live in hope that one day Sea Salt will buy the premises next door and double in size so one can eat in comfort.

Overall, Sea Salt's not a place I particularly recommend if you're looking for somewhere to dine in, although you may decide that the food's good enough that you're prepared to put up with a bit of discomfort. However, if you live nearby and can take your dinner home, or to your nearby workplace, or even if it's a lovely day and you can find a nearby park to eat in, it's unbeatable quality.

Gurkha's has become the place I go to most often when I want Indian-style takeaway. I say Indian-style because Gurkha's is actually Nepalese, but I'd argue that most people who are not from the subcontinent, including me, probably couldn't tell the difference.

Gurkha's isn't the cheapest place for takeaway, but of the ones I've tried so far it's the best value. The servings are very generous, both in size and in the ratio of solids to gravy. I usually get three curries, one rice, and two roti, which is plenty for two people with leftovers next day.

My favourite dishes at Gurkha's are the Kukhura Ma Krim (similar to butter chicken), the mushrooms cooked in ginger and garlic, and the eggplant.

I'm not a fan of super-hot curries, so the more gentle and subtle Nepalese / northern-Indian spicing at Gurkha's suits my palate. If vindaloos are more to your taste, you'd be better off looking for a southern Indian or Sri Lankan place. I occasionally see reviews of Gurkha's that claim the food is too bland, but I strongly disagree. I suspect those reviewers are accustomed to fiery southern-style curries - they think a curry ain't a curry unless it's hot - and they are disappointed by Gurkhas's mild and delicate spices. I think they're wrong. A curry need not be hot to be both authentic and delicious, and I don't find Gurkha's too bland at all.

In fact, if you're a person who normally avoids Indian-style restaurants because you can't cope with hot curries, then I recommend you give Gurkha's a try before you write off the cuisine for good. It might just change your mind. You'll discover that there are many wonderfully fragrant spices that aren't the least bit hot.

Gurkha's offers a home delivery service, but in my experience it has been a bit unreliable. These days I prefer to phone and place my takeaway order, then call in to collect it. Their estimated pickup time often ends up being an underestimate, but the food is always reliably good and I don't mind waiting a bit if I have to.

I want to like Nila more than I do. They have the potential to be very good, but so far I've been mostly disappointed.

The prices are cheap, but on getting home and opening my takeaway containers, I invariably find they're filled with mostly gravy and comparatively little meat or vegetables. Sure, it's very tasty gravy, but I'd prefer more solids, even if it means raising the prices. I've never dined in, so I don't know if it's only the takeaway meals that have this problem.

The filled roti is much better value for money.

Another thing you should be aware of is that over on Urbanspoon there are no less than three reviews (including a review from one of their most trusted reviewers), all dated Sep - Oct 2011, and all complaining about the toilet facilities. If only one reviewer complains, it's possible that that person got them on a bad day, but three? I cannot confirm this first-hand because, as I said, I've only ever bought takeaway. And of course it's possible Nila's management has fixed the problem since then. But it is something you should be aware of.

I've been dining at Cafe Corretto for years and years - pretty much for as long as it has been in business, which has to be at least 15 years now. It's the only place in Lygon St where I bother to go for pizza these days. The others I've tried (Toto's, Papa Gino's, Il Gambero) are overrated in my opinion.

Cafe Corretto gets it exactly right; thin, crispy crust, never undercooked, never burnt, and a choice of toppings that go well beyond the boring old capricciosa, margherita, marinara, and so on. My favourite is the pizza modena, which includes asparagus, corn, semi-dried tomatoes, and bocconcini among its toppings.

Their pastas are OK, but unspectacular. Having said that, I don't know of anywhere in Lygon St that makes a really good pasta these days - not since Key on the Wall changed hands, anyway. Corretto's pasta is probably no better nor worse than you'll find at lots of other places. it's the pizzas that make it stand out from the crowd.

Service tends to be erratic, depending on which waiter you get. It's usually friendly enough, but waiting times can vary a lot, especially if they're very busy. It's not unusual for three people at a table to be almost finished eating while the fourth person is still waiting for their meal to arrive. I've found that the pizzas tend to come out in a bunch, and the pastas come out in another bunch, so if all your friends ordered pizzas and you ordered the pasta, or vice versa, you can expect quite a difference in serving times. That's not necessarily the waiter's fault, though - more likely, the kitchen is to blame. I suspect there are two kitchens, or two divisions of the one kitchen, and they're completely independent of each other, so the meals are uncoordinated.

It's also not unusual for the staff to get the order wrong. Sometimes it's fine and there are no glitches; other times, things go spectacularly wrong. But if you can put up with erratic service, occasionally bordering on inept, it's good pizza and good value for money.

I became an ING customer several years ago. I forget exactly how many, but it's at least five. Probably about seven or eight.

My relationship with them began when I opened up a Savings Maximiser account. My daily transaction account was with a credit union, and I was happy with it (and it still is and I still am). However, I wanted somewhere to park the money that I don't need to access in the short term, that would earn a higher interest rate. My credit union, much as I like them and feel loyal towards them, didn't have any such higher interest savings account, and its term deposit rates weren't all that competitive either. So I hunted around online, and found ING's Savings Maximiser. It offered an excellent interest rate for on-call savings, and no fees whatsoever. So I opened an account with them, and have never regretted it.

Later on I opened a couple of term deposits with them. I've always found their term deposit rates to be very competitive.

For a while there I also invested in one of the managed funds that was available via ING Direct. It's no longer available - they wound it up a few years ago. I was disappointed at the time because its performance had been very good, but in hindsight perhaps ING saw something I didn't, because it was wound up not long before the GFC hit. So I can't complain - I came out ahead. I invested in a different managed fund (not ING) around the time ING wound theirs up, and I still haven't broken even with that one yet.

I'm impressed with what I hear of their Orange Everyday account, although I haven't opened one because I remain perfectly happy with the transaction account at my credit union, with whom I've banked for over 20 years. If ever that were to change, I'd certainly make a beeline for ING's Orange account.

Apart from the excellent rates and no fees, other pluses are:

(1) their telephone service has always been exceptionally good. It's rare that I need to phone, but when I do, the time between dialing the number and speaking with a human being is mercifully short. It isn't instant - first one has to enter one's client number and PIN, and then select from a pair of options, and then from another pair - but as soon as I select the option to say I want to speak to a person, I'm put straight through. No getting trapped in endless looping robot menus, no waiting on hold listening to muzak. The person who answers then handles my query with courtesy and efficiency. Top marks for customer service. Every organisation that has a robotic voice banging on about your time being valuable to them before putting you on hold for ten minutes should take a leaf out of ING's book. ING really do treat you as though your time is valuable to them; they don't just drone on about it while doing everything they can to prove otherwise, as many large organisations do.

(2) their website is the best-designed website I have ever used. It uses plain English, its functions are arranged logically, it is intuitive, and it behaves exactly as it is supposed to. I have never found a clunky or irritating feature. That is a singularly remarkable achievement. Even WOMO's website - bless you all in every other way - has the odd clunky feature. It's hard to get the design of a website exactly right. It's hard to iron out all the bugs. But ING has managed to do it.

(3) their login screen has an excellent security feature, that I'm amazed hasn't been copied by other banks. Instead of entering your PIN into a field, ING presents you with a keypad on screen that you use by clicking the mouse. But the numbers on the keypad are arranged differently each time you log in. The purpose of this is to foil any keystroke-capturing trojan that may be lurking on your computer without your knowledge. It's beautifully simple and so clever. Does any other bank do this? If not, why not?

On the minus side:

Actually, I can't think of any minuses. None at all. And believe me, if I could - even trivial ones - I'd say so.

ING gets my highest rating because, so far, in every dealing I've ever had with them, they've done everything right.

I've been dining at Balti 3-4 times a year for at least 10 years, until earlier this year. I haven't been there for about 8 months or thereabouts, so this review is based on my experiences up until then. A couple of negative reviews on other web sites suggest that standards may have been slipping in the last few months, so keep that in mind as you read this review. I plan to return soon to see if that's true, and if necessary I'll write an update. In the meantime, if you're wondering whether to eat there: I think Balti's food has been of a sufficiently good standard over enough years to make it worth giving them a try.

I've always thought Balti was one of the best places in the inner north for Indian food at a reasonable price. Very good curries, naan, and bhaji, and the serves are generous. The curries vary from the very mild to the tongue-blistering, so everyone should be able to find something to suit them.

The tables are tiny, and the wait staff don't seem to know what to do when they bring the naan out of the kitchen and the table is already filled with drinks, plates, curries (each with its own little burner underneath to keep it hot), and rice. Management should consider trying to get hold of larger tables, although it's a very small room so that would mean fewer of them.

Service can vary depending on whom you get. Some wait staff are fine, others seem to be lacking in confidence and prone to mistakes. But the food has always been sufficiently good that I'm prepared to overlook a few glitches in the service.

I've been going to Brunetti's on and off for somewhere between 15 and 20 years.

On the plus side: the (regular) hot chocolate is very good, although I once tried their Italian hot chocolate, and it was way too rich. It was like melted chocolate in a glass. One sip was quite enough. Also, the fruit tarts are excellent. The pastry is crisp, the custard is creamy and not too sweet, and they are generously topped with fruit. I couldn't make better ones myself.

On the minus side: in my opinion the cakes are overrated. I think people get dazzled by the vast array of beautiful looking cakes - it gives you a bit of a kid-in-a-lolly-shop feeling - and they may be letting that visual appeal override what their taste buds are trying to tell them. Whenever I've actually tried a Brunetti's cake, I've been disappointed. It has invariably been dry, bland, and not tasting of much other than sugar.

I can't personally comment on the coffee, because I don't drink coffee, but a friend who is serious about his coffee says the coffee at Brunetti's is as overrated as the cakes. He recommends a well-known place in Berkeley St for coffee, although I find it's so popular that I can never get a table there, and since I don't drink coffee it doesn't matter to me anyway. Hot chocolate will do me, and it's perfectly fine at Brunetti's.

Despite the two-star rating I've given it, I still go back to Brunetti's for the fruit tarts and hot chocolate. I haven't found better fruit tarts anywhere else. If I could give it a separate five-star rating for the fruit tarts alone, I would. But the cakes are its main selling point, and frankly I don't think they're worth more than two stars.

The look and feel of Sung's Kitchen is of a more upmarket Chinese restaurant than the usual "cheap and cheerful" places in the surrounding area. The prices creep up a bit in the evenings, but the special lunch menu is pretty good value. Last time I noted down the price (earlier this year) it was $16.80 for two courses or $20.80 for three, with 3 to 5 choices for each course. It may have increased since then, though. I went looking for their website so I could check the special lunch price, but the link seems to be broken.

Most of the dishes referred to below are usually available as part of this special lunch menu. I've only eaten here at lunchtime so far.

My favourite dish is the spring onion pancake - very moreish. I can also recommend the Mongolian Beef and the Country Style Tofu with Vegetables for their rich, earthy flavours.

The fried salt and pepper calamari was crispy outside and tender inside, but a touch too salty. The steamed rice it's served with as part of the special menu went largely uneaten because it makes the overall dish a little dry and unbalanced - it's crying out for some kind of sauce.

The Chicken San Choi Bao consists of a generous serve of nutty, spicy minced chicken and vegetables, but is presented on a single stingy lettuce leaf, making it impossible to roll up into a parcel until most of the filling has already been eaten. This was such a disappointment, because most of the pleasure of san choi bao derives from the textural and flavour contrast between crunchy iceberg lettuce and soft, spicy, warm filling. It's also unnecessarily mean, because the lettuce is probably the cheapest component of the whole dish, and it really wouldn't break the bank for them to provide three or four lettuce leaves to do justice to the filling. Such an inexpensive addition would be all that is required to elevate this dish from just so-so to a highlight of the meal.

I've also ordered quite a few things from the yum cha menu. It has been a while ago now so I can't comment on specifics, but I remember liking everything I ordered.

They used to offer a selection of Chinese teas, often with a special "tea of the day" listed on the chalkboard with a comment about which benefit that particular tea can be expected to deliver. My favourite - both the tea, and the chalkboard description - was the lemongrass and jasmine tea, which was described as being ideal if you're suffering from "brain overload". I think we could all use some of that tea occasionally. I haven't seen that chalkboard for a while, but I presume they still have the selection of teas available.

Leave room for dessert. I don't usually bother with desserts at Asian restaurants, because I'm not a fan of green tea ice cream, or of things made with bean paste. But Sung's has an extensive dessert menu, way beyond your usual lychees with ice cream, and it contains some really interesting and intriguing things, such as toffee apples with an Asian twist. (As well as green tea ice cream and things made with bean paste, if that's what you prefer.) And the desserts are often beautifully presented, decorated with artfully arranged flowers - almost Japanese in their presentation.

I eat here often. I started coming here only because it was the closest pub to where I worked, but I've kept on returning even though it's now a bit more out of the way. Appealing, unpretentious food, at an even more appealing price, and a relaxing atmosphere.

The food leans towards the Irish, but is not exclusively so. I like the soups, the fish (especially when salmon is on the specials board), the calamari salad (now gone from the regular menu, alas), and the vegetarian dishes. On a recent visit I had a red capsicum and garlic soup with home-made foccacia, and it was delicious.

Parma, burgers, BLT, and potato wedges are as good as you'll find anywhere. Pasta and risotto so-so. People I've dined with have had good things to say about the beef and Guinness pie and the bangers and mash. I'm not a fan of slabs of meat, so I haven't tried the steak. Excellent chips, except for the one occasion when they were too heavy-handed with the salt.

They also do a very weird dish called "Irish Nachos", where they've replaced the usual corn chips with potato crisps. Hmmmm. Not entirely sure it works - probably best consumed well into a rowdy evening, with a jug of beer.

All serves are generously proportioned for the price; you're unlikely to go away hungry. You can get a coffee, but they don't usually do desserts. You may be lucky, though... I ate here the day after St. Patrick's Day, and they were offering generous serves of apple crumble and custard for only $5. I think that was just something special they whipped up for St. Pat's, though, because I've never seen dessert on their menu before or since.

Service is usually friendly, and surprisingly quick, even when they're fairly busy. Some reviews on other websites have complained that the staff are occasionally grumpy, but I've eaten there many times and have never encountered any grumpy staff.

If you like Irish music, go on Thursday nights. If you hate noise, then avoid Thursday nights - but then again, if you hate noise, what are you doing in a pub anyway?

Tuesday nights are pretty rowdy too, because it's Trivia Night. Lots of fun, with food/drink vouchers and jugs of beer as prizes, but I tend not to do so well. There are too many popular culture questions aimed at a much younger demographic than the one I belong to. If you're a twentysomething, however, you'll probably have a great time.

Unusually for a pub, they're closed most weekends, although their website says that they will open for private functions. Can't say I've heard of too many pubs that are closed on weekends. I guess it's because they're largely catering to the university crowd, which tends to disappear from the area on weekends.

I began my relationship with this business when it was still a credit union (called MECU). It has recently changed its structure and name, and is now a community-owned bank called BankMECU. I won't go into details about its structure and ethos here; if you want to know more, click on the link above, then select "Why bank with us?", then "Corporate". In this review I'll concentrate on my own experience with them.

I discovered MECU when I was looking for a fee-free credit card. My bank had just written to me saying they were increasing the annual fee on my credit card yet again, and I'd had enough. Time to give that bank the heave-ho.

After a brief appalling experience with the credit card application process at yet another bank, I discovered MECU's website. They were offering a fee-free Visa credit card. And - oh happy day! - unlike that other bank, MECU were thoughtful enough to ask me what credit limit I was looking for, rather than telling me what limit they were going to give me whether I liked it or not. So I submitted the online application, specifying the amount I wanted, and was promptly approved.

I then had to send them the relevant documentation, which potentially could have been a bit of a pain. They wanted me to send it all to Kew; I think that may be their head office. (It wasn't where the loans officer was located, though; she was in Moe.) I did not want to go all the way into Kew, nor did I want to entrust original documents to the mail, nor did I want to go to the hassle of making certified copies to send to Kew. However, MECU have a branch in Kensington, so I called in there. They made copies of everything for me, certified it, verified my ID, and sent it all to Kew.

The overall experience was generally pretty good, although there are aspects that could be improved.

On the plus side:

(1) the approval process was swift. My application was approved within 48 hours.

(2) I dealt with the same loans officer by email and phone throughout the application process, and she always responded promptly to my emails. I had been concerned that because this was an online process, rather than a face-to-face one, I might get shoved around from one staff member to another. Thankfully, this didn't happen. That same loans officer dealt with my application right up to the point where all the documentation was in order and my account was opened. From that point, my queries (in relation to getting my hands on the actual card, and getting internet access activated) were dealt with by a second officer, and then by a third one when the second one went on leave. It does seem that they make an effort to have the same person deal with your query from start to finish whenever possible.

(3) the staff who served me in person at Kensington were friendly and efficient. It's a tiny branch, with no queues. I rarely need to call in these days, but each time I do, I'm the only customer there.

On the minus side:

(1) Switching my periodical payments over was a giant pain. I had hoped that MECU would give me my new credit card - or at least tell me its number - before I closed off the old credit card. That way I could give this new number to the organisations who debit my account every month, and once I was satisfied all payments were now coming out of the new account, I could close the old one. No such luck. MECU wouldn't come to the party; they wanted my old credit card, cut up, with the outstanding balance, so they could do a balance transfer and then issue the new card. This effectively left me in limbo without a card. To make things worse, this transition period took place over Easter, which stretched it out even more. It was seriously inconvenient. It meant I was forced to contact each organisation and make an advance payment to them, to cover the transition period. Fortunately there weren't too many such organisations, and the transition period wasn't excessively long, but it was still very inconvenient. I can fully understand why some people loathe the conditions imposed by their current credit provider - the interest rate, or the annual fee, or the penalty fees - but stay with them regardless. This transition period is a colossal nuisance if you have periodical payments, and I really think not enough attention is given by the banks to making the process easier.

(2) I had a minor disagreement with MECU over the wording of the automatically generated email they sent that contained instructions on how to get my internet access activated. I have a pretty good grasp of my native tongue, yet I had to read the email several times before I was certain of the order of operations, which I finally deduced were: FIRST sign and return the form, THEN wait two working days, THEN try to log in and change the access code. A person who doesn't speak English fluently might well struggle to understand MECU's confusing email. I sent MECU an email pointing this out to them. I even drafted a plain English version with the instructions in the correct order, to get them started. I was astounded at their response:

"unfortunately this is a standard computer generated letter which I am unable to change."

Excuse me?

I picked my jaw up off the floor and wrote back:

"I didn't suppose that you had composed it personally, but computer-generated letters don't write themselves. They are written by programmers according to given specifications.

"Somewhere within MECU there exists either an IT department, or a management team which contracts out the IT work to outside IT companies.

"If a customer is prepared to take the time to explain how a given communication can be better worded to avoid misunderstandings or ambiguities, the least you can do is forward it on to your IT department or management team. A good organisation, keen to improve its business practices, will welcome any such suggestions it receives. The material I have already received from MECU suggests that it's a socially responsible organisation that seeks to actively engage with its customers, so I'm a little surprised that your response is merely to say that you didn't personally write the mail. I trust you will pass on my suggestions to your IT department or management team."

To their credit, that person then mailed back to say they had done that. I'm glad to hear it. I have no way of knowing whether the IT department ever did act on my advice, but I hope they did.

After that slightly rocky start, I now have my fee-free Visa credit card, and I'm satisfied with it. On the few occasions I've needed to phone MECU since I received the card (related to minor internet banking issues), they have answered my call promptly without keeping me on hold forever, and have resolved the problem promptly and efficiently.

I've been sufficiently pleased by their generally good service, and their competitive term deposit interest rates, to have recently transferred some of my investments to MECU as well. (Take that, Other Bank; if you'd only been prepared to be a bit more flexible, you could have had my business, but MECU has it instead.)