This is absolutely the best turkish breads and dips you can get. Better than south melb market and various other places I have tried. The breads are made fresh on the premises (you can see them working the wood fired oven while you're there), and they have a huge selection of turkish dips - all of which are yummy! They also have some salads and other things which I haven't tried yet.

If you need a tent, backpack, boots, or any other outdoor gear repaired, this is the place you need to come. They do repairs and warranty claims for Macpac and many of the big outdoor brands. The place is far from slick and won't find any fancy marketing materials but they are real specialists in their field. We have a lot of outdoor gear and wouldn't take it anywhere else to be repaired. They can also provide spare parts (eg buckles, straps, etc) if you want to do the repairs yourself or to have on you in case something goes wrong.

My sister and I came here at about 8pm on a Tuesday night and the place was jammed! Good old italian food with lots of specials. We just shared a pizza but that was great. They bring out the meals fast which is great if you're after a quick meal (eg before or after a movie). But if you want to chill out and chat for a while, its great for that too. It's much bigger than it looks too - a huge upstairs area including outside upstairs - great on a warm night.

Approximate cost: $16

Toys R Us would sell a lot more if they actually had some service staff. They often have great products on special but it is so annoying to buy from them I have been known to walk out without buying anything. They don't have nearly enough people on the floor and if you can find what you're looking for, once you take it to the counter be prepared to wait for a good 20 minutes to pay for your purchases.

I had dinner here during the week with a group of friends. Its a fantastic place to have a casual meal. Lots of outdoor seating if its warm and if its a bit cool, sit under the verandah and they put the heaters on later and shut the blinds.
Its great because there is something for everyone on the menu. Pizzas, pasta, tapas, meat dishes, etc. I had the blue crap linguini which was delicious. We also shared dips for starters. The best bit though is the extensive desserts. We each got a different one and they were amazing. I had the sticky date pudding - only thing I didn't like was the sauce - way too buttery (also the cream was weird - not real cream I think). Very nice place to spend an evening.

Approximate cost: $15-25

Recently had a catch up here with a bunch of former work mates. It was a great place to catch up - not too formal or dark and dingy. Easy to talk over the music too. We mostly stood around having a drink but there were also lots of cosy corners to get comfortable. Excellent central location too.

My husband bought me a rug from here for my birthday. They normally have a policy of letting people take home a rug and returning or exchanging it within 24 hours so that they can see what it looks like in their homes. However he bought it a few days before my birthday and so arranged with them to allow us to swap it over then if it didn't suit. While I did love the rug he chose, when we put it in place, the colours were a bit too cool for our room and I decided we needed some warmer colours. So I took it back to see what else they had.

The guy serving was at first courteous (although didn't go out of his way to help - and I was the only one in the shop). I finally chose another rug but it was a bit more expensive (and larger) than the first one. My husband had gotten a discount off the marked price of the first rug so I asked whether I could have the same percentage discount. Even though I'd still be spending more money, for some reason this really got this guys back up. He immediately started saying he thought it would be better if I just returned the rug and went elsewhere! This took me completely by surprise I had no idea what the problem was. Hey, if you can't handle some friendly bantering over prices, I don't think you should be in the rug business! He said that he'd already gone out of his way for us - I can only presume he means by giving us a couple of days extension on the return policy. Anyway, I was so tempted to leave and buy elsewhere but by that stage I'd spent 45 minutes deliberating over the different rugs and didn't want to have to start that again. So I bought the rug and he carried it out to the car (I had my baby strapped on the front so would have been difficult for me). But because this rug was larger, it didn't quite fit and as he passed me coming out to the car, he just shrugged and went inside, leaving the rug hanging half way out for me to work out. Nice.

I'm not sure if I just caught the guy on a bad day - I've been in several times previously to browse and they have always been quite pleasant and helpful. But this time the customer service was some of the worst I've experienced.

Approximate cost: $400

For a long time I had been telling myself that I'd get back into painting (after not doing any for about 15 years). I finally decided that I needed classes to kick-start me and called around a few different art classes in Melbourne. I chose Articall because it is more of a workshop format - not a specific topic each class and you can work on your own projects.
I've now been doing the classes for about 8 weeks and I love it! Its a great atmosphere with a really interesting and diverse mix of people. Eva is the business owner and takes the classes. It never ceases to amaze me how she can give very helpful advice to everyone - based on their style and level. The good thing is that seeing other people's styles also makes you more experimental than you'd otherwise be - Eva also encourages you to try different styles and techniques. Whether you're looking to art for a relaxing hobby, or you want to push yourself a little bit, I'd definitely recommend these classes.

I recently bought a new purse for my mum's birthday. She needed a purse but I wanted to get one that was a bit different - not just boring black. Jomena has a great range of purses (and bags as well) which are a bit more funky while still being very stylish. The one I ended up choosing was red colours in a checkered style - she loves it.

We bought our Beefeater BBQ from these guys a few years ago. At the time we shopped around and these guys seemed to have the best prices, and we were very pleasantly surprised to find that they also offered great service. As we wanted our BBQ to connect to our gasline, they made some adjustments (drilled out the jets I think) for free. We've just been back again to get replacement burners and a cover. They have the genuine Beefeater burners which seem to be better than others (burn more evenly). Again, we got great service and advice. They also do BBQ servicing too.