I know we're only a week into the year, but I'm pretty sure I've found a genuine contender for the worst meal I will eat out in 2013.

My wife and I dined here last night, and to be blunt, it was woeful.

I ordered the hand-shredded chicken with peanuts from the specials menu, and my wife ordered the bento teriyaki chicken.

My wife's meal was delivered quickly to the table, but it was all but slapped down in front of her in a plastic tray that would not have been out of place in a food court. She said the food was OK, but the chicken was a bit gristly.

When my plate was delivered, it actually looked quite tasty. Looked. When I sampled it, I quickly discovered that it was massively overloaded with salt. It was like the work experience kid knocked over the salt in the kitchen and didn't tell the boss. It was inedible.

The service? Well this is difficult to rate because there pretty much was none. Even paying the bill we were not asked how our meal was.

The value? Well it was cheap, but still pretty poor value if you can't eat what you actually get served up.

I would not recommend this place at all. There are plenty of other places to eat in Sandy Bay. I'd suggest trying those instead.

Stopped in here on the way home last night for some meat to throw on the barbecue for dinner.

We grabbed some Chicken Cheese & Chive snags - excellent - A couple of Chicken Schnitzels - also pretty good - and a deal on 10 cheese and pork burgers.

The burgers for me were the big let down. Firstly, when we got them home, there was "cabinet burn" on several of them. Secondly, the deal was 10 burgers for $7, but when I opened the bag, there was only 9 burgers in it.

The service was pretty disinterested as well, I got the impression he really didn't want to be there.

With so many other quality butchers around, these guys will struggle to win me back.

Stopped in here for coffee and a toasted sandwich whilst waiting to attend an appointment nearby and to be honest, I was disappointed.

The service was not great, with the lady behind the counter seemingly more interested in chatting to her friend than dealing with a paying customer.

The coffee was pretty good without being spectacular, but the toasted chicken & cheese sandwich was very bland, lacking any sort of seasoning.

I wouldn't rush back there, and if I returned, it would probably only be for a takeaway coffee if it were convenient.

Stopped in for dinner with my wife's grandmother the other day and had a very enjoyable bar meal (the associated restaurant just seemed a little too pretentious for Nan's tastes).

The ladies enjoyed chicken schnitzels with gravy and vegies and I settled on a nice serve of wedges. All were well cooked, though the sour cream could have been a bit more generous with the wedges.

The schnitzels were quite large and the staff's friendly demeanor helped maintain a tradtitional country pub atmosphere.

A group of us dined here on New Years Eve (9 of us in all) and had a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

The quality of the food was excellent, I enjoyed a chicken Panang Curry and my wife (who doesn't like things too spicy) ordered Pad Thai which was cooked perfectly to her request.

The only watchout would be Corkage - $8 per bottle can soon add up with a big group, however, we were able to negotiate a bit of a deal with our waiter so we stopped being charged after six bottles.

The atmosphere of the restaurant was fantastic and the staff were friendly and helpful. We'll definately be returning here.

Approximate cost: $25-$30

In an industry that is pretty well saturated in this country, coffee shops and cafes really need to work at standing out, be it by exceptional quality of product service or price.

Unfortunately on my recent visit here, Pilgrim, for me, managed none of the above.

Granted I only had a coffee and didn't try any of their foodstuffs, so can't comment on quality there.

The coffee I received was pleasant enough, not obviously burnt, but it didn't stand out to me as any better than plenty of other coffee shops I've been to.

The price was about average for a cup of coffee, so there was no differential there, so that leaves the service.

This is where I felt let down. The service wasn't rude at all, but it was completely vanilla. There was no personality at all. The girl that took my order seemed disinterested and the barista making the coffees had an air of arrogance the suggested many customers are unable to appreciate truly how good his coffee blend really is. I just felt like my custom had no value to the business.

I wouldn't rule out returning, but it would only be borne out of convenience.

I received an offer for this place via one of those Daily Deal type websites which offerred a two for the price of one breakfast and coffee.

My wife and I went in one morning before work to give them a try. There were a few tasty sounding options on the menu, but the one that caught our attention the most (so much that we both ordered it) was the creamy baked eggs, with caramelised onion, ham, and gruyere cheese. I also opted to add a side of bacon for extra deliciousness.

In a word, SENSATIONAL. If you only try one cafe breakfast this year, make it this one. My only criticism, and it's very minor, was the chopped parsley garnish was a fraction heavy handed for my liking and being chopped, is difficult to remove.

The venue itself is quite small, so it would pay to book, and the table we were seated at was probably crammed a fraction close to others but the staff were friendly and the coffee was excellent.

We'll definately be returning.

My wife and I stopped in here for a bite of brunch and a coffee yesterday. We were promptly acknowledged by the friendly staff who took our order.

I had Eggs Benedict and my wife had a toasted focaccia and we could fault neither. The food was delivered promptly and with a smile.

The only criticism I have is that when my coffee arrived, the residual heat in the glass made it difficult to hold without wrapping a serviette around it.

Definitely will return and they even have a coffee loyalty card program.

Sensational. My wife and I stopped in here last week for an early dinner before attending a show at the Theatre Royal.

We'd both heard some really good things about the venue and decided to give it a try. We are unblievably happy that we did. The service was warm and friendly, and the food was nothing short of sensational.

We arrived early and were seated promptly by a very welcoming gentleman who took our drink orders, provided menus and asked if we would like some papadams & chutneys to begin with.

We opted for some fairly mild dishes as my wife doesn't have a huge tolerance for very spicy food so we didn't want to get something she wouldn't be able to eat. We opted for a Mango Chicken and a Paneer dish that I can't recall the name of. Both were amazing. Full of flavour and very mild. We also ordered some Naan which were cooked to perfection.

The price was probably at the higher end of what you would pay for an Indian Restaurant, but the food was of such quality it was well worth it. We were also fortunate that they participate in the Entertainment book discounts so we got 25% off to boot.

We will most certainly be returning in the future.

I found these guys a while back pretty much by accident when I was surfing the web looking for something entirely different and thought they looked interesting.

Fast forward to last Saturday night when I was feeling a bit under the weather (no, not self inflicted) and wasn't really up for cooking or driving to go and pick something up for dinner.

Dial a Meal offers home delivery for a number of restaurants around Hobart's Salamanca district. Annaupurna (Indian), La Porchetta (Italian), Fish Frenzy (Seafood) and Dumpling World (Asian).

You place your order from the restaurant menus (either via the website or phone), Dial a Meal then collect the order and deliver it to you for a modest fee.

For our first order, we were reasonably happy (though delivery is a bit on the expensive side, the convenience of being able to get something other than pizza delivered is handy).

The interaction I had with the staff was reasonably pedestrian. He was just there to deliver my dinner and collect the cash, but the young bloke was polite enough. My only criticism would be that the food didn't appear to be delivered in one of those heat retaining bags that the pizza delivery guys use. As a result, the food possibly didn't stay as warm as it could have for the drive from Salamanca to Claremont.

Even so, I'd use them again in similar circumstances.

Approximate cost: $7.50-$11.50 for delivery depending on location