I ate dinner here with a friend last night and enjoyed our meal but felt it was nothing special. The menu was a very standard 'Westernised Chinese' menu, with sweet and sour pork and the like. The service was pretty poor but it wasn't a busy night so maybe everyone was bored, haha. The one thing that turned me off going there again was that they don't take EFTPOS! My friend had to go and get cash-out at the petrol station across the road, and awkwardly left me waiting at the table with the bill. I would probably go to this place for takeaway if I lived close but I wouldn't go out of my way to go back there again.

Approximate cost: $23

Lindos is a frequent catch-up with friends or takeaway restaurant for me and my partner. The food there is consistent, extremely tasty and great value for money (the portion sizes are huuuuuge when you eat-in). The service is pretty good, we have had some pretty bland people serving us before but these are just their casual staff I guess, all of the managerial staff are friendly. The atmosphere in there is really nice, you can tell that they have put in a lot of effort to make it a classy restaurant, but not too much that you feel awkward going there in casual clothing on a Sunday night! I highly recommend Lindos!

Approximate cost: $25

This is mine and my partner's favourite noodle bar! We have been to countless numbers of noodle bars until we tried this one very close to home (after putting it off for a while thinking it wouldn't be any good). We were so surprised at the quality, service and value! The staff there are so friendly, especially the owner who makes an effort to talk to every customer and get to know you if you are a regular. He is always smiling and makes our day every time we go in there! For ages we did not understand why this place was in a small strip of shops in the Eastern suburbs with the quality of food that they produce, but soon we discovered that the owner used to have an extremely busy noodle/sushi bar in the city until he decided he was too stressed out and worked too hard so he would move out into the suburbs! The portion sizes are huge if you eat in, too! Whenever my partner or I order a soup dish I swear the quantity is about 3 litres, haha! We regularly eat here and the food is consistently good, we highly recommend it!

Approximate cost: $9.50

After reading the reviews here and recently moving house (and feeling rather guilty about abandoning our previous/favourite noodle bar) we decided to give Tasty Noodle a try. We were not disappointed by the quality, service or value for money. I wouldn't say that they are the best noodle bar I have ever been to, but they are certainly one of the better ones out in the Eastern suburbs. I haven't tried any other noodle bars around this area, but I would be surprised if they are any better than Tasty Noodle. I'll definitely be back.

Approximate cost: $9.50

The staff at Doc's are always friendly and offer expert advice without being arrogant to new customers or wine/beer novices. They offer a vast selection of wines, both local and imported and also have a rather large selection of interesting beers. They often have tasting nights, sometimes with a visiting winemaker. It beats going to Woolworths/Coles liquor etc because you can choose from boutique wines to some of the more well known brands.

I was extremely disappointed when I ate here given their good reviews. Firstly, the service was shocking, the person who served me just stared at me blankly and didn't even say hello or ask what I would like. They then forgot my order and had to get me to repeat it, and also didn't remember what drink I asked for (when only ordering a few small things). I disregarded this and hoped that the food would be good. I took the food down to the beach with my partner and to my surprise they had forgotton half of my order and I ended up with just chips for lunch... I was NOT impressed as it was too late/too far to drive back. The chips were absolutely disgusting also, they were too greasy and had NO salt on them, and I mean literally NO salt.. How you forget to put salt on chips is beyond me!! I ate half of my partner's potato cake until we threw the other half out.. It was a cheap frozen one which hadn't been cooked properly and was soggy.. It was so disgusting. Again, no salt. I was so disappointed with the quality and service of this place and I will definitely not be going back there again. It's sad to think that a fish and chip shop so close to the beach is terrible compared to the fish and chip shops I've been eating for years at up in the Dandenongs!

I was pleasantly surprised with this Thai restaurant! The food was lovely and so was the service. My partner and I had takeaway and we were amazed at how cheap everything was! Mains were no more expensive than $13! The portion sizes were large and I only ate half of mine (with rice) and will eat the other half for lunch tomorrow! We will definitely be going back here again :)

Approximate cost: $12.50

My partner and I ate here the other night and were pleasantly surprised from the moment we stepped in the door! The service was amazing, they opened the door for us, pulled our our chairs and even put our napkins on our laps (don't remember the last time a place did that!). I can't remember what we ordered, but I had a chicken dish and my partner had a lamb dish. When the meals first came out they looked rather small, but the dishes were very deep and it was actually a perfect portion for one person. The meal was lovely, lots of spices and flavours going on, a good blend of traditional and modern Indian. The value for money was outstanding, also. My main was $16 and my partner's was $18. We considered this very cheap considering how much money it would cost us to eat at a good Indian restaurant in the city or even cook it ourselves at home! A cool feature about this place is that you watch someone making the naan bread behind glass! The people next to us had garlic naan and I wish we had (we just got plain)!! There were whole garlic gloves baked onto it and it just looked mouth-watering!
We will definitely be back here again soon, and highly recommend it to anyone looking for Indian in the Eastern suburbs! :)

Approximate cost: $16

I was a bit disappointed when I ate dinner here last night with my partner. I had read all of the wonderful reviews and heard good things about Poppy's restaurants in the past. The first thing that proved to be a bit frustrating was that there were only two waitresses on, both who couldn't really speak English at all (which wasn't a huge issue, but still). It wasn't hugely busy for a Friday night, perhaps half of the restaurant was full? We waited 15 minutes before the waitress came and took our order, after we hailed her down. 25 minutes after we had ordered we were thinking that our entrees and mains were probably going to come out at the same time because it had taken so long already.. Another five minutes later and our entrees came out. We had the spring rolls and samosas. Both were very tasty and we were feeling a bit better about our experience. Half an hour later our mains came out (took us about 5 minutes to eat the entree, mind you). I had the Bangkok Mango Chicken which was a dish with deep fried (they say tempura but it's really not) chicken and vegetables in a sickly sweet mango sauce (which had seperated and had a yucky layer of oil on the bottom of it). I ate about 1/3 of my meal and couldn't eat any more as it was too sweet (in a bad way). My partner ordered the Beef Masaman Curry. This one was good, although we had both had better versions before. Overall we weren't too fussed as we just came for a casual meal, but had we of come here on a date we would've been quite disappointed. The service really left something to be desired as neither of the waitresses smiled at you or really seemed to care about the level of service they were supposed to be upholding. I hope this is just a one off and we were just unlucky, but if you go I would go on a week night and order a dish you know and not be experimental.

Approximate cost: $28

I recently had lunch at wild oak with my partner as part of a winery/mountain tour with the restaurant's owner. We were amazed at the quality of the food, I had to slow myself down so I could savour it! I had the wild mushroom risotto with truffle oil, and my partner had the barramundi, both as delicious as the other. The service was equally as good, the head chef even came over at one stage to sit with us and answer a question about truffles (he even brought a real one over to show us!). The location along with the reasonable prices for that sort of outstanding quality (they use fresh, local ingredients, some of which I actually picked up along the tour!) makes it pretty clear why they have won so many awards. This is definitely my new favourite restaurant, and we will be back there very soon!

Approximate cost: $30