The Groove Train offers a great range of meals and snacks at reasonable prices. The serves are generous in size and the orders filled within a reasonable time. Service is good and efficient. We ordered a range of menu items including pizza, pasta dishes, club sandwich and chicken parma.

The pizza was topped with a good amount of topping but not overloaded so that the crust was still reasonably crispy. The pasta was a good size for a single person, however we shared it so we could all try the dishes we ordered. The club sandwich is good with generous amounts of filling - not some skimpy piece of chicken but I think almost the whole fillet sliced and the parma was also a good size and good tasting with crispy chips.

Overall a great place to grab a bite when you're after a selection of dishes.

Approximate cost: $16

On the way home one night I thought I'd stop by here to test out the chips as they appeared to be popular with so many people queuing up! We ordered the fries and the onion rings as a snack and unfortunately these really were not up to standard. The fries and onion rings lacked crispiness and were still laden with too much oil that the packaging ended up with oil around it quite fast. We ended up using extra serviettes to mop up the oil. The serving size for the price was also not much value - we counted about 15 onion rings and at $5.95 that's about 40c a piece! If the onion rings were crispy and tasty (the batter was too oily to really see if there was any flavor) then it probably would have been great value, however on this occasion it was not up to standard.

Approximate cost: $6

This is sushi Mc Donald's style. The quality is okay and it's something you grab when you're short on time! That said, it's not bad for what you pay and the items are always fresh as a result of the turnover during the day. I normally buy a box that has a mix of sushi and sashimi and if I am with a friend I use my entertainment voucher which gives buy one salmon sushi pack get one salmon sushi pack free!

For more details on the entertainment vouchers see my other review!

Approximate cost: $12

The site is a great place to place reviews of experiences and events provided by various sellers/shops/event organizers. I have found recently that the service was not meeting their set standards of a turnaround time of one business day when I sent through a few questions. I understand that they may be busy, however then the service standard on the website should be amended to 48 hours or more if they cannot meet the 24 hour standard.

I have a very high standard when reviewing businesses so that if something is really good, you can be sure that it is worth attending or using. That said, if something is really lousy or bad, then the business deserves my review and low rating as I provide several opportunities or chances to the business to rectify an error and if and only if they do not respond or cannot resolve the poor service or product after several tries I really have no choice but to place a negative review.
Unfortunately some businesses have not taken this as an opportunity to improve and instead take offense complaining about the customer. However as a customer I visit a business to solve a need or a problem that they are supposed to be able to meet! In some cases womo has then requested revisions to reviews, however it then took a lot of discussion as if womo was on the side of the business and not there to be independent by wanting to penalise me by stopping my review despite it being my actual experience. I do not compromise my reviews as that compromises not only my integrity but also the integrity of this site. This site should be here to represent true experiences of customers! If you look at my reviews I go to great lengths to provide thorough details of my experience and not a two or three line blurb because that does not always provide enough detail for someone considering a business.

This restaurant provides a wide range of Modern Italian and Steak/Seafood dishes. I had a pasta for lunch - Fettuccine Salmon which arrived after a prolonged wait time (and the place was not busy). The dish was a good size and the salmon was cooked just right so it was not overcooked like some places like to do. However I think that more salmon should have been provided in the dish as the pieces of salmon were small bits and as a result of the low salmon content did not allow the main element of the dish to fully flavor the pasta. The pricing of the dish was also a bit high compared to other restaurants in the area at $21 and as a result represents average value for money.

Approximate cost: $21

This place had been recommended by a few people so we went to try. They are a Korean Japanese restaurant with an emphasis on Korean. Unfortunately we found the Korean food on offer average. The bim bim bap and bulgogi lacked flavor. The bim bim bap which is a rice based dish with ingredients placed ontop such as vegetables, meat and egg, we found not up to standard. The rice should have been crispy so when mixed with the ingredients and sauce it creates a smooth, crispy texture - instead it was a soggy slushy rice dish. The bulgogi which is barbecue style meat in a bowl also came out lukewarm instead of heat hot and sizzling. Gyoza (dumplings pan fried) was okay. The Japanese side - sushi and sashimi arrived but was not cold as it should be but just cool, verging on warm. This meant that the fish had lost its texture and flavor and we began to wonder about whether it had been left out of the fridge too long.

Pricing was in the end quite expensive - for three people the bill came to just on $90 with no drinks.

The restaurant should concentrate on one cuisine instead of trying to provide both Japanese and Korean.

Approximate cost: $20

I have been a member of this program for over 10 years and find that over time it is a good but slow way of accumulating points for rewards. If you buy from the list of preferred suppliers and the prices are cheaper, then you can earn rewards faster - depending on the seller, you can earn from 1 to 5 rewards points per dollar spent. Otherwise, you will need to log in and respond to various advertisements on the site or receive emails and click to earn points. You can also bank the points to earn interest on your points, however as a non premium member you are limited to 10,000 points. (You need to pay $66 to become a premium member that provides some extra bonuses, however I worked out it did not provide a fast return on my $66 so did not join!)
Rewards on offer include cash (11,000 points nets you $100), gift cards, transfers to other programs and auctions.

If you use occasional SMS, they offer 5 free per day just for being a member.

Overall a good program but be prepared to wait for the rewards unless you regularly use the businesses that have a link with rewardscentral.com.au

This place is owned and operated by the former restaurant owners and operators of Kings Jade just off High Street in Templestowe.

They originally started with a single store and quickly expanded to include next door.

Their specialties are the roasts - duck, pork, bbq pork and chicken. Whilst these dishes are of a good quality as are other dishes like fish fillets with sweet corn, the big bugbear for us was the fact that this place charges per BOWL for rice and not per person. At $2 it's a bit of overkill. It's like saying that you visit a Western restaurant and they charge you $2 for every piece of bread you want...

The only way as a result to enjoy the food was to take away and have as much rice as you want with the dishes at home!

I think that if they were like other restaurants and charged per person, the value equation would be much better and so would the rating. As far as the food goes, it is a good to very good quality, depending on what you order. We also found variations in quality on different visits. Some days the food was brilliant and other days we don't know what went wrong in the kitchen where it ranged from okay to just good.

Approximate cost: $15

Traditional Fish and Chips - Greek Style! This place has been run by the same people for 10+ years since they took over from another Greek family. Their fish and chips rate a good to very good. We found the batter a bit thick compared to other places, which is okay if you like lots of batter around your fried fish. The fish, if they drain it well (draining time varies and sometimes it's great and other times it ends up a bit oily) maintains its crispy batter and firm flesh by the time we got home.

The chips were crispy when we left, however they tend to go soggy quickly, even after tearing open the paper to let the chips "breathe". I couldn't wait so ate some in the car on the way home!

If you live nearby this place should be okay to buy and takeaway, but any more than 5-10 minutes from this place and the chips tend to go soggy! The potato cakes are similar although managed to remain reasonably crispy when we got home.

Prices are reasonable with fish ranging from around $7 to $12/market price.

Whilst not our number 1 choice for fish and chips, if we are in a hurry and want fish and chips not too far from home then this place is worth a visit.

Recommended fish include flake, barramundi, and whiting.
They do get busy on Friday/Saturday nights so you should call through your order so you don't have to wait too long and you should be able to get home with

Approximate cost: $10

DOC? Originally I thought this must mean Drunk On Cheese?

Actually quite the opposite! This place is a traditional pizza shop as you would find in Italy as the ingredients are sparingly applied however are rich in flavor. The idea of a good pizza is to have the crust crispy and light, not like the ones you find at pizza hut which are overloaded with cheese and the middle of the pizza being soggy.

We also ordered the radicchio salad and the serving was a good size.

Whilst the pizzas tasted good and were cooked with the chese and other ingredients being real authentic ingredients - much from Italy, I did not find the pizzas really any more inspiring than the pizzas we get from Pizza Espresso in Templestowe which runs on the same mantra of less is more.

As most other reviewers have found, the service was slow - not so much because of the waiters, I think that the place was overloaded as they were also placing chairs and tables on the sidewalk and around the restaurant to cope with the people queuing up to dine here. We queued for about 1/2 hour and then waited another 1/2 hour once our order was placed - we could have ordered pizza hut to deliver in the mean time!!

Overall a good place to have pizza, one of the better ones but once you've had similar at other places such as Pizza Espresso, it's very good but not amazing!

Approximate cost: $20