We went here for a weekend anniversary getaway.

We stayed in the 2 bedroom "Birch" cottage, and it was lovely. A full kitchen so we could cook, lovely warm fireplace and a spa.

Some of the decor is a little old fashioned (as in 1980s), but the cottage we stayed in had good charm, was nice and spacious, very quiet and peaceful, nice and clean and we had a lovely stay.

They have 4 different rooms/cottages to choose from. 2 of these are separate cottages, 2 of them are rooms connected to the main house.

I would recommend this place. The cottage we stayed in would be suitable for a couple or a small family, and they say on their website that you can also bring your pets.

I love this place - they have 2 showrooms, and I've been to both, but I prefer the one in Pakenham. It's in a lovely little cottage building, and it's a lovely place to go in and browse.

A huge range of beads and findings, all arranged in colour sections, making it easy to find what you're after.

Most of the beads are sold by weight, so you can grab pre-packed bags of beads or scoop out as many beads as you like into the bags provided (a bit like an old fashioned lolly shop)

They often have online specials too, so it's a good idea to sign up for their newsletter. I have placed orders online and picked them up from the store too, which is a great way to save postage. I'd definitely recommend this place if you're after beads and jewellery making supplies.

A group of friends and I go here every few months as our catch up yum cha lunch :) It is always fantastic.

I'm very impressed with the quality of the food, some of the dishes I find really superb! The service is always good, taking away plates quickly, refilling our teapots etc.

They are also happy for us to split the bill (they help us work out how much it is each and pay our shares separately), which is great, as not all places will do that - so it is greatly appreciated.

I must admit that it makes it easier for us because one friend can speak the language, so we get her to do most of the selecting and asking for things, which helps.

Since sometimes there are 4 of us, and most of the dishes come in 3 portions it can be a bit tricky, but usually we can get them to cut the portions up so we can all have some, which is great.

I find their salt & pepper squid to be a bit too salty and chewy (and it's the tentacle part not what I'd normally expect for "squid")... but that's pretty much the only dish I've not really liked. They have a lovely tasting pork rib dish but that is sometimes a bit Grissely.

To me their standout dishes are the mango pudding and something I know as a "football" (a football shaped smooth fried item with mince stuff inside - yum!). But most things are really great.

A few times we've requested different foods that weren't on the carts (because they had run out), and they have brought them to the table quickly and been happy to do that for us.

I find the decor a little strange, as it's quite opulent but the tables have paper covering the cloths (which is a bit uncomfortable and feels less special), with paper napkins - but I guess that might be somewhat standard for Yum Cha restaurants? I've seen paper cloths used in some other places too.

I also appreciate the underground carparking, great for rainy or hot days!

Approximate cost: $30

We've been getting the occasional takeaway from here for several years now.

We've never had any complaints, the food is always tasty (except I didn't like their singapore noodles). I find it a good balance of meat/veg/sauce (unlike some places that put lots of vegetables and sauce and very little meat). It's always well cooked.

We usually get a free soup and prawn crackers which is a lovely touch.

I would recommend this place.

Revising (again) my review :)

When we first found this place it was amazing, then it changed quite noticeably, where the food was more watery, with less vegetables and didn't taste as good as it had. So we stopped going there, very disappointed.

However months later I decided to give them another go, to see if they got better (because I missed my awesome curry) and they had! I think it's not quite as flavoursome as it was originally (they did have lots of basil leaves and it was very fragrant and full of flavour - but it's not quite the same now), but it has definitely improved on whatever bad patch they went through for a while. So we're back to ordering reasonably regularly from them again, and they are consistently very good!

What I do love as well is that because we only ever order one takeaway dish (the green curry) without rice (because I do the rice at home ;)) they remembered us very quickly, and it's got to the point that even though we only order once every few weeks, we can now just say who we are and they ask if we want "the usual" - which I think is hilarious and awesome. It's a nice personal touch that makes you feel special.

Just After Xmas, Hubby came back with a cup of (free) coconut icecream - they had given it to him saying it was for me. How sweet! :) and it was absolutely delicious! - If you get a chance to try some, do!

Approximate cost: $12

Hubby chose this place to celebrate something a few months ago... and I must admit, not having been there, and not knowing what to expect, I wasn't as enthusiastic as he was. But we went anyway...

We both ordered the Moroccan lamb, and our daughter for memory got chicken nuggets and chips. Since there was some mention on the menu of their chips being famous (or something) and I'm rather partial to chips, we ordered a side of chips too :)

Well.... OMG! The lamb was beautiful, so soft and divine. Cooked perfectly. The spiced yoghurt was a really lovely addition - not over powering but full of flavour. The whole meal was amazing. I was happy with the portion size too, not too stingy :) I can honestly say I have never enjoyed a meal as much as I did this one.

The chips came with a dipping sauce (yum!) and they were incredible too (I love chips that are crunchy on the outside but fluffy and soft inside). Mmmmm :)

We shared 2 desserts, a mars bar cake and a berry sundae. The cake was good (just your standard cheesecake shop type cake), the sundae was huge and while I found it too sweet, hubby enjoyed it and my daughter thought it was the best thing she'd ever eaten :)

The service was great, happy smiling staff who were there to see if you needed anything but not hanging around too much.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed our dinner there, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

The next family celebration we had, hubby picked the cafe/restaurant next door to try out, and while it was ok, I spent the whole time wishing we'd gone back to Jack's Place instead :( I can't wait to go back!

Approximate cost: $25

Revising my review for this place. When we first found it, it was AWESOME. But over the last few months, every time we have ordered, we have been disappointed.

At first, the green chicken curry was in a thick sauce, lots of chicken and lots of vegetables. Now the sauce is watery, with less chicken, less vegetables - and the vegetables in it have changed too. (now mostly eggplant, some carrot and some zucchini and broccoli) The actual flavour is similar, but just doesn't have that same appeal... it just doesn't sing like it used to.

Similarly the fried rice we've tried was fantastic at first, but has lowered in quality. The amount of vegetables and chicken in it has lessened and the flavour not as good.

I presume they now have a different chef or something, which is a shame, as I can no longer recommend them :(

My sister had her kids birthday party here. We were all REALLY disappointed with the place.

When they brought out the kids food, they put pitchers of softdrink on the tables and some of the kids were complaining it tasted funny. It seems they put down some lemonaid and some soda water. The food they served was cut up pieces of (ovecooked) chicken schnitzel, standard frozen sausage rolls (the ones that you break up into individual sausage rolls - that they hadn't bothered to break up), chips and party pies. For memory. They did give each child their own bowl of sauce which I thought was a good touch, but the food was pretty uninspiring and the overcooked, dried out schnitzel looked awful.

The adults got a tray of partyfood too, which I think cost about $100, but all it consisted of was the same type of frozen entertaining foods you'd buy in the supermarket. Party pies, 2 flavours of mini quiches and spring rolls... with soy sauce and sweet chilli dip (which had spilled a bit as they carried it out). Totally pathetic really, given what was paid for it.

Looking at their menu, everything seemed very overpriced for the type of venue it was. And there wasn't a lot of choice, nothing there really appealed to me for the prices they were charging. I ended up getting their $10 bowl of wedges. It's really nothing more fancy than a pub or RSL - infact I've been to RSL and pubs that have been far better - the seating where we were put was all hard wooden chairs with white perspex back & seat! We were in the big glass dome area, and one of the roof panels was ripped. I think they are trying to pretend they are more posh than they are.

I got myself a lemonaid from the bar, and there was no flavouring in it, just sodawater. So I had to take it back. So I wonder if that's what happened with the kids soft drink, that their machine was out of flavouring so only the first pitchers filled actually had lemonaid flavouring in them.

The kids play area consists of one large piece of play equipment, a couple of video games and some "skill tester" type machines (which personally I think is just a way to teach gambling to young kids). So of course some of the kids were pestering their parents for money to put in them all night. At one point one kid was upset because their money got stuck in the skill tester, so I went to try and get it out with a fork, I couldn't.... so I went to tell a member of staff, who gave us our money back straight away, and basically said that they frequently gobble people's money - which I suspect is true, as I've always found that staff will come and check the machine to get your money back, not just take your word for it. So I get the impression it does happen a lot, so they are used to it.

I will definitely not be going back.

We've only ever tried their chicken green curry, as that's our favourite dish, and once you've had perfection there isn't much point trying anything else :) ... Theirs is the best Thai green curry we've ever had! Without a doubt. So fragrant and tasty, everything is cooked perfectly. One serve, plus rice, does 2 hungry adults, so it's good value too (especially since I actually cook my own rice in my rice cooker as I leave to pick it up ;)) I can't recommend this place highly enough!

Approximate cost: $10

I'd been looking forward to coming to this place for my Birthday dinner. We looked at the online menu, and found there should be a lot of variety, that even my non-seafood eating husband would have plenty of things to eat. We've had yumcha before, but never been to this place or a sushi train before. So we were looking forward to the experience!

We got there at 6, and were disappointed to see the hot food train empty, because it wasn't busy yet... but they did say we could order hot food... We sat for a while looking at the cold dishes, but most were sushi containing prawns or raw fish, and a couple of desserts. We asked if the hot food would come later (as we were contemplating leaving), but they said it would be coming soon, so we stayed. Not long later the hot food did start coming around.

Each place around the train had a placemat giving some pictures of the dishes, but not all the dishes that came around were shown on the placemat.... so it was not always easy to work out what the food actually was. A small label/sign on the dishes (particularly those that are not obvious) would be very helpful!

We were a bit disappointed that a lot of the foods listed on their website weren't available. Particularly things like the noodle or rice dishes. For memory there were about 12 different hot dishes (tempura prawn, calamari, 2 types of steamed dumpling, spring rolls, pork bun, eggplant skewers, 2 chicken dishes, potato croquette and crab rangoon. Perhaps the same for the cold dishes (5 desserts, seaweed salad and the rest sushi)

The calamari and spring rolls were a little oily, but I enjoyed everything I sampled from the hot foods. I especially liked the pork dumplings and potato croquettes. I wasn't as keen on the 2 sushi dishes I tried (seaweed and teriaki)

I don't know if there was less variety of dishes because we went on a Thursday night, or if they only have that many dishes. It's not close (an hour drive), so it's somewhere I would go for a special occasion, and I would like to try them again on a Fri/Sat night to see if there is more of a selection of dishes.

Approximate cost: $30