Tonight we celebrated my Grandma's 94th birthday and my nephew's 21st birthday.

The staff were attentive, friendly and efficient from beginning to end. I can honestly say that I have never had better service in any restaurant. They were at the table regularly, ensuring that all of us had all we wanted.

The food was amazing, and served so quickly. There are lots delicious vegan and non-vegan dishes. And wow, amazing value. The entrees were bigger than we expected and very tasty. The mains plates were piled high with scrumptious food, too much to eat. So much that we all took home large containers of food. Every meal was cooked beautifully. I'm not a vegan, the meats were tender, the rice was soft but not soggy, the food arrived at the table nice and hot. I'm told that the vegan meals were just as lovely. I was delighted that meals were brought out fairly close together. Many restaurants fail to accomplish this, so some diners finish before others have even been served. Mai Kitchen managed to have us all eating at the same time.

The restaurant is clean and nicely lit, not too bright, not too dark. The simple high-backed, wooden chairs look lovely with the wooden tables and floor. The feeling is simple elegance, and open space. Surprisingly for such a large space, and so many diners, it didn't feel noisy, or crowded.

After the main meal the staff surprised us with two special deserts, one vegan, one not, each with a lit candle, and led us in the Happy Birthday song. Grandma and my nephew were both delighted. They also report that the deserts were especially yummy.

Most talent schools only have one or two types of classes. Some have singing and dance, others just dance, or just singing, others just teach acting. Mighty Good Talent School teaches singing, acting, Tap dancing, classical ballet and jazz ballet.
My children have been attending for a couple of years and take all of the classes. Performance classes have been wonderful for their confidence, plus fitness and coordination. Not all kids play sport, and dance is a wonderful way for non-sporty children to be fit.
Mighty Good Talent School doesn't take part in competitions. It is about learning and honing performance abilities, rather than judging whose mummy can afford the better costume. The children become a performing troupe, forming strong, lasting friendships. That's what I love most about it, that my children aren't just learning and being fit, they're developing bonds with like-minded kids.
Classes are available for tiny tots, right up to adult classes.

They fixed the car!
That's how their ad goes, and it's true. My car broke down, started shuddering, and stalling. 5pm on a Friday, all mechanics closed. RAA said it was a coil and they had it towed home for me. That's covered by the RAA, but towing it from home to a mechanic during business hours, isn't covered, and is expensive. A neighbour said rather than pay for a tow, try a mobile mechanic. So I rang the number from the ad, Lube Mobile, 13 30 32.
Phoning to arrange a call out was easy. I was given a two hour window for when a mobile mechanic would arrive. Half hour before the beginning of that time I received a text from Kenneth saying he was on his way. A half hour later a helpful young mechanic named Kenneth arrived. He was polite and friendly and clearly knew what he was doing. He didn't try to tell me that this and that and that needed doing. He just looked over the job, agreed that it was a coil problem, took out the old coils, he took out the leads too, which were showing some wear, he went away with them, returned and put new ones in. The job, including the time to go get replacement parts, took less than two hours.

Seriously awful. Just had part of lunch there. Inedible. Parma for a Farmer, made from poorest cuts of meat. The schnitzel was like rubber, I couldn't cut it with a knife, without sawing at it so hard that food was knocked off the plate. I couldn't even tear the meat with my teeth. I asked the waitress for a steak knife, hoping to cut the meat into something I could chew, but she took my plate away. She returned with a message from the chef that the rest of the beef schnitzels were also rubbery. So I got four awful bites of Schnitzel for lunch, and was not offered a refund.
My boy's Hampstead Beef Burger had a giant roll, with a tiny patty, smaller than you'd find in a Macca's cheeseburger, to one side of the roll.
Friday lunchtime, the rest of the diners were seniors, with false teeth, who were also seriously struggling to chew their food.
The staff were nice, and the venue clean, but customers go to restaurants for food.
If you can't even do a schnitzel and a burger, you can't do anything.
My schnitzel was $19, and the burger $15.

Approximate cost: $34

Great customer service, very knowledgeable. My car is running like she's new again, yet she was built in 1996. The motor is as quiet as a mouse, and she no longer gives the occasional shudder when she idles, yet she's idling even lower. The air-conditioning is fixed. Bill even replaced my bulbs and gave the car a clean, and with four kids, it needed a clean. Most importantly, Louca Automotive are honest, they don't pad bills. I highly recommend them.

Great, friendly, helpful, customer service. There were no dramas, no complications. Everything was so simple. I needed a car for a couple of days, while my own car was in the shop. I looked online for something cheap, and not too far from Adelaide. Many places won't put prices online, trying to get people to call them first, but Koala's prices were right there on their page. I rented a nice Hyundai for a measly $35 a day plus $15 insurance. Returning the car was just as straightforward, and the security deposit was back in my bank the next morning. I would certainly use this company again, and I highly recommend them.

Approximate cost: $35

I'd like to share a story about the benefits of good service. My best friend and her two grown daughters, needed to buy dresses for a wedding. Knowing that they are hard to please, and would be limited in the time they had for shopping, I decided to do a pre-shop. I visited several stores at Tea Tree Plaza, taking photos of dresses, and sending them to my bestie, to get an idea of which ones she liked.
When I decided to do this pre-shop, I was in my gardening frock, clean, but hardly dressed like the average dress shopper, I am also a large build. So basically I was large and frumpy. The girl in City Chic was friendly to me, but most of the staff in other stores tried to pretend that they couldn't see me. Giving me that unwelcome feeling. I guess they hoped that the big frump would just go away, and so I did.
Then I went into Forever New, and a lovely young lady called Lucy, bent over backwards to find dress styles that my bestie and her girls might like. Lucy even held up dresses so I could photograph them for my friend. She was vibrant and friendly, and not for one moment did she look down on my frumpy gardening clothes, nor did she feel the need to ignore me, because I am obviously too big to wear any of the clothes they sell. Instead, she treated me with the same respect as she would treat any customer.
On Saturday, I took my bestie and her daughters to Forever New, after telling them all about Lucy. Lucy wasn't there on Saturday, so I couldn't tell her how impressed I'd been with her customer service, but I did tell the manager, and the other staff, who were so helpful, looking for suitable dresses, bringing different sizes to the dressing rooms, and offering advice. My friend and her daughters tried on several lovely, flattering dresses. And bought three dresses at a combined cost of $400.
The styles at Forever New are truly lovely, but every dress shop sells dresses. What is exceptional, is when the customer service is just as lovely as the dresses. Forever New can be very proud of the customer service they offer at Tea Tree Plaza, it is second to none.

Approximate cost: $160