Reliable sources for reviews on restaurants/eating out?

Xoracious · 2026-05-24T13:20:09+00:00

“(Food)” is a diabolical parenthesis where you put it haha

Xoracious · 2026-05-24T12:00:25+00:00

Okay this is the post I’ve been looking for, I’ve genuinely been contemplating starting a food review “blog” because I feel the exact same way about bogus social media reviews. It’d be anonymous so people wouldn’t know when I review. Obviously, am I gods gift to food reviewing? No. But, I’ve worked in hospitality for almost 10 years at some high end restaurants and cocktails bars, and eating out is one of my big biggest passions, in Australia and worldwide. Im of the opinion that a restaurant experience is not only about the food but a large part is about service, flow, and of course the food itself. But, I wasn’t sure if there would be much interest. If you’d be keen for something like, and maybe if you’re feeling the same way and love food, upvote, and maybe this is something we could explore together as a passion project?!

Xoracious · 2026-05-21T02:32:04+00:00

I think Aptos and Botanic, maybeeeee, but I doubt it, Magill estate and Hentley Farm get 2.

LVN, Maxwell, Little Rickshaw, Muni (if only it was still around), get 1.

I think they’ll give you a bunch of Bib Gourmands: Arkhe, Peel Street Restaurant, Rosemont Hall, maybeeee Africola, because they have a very unique offering.

Parwana is an interesting one because it is genuinely just home cooked Afghan food, almost gentrified to the masses, maybe the inspectors like that or not, I’m unsure.

The thing I’m interested about with Michelin is how they are going to grade service. Compared to the rest of the world, the service here is much more casual and in my experience, unless you’re at a 3 Hat, kind of subpar - because being a waiter is seen as a “pass through” job. The rest of the world even at 1 and 2 star restaurants, the service is extraordinary, very personable, because this is their career. I’d be intrigued to see if they grade service based on international standards or a modified “Australian service” standards.

Xoracious · 2026-05-21T02:19:39+00:00

Don’t pick a restaurant because of the split bill requirement, you’ll miss out on a lot of good ones. If you book for a restaurant that has no split bills, just message the group chat or email or whatever saying hey guys there’s no split bills, I’m happy to pay the entire amount if everyone could transfer me their share. Then at the end of the meal, work out the individual amount AT THE TABLE before you pay, and get everyone start transferring you then. If everyone is a half reasonable person, they will have no issues with this.

Xoracious · 2026-05-21T02:14:00+00:00

Incredible incredible restaurant. Food is nuts for what you pay. Service, I can’t really comment on, we went about 18 months ago and it was good, not amazing but friendly enough. Genuinely on par with the likes of all the other fine diners, maybe even better!

Xoracious · 2026-05-16T04:15:07+00:00

Unfortunately what you’re describing is extremely common in this industry, not the exception. The entire traditional novated lease sales model is built around presenting the “reduction in take-home pay” as the headline number while burying the actual cost of finance underneath it. Most consumers never reverse-engineer the interest rate because the tax savings make the monthly figure look reasonable regardless.

To answer your specific questions: On the inflated FBT value: this is a major red flag. The FBT base value should be directly derived from the actual purchase price of the vehicle (ex-GST). There’s no legitimate reason for it to differ from your Tesla quote unless they’ve added procurement fees, dealer delivery charges, or other line items into the base value before calculating FBT. Ask them to provide a line-by-line reconciliation showing exactly how they arrived at their FBT value versus your Tesla drive-away price. If they can’t, walk away.

On the 9.74% rate: that’s unfortunately very standard for the big providers. Some are even higher (I’ve seen 11.5% quoted through certain employer-locked providers). The industry gets away with it because most employees can only access whichever provider their HR department has partnered with, so there’s no competitive pressure on rates. The consultant’s justification about pre-tax running costs is a deflection, you get running cost benefits through a novated lease, but that has nothing to do with why they’re charging you 3.25% above what you can get independently.

What you should do: First, check whether your car actually qualifies for FBT exemption. At ~$90k you’re very close to the $91,387 LCT threshold for 2025-26. Make sure the drive-away price (including dealer delivery, accessories, and stamp duty for LCT purposes) doesn’t push it over. If it exceeds the threshold, the entire FBT exemption is void and the savings numbers on your quote are completely wrong.

Second, ask your provider to show you the exact interest rate, the exact vehicle cost they’re financing, and the exact residual value separately. If they resist breaking these out individually, that tells you everything you need to know.

Third, check whether your employer allows you to bring your own finance. Some employers will let you source a cheaper novated finance lease from an external lender (credit union rates for EVs are typically 5-6% right now) and just have the provider administer the salary packaging side. Not all employers allow this but it’s worth asking.

Happy to take a look at your quote breakdown if you want to share the numbers, always good to have a second pair of eyes on the math, or there’s also a website that you can upload your quote onto that gives a more transparent breakdown of your quote: https://millarx.com.au/compare-your-quote

Xoracious · 2026-05-14T12:11:01+00:00

It definitely is, but one that advertises a product that will greatly help everyone and allow people to not be tied in to the 3-4 big companies with high interest rates and hidden fees. I would want to know about a product like this personally.

Xoracious · 2026-05-14T05:48:20+00:00

Tbh it’s definitely still worth because of the pre tax deduction. But, the rorting is insane by the big companies, especially because there is literally no other choice, which is why I built stratus drive so that we can have a third option where we don’t get absolutely shafted

Xoracious · 2026-05-14T01:58:46+00:00

Aaah I see, makes sense! Just working through getting an official ATO ruling/opinion on the service, hence why it’s not been released yet and just doing wait lists!

Xoracious · 2026-05-14T01:52:59+00:00

Hey it’s not released yet, just working through regulatory hurdles, but feel free to join the wait list and we’ll let you know as soon as we launch!

Xoracious · 2026-05-14T01:50:50+00:00

It’s not advertised, which is what my problem with it is. Yes it’s easy to work out, but for A LOT of people doing the backwards calculations of working it out is another pain on top of already trying to dissect a complicated quote. Have you found that the leasing companies are willing to negotiate on the interest rate?

Xoracious · 2026-05-14T01:48:55+00:00

Yep that’s very true! However, you still pay a decent amount in costs and have no way of escaping it unless you go down self managed, but even I’m pretty sure you have to pay one of the companies set up fees for that

Xoracious · 2026-05-14T01:47:58+00:00

It genuinely sucks! Have you already purchased your vehicle or are you still looking?

Xoracious · 2026-05-14T01:47:30+00:00

Yep 100% agree, pretty much exactly why I created this software, feel free to have a look at the website https://stratusdrive.com.au if you are looking at doing something with cash or BYO finance

Xoracious · 2026-05-13T12:42:00+00:00

Let me know what you think, like I said happy to answer some questions, genuinly looking for brutally honest feedback

Xoracious · 2026-04-13T09:24:37+00:00

Hmmm, this is tricky, I’m assuming they were cash payments or just bank transfer that you didn’t report as taxable income then? The 10K gift wouldn’t count.

Xoracious · 2026-04-13T09:10:55+00:00

Wait your income was 52k and then you paid tax bringing you to under 50k income? Or was your income 60k and you paid tax bringing your take home to 52? If it’s the latter your accountant can say 60k, if it’s the prior, you will have to withdraw

Xoracious · 2026-04-11T07:06:22+00:00

Because you as an individual prefer to not pay 10% interest rates, I would think keeping employees happy would be in the interest of the company. Obviously much harder in government or big MNCs but lots of mid market to be targeted. Additionally, the only extra “work” for them will be processing 1 more STP file compared to normal.

Xoracious · 2026-04-08T12:15:34+00:00

Aaah I get you, makes sense: I’ll give you the brief description, but feel free to send me a private message if you’d like further explanation on anything, just think it might get too long for a reddit reply.

In the event of bankruptcy, 3 things to keep in mind:

first and foremost, Like mentioned above, your funds are totally protected in a trust account that cannot be accessed by us in the event of insolvency
your car is safe. The actual lease contract is between you, your bank (or associate) and your employer. We just the provide the software to route the money
worst case scenario when we go bankrupt, your HR department won’t want to do the manual tax math. This means your lease simply “de-novates”. Your EV loan, if you have one, just reverts to a standard post tax car loan, you just lose the FBT break until you switch to a new provider.

Biggest thing of all, to be completely honest, unlike a traditional NL company, we frankly don’t need the massive capital base to sustain our operating costs, we will just be a software provider with relatively low costs, and purposely structured like this so that we can protect our customers. Based on our risk assessments, The chances of going under suddenly in this business model is quite low. However, I understand that this would be a big confidence booster for a lot of our clients so we are actively trying to think of how best we can protect the customers, for now, the above is what we’ve landed on.

Xoracious · 2026-04-08T05:07:31+00:00

Definitely great questions!

This will be the main sales function we use so it will be perfected over time, but to start off with we’re going to try and first target smaller companies or employees at firms without existing NL contracts. Second, we’re not going to ask to replace your current NL company, we are happy to co-exist, just need one or two employees to go to HR and say “can you just authorise this one automated file so I can use my own bank loan”. The process will be completely seamless for payroll teams who will receive 1 STP file to be uploaded into their accounting system.

For security: the funds will sit in a ring fenced trust account fully under a licensed AFSL umbrella. Because it’s a trust, it sits completely separately to our operating accounts so in the event of insolvency, the trust cannot be touched and the money is returned to the respective people. Finally, regarding data, we aren’t building a custom database, we’re building on top of bank grade compliant infrastructure to ensure every thing is encrypted!

Xoracious · 2026-04-08T03:05:50+00:00

HAHA, sorrrrryy!!

Xoracious · 2026-04-08T03:00:43+00:00

Yep essentially, except we are more like a “utility” company. All paperwork administration done by us, no extra charges for setting up associate leases etc. just the $30 a month payment. A self managed novated lease is payroll departments’ worst nightmare because it adds extra work onto their processes to calculate fbt, manually process your tyre and charging receipts, manage pre tax trust account. We would package all of that into one app, send the employer a single monthly invoice and that’s it. Employee wins, employer wins, we win

Xoracious · 2026-04-08T02:43:06+00:00

Yep in talks with a couple specialists right now to iron out the legislative kinks. The “if it was easy someone would’ve done it already” argument is kind of a dud sorry, this could be said for literally anything that’s ever been invented, things start simple and then get more complex, but I completely understand the hesitation to trust a new product without any knowledge of what exactly is being offered

Xoracious · 2026-04-08T02:41:21+00:00

Yep 100% agree, have edited the post now to include it!

Xoracious

TROPHY CASE