Thank you gemuse and phild for all your wise words! We are really appreciating your help with our ever growing list of restaurants and activites!! How on earth we are going to fit it all in I'll never know!!

Talking of seafood being better in thai/chinese restaurants I've seen a few people mention golden century seafood. Do you recommend it???

Thanks for all your advice.

Been searching for a seafood restaurant and found a few: Doyles on the Beach, Nicks Seafood and Manta. Although really we not looking for anything too fancy just some good seafood, prawns, lobsters etc.

Has anyone been to any of these? Also finding lobsters and sharing platters quite expensive $130-160. Is this average pricing? assumed in oz seafood would be better value as in US. As in the UK its very hard to find and extremely overpriced for very small portions.

wow guys i am so confused!!! worried about ordering coffee now! :)

Madness to think that round the world they all mean different things. As a macchiato to us in UK is espresso with no milk, just foam on top!? and a latte is served in a tall glass and is espresso with loads of milk! (gross in my opinion!)

what about the likes of me that has soyamilk in my coffee? As only more recently becoming available here. Is this a problem or widely available?

Thanks for those suggestions PhilD. I have looked through some previous posts, there is so much to sift through i didnt know where to start but realise now my post was a bit vague sorry about that.

I suppose we are looking at places averaging $20- 30/person give or take. We really are travelling on a budget. This is a possibly once in a lifetime trip for us and only have 2 weeks to do it in (mad i know!) London is also very expensive so saving for a holiday like this is hard as you can imagine.

So being that we've only got 2 weeks we really want to make the most of it and have a good taste of what OZ and NZ have to offer (well on our budget!).

Ive seen that Spice I am and Mamak are quite popular on here. As is A Tovola. I put down Lemon Cafe as a place for brekkie but saw some reviews online that weren't so good

We do love our sushi too so any suggestions for that? Though i had been told that there is area in Melbourne near David Jones department store/Bourke Street that has a whole street dedicated??

I also have listed for Melbourne Birdman Eating, Dench, Journal Canteen, DOC and Cafe di Stasio.

The place i really am struggling to find places is Christchurch. If anyone has any suggestions of where to start with that.

I hope thats given a bit more help

Hi all, chowhound is new to me (so bare with me!) and I can see you all seriously know your stuff and have alot of good advice so was hoping you could help me!

My husband and I are a young couple from London, UK travelling to Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) and New Zealand (Christchurch) for the first time next June. We have done a bit of research so far but would like some advice from people in the know!

We are looking for good places to eat (we like our food!), that are midrange price or even cheap good local food in those places! We are also on the hunt for a really good (again midrange) seafood restaurant! (as lack of it in London and severly overpriced!!) All im dying for is a good lobster!!!!!

Appreciate any help and advice you chowhounders can give!!

Thank you