Entertainment Book

The Entertainment Book is a treasure trove of vouchers for dining and some recreational / travel activities. To quote their website:

"The Entertainment™ Book is a restaurant and activity guide that provides special 25 to 50% off and 2-for-1 offers from many of the best restaurants, hotels and attractions throughout Australia and New Zealand."

The Entertainment Book features many dining establishments, many of which I would not have heard of, or considered trying because the bill for two people could easily be about $40 - $50. (if not more!) And in the current economic condition, $25 meals are a luxury, when many are trimming their budgets and resorting to bringing lunches from home etc in an effort to save $10 a meal, a day.

The Melbourne 2009/10 Entertainment Book retails for $65. It is split into 5 sections:

Section A:
Fine and Contemporary Dining - featuring places like Nobu, Jacques Reymond and Silks. These fine dining venues mostly offer 25% off the total bill up to ~ $50. Some do offer one free main meal with the purchase of another main meal, but bear in mind that these offers do not include drinks.

Section B:
Cafe and Bistro Dining - some venues that I like are Caffe Sienna in South Yarra, Vialetto Ristorante in the city and Caffe Moravia in Camberwell. Caffe Moravia offers a buy one get one free meal, and we like going there for Breakfast. They serve the most gigantic big breakfast I've ever seen for $13.90 - which includes toast, 2 eggs, bacon, sausage, grilled tomato, spinach, mushrooms and a hashbrown. So, for $13.90, with the voucher, you get twice as much, or $7 on average per big breakfast. In contrast, recently, I went to another cafe in Glenferrie with "communal dining" arrangements and paid about $10 for toast with eggs and sausages only. An equivalent breakfast would have cost about $18 at that shop.

Section C:
Casual Restaurant and Family Dining - features TGIF, (the South Yarra outlet, I feel is better than the one in Doncaster and if I may suggest; get the appetizers: Three For All - A winning combination of Loaded Potato Skins, juicy pork riblets and tangy Buffalo wings. Served with sour cream and chives, BBQ sauce, Bleu Cheese dressing and celery sticks, and the Jack Daniel’s® Sampler - Jack Daniel’s® sauce served with golden-fried shrimp, succulent Sesame Jack Chicken Strips and tender baby back pork ribs. with the buy one get one free voucher). Also, a must-try: Ferguson St Provisions in Williamstown (awesome and huge chicken burger served with bacon, chutney, salads etc)

Section D:
Informal Dining and Takeaway - has the usual fastfood joints, like KFC, Nando's, Oporto, Domino's and Pizza Hut. I would like to however, mention a few other establishments which are my personal favourites - Grill'd: they have the best burgers (that aren't bad for you) and Lord of the Fries (which probably have the best fries, but aren't really that good for you! In fact, they're not good for anyone at all, but they're still quite yummy!) Sushi Sushi is also good for a quick meal on the go (and they're probably a lot better for you than those fries).

Coffee - Hudsons Coffee, Gloria Jean's Coffees, The Coffee Club, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf all offer one free coffee when another coffee is purchased.

Section E:
Arts, Sports and Attractions - features places like the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (I went for a concert yesterday, and that was awesome!), the Melbourne Theatre Company, one free MCG AFL Reserve admission for footy fans, Zoos Victoria, Melbourne Aquarium, Eureka Skydeck, Sovereign Hill Ballarat, and many more. I used the Phillip Island 3 parks pass voucher last year and that was extremely good value!

Movies - Hoyts, Village Cinemas (with Greater Union and Birch Carroll & Coyle), Palace Cinemas, and the Imax, offer some form of savings. There are also offers for golfing, bowling, scuba diving, car washes and even spas (mmmm). :)

The Entertainment Book also boasts a range of specials on offer for holiday accommodation, car rentals, etc... but way too many for me to write about here.

Finally, there is one offer which I've found very practical and available for repeat use, that is a 5% discount off the cost of Coles Gift Cards (in multiples of $100). They offer free registered post and buying the gift cards for grocery shopping effectively gives you 5% off the cost of your grocery shopping. I also use the gift cards to buy mobile prepaid vouchers, so that saves me 5% off the cost of my mobile phone expenses as well.

How to get an Entertainment Book -
Entertainment™ Books are only available through fund-raising groups, organisations and corporations as a member benefit or fund-raiser. I got mine from my work's Social Club. So if you want one, maybe find a charitable organisation or something that would usually raise funds and ask them if they have any available for sale. For more information, click here.

p/s: They have Entertainment Books for other states around Australia as well.