I’ve always been a fan of pre-travel planning, to the point that I build a packing grid before every trip. The packing grid includes outfit components for every day of travel (based on predicted weather and activity), as well as a list of essentials that I don’t want to leave behind: Advil, Band-Aids, my Fitbit charger and so on.

Over the years, readers have given travel tips for cities all over the world. But some tips keep popping up for city after city and should be part of your general travel habits. Not every tip works for every city, but you should run through this checklist next time you're headed somewhere new.

There's no ethical consumption under capitalism -- even gummy bears aren't safe -- but I'd like to think most people try to eat ethically where they can. If you are one of those people, you should delete all those super convenient delivery apps on your phone.

Restaurants that serve a wide range of interesting and tasty food for non-carnivores used to be somewhat hard to come by. As the diet has grown in popularity, restaurants that serve vegetarian and vegan fare that's interesting, delicious and in some cases, very Instagrammable, have popped up all over Sydney. Here are 10 of the best places to eat in Sydney if you're a vegetarian or vegan.

Collins Foods, the owner of Australia's largest chain of KFC restaurants, today posted a 16% lift in full year net profit to $32.49 million. However, the long death of Sizzler restaurants, the popular family steak houses of the 1990s famous for its all-you-can-eat salad bar, cheesy bread, and dessert range, continues.

One of the toughest challenges when opening a new restaurant is creating and changing your menu. The menu is what brings customers in and pays the bills, so it's crucial to balance room for trial and error with the perfect array of dishes. If you are creating a menu (or about to change your existing one) and need some help getting it right, these tips from some successful Silver Chef clients will help to steer you in the right direction.

Kids menus. I can't say I'm enthused when I read the selection of flavourless mac and cheese, plain pizza discs, and dry, white-meat chicken fingers, but I've accepted the options as part of the family dining experience - kids need to eat, and parents want to sit at a restaurant every once in a while and zone out to the sound of adult chatter and Daniel Tiger playing on the iPad that they slipped into their bag "just in case." But maybe it's time we fight the status quo.

I love a nice, juicy restaurant burger, but man, are they messy. The minute you pick one up to take a bite, half a litre of burger juice pours onto your plate, making it a terrible place to set your burger down unless you've got a thing for soggy buns. Here's my personal workaround.

If you're like me, you jump at any occasion to go out to a fancy dinner. Valentine's Day is a perfect opportunity; it isn't your birthday or anniversary, but you can easily justify a special meal with your significant other.

It is, ironically, difficult to have a pleasant date night on Valentine's Day, when every "nice" restaurant replaces their normal menu with a mandatory and expensive prix fixe. Some couples actually like those dinners, and have a fun pre-packaged date night. Other couples like to cook at home, or to ignore the holiday altogether. But if you want to have a typical "date night" out on February 14, your options will feel limited. Here's how to navigate that strait.

Once upon a time, Sizzler was everywhere. While nominally a steak-and-seafood restaurant, the chain was famous for two things: its all-you-can-eat buffet and the complimentary Parmesan bread that greeted you on arrival.

Sadly, Sizzler became a victim of the casual dining wars and there are now only a handful of outlets left in Australia. But don't despair: the recipe is surprisingly easy to make at home and it only takes a few minutes. Here are the steps!

Recently, we asked people who worked in the food service industry if there were any insights about their job they wished restaurant patrons would know, and we got some great answers. Whether it's about tipping, food orders, or how you should and shouldn't treat the wait staff, these are the secrets to being a good customer.

People like food, and people might like you more if you mention the right foods in your dating profile. According to data from one of the largest dating sites out there, these are the foods you should mention, and the ones you should avoid talking about.

The lemon wedge in your drink has a bad reputation, and the evidence for it seems obvious: No one at a restaurant washes the outside of a lemon, but then they throw that wedge onto your glass, sometimes letting the rind soak right in the drink. And according to HuffPost, several studies found all kinds of germs on lemon wedges from bars and restaurants.

So should your drink order always include "No lemon, please"?

For over a year now, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles director Dave Green and actor Joe Cobden have been posting increasingly elaborate 12-second video reviews to Yelp. Along with some friends, they have made 41 videos about L.A. restaurants, often using special effects, stunts, and stop-motion, that recall the golden age of Vine.

Diners were once the best places to eat. The food was decent and cheap, and the atmosphere was relaxed. And a big part of the fun was the colourful slang diner staff used to communicate with each other. Here's what all those weird terms mean, hun'.

Whether you feel like a quick lunch or a generous dinner, Newcastle has a huge selection of places to eat. No matter what you’re after – Chinese, Italian, Thai or some good old-fashioned 'Australian' – we’ve got you covered. Here are some of the best-reviewed restaurants in Newcastle.

Really good, expertly made cocktails can cost a pretty penny, and I'm OK with that. What I'm not OK with, however, is paying $20 for an over-shaken beverage garnished with sad, dried-out fruit. Any bar can claim to make "craft" cocktails, but how can you be sure you're getting what you pay for?

In my family, we had a no-restaurants rule for our kids for about two years. This is because they ate either at lightning speed -- which meant one of us parents had to gobble too, and then take them outside to whack sticks on trees -- or at a snail's pace, which meant the closing waitstaff was turning up the air conditioning and blasting Jimmy Buffett as a subtle hint. Or the kids were simply rambunctious, pissy, or messy, an unpleasant experience for everyone involved.