Service was excellent, unobtrusive.  Had a lovely glass of Shiraz to go with my porterhouse.  Hubby got the rib-eye.  Steak was done perfectly and tasted fabulous.  I also ordered the chargrilled veggies, the mushrooms were to die for!  I don’t know what they baste them with, but it was fantastic!

You’ll not come out of Squires Loft spending less than around $35 per person - the steak comes with chips or baked potato - anything else is extra, including veggies, sauces (green peppercorn is great) etc.  Between the two of us we spent just under $80, which when you consider we only had mains…

We decided against having dessert at Squires Loft - nothing against the place or the menu (the chocolate cake was very appealing), but we were so full from our steak that we needed a significant amount of time before we would be ready for anything sweet, so we opted to drive to Eastland to have Crepe Suzette at Eastland.

Turns out they have a chef they call in for the Crepe Suzette, so while we had to wait a little while for our dessert (no biggie because we were still waiting for the steak to settle!), the dessert was fantastic when we got it.

After all that fabulous food we almost had to roll home!

For those that know the books well, you’ll probably be a bit disappointed that a lot of the detail of the book is left out, and in some cases, other characters and situations have been used to convey information to avoid having to introduce too many new characters.  I’m hoping that when this movie goes to DVD, they might release an extended version, because I’m sure they filmed a lot more of the movie than made it to the final cut (around 2 and a half hours)

The effects are fantastic, and like the original Star Wars movies, keep improving with every new release.

My biggest complaints about the movie are that it felt like it was used to frantically “fill the holes” left in the previous four - there was a distinct impression that they got to making the fifth movie and realised they’d left out some important information from the previous movies, and to make it all fall into place, they had to fill in the gaps before movies six and seven.  There was another bit of the book that was missing from the movie that really disappointed me, but I honestly can’t remember what it was!!!!  I’ve been mentally going through the story (from the book) all day, and haven’t been able to pinpoint it yet, so I’ll post later when I remember.

If you haven’t seen the previous four movies, definitely get them out on DVD before you go and see OOTP.  If you’ve not read the books, but seen the movies, I’d recommend a refresher of the earlier movies before seeing this one too, otherwise it might not all make absolute sense.  All in all though, a great movie for entertainment - a lot darker than the previous ones (I guess we need to expect that with the direction the books are taking).

Will be going to see it a second time in coming days with a friend who couldn’t make it last night.

Great pizza - shared a hawaiian, a vegetarian and a “the lot” pizza between the six of us (fortunately one- and three-year olds don’t eat so much!) then shared a couple slices of cake for dessert while the kids shared “frog in a pond” between them.

Can certainly recommend the place if you want a good family dinner, though it gets rather loud, and the lighting could do with brightening up a bit, but overall a great evening out!