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$5 nip and tuck: Express Tailor Service, Lower East Side, NYC

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That's what they charged me to take the waistline of my jeans in - and in about 10 mins flat. Nicely taken apart, cut, and re-sewn like new. Most other stores a few blocks west in Chelsea charge $15. $15 was the quote for tapering the delightfully garish florid Debra Rodman shift I got from my favorite consignment store, New and Almost New . But the job was done properly - armhole binding opened and restitched, not simply run up both sides like I would have done if my sewing machine was her instead of downunder. While I waited a woman brought in some green pants to be shortened and the hems were cut and sewn before she had a chance to sit down. "$5," said the cashier. "$4?" she ventured. "OK, $4." "You bargain here?" I asked her, incredulously. " I do," she said. Pensioners (or pensioner-apparents) can get away with anything! At $5 there can't have been a lot of profit in it. I just hope the workers are treated well. What's

FREE MAP (if you can get your hands on one): NYC's best map

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Doncha hate maps that ... a) Tear along the creases, especially when flapping about on a windy street corner, and get soggy when wet b) Omit streets. I'm sorry, a useful map has to have EVERY STREET marked, to be called a map c) Are super detailed in some respects, but not the way you really need it d) Fold stupidly, so you can never get it folded right again I've discovered what I consider York's best map - all things considered being a freebie, assuming you can get your hands on one. It's by a company who call themselves NYTAB.COM - New York Travel Advisory Bureau, sounding as government-sanctioned as "Department of the Interior". The map concertinas to a nice, standard envelope shape that slips nicely into a pocket. The subway lines crystal clear. It names every street. The best feature is you can fold to precisely the area you're traveling in "page" forward or back with a simple flip as you go up or downtown. No massiv

<$5: Cool Laptop Sleeve

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Latest C'n'C tip comes appears on my Gal blog, in conjunction with my Traffic Cone bag. Take a look !

FREE: Buddakan Dining Room in Chelsea, Manhattan

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Looking like the mansion scene in "Eyes Wide Shut" with an orgy of socializing rather than shtupping, this cavernous restaurant/bar is total trip for the senses. It features a massive, chandelier-feastooned central dining room harking from some Edwardian era (or a Hollywood set thereof), flanked by little dark nooks and crannies and passageways crammed with people drinking and schmoozing and shouting about the meaninglessness of life and 30 Rock. It's like being in one of the big ballrooms of the Titanic before it sprung a leak. Best of all, unlike most nightspots in Chelsea, there's no velvet rope and unhappy attitude that goes with it - probably because it is a restaurant, not a nightclub, and restaurants always need all the chompers they can get. A server said "We're in the business of hospitality." And he said it with a genuine smile. Whoa! They clearly have a great boss or they're on drugs. You can always spot a bad boss - it comes out

$22 Haircut with da works @ Jun Salon (Chinatown, NY)

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MULTIMEDIA : $22 'do with the works @ Jun Salon "It's just hair." This, from a card-carrying hairdressing salon owner. It's a statement that might freak some cashed-up coiffsters right out, and put others at ease - like me. After umming and ahhing at spending $65-100+ on a trim in Manhattan I thought, there must be a cheaper, yet choosier, way. I mean, look at our Asian hair - straight as the highway to hell and in any color you like as long as it's black - what's so hard about that? I decided to try the well-reviewed-considering (see yelp.com) Jun Salon in Chinatown. Jun is an unpretentious gal who reminds me of one of my favorite gal cousins. She says she use to do $105+ Uptown cuts before she went cheap'n'choosy - and many of her clients followed her, not minding having to pick their way along the cracked and cabbage-strewn sidewalks of Chinatown for their discount 'do. There is something twee (we use the word 'daggy' downunder) a

Cheap'n'Chocolatey: Galfromdownunder 3+ minute Vegan Chocolate Mug Cake

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This is my slightly healthier spin on the 5-minute Chocolate Mug Cake recipe circulating furiously around the internet. I say 3+ minutes because abandoning it in the nuker for 5 minutes can lead to burned bits - better to coax it gently to doneness ... here's me doing the dishes in County Kerry back in 1999 Galfromdownunder 3+ minute Vegan Chocolate Mug Cake ( with original, non-vegan substitutions indicated) 4 Tablespoons buckwheat pancake mix (or ordinary flour) 3-4 Tablespoons Splenda/Stevia (or sugar) 2 Tablespoons good cocoa (I used Fair Trade Organic unsweetened) 2 tbsp no-sugar fruit conserve (not in original recipe - I used Wholefoods grapejuice sweetened Raspberry spread) 1 glob of soy yoghurt (or 1 Egg) 3 Tablespoons almond milk (or regular milk/half&half) 3 Tablespoons grapeseed oil (or regular oil) Few chocolate drops/chunks (optional - I used 70% chunks because I like it dark) Few nuts (optional) 1 Mug Method: Mix dry ingredients in 1 mug. Mix wet ingredients in

NYC <$20 a pair: Dumpster Diving on the Upper West Side

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Score! (As we say downunder) MOVIE : Dumpster Diving on the Upper West Side, NY What's cheaper and choosier than finding a rococo chaise at the Salvos? Pouncing on a pair of apple green boudoir chairs turfed out with the trash! It was precisely the good fortune of fellow Aussie Sarhys Page and me after emerging from a Cheap'n'Choosy night at the Hudson Hotel . The hipper than thou Hudson - recently tarted up by Philippe Starck - turns hotel design on its head, with a pair of escalators bathed in a yellow light as the "stark" entrance, leading up to an impossibly dark lobby dominated by a dangerously low hanging mega-chandelier. (I need to publicly berate Mr Stark for placing mirrors in the ladies' restroom too high for anyone under 5-foot nothing). On this night I was carousing with the first person to give me a break in advertising Downunder, John Doorley, and budding Aussie actress Sarhys (pronounced Sar-reece). We were partly celebrating being