Chevalier Pointless Cafe

Chevalier Point

508 Point Chevalier Road

Pt. Chev.

We'd rode our fashion bikes past here a couple times, and were curious to check it.

The first thing I saw was one of the other patrons swatting a fly against the front window with his newspaper. From the head of the doorway they'd hung strips of clear plastic, which were clearly not functioning as intended. Pretty gross welcome really...

The surrounds are fairly unassuming, likewise the menu. Stock standard stuff really. Nothing wrong with the classics though, so she ordered the bacon benny, I the Pt Chev Mixed Grill.



Things went down hill.

After initial horror at spying yet another gimmick coffee vessel (I think it was another schooner glass) across the room, it was with relief that B's trim latte arrived in a regular sized glass after a couple minutes.
Tepid, coffee granuals floating around, "like bad instant".
After this dazzling initial review I wasn't too excited about my coffee, which hadn't yet arrived. Mine was actually OK. We decided hers needed to go back.
"Do you think you could please re-make this coffee? It doesn't taste very nice."
"What's wrong with it?"
"It just doesn't taste very nice..."
"What does it taste like?"
"Bad instant coffee..."
"OK... We'll re-make it... Yours was the trim, right?"
"Yes, my partner's is really nice, could you please make another like his?"
"It's probably cause you had trim milk..."
And then the other "barista" chimed in....

FOR FUCKS SAKE.

Hospo staff need to realise that just because you have some poxy Metro Best in Neighbourhood 2009 Award (not that hard in Pt Chev), you can't question your patrons' judgement. If your customer doesn't like the shit, half arsed coffee you made because you were too absorbed by daydreams of Grayson Coutts, don't give them attitude. Shut your mouth and make a better one, or fuck off and enrol in Servilles Academy.

This strikes me as another case of a cafe slipping into mediocrity because of lack of local competition.
It's almost not worth talking about the food. If a cafe can't be good at its most basic product, what's the point? But that wouldn't be entirely fair as it wasn't too bad. The Mixed Grill was plain but good. But they'd left a stalk in the roast tomato. The eggs on the benny were poached well, but the hollandaise "tasted like raw egg" and had made the english muffin (apparently baked fresh) soggy.

If I'm gonna fork out the best part of $40 for a breakfo, I want something better than what I could knock together at home.

Miss. Drop the attitude and try harder. Oh and Metro, don't just hand out an award to someone who's the best of a bad bunch... that's pointless.

Reviewed by A

Benny Addiction

Benediction Cafe

30 St Benedicts St

Newton

One of the more cleverly named cafes out there (see witty title above!), Benediction is slightly off the radar, tucked away between Upper Queen and Symonds St.

The best thing about this cafe is its digs. Bad-arse beton-brut outside with an industrial decor inside and a generous, sunny (although slightly windswept) courtyard out back.
So in the spirit of minimalism, I'll keep this review concise.

She had the scrambled eggs with parmesan and italian parsley. It arrived looking like how I scramble eggs (not well), appearance rather rubbery, and by account flavourless, even for eggs. The parmesan was conspicuous in its near-absence, and the parsley was no more than an afterthought.
"Disappointing."


I had the hiply named Red Flannel Hash. Hash being the key word here. It wasn't a hash. It was more of a breakfast salad consisting of quartered & sauteed potates, fresh tomato, some 50-50 garlic sausage (a bit like the inside of a wonton) and poached eggs. Not bad. Not good, either. If you want a hash, get the awesome saffron hash from S&D on Richmond Rd.

Coffee was acceptable. Slightly bitter, but OK.

The redeemer came in the form of her freshly made ginger, lime and apple juice. Generous amounts of ginger and lime, knock-socks-off material.

We gave them one last shot, grabbing some of the ginger crunch from the cabinet on the way out. The fanta pants at the till reckoned it was super-gingery (motif forming here?). Not the case. I think he'd confused ginger with sugar... rookie mistake.

A small, but irritating thing, also, is the lack of pepper, either proffered, or on table. It wasn't until it was too late that we spied the grinder in the corner.

Miss overall. Some tasty fresh juice is a reason to go to a juice bar, not a cafe. Give us a few more reasons and we'll come back.

Reviewed by A.

Graceful

Grace Cafe

138 Hinemoa Street

Birkenhead

Recently, we managed to make it to Grace Cafe. We went searching for this place ages ago, but it's so close to another good cafe (Villa is about 5 steps away) that we never made it there to eat. And now we have.

We arrived around 11.30am. I was a bit weary when I walked in - they were playing drum'n'bass. Why, oh why would you choose to play drum'n'bass in a cafe? Evil, dark, grimey, 180bpm, picking-carrots-at-Fu-Bar-at-2-in-the-morning drum'n'bass. Of all the genres that exist on the planet, of all the amazing music to pick, you pick one of the most annoying genres. Attention cafes: playing drum'n'bass does not make you very inviting, it doesn't prove that you're "urban" and it won't convince the kids that you're down with them.

Admittedly, it was a pretty vanilla drum'n'bass track, one of Shapeshifter's more downbeat-upbeat chilled vibed-out joints. But drum'n'bass is drum'n'bass, and it does not belong anywhere near any cafe I attend for breakfast. There is nothing worse than an incessant onslaught of shrill hi-hats and bad synth noises beating your head into your morning coffee. I tried to ignore it, to give them a fair chance and not dismiss them based on a my own musical bias.

And then, as if by magical telepathy, the drum'n'bass stopped. And some mid-tempo obscure indie music started. Not good enough for me to ask after, but good enough to go nicely in the background. Thank goodness.

The menu covered all the bases, and the girl behind the counter waited patiently while I ummed and ahhed over the eggs bene or the mushrooms or the fritters, etc. In the end, I ordered the roasted portabello mushrooms with lemon sauce on sour dough (from memory), an eggs bene for the male half of EB, two lattes and a mango smoothie for me. The girl seemed to struggle a little bit typing it all into the till, and I'm almost positive she missed something, because all of that came to $32. Pretty reasonably priced if that is right.

Now, the banana smoothie. We all remember this smoothie vessel disaster. I desperately hoped I wasn't going to encounter something similar here. And again, I wasn't disappointed. The smoothie arrived in a tall glass, with one black straw. Delicious and not too thick. Thumbs up from me.

The coffee arrived soon after, hot and well made. Things were going well, until the waitress brought our plates over and said "Here you go, guys". If you're not familiar with the dislike of the collective pronoun "guys", check out this rant here.

Moving on very quickly from that bone of contention, the food was great. My mushrooms were phenomenal, and the lemon sauce was not as rich as I thought it would be (good thing). The eggs were cooked well in the bene, and the hollandaise was freshly made in the cafe that day. House made hollandaise ALWAYS makes a difference. Cafes who don't make their own hollandaise are so weird. Why don't you do it? Is it too hard for you? Did you skip that day of chef school? That's a textbook cafe essential.

The service wasn't exactly attentive, but we were quite low maintenance that day. The waitresses in the cafe were friendly and approachable, & the cafe itself was exactly the same.

Hit. This cafe is great - good food, great coffee and extremely well priced. As long as they avoid calling large groups of people "guys" and steer clear of drum'n'bass before 3pm, they've got a bright future.

Reviewed by B.

Kokako 'Konscious' Kafe

Kokako Cafe

492 Parnell Road,

Parnell

Kia ora tamaki makaurau, haere mai ki te Kokako Cafe... Righto, I've just exhausted the extent of my form 3 te reo, so lets get down to business.

Kokako (Vegetarian) Cafe is on Parnell Rd right on the intersection by the Domain entrance, and where the O.G. Al & Pete's used to be. First impressions were good: nice & bright, appealing cabinet kai and the place was packed (we hit it last Sunday, late morning). Nevertheless we were able to get a table without any hassle. Parking was right outside.

Le'ts talk about collective pronouns for a minute. WARNING! The proceeding is a personal rant and has nothing to do with food or coffee quality, both of which are excellent at the Kokako - skip forward if you're not concerned about service. Let's talk specifically about the use of the word 'guys'. This collective pronoun seems to pervade the hospitality industry. This can really fuck me off. Consider context; a group of young 'guys' being addressed as such I've no issue with, but using it as an all-purpose greeting, 'hey guys', can be potentially offensive. You wouldn't address your Nan and her mah-jong group as 'guys', and the table of Golden-Agers sitting behind us at Kokako I think would not appreciate it either. In our case, it was me and my woman-friend, and she's certainly no 'guy'.

My gripe extends beyond collective pronouns, and into over-familiarity of wait staff. Calling me 'boss' or 'chief' (thanks, Jafa) is condescending and doesn't make me feel welcome, quite the opposite... Oh, and by the way, I'm not your 'mate', or your 'bro', I'm your customer. This sort of carry-on is just not necessary. Polite and attentive, but not intrusive service is all I ask for. A friendly 'Hi' is enough to greet me. Sure, if I'm a regular at your cafe, then by all means venture some sort of deeper connection. Hey, why not introduce yourself, and I might tell you what my name is. Then you won't have call me 'guy' ever again. END OF RANT.

The Kokako has a trustafarian design aesthetic throughout. See the 60s chairs re-covered in coffee bean sacks, and ridiculous half jar, half mugs (more on these later). Granted, they are paid up members of the Rainforest Organic Indigenous Native Bean Vendors Collective Hail-Up Whatever. It's like an East Aucklander's interpretation of The Wellington Sound somehow manifest in a cafe form, which I think is what the Kokako is. Another interior design aspect of note is their faux-sarking feature wall. They've jacked some rough-sawn rimu (recycled, naturally) from some long-lost villa and stuck it over the top of their gib. Presumably to give the place a slightly more shabby feel. The overall effect is confused. This sort of behaviour, to me, seems to clash with their apparently socio-eco-conscious brand.

Enough bullshit. Their coffee is great. Their food is up there, too. In particular their poached eggs are textbook. Often you'll get something too runny, or even too cold, or with half the water used to cook it somehow wound-up on your plate. Refreshing.

Woman-friend's mango smoothie let them down in the beverage-stakes. "It was more yoghurt than the Fresh & Fruity I buy at the supermarket." This was the offender presented in a jar that had thread on top and a handle on the side. Such a vessel I've never come across before. Served this way it looked like cold custard. Frankly, I don't care about smoothies.
(Woman-friend edit: I care about smoothies a lot, and this was a disaster - see photo)

Unfortunately, definite miss. Go to the Kokako for a takeaway coffee. We're unlikely to be back there for anything more than that.

Reviewed by A.

"We don't serve vanilla lattes here... We do coffee lattes... ahem"

Welcome to Expensive Breakfast, take a seat and I'll bring you a menu... any coffees to start? We're here to give proper reviews of Auckland cafes. This blog is born of frustration at the mediocre experiences all too often served up at Auckland's daytime eateries. Sick of unreliable Weekend Herald recommendations? We are too. So jam EB in your iPhone, and check us out before you set foot in any old coffee shop...