Driving Creek Cafe, Coromandel

Located very close to the Driving Creek Railway in the Coromandel township, the Driving Creek Cafe looks rustic from the outside and delivers superb organic food, smoothies and juices in a relaxed environment.

We had a couple of meals here with friends over a two day period.

On our first visit, I thoroughly enjoyed the button mushrooms with a blue cheese creamy sauce. I accompanied this with a berry fruit smoothie that was full of flavour.

Jane had the poached eggs on rye with spinach and avocado that she enjoyed. Her eggs were slightly overcooked.

For my second visit I enjoyed the pancakes that were accompanied by berries, mango and a jug of maple syrup.

Jane enjoyed the lentil and pumpkin soup.

We would very happily return.

Raupo, Blenheim

Breakfast alongside the river in Blenheim is a lovely way to start the day, and Raupo is perfectly positioned with a good quantity of outside seating to do it justice.

We were one of two tables in the cafe when we first arrived, so were able to chose an outside table with great views along the river. The decor inside, although we only briefly passed through, looked to be very stylish.

I had the Eggs Raupo for breakfast, which consisted of Poached eggs on Brioche with a Tomato Hollandaise with Smoked Salmon and Greens. I did wonder if it would be a bit too busy in terms of flavour, and it was slightly, although in general I enjoyed my meal. It was apparent that Raupo takes pride in the quality of their meals and the ingredients they use. The accompanying trim latte on the other hand was a bit burnt.

Jane had the big breakfast done with gluten free bread and found it to also be good, although the scrambled eggs weren’t great.

The service was pleasantly friendly and the food arrived in a timely manner.

Flavour Deli, Birkenhead Point

After an hour of gardening I decided to head out for brunch at one of our local cafes. This was only the second I had been to Flavour Deli and I was impressed with our last visit which must have been about 6 months ago. This time however wasn’t as impressive, but it still rates as one of the best cafes in the Birkenhead area.

I was happily able to get one of the few outside tables, and on a lovely day like today sitting under the shade of the large veranda, which covers the whole footpath, was a superb place to relax and read through the paper whilst I awaited my meal.

I noticed that they had a Coffee and Eggs special for $11.50 Monday-Friday so decided to give this a go since I just wanted something light. I went with scrambled eggs and a trim latte.

	The scrambled eggs were done in what I will call old-style, being soft and fluffy, but unfortunately they were lacking a bit in flavour. They were however accompanied with a lovely relish which when combined with the eggs and some seasoning of salt and pepper the eggs were improved although all-in-all it was a bit disappointing, however for the price it was still good value for money.
My trim latte (a Roasted addiction blend) finally arrived after I had just finished my meal, despite being ordered at the same time; they did however apologise for the wait. Surprisingly it was also actually delivered in a cup and not a glass. It was however good. I will return, but will order something different.

Teed Street Larder, Newmarket

We popped into the Teed Street Larder for lunch today in Newmarket and I had one of the best hot chocolates I’ve had for a while. There were three options of hot chocolate; Cadbury, 55% Belgian chocolate, and 72% Valrhona. I went for the 55% option and thoroughly enjoyed it. It reminded me a bit of Max Brenner in Australia whereby the chocolate was chocolate pellets that were put into a glass of milk which then needed a decent stir. It also came with a chocolate sprat and a lovely little macaroon wafer.

Before Stirring	After Stirring

Jane had a decaf long black that had a lovely crema and tasted nice.

For lunch I had a Venison, Mushroom and Goat Curd pie that was lovely. The pastry was solid, the filling full of flavour and the goat curd on top tasted great.

Jane had a dish of snapper, that was accompanied with caperberries and olives that she enjoyed.

The food arrived in a timely manner and the service in general was okay. We will happily return.

Maastricht: a cultural heritage city in the south of the Netherlands

We headed down from Amsterdam to Maastricht at the bottom of the Netherlands by train. We purchased our tickets easily enough on the machine at the railway station (there is an option for English), found what platform the train was leaving from and made our way to the platform. The train arrived about 10 mins later and we set off to Maastricht.

About 20 mins later a conductor came and started checking tickets and informed us we were on the wrong train. We then ascertained that we were actually on two trains and that the front part of this one was heading to Maastricht and the back half (which were on) was going somewhere we had never heard of and had no intention to go to. We swapped trains at the next stop (it was several carriages of walking). The different carriages were labelled with different train numbers that match with a number displayed at the station, so we will pay closer attention to this next time.

The train journey was 2½ hours long and during the journey somebody came around selling coffee and tea. I didn’t notice, but apparently one of the sets of cups she had was Starbucks.

Once at Maastricht we took a taxi to our 4 star accommodation (I don’t know where they got their stars from but the place could do with a revamp), refreshed and then headed out for lunch.

The service was so slow where we went to for lunch that we had a beer and coffee and then headed off to a bakery that does Farmers lunches (De Bisschopsmolen) that Jane had found in the guide to Maastricht as we had waited for service.

On the way we came across a lovely hat shop,

some beautiful buildings,

and some kids playing marbles (I suspect they’re a lot older now).

De Bisschopsmolen translates to “The Bishops Mill” and they use Kollenberger spelt prepared on a stone floor oven. We both had the Farmers lunches (like a Ploughmans platter), which was a decent size and came with a variety of meats, several excellent breads, yellow plum jam, a chocolate hazelnut spread and perenapple stroop (which I don’t what it is, but it was a little like treacle in consistency and taste, but a bit more tart), apple juice (we did have the option of milk instead!) and a choice of tea of coffee. It was a nice assortment with quality ingredients, except for the coffee which was disgusting.

After lunch we ventured into a beautiful Romanesque church, The Basilica of our Beloved Lady,that was built in the 11th century. Photos were not allowed inside, but believe me it was beautiful.

Some more beautiful streets later,

we ended up at the waterfront where we purchased some tickets for a boat trip tomorrow out to the caves.

After a bit more wandering around through beautiful streets and squares we went in search of a geocache and it led us to this beautiful vault located in the basement of a shop selling kitchen and dining ware (which used to be a bank). We then asked a sales assistant for entry to the vault and retrieved the cache and signed the log.

Maastricht has a lot of culture and we are glad that we added it to our itinerary.

Battery Point, An awesome bakery / cafe and Hobart CBD

This morning I went for a walk through the streets of Battery Point and came across “Jackman & McRoss”, an excellent bakery / cafe located in Hampden Road just across from Waterloo Crescent.  They have lots of indoor seating and a small amount of outdoor seating out the front. 

I had a cafe style meal that consisted of scrambled eggs encased in Tasmanian Smoked Salmon on a brioche (Hmmm, maybe I wrong here) base.  It was excellent as was the Skinny Latte I had with it.  I’m slowly getting used to ordering Skinny Latte’s as opposed to Trim Latte’s, which are often met with a confused look in Australia.

I then wandered through Princes Park that had what looked like a pretty cool kids play area.  Well, I thought it was cool anyway and noted that it had sand as its protective landing for kids.

 

From Princes Park I walked along the Esplanade (which didn’t have a lot going for it) to Salamanca Place and cooled down in Parliament Square and watched people on a trapeze setup for the New Years celebrations this evening.

Elizabeth Mall was one of the many places I ventured to in the CBD.  The shopping area felt quite relaxed although I found that some of the malls were a bit outdated.  There are however some beautiful character buildings located in the vicinity of the CBD.

I then met up with Jane and got some Garlic Mussels and a nice Bruny Island Cheese Platter from the Taste festival.  I also tried a “Two Metre Tall” Tasmanian Bitter Ale, that was not to my liking; I thought it actually tasted a bit like a dirty homebrew.  I followed this with a really nice Extra Zingy Ginger Beer from Gillespie’s Ginger Beer.

The temperature today kept creeping up higher and is apparently quite abnormal for Hobart; I noticed at one point it was 36.5˚ Celsius.  Thankfully it is looking cooler for tomorrow.

Easter Friday (& early birthday present mystery)

What a deliciously beautiful easter weekend it has been! We've had a wonderful, relaxing, yet satisfyingly full weekend. On Friday we ventured out into the glorious sunshine, tried to go to jafa for breakfast, sadly it was closed, then ambled on to Occam for a lovely breakfast in the sun.


I took my early birthday present with me (I think the prevalence of non-cell-phone photos in this entry is sufficient clue to the nature of what it is!) and got decidedly snap happy.

After breakfast we took a leisurely drive (the queues were too long and slow for it to be anything other than leisurely) down to Mission Bay. The incredibly busy Mission Bay at that. And of course, we indulged in the obligatory (in Simon's case - rapidly melting) ice-cream - although we didn't quite have the endurance required to queue at Movenpick.

More on the weekend when I get a bit more time. Right now we're fighting to get twiki working at home. Oh dear. Fighting and losing for now!

Jafa Cafe

We were very happy to hear that Tim and Jon (who previously owned Benediction) had opened up a cafe at the far end of Richmond Road called Jafa. We headed along last weekend to check it out.

The staff set the expectation with us up front that they were ridiculously busy and that food was taking about an hour to come out. This was fine with us, and I really appreciate being told this as we were going into the cafe and not finding out until after we had ordered. Setting expectations is so important, it's easy to do, but so many places fail in this regard.

True to the form of what we came to expect from Benediction, the food, coffee, service and overall vibe were great. There were a number of the old favourites on the menu, but there were also a few new entries or a slight twist onthe old ones. I went for eggs benedict on a kumara mash and this was beautifully done. I can't recall what Jane ordered, but that's not as huge surprise as I tend to focus on my meal... but I recall that she did enjoy it.

I would definitely go back, and in fact Jane has gone back there for brunch today with Trudy. Somehow I think their brunch might be a bit better than what I cobbled together.

Altar Cafe

Altar Cafe in Mt Eden has been one of our more recent finds. We have been here twice within the last month for brunch and had a great experience both times. The menu sports more than the same-old same-old brunch items. On the first occasion I had corned beef hashcakes with the equivalent of eggs benedict on top, and on the second occasion I went for a Nicoise sytle salad. Service was neither slow nor sloppy (and we're very picky when it comes to good service). The quality of the food has also been consistently good as has the coffee (Allpress).

Strawberry Alarm Clock & La Cigale - Parnell

We've been to the Strawberry Alarm Clock in Parnell several times now, but never actually written about it. We went and had lunch there today, and once again had an enjoyable visit. The food is good, the setting is rustic, homely and yet very funky - both inside and out the back in the courtyard. We've had consistently good coffees - and yet again today, and we've previously ordered and enjoyed their smoothies (although I still think Revel do the best smoothies I've had).

We wandered along to La Cigale on St Georges Bay Road today, to pick up some french cheeses for Kevin for his birthday. We didn't realise that the fromagerie is not really open on a Sunday, however the guy from the cafe was extremely accomodating about this, allowing us to sample the cheese we were interested in and even making some suggestions for us (along with recommending we come along on a Wednesday when they have all the cheeses available for tasting!) Certainly another nice find.

Bian Sushi - Symonds Street

Tried to organise a lunch date with my husband today, but meetings conspired against us. :( Never mind! I decided to take the opportunity to go to Bian Sushi all the same.

Now this is one cafe that is quite firmly planted on our Favourite list. Beyond a shadow of doubt, Bian Sushi does some of the (if not THE) best Sushi in Auckland.

'nough said really! Bian Sushi rocks. :)

Deve Cafe - Kingsland

We used another of our Entertainment Book vouchers yesterday and had lunch at Deve Cafe in Kingsland. Gorgeous old building complete with photos of 'as it was'. Love the lamp shades - all were prints of nature artwork they had on display, made into lamp shades. Very cool.

As for the food and coffee, we both had open sandwiches - Simon the Moroccan lamb and I had the Cajun Chicken. Simon's seemed to be pretty good, although quite lightly spiced, mine was ok, but a weird variety of flavours. Cajun, jalapeño, gruyere cheese and tomato salsa. Very odd.

Coffee was Allpress, however not what we're used to when we get it from Benediction. It wasn't burnt, but definitely a bitter tang to it and mine (long black) was quite 'thin' on overall flavour.

Nice to receive water at the table without asking, and likewise to have it replaced when we emptied the bottle.

All in all, if we're in the area, and if we've tried all the other yummy looking cafe's on the street, yes, we'd go back. But definitely not on our favourite list.