Casablanca @ Sylvia Park

What do you do when it’s raining during the weekend? The mall. Maybe you guys do different things – but Sylvia Park is a good option if you really don’t want to go to the Museum or watch daytime TV.  It’s not a megamall yet but it’s going to get better after September. H&M and Zara are going to be in New Zealand if you are a brands kinda person.

Anyway, halfway shopping we needed to find food. Rather than going to the crowded food court, there’s a place where it’s less crowded, Casablanca. Typically I get the lunch plate and ordered the lamb ($18.50) and chicken ($16.50) option. However, they got one of our orders wrong, giving us the falafel option ($14.50). Instead of keeping the falafel lunch plate, it was offered to us for free – good on ya!

Falafel Lunch Plate

Lamb Lunch Plate

Chicken Lunch Plate

It’s a nice variety for the lunch plates and reasonable price. Service is good and the other options for lunch are quite tempting too. If you can’t make a decision, I’d say go for the chicken lunch plate. “Smokey” chicken with lots of salad on the side.

Turkish Cafe

The Turkish Cafe is a very noticeable cafe, next to Warehouse Newmarket, opposite the Skycity Cinemas (Broadway). It’s one of those cafes that I wanted to try out for a while, so I had my chance. Tried a couple of things – see below:

Donor Kebab.

Kiwi Salmon Delight.

I can’t recollect what the pricing of the above items were, but I think they were some part of a lunchtime deal, so should be reasonable. But I have to admit, the food was not memorable. Surprisingly, the place lacks people at lunchtime. I’m not sure why, stiff competition from the other cafes? I thought they had a decent location.

I do admit, it’s one place I’m not going back to. Food didn’t taste horrible and I think that was the problem, I couldn’t remember if it was good or bad, so probably one of those “average” places. Therefore, a rating of 6/10.

Quattro (Orewa)

Forgive my absence, I have been preoccupied with other things recently. And to be honest, I could have posted a few things last month.

Anyway, on my trip back from Paihia (long Easter weekend), I stopped over in Orewa for lunch. I couldn’t pick anything, so chose this place called Quattro . They had a good deal, kebab and coffee for $10. Not bad?

Bought a Mediterranean and Lamb kebab. The lamb kebab was average, the  Mediterranean kebab tasted better. Coffee was horrible to be honest. The milk must be bad or something. I’d say they need to check their milk temperature before making coffee. Perhaps their pizzas are better (there appears to be some good reviews), but unfortunately, no combos with that.

My rating, 2/10. Horrible coffee! Back to Auckland for some real, good quality coffee!

The Middle East Cafe

Sorry for the long wait. It’s cold and work’s been hell. No excuse though as I have a backlog of reviews.

Anyway, this place is not bad. I was hungry after shopping at Smith and Caughey’s in town and found “The Middle East Cafe”. It’s located very near S+C on Wellesley Street in Auckland. Initially, it seems like a very small place, but in fact, it extends to the back. Also, from the window, we saw some of the dishes and it looks fantastic, so we tried it. Here are some dishes we experimented – the special and falafel.

Special.

Falafel.

The special is a full meal that has a mixture of falafel patties and lamb from the spit. The falafel has various fillings in it. Detailed description of their other meals is in their website. The lamb was well-cooked and the charcoal flavour is fantastic. The variety of flavours in the special meal and falafel is wonderful. Although the serving is small, it’s actually “enough”. So, good for someone who wants a unique meal at a reasonable price.

The falafel is $7.90, and the special is $18.50. Price-wise, that’s good for the unique flavour and reasonable serving size. Only problem, you’ve gotta be in town, because as you know, parking in Auckland CBD isn’t easy.

Overall, I’ll rate this place 8/10. It’s GOOD!