CafeBlog

I recommend you avoid this cafe.

We ordered a trim latte, and soy mocha. The latte was on the reasonable side of average, but nothing to get excited about. The mocha was disgusting. I couldn’t even bring myself to drink it all.

The problem was due to the two full milkshake size squirts of chocolate syrup. In fact the chocolate syrup to coffee ratio would’ve been close to 1:1. It was horrid.

Again, avoid like the plague.

Gloria Jeans have been advertising their hot mudslide mocha recently, and it certainly looks good on the store placards - a mocha topped with what looks like chocolate or coffee flavoured cream and chocolate sauce - who could resist that?

Me. I asked if it could be made with soy. That was no problem, but it came out as a normal mocha. I understand that someone asking for soy milk rather than regular probably won’t want cream, and points to them for realising that. But to be charged a premium price for a premium coffee that comes out to the table as a standard coffee (no cream, no chocolate sauce ) was mighty disappointing. Plus they still charged extra for the soy (and 80 cents at that) !!

The food was pretty substandard too. A cheese scone that was so dry it could have been a week old, and a chocolate croissant that had been heated and delivered to the table in a plastic wrap - and that’s what it tasted like - plastic.

So, not an enjoyable time here. Based on my experience here, it’s likely we won’t be visiting any Gloria Jeans cafe for a long time. And unless you’ve had a better experience in the past at this particular location, I’d recommend you do the same - there are plenty more cafes available both inside DressMart and on Onehunga’s main street.

Originally we had been going to visit Escape on the recommendation of a friend with the comment “best coffee ever”, but being the Christmas season so many cafes are closed. This included Escape, so we crossed Mt Eden Rd and enjoyed lunch at Sierra.

We ordered the usual soy mocha and trim latte, and for food chose chicken fettucine and a caramel square. The coffees were great: with strength, temperature and flavour all checking the right boxes. The food was superb. The chicken fettucine came out of the display cabinet and was heated to a good temperature with extra cheese added, but what really impressed us was the bowl it was served in.

Most pasta dishes come in a very wide and shallow bowl and your pasta ends up drenched in oil and gets cold very quickly - you may like this, I don’t. The bowl from Sierra however, was deep and not overly wide. This had the benefit of keeping the food at the lower levels warm while you were eating it, as well as allowing the majority of the oil to drain to the bottom, leaving the pasta pleasantly moist but not a stodgy-gooey mess. I think of our entire visit here, this is what impressed me most.

The caramel square was divine - a firm chocolate top, gooey caramel centre and very crunchy base added up to more than the sum of it’s parts. I don’t know if it was created on the premises or ordered from a contract bakery, but it’s the best caramel square I’ve had in a long time.

Whether it’s just for a coffee or for food as well, you can’t go wrong with a visit here.

Aroma Cafe is located at the food court of the 277 shopping mall in Newmarket, and is one of the best mall cafes I’ve ever visited. There was such an extensive and delicious looking range of cabinet food available that I had a really tough choice trying to decide what would be best for lunch.

I ended up choosing the curried chicken panini, which was as great tasting as it looked. My soy mocha was also hot, large (although it came in a mug ) and tasted superb.

Coffee and food this good is highly unusual in a food court, so top marks to the staff of Aroma Cafe - oh, and you’re forgiven for using mugs.