In search of the kid-friendly cafe and Mother's day celebrations

My previous research on kid-friendly cafes in our area revealed a place called The Library Cafe. The reviews from other parents all were great. We decided to check it out a couple of weeks ago when we went looking for some bargains in Onehunga. The other parents are right it is a great place for kids, they have a bouncy castle and a whole heap of other activities set out in the backyard.
Hospobaby was not so keen on the kiddy paraphernalia, she was just hungry. The kids menu was great, quite a lot of choice. We ordered a fluffy and a sandwich pack for Hospobaby. Sid got eggs bene, a latte and I got an open chicken sandwich. Hospobaby's lunch pack was fabulous, ham and cheese sandwiches cut into little triangles, a juice box, pretzels and sliced apples. Our eggs and sandwich were just average run off the mill. I would stop by there again for a play date with some other mums but it surely doesn't stand a chance at being our local.

On Monday, we wanted to go out for dinner, as we had not sorted out our baby sitting situation we had to tow Hospobaby along. Living in Ellerslie has another disadvantage, we have to think about getting on the motorway at 6ish and battling the traffic to get to the city if we want a decent bite. After a bit of brainstorming we came up with the idea to go to Scallini's where our ex Maitre D Marie Colosimo runs the show. Scallini's is located in St. Heliers Bay. Its a place you go to eat hearty Italian fare. We reached there at 6pm sharp to avoid the dinner rush also keeping in mind that Hospobaby is usually in bed by 6.

Cheeky grins

We ordered some garlic bread to start off, it was crisp and hot from the pizza oven. Zoya tucked into it straight away.  We then got some Pizza with Parma Ham and rocket. It was delicious. Zoya picked all the ham and then munched on the Pizza. Once her tum was full she started to fade away.

So we hurried up and ordered our mains. We ordered a small lasagna for Hospobaby. Sid got the beef steak with peppercorn sauce and I got the confit legs of duck with an asian sauce.

Ahh Im tired but I can eat some

Kids portion of Lasagna

Gigantic steak with peppercorn sauce

Duck w asian sauce and mash

Hospobaby ate a few bites of her lasagna and decided she was too full, so we took it away in a doggy bag for her. She scoffed it all down the next day. No man complains about a huge steak. Neither did Sid, he enjoyed it. The meat fell off the bone with the duck - sign of a good confit duck. The sauce had hoisin, although the mash didn't really go with the duck, I love mash so I can't complain. We skipped dessert on account of the full bellies and the sleepy baby. If you are after some delicious hearty fare head to Scallini's.

Hospobaby was down with a throat infection and we took her back to Ponsonby to see our GP. Sid and I decided to grab a quick bite near the restaurant. We were hoping that taking her to a cafe might stimulate her to eat a bit as sick hospobaby had been off her food for a bit. We went to Bambina. The last time we went to Bambina it was average, nothing to write home about. We thought we would give it another go.

Hospobaby seemed to be happy to be out

Chilling out with Papa

We ordered a muffin for Hospobaby, it was dry and she wasn't buying into it after a bite. Sid got his usual eggs and I ordered the corn fritters. Sid's eggs were awful, soggy. My fritters were ok, a bit dry. So needless to say we won't be going back to Bambina.

Sunday the 13th was Mother's day, so we headed to The Foodstore on the waterfront for lunch. Mark Southen the Chef at the Foodstore is a good friend, but we had another reason to go there, last year we celebrated my first mothers day with our little 5 week old hospobaby in the exact same place.

We were given our complimentary Pelorus rose to start off. Hospobaby was put into her high chair.

Cherry cordial for Hospobaby

She was even given her very own cherry cordial which I stuck into her sippy cup.

But where is the food??

We started off with some of Dean Brettschneider's bread. Nothing beats warm bread with whipped butter.

Yumm! Knowing the Chef and being married to one comes with a few perks. Mark sent out little portions of dishes he was trying out for the new menu. There was a beef tataki with dried enoki mushrooms and a dashi custard, unusual  and tasty . Then came some beef cheeks with a hint of horseradish with I thought was divine, as did Hospobaby. The last little dish was pea and ham soup with a ham hock sandwich. It was wonderful. We gave Mark the thumbs up, can't wait to go back and have the beef cheeks again.

Pea and Ham soup

Yummy beef cheeks

We then ordered the potato gnocchi with goats cheese, the wild fish, the venison loin with parsnip and red cabbage and the pork belly with black pudding. The gnocchi was amazingly melt in your mouth. The wild fish was good, I would have liked it with a bit of zing. The venison loin was cooked to perfection. Hospobaby still receiving from her infection, ate all the black pudding from the Pork belly and avoided everything else. She is so strange!

For dessert we got the Lemon tart meringue with passionfruit sorbet and blueberries as well as the chocolate pudding with hokey pokey ice cream. Hospobaby picked on the freeze dried mandarins. The chocolate pudding was not sweet and perfect with the ice cream. The tart was a hit with Sid.

I do not understand Metro and its reviews at times, yes, I agree with them the service could be a bit more polished. Service was a bit slow but once we told our waiter he sped things up and brought Hospobaby a kid's art pack to keep her busy. I give them the benefit of doubt as it was a busy day. Our waiter was a bit awkward carrying his glasses but it wasn't enough to affect our experience. The food was great, The Foodstore is not trying to be a fine dining restaurant so why judge them by those standards? 

I am not saying this because I am biased being the Chef's friend but sometimes reviewers go overboard and need to highlight the positives in a place not just focus on the negatives.

Now I am going to make an exception and talk about a place Hospobaby did not actually visit. Although I guess I can justify it by saying we checked with the establishment to see if we could bring Hospobaby next time because this is definitely a place we would like to frequent. Last night was our first date night. Our neighbor was baby-sitting and we snuck out to Molten in Mt. Eden. If you have been watching The Foodtruck on T. V. you would have heard of Molten. Mike and Bee the previous owners are good friends. This was the first time we went to Molten since it changed hands.

We ordered three entrees the salt and pepper squid which came with a zesty chill and honey sauce and peanuts, the pork rillette with crumbed scampi, frisee, pickled shallots, tarragon and cres and finally the eggplant tortellini, summer corn, olive powder, chèvre and crisps. I could eat the salt pepper squid all day long. Sid loved the pork rillette although I thought it need a bit more of a citrusy punch to it, the pickled shallots were just not enough for me. The eggplant tortellini was stand out! You wouldn't miss the meat if you had this earthy vegetarian option.

Chicken

Beef

I got the organic chicken leg w courgette,toasted faro, butternut, pine nuts, raisins and mint labneh for my main. It was as good as a confit leg of duck. Absolutely moorish. I was in heaven. Sid got the dry aged beef sirloin w potato boulangere, cafe de paris butter, mushrooms and shallots. Amazing. I couldn't resist picking on Sid's plate. The beef was cooked just like we enjoy it, medium rare. 

The service was great, the wine matches fab. You couldn't complain that the portions were tiny. I had to protest when Sid made me order a whole desert rather than just share his. So I got the bombe alaska and he got the apple tart tatin

Bombe Alaska

Apple tart

The night was cold, wet and the apple tart was warm and comforting. I was so full but couldn't stand the thought of wasting a morsel. I suffered on the way home with a super full tummy and I cursed my husband for not sharing dessert. No woman wants to share dessert voluntarily. The bill was a modest $210 including a lot of wine.  Molten is another one the critics got wrong- a reviewer recently gave them some grief, well its just one person's opinion, I guess, one who doesn't understand this kind of food. We will be back with Hospobaby, especially now that they open Sunday's for dinner.

On another note Hospobaby got out of the restaurants and into the kitchen. I found a card waiting for me when I picked her up from daycare along with a little bag of cookies she made me. I had to wring the cookies out of her hand once she saw them. Finally I gave up and decided to share one with her since she had made me two. I hope she cooks as much as she enjoys eating.

Hospobaby making cookies

So to all the mothers out there a belated happy mother's day. Until next time...
Live to eat like Hospobaby.

Life on the south side

Its been a month since my last post. Its not like we haven't eaten out with or without Hospobaby, its just that life has been far too busy. We haven't eaten in any noteworthy places either. We have had to move to Ellerslie, so have had to wave goodbye to all the lovely cafes and takeaways in Ponsonby.

It is much more dull in the south. Not many cool places, no mum-baby-dog combos walking along the road each morning. With moving and repainting we have sadly had too many Dominos pizzas and Indian takeouts. Last week however, I managed to squeeze an impromptu lunch on Friday after picking hospobaby from daycare, then stealing my man from the restaurant. We wanted something quick, so we started to head to Fatima's for kebabs, then veered into Bird on a wire next door. Sid said that he'd heard they do Bahn mi bale style chicken sandwiches. We loved Bahn mi bale sandwiches when they were available in High street, now the place has packed up and left with our favorite Vietnamese delight.
Bird on a wire does only free range chicken. The place smelt divine. Sid and I ordered a banh mi bale sandwich each and a side of beer battered chips to share. The sandwiches seemed reasonable at 12 bucks each for free range fare. The sandwich was a let down. The filling was tasty with the chicken pate. The roll was too hard and my jaw felt strained eating it. By the time we finished our mouths felt dry.
The beer battered chips were amazing, crunchy but soft inside. It came with a complex dip with slightly spicy flavors. Zoya ate all our chips! Next time I might pick up half a bird instead, the one with Jerk seasoning sounds promising.

On Sunday, friends from Melbourne were in town and wanted to catch up at a child-friendly cafe.  We were a bit stumped as Zoya is only one, so we have been dragging here to all our favorite places without the need for any other entertainment but us and the food. Simon and Luisa have beautiful twin girls, so  the  dilemma of having three kids at a table narrowed our limited picky cafe list to 0.
I googled- the last resort for the desperate. I came up with only one cafe- Mecca stonehouse in Mission bay. It was the only one in the vicinity of mission bay or the CBD. We hate chain cafes, Mecca is one of them. They are impersonal and the food is just run of the mill. We sincerely hoped this would not be the case last Sunday. Two chefs, and three kids to feed was a good challenge for Mecca.
We were seated and greeted promptly. Hospobaby was hungry and started creating a scene the minute we sat down and she saw drinks being brought to the table. I decided to walk to the counter and order a muffin to settle her. The staff quickly intercepted me and took my order and delivered it promptly. I was impressed. Perhaps,we were wrong. I am sure you can sense the "but" approaching. Well after ordering our brekkies, juices and coffees we let the kids lose. The twins took to all the play equipment as enthusiastically as Hospobaby took to her muffin.  Almost everyone ordered dishes with eggs. I can't do eggs perhaps because of a childhood phobia or just because their texture and smell puts me off. I ordered what I considered a safe dish, creamy mushrooms with roast potatoes and chorizo. My creamy mushrooms came in a bowl rather than a plate. That should explain it all, that creamy mushrooms had more cream than mushrooms, the thing was a soup. The chorizo had not been seared first just boiled in the cream, the roast potatoes felt insulted as they quickly lost their crunch swimming in the cream. Hospobaby ate a few bites from my bowl but her tastebuds like mine rejected the goop. We ate the bread that came along with our breakfast soup and had our drinks. Hospobaby has had a thing for coffee cups, the takeaway variety. Everytime Sid wants a coffee Zoya wants some too. Its hazardous. So the only good thing to come out of Mecca besides catching up with our friends was finding out the ingenious idea of giving Zoya her own fluffy in her very own cup.

I would rate Mecca for its child friendliness. Go in if you want a catch up with friends which involves juice and muffins  (coffee is not that great either). Make sure the kitchen gets your order, the last coffees our table ordered never came despite several reminders. Go in if you want to explore the great play ground by the beach. I can safely say I stand uncorrected about their food. Its still rubbish.

Sunday, saw us finish the final touches of paint. So after replacing all that we could in its rightful spots, we were craving a bit of the city and so were our bellies. We went back to Mexico. We reached there at 2.15 and parked in a bus lane so had to be out by 3 when the buses came back. It was not a problem last time and wasn't this time either. The mexican food genie still works there, apparently. We ordered drinks, Hospobaby attacked my guava soda and had to be brought an empty glass so she could have a sip of her own. We ordered two of the skirt steak tacos, as we loved them last time. They were even better than before. One of the pulled chicken taco which was divine and the lovely signature fried chicken. A chicken quesadilla that Hospobaby devoured as it wasn't spicy. We decided to try the chorizo and squid which was amazing. Crunchy chorizo packed with flavor and perfectly cooked squid rings in a tangy dressing.
Our waitress had warned us that we were ordering too much and we had reassured her that it wouldn't be an issue. Thank you very much for the consideration but your food is so delicious we will eat it all!
We did, we could have eaten more. At $77 for everything, we know why we will keep going back there again and again. North Shore need not despair, Mimi and Warren have informed us that they are opening up another Mexico in Takapuna. Oh but that does not help us, we live on the south side...
I guess I am going to go back and check an old favorite that I haven't visited in ages, back in the day, when Metro magazine hadn't  even heard of it, Mexican Specialities on Marua road in Ellerslie was a fav haunt of mine. Will keep you posted.
Until then... live to eat like Hospobaby.