Onehunga Cafe

Also an old video store. Love the colourful tiles and the way they have inserted booths in here. Nice outdoor area. The pastries are insane. They use pastry, which is made in france and sent over here. The chocolate twist one is so good. Don’t rate their coffees too highly (CEO) across the road is probably better for that. However, fantastic atmosphere. Also had the lemon and coconut slice… SO good. Can’t wait to continue tasting this menu.

A Rainy Saturday morning does not make for a fun day at all. After braving the redonculis traffic, I got sick of it all and pulled in to the nearest parking space thankfully right outside .
A quick swiz of the menu with coffees promptly ordered, I went for the Eggplant kasundi with eggs and watercress .
Delicious is my verdict ! Rich tomato spiced sauce with diced eggplant and a poached egg, add a ample sized portion and you have yourself a brunch. Not quite breakfast not quite lunch.

I love Onehunga Café! I came here on a weekday to plop down in a booth and get work done all day. I was too shy to ask for the wifi password, so I ended up just reading a book and doing offline things, which can be nice sometimes.
I ordered a bottomless coffee, and I’m not sure I’d do that again. It was lukewarm and did not taste good, even by filtered coffee standards. My second cup was unfortunately more of the same. Other people were getting Supreme drinks and looked very happy, so maybe I’ll get a flat white on my next visit.
For lunch, I had the Eggplant Kasundi. It was really delicious. Eggplant cooked well in a sauce with big chunks of tomato and a hint of spice, with a nice piece of toast and a poached egg, all topped with a small bunch of watercress. So yum!
The décor is cute — gold ceiling, diner style tables and booths, big communal tables outside if the weather is doing it for ya, a play area off to the side for the kiddos, and the friendliest little sign behind the counter. The staff were super friendly too, all smiles and nice chats.
I’d definitely go out of my way to come back here for food and an espresso drink, though I’m still not sure if they offer wifi to guests so I prob won’t come if I need to work online. Maybe see you there!

What can I say. «American Style» diners are a thing here, which amuses me (see my review for Federal), however these guys are doing it right!
While I have a small space in my heart for cheesy greasy American diners at home, I can appreciate «nice» diners from time to time (if you ever go to Seattle you’ll see what I mean when you visit 13 Coins).
Anyway, Onehunga Café is not only one of those «nice» diners, but it isn’t over pretentious like Federal. Where business men and uni students can coexist, they have the morning-​noon-​night thing going! I am taking a course out in Penrose, and this has slowly become my pre-​class ritual. They brew supreme all day long, and for $ 3.50 you can get a bottomless cup. I usually pair this with something from the cabinet. So far I’ve had the sausage roll, chocolate cookie (which had the consistency of a brownie yum!), and the mussel fritter which is a small plate on the menu.
The mussel fritter was good it was just a but it was a bit too creamy and rich for me. By the end of it I felt a little sick. The flavour were so good though I powered through it.
I have to say, the bottomless coffee thing is SO good. I sit there for 1 – 2 hours and my coffee is never empty. Last time I was in they brewed a fresh pot just for me!
I’ll write another review when I eat a meal here, but please do me a favour and go get a bottomless mug and a snack because it is fantastic!

Nice new café in Onehunga serving a predictable but well cooked array of kitchen and cabinet fare. The poached chicken salad with pancetta is a refreshing lunchtime meal. Alternatively, try the lamb and pork po boys. The service is a bit hit and miss (my waitress was great, but the one at the neighboring table dumped a couple of menus on my paper while she chatted with her clients, then picked them up without a word — and yes, I was reading my paper at the time). Having said that, I’d come back here again. Special mention needs to be made of the cherry chocolate shake, made with home-​made cherry syrup. Nothing says summer’s here better than that!

Went there for lunch today.
Looks great.
Friendly staff.
Food was very average.
Had the brisket burger, chicken salad and the kahawai toastie.
Burger: Nice bun, plenty of cheese and pickles. How could it be so bad right? The brisket was bland it had no seasoning, tasted like boiled beef. There was no sauce.
Asked the waitress for some sauce for the burger as I thought they forgot it. She bought me H.P. essentially the brisket had been cooked in water then put between a bun.
Chicken salad: from looking at the menu you would have no idea it was a Caesar salad. The over cooked egg on top was the best part of the meal and the anchovies. The Chicken was bland and had no seasoning. The dressing tasted only of mayonnaise.
Kahawai toastie: fish was good. Could have been presented better for the price. Would have been nice to have the massive pieces of toast buttered. Something like Texas toast would have worked well.
I will give it another go in hopes that the coffee and breakfast will be better.

We recently visited newly opened Onehunga Café. I was sad to say it was a not the ideal experience that one hopes.
We came for brunch, but they had set times for breakfast and lunch, with the lunch menu beginning at 1130. By the time we sat down and read the menu it was just turned 1130, so we asked to order from the lunch menu, but was informed that we would have to wait an extra time then people ordering breakfast since the kitchen hadn’t set up for lunch. So we all had no choice but to order from the breakfast menu.
When we ordered, two of the menu items we wanted had already run out, which is something you dont want to hear. The mushrooms on toast, was fairly disappointing, they weren’t creamy, nor cooked long enough. My plate also came out with a dirty smear on the side. The berry smoothie I ordered I couldn’t finish. The consistency and flavour had totally missed the mark. I tried the hollandaise sauce from one of the dishes, and there was far too much acid. Everything was sad looking and I don’t think there was a lot of taste testing from the kitchen before the dishes were sent out. Components were also missing, such as the spinach from the eggs bene and the broad beans from the mushrooms on toast.
At the end of it all we did mention all these problems to the manager and he explained that there had been a menu issue. He mentioned that the kitchen was poorly organised due to the change that was supposedly starting the following day. He happily discounted all of our food and apologised. I am happy that he accepted our feedback and in saying that hopefully the café can only improve from here. However with all the strong competition in Auckland and new eateries opening up so frequently there is no room for errors. People will rule you out after their first experience and go to a place that gives great food and service straight off the bat.
Rating
Food: ³⁄₁₀
Service: ⁶⁄₁₀
Value for Money: Poor
259 Onehunga Mall, Onehunga
Can’t seam to find opening hours — will update when i do. Though it says Morning, Noon, Night

We visited the café as it looked like a great place to hang out and grab lunch with our young kids. It’s a very large place so plenty of room to get a seat and the fit out is really cool with bench tables, outside dining or booths. Plus an enclosed play area for kiddies. Menu is pretty good too. Unfortunately that’s where the pluses end for me as it took ages to be served as you have to wait for a staff member to take your order at the table, then it took almost an hour for our meal to arrive — not so cool when you have kids and although ours are pretty patient it was just too much to ask of them. The staff just didn’t seem to know what they were doing except the lady managing the floor /​wait staff– she was lovely but seemed to have her hands full trying to get people to step up. All in all a very disappointing experience and we won’t be hurrying back with so many options out there to give our money to.

I honestly don’t know which was worse — the food or the service.
Several orders were completely messed up, food was a mix of raw or burnt black topped with a mountain of butter (the size of a fist), drinks spilled several times by clumsy waitstaff, outages of basic items, a coffee order lost after asking to check on it 4 separate times before finally giving up and walking out, repeated dishonest excuses, and sloppy service from a team which seemed as flustered and confused as the management. I’m completely understanding of the teething problems associated with a new café, but when it’s all mishandled by such incompetent staff (even after pointing out the problems to them) I can’t imagine this place ever improving much. Safe to say I will never be back.

New café in Onehunga which has taken over the old Video Ezy shop on the corner of Arthur St and Onehunga Mall. We wandered down to check it out and were met at the door by a friendly staff member who showed us our seats and advised what was unavailable on the menu (chai).
All we wanted was coffee but we checked the menu for vegan friendliness and although it came up short, there was a vegetarian mushroom dish which may have been able to be veganised. As it was, my husband can’t go past a bowl of fries, so we ordered the hand-​cut fries with our coffee.
The coffees (1 x soy macchiato, 1 x soy latte) were very good. Really creamy and tasty. So good we had two. Very good.
The fries were also very good, and came with what appeared to be a home-​made tomato sauce, which was okay but didn’t have the strong taste we like, so we added some HP sauce as well.
Service was great, friendly and helpful and I would have given 5 stars except the fries were slow and we had to inquire as to their whereabouts.
I am possibly being unfair as this was the last Sunday before Christmas and they were VERY busy. We will definitely go back.

This is a new addition to Onehunga and located really close to Dress Smart. I think today was the first day it opened so there seemed to be a few teething problems but nothing major, just a bit of a wait on coffees and selling out of stuff quicker than they thought — which is a good sign!
The layout is really cool, very open and with little clutter. We were greeted at the entrance and asked where we would like to sit. We decided to eat outside where there are lots of tables that you can share with other people if it’s busy. The lady explained what food was not available which is always helpful.
We ordered the fish and chips to share, a house shake (chocolate) and a Peroni beer. The meal came with two pieces of fish. The batter was light and crispy although I would have preferred a fraction less oil. The chips were good, nicely flavoured. It also had a salad of mesclun salad leaves and sliced radish. There was no dressing so I didn’t enjoy it. This is just personal taste as I find it really hard to eat salad without dressing. The house shake was REALLY GOOD. The only thing I found strange was that it was not really cold. It was really hot today so would have been better if it was colder.
Overall this is a great addition to Onehunga. I’m looking forward to trying a few more things from the menu, or a drink in the evening! It will also be interesting to see what the dinner menu is like. The staff are really attentive and friendly. Definitely give it a try