Sierra Cafe Westgate

I don’t really like Sierra Café, especially this one. The Westgate shopping complex gets pretty chaotic over the weekend, especially on Saturdays (and the traffic is atrocious), and any time I have come into Sierra it’s always been totally packed and crowded. I’m not exactly sure why that it though because I don’t find their food or their coffee very good. The food isn’t exactly bad, you can’t really screw up café food that badly, but it isn’t anything to write home about so having to wait for ages for average food served by very unenthusiastic staff equals a not so good experience. Meh.

I have been here two days in a row.
Not because it was that amazing that I just had to go back, merely because I was in the area and I knew this place did a great iced coffee.
We sat down at a nice outside table and grabbed a couple of modern up-​to-​date and non-​dirty magazines (sometimes they can get so gross from re-​reads).
We had to order at the counter which was fine. Next to the counter there is a nice cabinet filled with some lovely items — not many vegetarian options though. And there is also a wall menu to select a little bit from — again not a massive choice selection.
I ordered an iced coffee and it was great and the staff didn’t flinch about my fussy order one bit. The other person I was with ordered a smoothy which was nice apparently. It was after a bit of «oh we don’t have that ‘ingredient’ at the moment» fuss though, but never mind.
All in all it is a lovely spot to chill and relax for a bit after some shopping.

You are not exactly spoiled for choice if you want good food and good coffee at Westgate. The only options are all bigs chains — Starbucks, Robert Harris, Sierra and Hollywood Bakery. They are as impersonal and commercical as coffee chains anywhere else. We often have to run errands in this mall — well to say it’s a mall is a misnomer, it’s actually an outdoors shopping area. Not much fun in Winter when it rains. Anyway, we have eaten at the Sierra here once or twice and have usually been disappointed. The coffee was fine, no complaints there. But the food is a bit of let down. I often find that with cabinet food in New Zealand — a big selection of food but when you look closer, there’s not much that really appeals to you and you end up playing it safe and having a steak pie. There’s not much for vegetarians and my wife ordered a salad last time that she wasn’t happy with. I think the thing that pisses me off most about this place is the staff. They are never what you would call friendly and they all seem to have a face on them. I generally find staff are nice in the cafes in Auckland and when they are rude, it really stands out a mile.