The Blue Bird

I never realised Blue Bird existed until a vegetarian friend said we should go there for dinner. It is located on Dominion Road and easy to spot because it is blue on the outside! It is a café by day and a restaurant by night. There have quite a large menu, which includes a ‘Bowl Menu’, Hot-​Pots, Salads, Sandwiches, Muffins/​Scones, sweet treats, cakes, smoothies, and best of all freshly made fruit and vegetable juices.
We ordered from the ‘Bowl Menu’ where you first choose a base for your meal. This can either be mashed potato, baked kumara or brown rice. You then pick a topping (there are 7), for example the ‘African Beans’ (red kidney beans with a mild coconut and tomato sauce) or you could choose the ‘Mushroom Gravy’ (mushrooms in chef’s secret sauce and steamed vegetables).
I chose to have brown rice with the Mexican topping, which is black beans and red kidney beans in the chef’s own Mexican sauce (optional sour cream and cheese on side) plus a tropical homemade juice, while my friend had the African Beans with brown rice and a carrot juice. Both meals were delicious and filling.
Blue Bird is a great place if you are vegetarian and they have a wide range of vegan and gluten free options too. Even though I am not vegetarian, I still really enjoyed the food and will definitely come back to try either a hot-​pot or one of their gluten/​vegan free slices!

I really enjoy coming to this spot, though don’t make it over there often due to its location being out of my usual stomping grounds. Everything here is vegetarian with a lot of vegan options, which is a bonus. I’m partial to sitting downstairs — the clean white and blue motif combined with the serene Sri Chinmoy followers who serve you make it a peaceful oasis in a harsh world. The women who work here are incredibly sweet and patient, and will give you nice recommendations for combinations.
As others have mentioned — the fare is veggie comfort food, the kind of stuff you cook a big pot of for yourself in winter, but they’ve got lots of options and its nice to not have to cook now and then!
In addition to the mix and match bowls (I’m always torn about what to get), they’ve got nice smoothies and heaps of cabinet items. Everything always looks (and tastes) lovely. They do some really good nachos which I’m partial to.
Yes, it’s got a slightly cultish vibe, but its the kind of cult that kills you with kindness, and doesn’t preach at you, and feeds you wholesome vegetarian meals, so who is complaining?

We went here today for the first time. The food was perfect — without fault. I had the burger and salad with the pumpkin /​walnut pattie and my husband had the burrito. All of it was vegan. The flavour combinations were delicious. I’ve eaten in a lot of vegan places and this one tops them all. If I had to mark them down on anything it would just be that the décor is a bit outdated. I guess that’s just because it’s not a trendy, white subway tile type café, but a café about good, healthy tasty, cruelty free food. I will make this a regular place to eat — and the staff are lovely too.

Visited here today with a group of friends (one vegan in our midst). Chose to park in a side road and walk five minutes to the café (only one hour parking outside). We sat upstairs in a large room overlooking the road. I had every intention of eating something from the menu but just wasn’t inspired to order anything. The coffee was good though.

I was visiting Auckland and hoped I could find a good vegan restaurant, and I found the Blue Bird on Dominion Rd. Parking out front is somewhat limited. But the restaurant is very clean and bright. I had the African bowl on steamed kumara and it was nicely spiced and delicious. The staff there were very friendly and helpful. I’ll definitely be returning

The Blue Bird is the perfect place to visit if you are feeling slightly blue or need a bit of a ‘lift’. The serene and quiet atmosphere and the mellow music can easily lift ones spirits. It’s great to see so many friendly faces and the food feels truly cooked with love and care. Being a vegetarian means I can for once eat almost anything on the menu.
The new menu with the burgers and wraps are awesome and the green smoothie is super healthy. Love the silver beet salad as well although I wish it would be a regular feature because it’s not available all times.

The Blue Bird café is run by the Sri Chinmoy group in the area — the women serenely sashay around the restaurant in gorgeous saris; they walk in that way that makes someone look like they’re gliding across the floor. But don’t think that their wistful style of walking means that you’ll wait an hour for your food while they sway around the kitchen — food at The Blue Bird is served quickly ad piping hot.
The meals — or bowls — are set up easily. Pick a bowl size (small, medium or large), then pick a base (mashed potato, baked kumara or brown rice), then pick a topping. I love getting the Mexican dish there — beans and rice is such a simple meal, but the team at Blue Bird makes this to perfection. Other favourites are the Indian Dhal, Mushroom Gravy and Hungarian Stroganoff.

There’s something strangely comforting about Blue Bird; I think it’s probably the mashed potato option you can have with your meal, along with the vaguely mothering approach all the woman working here have. (Genuine question: why is it only women?) It’s possibly also that a lot of the food are things I might make at home in the middle of winter. Sometimes you don’t want to cook though, and this is a fine substitute. You can get various hearty options piled on top of rice, the afore-​mentioned mashed potato, or kumara.
Unless you’re super hungry, the small size will probably leave most people replete.
The upstairs is actually generally peaceful, although this peace is broken by a screen showing the great works of Sri Chimnoy. Luckily the sound is off so you can use your imagination to work out what he was doing. There’s also a water feature which no doubt will make you either incredibly calm or need to visit the ablution block.
Pro-​tip: the not-​sausage rolls are also a winner. Watch for: people having intense spiritual discussions with each other.

I didn’t know that this café was run by the Sri Chinmoy folks before I went but I don’t think that should have much bearing on one’s opinion of the place if the food is good — and it was. I had a very rich spinach and feta omelette with some cumin infused hash browns on the side and it was all very tasty. Accompanied by fresh fruit juice it was a delicious brunch. There were lots of yum-​sounding things on the breakfast/​brunch menu as well as a range of hot pot type dishes so there’s plenty of things to choose from.
We couldn’t help but have a bit of a snigger as we read out loud the inspirational cards placed on the table. They’re just a bit naff and wishy-​washy, but harmless. Probably really cool if you’re into that sort of thing, but I’m not.

It’s only cultish if you’re mean-​spirited. I was hungover when I went, so I was feeling even more mean-​spirited than my usual background level. So it seemed a bit cultish to me. Matching robes, aspirational phrases, no sleeve tattoos on the staff (must be one of the few cafes in the area that you can say this about).
But after some mushrooms on toast and a juice I felt much better about the place, and life in general. The food was surprisingly rich and decadent for a vegetarian café, not at all the lentils and spinach you might expect (they have those things too, and they actually looked pretty good). The spiritual side is unobtrusive, although there are cards with aphorisms on them on each table for your perusal. Which is always fun.

So you walk into this place and you can tell that if there was an Auckland yogi-​monk-​cyclists-​I moisturize with animal feces association… this is where they’d meet. Time just slows down in here, absolutely no sense of urgency (which I know, can irritate a lot of people). The food itself felt like a health kick. Some people might call it bland but I really enjoyed it; plain simple food that you could make at home… but hey. Here we are. Their smoothies are pretty good too and they offer vegan desserts.
How it works with a lot of their dishes, you pick a topping (numerous stews and curries to choose from) then a base like brown/​white rice or potatoes. This is served with another helping of carbs (to big pieces of bread with butter). They’re fairly hefty portions.