Calliope Road Cafe, Devonport

For brunch today we headed along to Calliope Road Cafe in Devonport. This was our second time here and I decided to have the Colcannon Brunch with house cured salmon; essentially eggs benedict on a potato mash with leek and cabbage. It was a nice dish, although I would have liked to have the option of using freshly cracked pepper instead of the precracked pepper on the table.
Jane had the Bang Bang Chicken, a sichuan satay chicken where the satay was the predominant flavour, and enjoyed it.
We both also thoroughly enjoyed an Ice coffee.
From a service perspective the food arrived quickly although the lack of table service for ordering I do find frustrating.

Deep Creek Brewing Company, Browns Bay

I had heard that there was a microbrewery in Browns Bay so having tracked down the Deep Creek Brewing Company had to give it a go. The bar had a nice vibe when we entered, and half the bar is setup for casual drinks and the other half for eating. There is also a lovely outdoor area with great views out to the sea.

I started with their 309 New Zealand Pale Ale, which I found to be a nice slightly bitter drop with a touch of orange. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

For my meal I had the ribs and these were the best ribs I have had in a long time. They were a good sized portion and beautifully tender to the extent they were falling off the bone, and covered in a nice Jack Daniels-based BBQ sauce. The meal was accompanied with beautifully cooked kumara chips and a salad. I would very happily order this dish again.

Jane had a perfectly cooked Angus steak with a biltong and aged cheddar crust, although it did taste like it needed more salt prior to cooking to better extract the flavour of the meat. Jane chose the slap chips as an accompaniment that were not as strong in vinegar as the waitress suggested, but were still nice.

Our waitress was good and the food arrived in a timely manner.

We will happily return.

GPK, Takapuna

We felt like pizza for lunch so decided to give GPK in Takapuna a go. It is one of those places we have been past many times but never gone in.

There were only two other tables occupied when we arrived and about the same when we left. We started with a coffee and mocha. My trim latte was good and I assume Jane enjoyed her mocha.

I had the Muscovy pizza which consisted of wood fired duck, red onion, roast kumara, Kikorangi blue, rosemary oil & rocket & pear salad. The thin base of the pizza was lovely and nice fresh ingredients were used for the toppings. I did however expect the blue cheese to be quite strong but it was almost non-existent, and the duck was lovely although I thought it was a bit sparse.

Jane had the Mediterranean pizza which was supposed to have seared octopus & calamari, roasted eggplant, anchovies, olives, wood-fired shallots, garlic & tomato, lemon & parsley oil; the anchovies were however nowhere to be seen. Jane found it to be okay, but found the octopus and calamari to be a little tough at times and was really looking forward to the anchovies.

We kept an eye out for a waiter to ask about the anchovies and get our water refilled but this did not prove to be successful. Even 15 minutes after we had both completed our meals nobody came by.

When we went to the counter to pay we mentioned the lack of anchovies, for which we did receive an apology for and they deducted our coffees (which was a nice touch). We also suggested that they should pay more attention to filling up water which he took on board.