brunchy

The past weekend was very brunchy. Victoria was keen to have a look at some galleries (particularly at Martin Horspool's fantastic and humourous retro robots) on Saturday, so we decided to have brunch while we were about it. Across the road from one of the galleries on Jervois Road was Dida's Foodstore, an upmarket deli with a few tables dotted about. The menu was enticing, so we thought we'd give it a go. I'm very glad we did; the coffee was exceptional, and both my Mediterranean eggs and Victoria's salmon hash were tasty, fresh, well proportioned and just a little bit different to the usual Ponsonby Road café food. It had a nicely unpretentious atmosphere with most seats being around a large central table. We'll definitely return. Unfortunately we didn't find any art that we could afford, so returned home with empty hands but pleasantly full stomachs.
We had made a date to meet Harry and Vicky for lunch on Sunday as well, and as we chose the venue last time, they chose this time. After parking at their place, we had a very agreeable stroll down the road to Café Massimo on Nuffield Street in Newmarket. Auckland had put on a blinder that day, the last day of Winter, being calm, warm and dry. Quite a welcome relief after the past couple of sodden months. The company was good, the weather behaved (thankfully, as we were sitting outside) and the food was pretty good although not quite up the standard of Dida's. My creamy field mushrooms were unexciting, but flavoursome and well seasoned, just creamy enough, and came with plenty of crisp, warm toast to mop up the sauce. The coffee was a let-down however: Vicky's long black became short before it arrived, and my flat white tasted a little stale and over-extracted. Ho-hum, pretty much what you'd expect from a chain I guess. That did little to dampen a really nice afternoon out.