The Blue Bird Vegetarian Cafe

I LOVE the Blue Bird vegetarian cafe! You may not know this but I am an incredibly fussy eater. I don't eat, beef, lamb, pork, seafood, roast vegetables, etc but I do eat fish and chicken. Therefore I love vegetarian food. I once went to a meat market a few months ago in Malaysia and I bawled my eyes out as this market had LIVE chicken, wrapped up in newspaper, tied by a string. They were sold like a bag of potatoes! :S

Anyway I first tried this restaurant with my sisters and then with Josh. It is so interesting! The cafe is painted in blue with blue furniture and oh don't let the name fool ya, it opens for dinner too. They have paintings of birds all over and they play some sort of odd relaxing music. All the waitresses dress up in saris and they have pictures of this man who is like their leader on the walls. So I believe that their food must originate from some sort of movement or religion. Anyway I am a catholic but I have nothing against other religions or beliefs so I was quite happy to oblige.

Their menu is really quite simple. Everything is obviously vegetarian and served in bowls. You choose 1 from around 6 different types of toppings and they serve it on 1 of 3 different types of base. For example they have a peanut sauce topping, a mexican topping, a creamy mushroom topping etc and you choose one to go on either a brown rice, kumara or mashed potato base. They also have three different sizes and it's very filling so I normally go for a small. My all time favourite is the mexican topping. They also serve it with vegetarian sour cream that tastes better than the real thing. And with every meal, they serve it with two slices of amazing bread. The last time I was there, Josh had the peanut sauce and we both really did not like it. It was way too peanuty. It's great for a few bites but definitely not for a whole meal. However I highly recommend the mexican.

I also took away a slice of vegetarian banana cake. Omg I honestly don't know how they do it but it tasted amazing. People have the idea that vegan food taste gross, just the word vegan is ugly but this cafe seriously proves that theory is wrong-o! I can never be sick of the place and I highly recommend you give it a go.






If you're into something unique and interesting, you must try it. I can't believe I never heard about it for the years I've been here. Do try it out!!!

My rating: 4/5 ( I did not give it 5/5 only because the peanut dressing wasn't very good however the rest was amazing!)

The Blue Bird Cafe address and Contact:

299 Dominion Road,
Mt Eden,
Auckland,
New Zealand.
(near Valley Road, opposite the ASB bank)

+64 (09) 623 4900

http://www.thebluebird.co.nz/

Try It Out Vietnamese Restaurant, Otahuhu

Do you love vietnamese noodles? Well let me tell you the best vietnamese noodles are in Otahuhu at the Vietnam Cafe. Unfortunately this post isn't about the amazing Vietnam Cafe. It was a Sunday afternoon and we were on our way to Vietnam Cafe. However to get there we had to pass by Try It Out Vietnamese restaurant. Josh had eaten there before with a few others and they quite liked it so we decided to 'try it out' (mind the pun).

I'm just going to get right to it. Service was terrible. Now I know that you can't expect to get 5 star service at a two and a half star restaurant. However I have always felt there are limitations to what you do. The waiter did not understand or speak english very well. And while taking our order, like literally we were telling him what we wanted, his phone rang and he picked it up, spoke for longer than needed and then finally hung up. He looked at us as if it was the most normal thing to do. And he did the exact same thing with other customers. I almost wondered if it was a joke.

Anyway we let it pass because we were there for the food, not for the service. The food came and it looked great. Andrew had a spicy chicken dish and it was amazing! It was just amazing! Daphne had a vegetable and prawn dish which was completely normal and I had the fish ball with rice noodles soup. I did not finish my dish. I don't think I even went through half of it. It was sooo incredibly salty and they put so much msg (monosodium glutamate) that I couldn't stop drinking water. For those of you who do not know what MSG is, it is some sort of preservative which is very bad for you but makes food taste really good. However it makes your mouth become dry and sort of feel like a desert. After eating only half of it, I stopped but continued drinking water like a camel for the rest of the day. My stomach also felt funny. I had to apologize to my organs. Turns out that there was also huge amounts of MSG in the chicken and every other dish.

So yes that was a pretty bad experience. Bad food and bad service. I'm never going back there again. But for those of you who really crave vietnamese food, go to Vietnam Cafe which is right opposite the road from Try It Out. I guarantee you will have a party in your mouth. We drive all the way over from our home in Epsom just to eat it and it's worth it especially on a rainy day.



My rating: 2/5

Try It Out Restaurant:

79 Atkinson Ave
Otahuhu
Auckland City

09-276 9339