Brunch review: The Glass Goose, Auckland CBD

The Glass Goose. Photo / Getty Images

Address: 78 Federal St, Auckland
Phone: (09) 379 9404
Open: 7am-late (breakfast available 7am-noon)
Cost: $52.50 for two people

SET UP & SITE
We went on a Wednesday at 11am, and the large, airy room of many tables contained three other people, two of whom were working on laptops. The place is hard to find, down a kind of driveway behind a Gloria Jean's, then up some stairs. It's got a lovely deck area, mostly covered, but on the day we went it was too wet and cold to sit there. I arrived on time but my wife spent 20 minutes looking for a car park, during which time the very good coffee went cold, and she ended up paying $12 for an hour of parking. Shouldn't be so bad on weekends, though.

SUSTENANCE & SWILL

Agria potato hash, kransky, avocado, free-range poached egg, ciabatta at the Glass Goose. Photo / Getty Images

I spent a lot of time with the menu, waiting for my wife, and came to the conclusion that the only serious and meaningful meal available was the most expensive dish on the menu: the potato hash, with kransky, avocado and poached eggs on ciabatta ($22). She disagreed, citing the mushrooms with feta, greens and eggs on toast ($18) and the potato waffle with smoked salmon, basil, avocado whip and lemon butter ($20) but because she is pregnant she couldn't eat those things, so she, too, ordered the hash. She felt that I couldn't properly review the place if we both had the same dish. I disagreed, primarily because there was nothing else on the menu I wanted, but also because you can tell a lot about a place from one dish - you can tell a lot about a place from one ingredient. We had four eggs between us: one yolk opened brightly and flowingly across the hash and bread, two were a little gummy, and one was almost solid. The meal looked great and the kransky was tasty, but the hash was a bit dense. After we first ordered, they had returned to tell us there was only enough avocado for one of us, but when they served it, there was avocado on both plates. Was it just one serving, halved? If we hadn't known, we never would have worried about it, but we knew. They were also out of the quinoa muesli. Given the fact they had only five customers at 11am, this seemed a bit sad.

SERVICE & OTHER STUFF
A lack of customers can be its own challenge for service professionals who might use all that free time to hide in the kitchen and, say, surreptitiously eat all the avocados, but our waiters were warm and lovely and always at our table on time.