KEY POINTS:
Whether you're after warming comfort or a fast-track hangover cure; somewhere to keep the kids happy or simply the best eggs money can buy, Kitty Prince helps track down Auckland's best breakfasts.
Best eggs:
The much-hyped Baghdad Eggs at Season on Ponsonby Rd really do live up to their reputation. Eggs everywhere else are routinely poached and scrambled, benedicted and boiled; nowhere else are they baked and served with lentils, cumin, tomatoes and coriander and served on thick wedges of toasted bread with lemon butter. An oasis of spice and flavour.
Best winter breakfast:
Try the porridge at Melba in Vulcan Lane. The toppings change - one purist's favourite is rhubarb and cream, but it's worth trying with stewed plums and brown sugar on the side - but whatever you prefer, you'll always get a generous serving of creamy porridge that will keep you going all morning. And this is a relatively reasonable $8.50.
Best yum cha:
Pearl Garden in Teed St, Newmarket has been working its magic on the back streets of Newmarket for more than 30 years. The Yum Cha menu is on offer from 11am until 2.30pm, you can eat outside and the dumplings are (reportedly) the best on offer south of Shanghai. Mind the low tables though and turn up early for Sunday brunch, as this is a popular spot.
Best on a budget:
Obviously there are all sorts of places that you can get a cheap breakfast, but it's rare to find somewhere like Shaky Isles in Kingsland, which offers a real cafe experience with prices still mainly south of $10 a main. The cafe as a whole possibly errs a little bit on the cutely contrived side, with its retro souvenir teaspoons, mismatched cups and hot chocolate served with Whittaker's Sante Bar swizzle sticks - but the food is delicious and (as mentioned) cheap. Try the pikelets with raspberry jam and mascarpone or the spinach and gruyere fritters. Be aware the portions are small.
Best alternative option:
If you have a brunch hankering but can't abide the bog-standard assortment of bacon and eggs, try Restaurant Carinthia & Konditorei in Roberta Ave, Glendowie. Instead of the usual grill, eggs bene or French toast, Carinthia, which opens for breakfast on weekends only, offers something more continental. Its speciality is raditional melt-in-your-mouth Austrian pastries. Try them with a searing black coffee and you're set for the day
Best for kids:
The best place for breakfast if you're taking the sprogs has long been Cafe One to One (previously Atomic) on Ponsonby Rd - famed for its sandpit out the back and (allegedly) being the first place in town to offer kids "fluffies" - steamed frothy milk in an espresso cup. But it's been seriously challenged by Bang Bang, round the corner at Brown St, a cafe designed entirely as a kid-friendly space, offering extra room for pushchairs, a large play area and a menu that includes organic pureed vegetables suitable for babies from four months up. There are also regular weekday morning music, drama classes for kids and a walking group for mums.
Best if you're out of town:
The Lazy Lounge on Waiheke Island deserves a special mention for stencilling faces in chocolate or cinnamon on top of your morning coffee - a big step up from the slapdash Pollock-esque approach taken elsewhere.
Best on the water:
The harbour city is almost spoiled for choice here, with excellent breakfast options available water-side all over town. But the winner by a walrus' whisker is the new Takapuna Beach Cafe and Store right down the end of Takapuna Promenade. This is the fourth outpost of the cafe empire founded by Scott Brown and Jackie Grant, already responsible for the universally exceptional Cafe on Kohi in Kohimarama, Rosehip in Parnell and Richmond Road Cafe in Grey Lynn. But Takapuna is their finest work yet, with its unbeatable combination of location, food and service. The floor-to-ceiling glass brings the outside in, and the central table is crammed with breakfast baking. Pick up a post-breakfast gelato for your walk on the beach.
Best breakfast drink:
Watermelon juice at Richmond Road Cafe. Yes, coffee would be a more usual, and indeed possibly more popular, choice. But the watermelon juice at Richmond Rd is surely what baby watermelons long to grow up to be. It's a splurge ($6 a glass) but the explosion of melon flavour is so pure and so delicious you'll be hard pressed to stop at just one.
Best big breakfast:
Triniti of Silver, in Mt Albert, hasn't re-invented the wheel with its big breakfast of bacon, sausages, hash browns, eggs (poached, scrambled, or grilled), onion marmalade and tomato relish, plus your choice of black pudding, mushrooms or tomatoes, all served on lightly toasted sun-dried tomato bread. What sets this place apart is its visible and comprehensive commitment to ethical eating. As the menu tells you, paddock-reared bacon and free-range eggs are standard, and sausages are organic. And unsurprisingly in such a hippie-ish haven, the vegetarian Works breakfast (with mushrooms, homemade baked beans and tomatoes) is no afterthought - it's as good, if not better, as the more carnivorous offering. Our favourite feel-good touch? On public holidays, while Triniti (along with a majority of other cafes) charges a surcharge, a sign on the counter tells punters that any money left after covering the increased staffing will be donated to charity. Awwww.
THE DISH
Honourable mentions
* Chorizo and caramelised onion open sandwich, Ultra, Onehunga. Technically it's on the lunch menu, but who cares about the details when things are this tasty?
* Mushrooms on foccacia, Fusion, Jervois Rd. Also for the Richie McCaw sighting - the morning after a hammering of the English at Eden Park.
* Vegetarian toasted sandwich, The Huia Store, Huia. Mighty fine sandwich, mighty fine price and eaten on the sand with the ducks around your feet to clean up the crumbs.
* Pain perdu with cinnamon, grilled seasonal fruit and marscapone, Savour & Devour, Grey Lynn.
* Poached eggs with bread (three choices) and a dollop of pesto, for a mere $6.50, Okra, Sandringham Rd.
* Chorizo hash, Kenzie, Manukau Rd, Epsom. You'll need a huge appetite to finish but it's worth pressing on.
