Little Goodies Cafe (Sunnynook, North Shore City, New Zealand)

We haven’t been to a cafe for quite some time now and after a 113-day drought here we are at Little Goodies Cafe at Sunnynook. The reason for us not going to cafes recently is because of the harsh weather it has been raining a lot from October up until December and we were not brave enough to go through the weather condition to dine in on a cafe. Our last visit here was mid of December, and it was a fine day, came here for brunch after the Sunday mass, it was not busy so there were a lot of seats available when we dined in.

Upon entering you will be greeted with a lush greenery, real plants everywhere apart from the garden wall, which is made with artificial ones, definitely the owners of this place love plants and have a green thumb. We got seated just beside the garden wall then the menu was distributed. They only have 11 options and as you all know, I love a menu like this, simple and stress free. There are also some sides, kids options as well as a variety of drinks.

With simple menus like this it’s easy to order so we ordered what we fancy and had some drinks. We started with Matcha Green Tea Blended Frappe with Whipped Cream (NZ$7.50), Long Black (NZ$4.50) and a Belgian Hot Chocolate (NZ$5.50) as we wait for our order.

Kitchen was quick and in around 15 minutes our food had arrived starting from the Hong Kong Boy (NZ$24.00), a dish of Fried Prawn in garlic, ginger, kaffir lime leaves, crispy panko crumb, grilled brioche bread, sauteed spinach, poached eggs and a beetroot hollandaise. This was highly recommended by the owner (I guess) who served us and indeed it was good, in fact really good. The crumbs were phenomenal, that alone was enough, it was very tasty, and the texture was amazing. Other elements like prawns were good as well, it was so crisp you can eat the shell and head. There is a bread somewhere in the photo, which was great as well. While this dish was almost perfect there are two trivial things, I did not like about it, first the presentation, it was like a mound of crumbs when it arrived, definitely plating needs work, then they also used large spinach leaves for this one. Usually that type of leaf is used for cooking and not for salad style, baby Spinach would be preferable.

Next item was the Big Goodies (NZ$24.00), a typical big breakfast that is advertised to contain slab bacon, tomato, mushroom, baby carrots, hash brown, sausages, halloumi, poached eggs, ciabatta, and a fruit salad. It sounds many but I think it’s just alright, nothing hard to prepare on this one as they are all ready to cook breakfast items, anyways all elements are cooked well but there are few items that is not on par with the menu, first it mentions slab bacon on the menu but instead of a thick bacon a steaky bacon was served. It also mentions baby carrots but there was none, I am unsure though if that is the puree on the lip of the plate, finally it says sausages, but I got served with a sausage.

Finally, we also had the Little Chicken Burger (NZ$23.00), a Crispy Fried Spiced Chicken Thigh, iceberg lettuce, onion, tomato, pickle, confit garlic aioli and chips. I love how tall the burger is, well presented compared to the two. At first bite it tasted like Kai Fried Chicken, it has that exact same Chinese spice they use, chicken was cooked well, nicely crisp, and well-seasoned but I my personal opinion it did not match the garlic aioli sauce, it just does not work together. Chips served was sweet potatoes and it was abundant.

Overall food was great, all elements in the Big Goodies was well cooked, Hong Kong Boy was really amazing and if it’s not for the aioli sauce it would have been great as well. Serving size was huge and price was OK. Staff were friendly and attentive to customer’s needs; place was clean and vibrant. In short it is a really nice spot in Sunnynook, definitely recommended just ask them to separate the sauce when ordering the Chicken Burger.

Little Goodies Cafe
Address: 146 Sunnynook Road, Sunnynook, Auckland 0620, New Zealand
Phone: +649 410 4561
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LittleGoodiesCafe/