Dip into Sugar Bowl

Cafe review: Sugar Bowl

I’ve always had a sweet spot for the Sugar Bowl. The staff are friendly, especially that cute barista dude, the food never fails to look like a friggin’ calendar shot when it arrives in front of you, and its location in Maeroa Rd makes it one of those places you’d like to take your mum out for brunch.

But this is a cafe review, not a PR piece, so here we go:

The Lone Ranger ( TLR- my boyfriend- he looks a bit like Chuck Norris except way better) orders the Vegetarian Fry up ($20), which arrives piled high with creamy mushies, sourdough toast, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, spinach, and pesto-topped roast tomatoes.

I have a Salmon, pesto and spinach omelette ($16.50)- but wait! TLR has ordered the wrong one! I am thus presented with a pesto, spinach and roast tomato omelette, which makes me very sad indeed. Luckily, cute barista dude sprints out with a slab of home-baked salmon, on the house. I swipe a fork-full of TLR’s mushrooms as cold redemption. They’re really, really good.

Now the coffee…I don’t like Weka beans very much. I know this is upsetting, and I should really be encouraging anyone who roasts coffee with passion in Hamilton- a relative wasteland when it comes to quality local beans (Raglan Roast being in a class of its own stellar self). I don’t know what it is- too dark, perhaps? But I’m not going to lie, I don’t know much about coffee roasting, and I’m not about to pretend that I do. I just find that Weka comes out a little acrid. Not unbearable- but a six out of ten on average.

Barista dude manages a perfectly drinkable long black ($3), however, despite this (minor) handicap. The crema is smooth, there isn’t too much water, and he hasn’t over-extracted it. Even TLR, self-professed coffee hater, has a sip and doesn’t make that squinchy “I just sucked a rotten lemon” face.

When asked what his favourite part of the meal was, TLR replies, with classic Kiwi eloquence: “The potatoes and the mushrooms, because they tasted good.” Fair enough. My omelette, for the record, was lovely and fresh, without the kg of cheese you often get in cafe versions of the dish. It came with a colourful salad (corn, mesclun, red onion and so on) on top, which made it pretty as a painted pony.

Parking is a cinch, the location is quiet and relatively peaceful, and there’s a feijoa tree overhanging the parking lot where, if you dare, you might swipe a few when no one’s looking (though you didn’t hear it from me).

3½ stars

See Mackenzie’s original blogpost here.