You might turn Lebanese for it. From the faux chandeliers to the faux marble pillars, the Shefco…read moreBaklawa cafe makes you feel as though you've entered the Middle East from the moment you set foot inside. Ali Wonka entices you to the cabinets filled with giant round baking pans of crispy, soft, kataifi-rolled and cheesy scented delights. Most are filled with crunchy or ground pistachios and some with walnuts or dates. Rosewater and honey add perfume to the delicate flavours and textures of the sweet Lebanese pastries. Look,don't touch and respect the counter scales that will determine your bill or you will turn into a dessert barrel and need to be rolled out of there. There is some interesting signage inside (see photo) and the coffee's average, but it makes for interesting conversation and you might prefer a tea anyway. This place is fun!

This place has the BIGGEST selection of baklava I've ever seen, all made on the premises. At any…read moretime there's more than a dozen to choose from and they don't mind handing out a tasting or two. Choose a selection to eat in or fill a takeaway container (you pay by weight, $1 each on average). Syrup-laden and flavoured with dates, pistachios, walnuts, rosewater, even a couple of savoury cheese-filled options today. Sticky, gooey goodness making it's way home!

Gemmayze was one of my fav places to eat in Auckland (in spite of the low Yelp reviews, which seem…read moreService focused and an area I fortunately had no issues with). We had a rez and were able to get seated ~5 min after arriving on time. Place was packed at 8:30pm on a Friday. Cocktails are delicious - really flavorful . Easy to order multiple. Orange Blossom Martini was good and easy; Jiddi Sour was unique delicious For food, Hummus and pide a great start. Bread is fresh, warm, and tasty. Lamb was delicious and filling. Carrots an excellent side - roasted well and the fennugreek sauce was on point. Chill vibe in what feels like an open atrium mall

Wish I saw all the reviews about how the rude host staff is before I went. They asked us to wait 30…read moreminutes, which was no problem. I ask if we can leave our name on a waitlist somewhere and they say they don't do waitlists, so we have to just wait there on the side. Weird but again, no problem. 45 minutes pass by so I politely ask if there's an update to the table. The hostess literally yells "I told you guys the status of the table multiple times." And storms away. I'm from the States so I'm not sure if I was breaking some cultural rules, or something, but I was really polite when asking, and I only asked one time. I was never told the status "multiple times" and I don't know who "you guys" is. This place needs a reality check, the food was awful and service was miserable. I don't recommend this establishment to anybody.

I tried Petra and although it wasn't the kind of shawarma that I was looking for (in a pocket-type…read morebun) I decided to support them as the place was empty. The lamb shawarma I ordered was tasty but far too expensive for the ingredients. $27 for a small lunch is too much.

If you are after your typical 2am kebab - you know, the kind that is drenched in sauce and stuffed…read morefull of dry doner meat - this is not your jam. Instead, come here expecting fresh, made to order and packed full of flavour authentic Middle Eastern dishes. I am still making my way through the menu but my favourite dish to date is definitely the Lamb Shawarma - a delicious flatbread wrap stuffed full of grilled meat, herbs, pickles, tahini and a delicious garlic sauce. Incredibly satisfying but still somewhat healthy or at the very least, nourishing. Also worth a try are the Kooba - bulghar wheat dumplings stuffed with spiced lamb. I think they could do with a little more seasoning but nevertheless, they're pretty damn tasty. Although Petra's decor suggest it's more of a takeaway joint than eat-in restaurant, for a mid-week dinner I think it's legit. You will have to dine off paper plates but they have some preeetty sweet sequined chandeliers and if your lucky you may even be treated to some never-heard-before K.Perry remixes.

Amazing food, authentic Middle Eastern selections and a great ambiance in the middle of town…read more Plenty of choice and the service was prompt. A little pricey but probably worth it.

Israeli and Middle Eastern food in a trendy CBD location with intriguing decor. I was drawn in by…read morethe "Real Falafel Dish," which was clearly marked "Vegan" on the menu outside, so I dragged my meat-and-potatoes parents in here for lunch. The Vegan Real Falafel Dish was nice, with lots of salads (diced cucumbers, tomatoes, and greens) stuffed into pita bread with a generous amount of falafels. It came with homemade hummus and this interesting green dip that is apparently from Yemen and was super-spicy! (Mr. Google tells me this dip is called "zhug" and is made out of cilantro, parsley, and hot peppers.) The falafel balls had a nice flavour, but they tasted a little too greasy and oily for my liking. Falafels are a tricky thing and everyone has their own preference -- to me, these were just a little too deep-fried and crunchy (I prefer softer, less oily falafels). But they were still nice. My dad had the "Brick Lane Salt Beef Sandwich" (pastrami, kosher pickles and mustard) and complained that the meat was still way too salty for his liking, in spite of the name. I don't think any of us have ever had Israeli food before, so maybe that explains it? The atmosphere of the place was cool, with interesting art and tapestries on the walls, and curtains dividing up the space. The service wasn't great. We arrived at the beginning of the lunch hour (11:45am) and several other tables were approached and served before us even though we had arrived first. They were also very slow to bring us the bill. The table itself was rickety and kept swinging every time we moved. Almost made me knock over my water glass -- should really be fixed. All in all, I won't hurry back although my dish was interesting and not bad for a unique dining experience.

Four of came in for a dinner on a Thursday night…read more I ordered the Moroccan Lamb, a slow roasted lamb shank, carrot, chickpeas, sultanas, couscous, yoghurt, mint gremolata. My spouse ordered the Citron Chicken Tagine, a Ras el hanout, preserved lemon, carrot, chickpeas, apricot, couscous, yoghurt, almonds. Both meals were very yummy. The servers were attentive and polite but the ambience was still to "mall" like for me,even though we were in a mall.

Wanting to continue enjoying the company after a movie, we headed here for some drinks, which…read moremainly consisted of chocolate oriented items. I ordered the calamari because I felt that's a pretty safe item and it can be compared across restaurants. It arrived and I was slightly surprised as it was spiced and lightly sauced, not tempura-ed or breaded or fried. Once I got over that, the taste was good; granted that this was most likely a sharable dish, I'd recommend getting something else to pair with it because eating the entire thing by yourself is not the way to go. Especially when everyone else is enjoying baby churros with shot glasses of melted chocolate. Also, make sure to make your order well known. A lady at our table ordered the same drink three times and hadn't received it until we were about to go. The manager came over and served her personally, explaining that they had some new staff and apologized for the confusion. By this point, she was already over not receiving the drink, but once she sipped it, she was wishing she had received it a lot earlier.

This place is conveniently located on Bryce Street, next to the Centre Place shopping mall. It…read moreserves a variety of Turkish and Mediterranean dishes and has a great little atmosphere (moreso in the evening). There are lovely stained glass lamp fixtures to give a little character to the otherwise fairly modern and clean black furniture. Now, I used to rank this as my second favorite Turkish place in town, but in recent visits, I think it may have traded places with my past favorite and top my list. My slight reservation in saying that is that I haven't had amazing food EVERY time (once got a Turkish ravioli that was so sub-par I left half of it) but the staples of this menu have been great each time (for example, the chicken shish). There is both indoor and outdoor seating, though honestly, I haven't eaten outdoors here. One thing to remember: keep your receipt if you parked in the Centre Place garage. You can get your parking ticket validated inside Centre Place for discounted parking if you spend more than $10.

Everything in the Mixed is delicious, awesome presentation. Great lunch. Humus and tzatziki tasty.read more

Sandwiches, filled rolls, buns and the like are one of my favourite things. Yes ok ok I do like…read morefood in general (ain't no hiding that fact now), but a good basic lunch can be a very rare beast, or non-beast as is my usual dilemma. As someone who doesn't really eat meat, there's nothing more irritating than running in somewhere to grab a bite when you're starving and being faced with sad little plastic cupboards with sad little plastic wedges of what can only loosely be referred to as sandwiches. White bread, processed meat, not much else. Got vegetarian you ask. Yes, stale white bread cheese and onion. Well I like keeping it real, especially when it comes to food, fuck you very much. Deep breath. The Bread Winner Bakery would never stock anything like the above and I would never need to swear at the lovely people who run it. The vege quiches are super yummy without the sickly over-egginess that most lunchbar quiches have. We often grab pies and savouries for a weekend treat but my very best favourite to go with my Nippy's Iced Coffee (the iced coffee again) is a filled Tuna Bun. They will even usually make you one if they have run out, which they do because the Tuna always seems to go first. Another thing that is really cool about this place is that you can buy a ready-made cake and pretend you baked it yourself. Not that I would ever do such a thing.... Chocolate Log or Banana Cake are $10 and you can even get a Cream Cheese Iced Red Velvet for $22. There are all the usual gorgeous gooey slices and treats as well as some I haven't seen anywhere else, and for my money this is the best of the basic lunchbars. So much so I will even make a special trip to come here rather than waste my time trying other places. Love your work.

Came here the other day whilst shopping in Mt Eden, but were a little disappointed by the quality…read more I got what was labelled as a "pork pastie" - I've been missing Australian pasties like anything since I got to NZ, and I was excited that I finally found somewhere that had them. Unfortunately, it wasn't very nice - not very hot, and it didn't taste very nice. Not at all like I was expecting. They did have a nice looking cake and pastry section, however, and the woman who served us was quite friendly. No coffee, though, so if you're looking for a nice flat white with your pie, you'll have to go elsewhere.

Pies: excellent. Slices: excellent. Quiches: sub-par, I'm afraid. Something in the texture just…read moredidn't sit right with me. Those are all the things I've tried from here, but we can extrapolate from this data and assume that most of the food here is pretty good. Oh, also I've had the bread, and it was good. So yeah, not a bad average, I think. This place does a good trade over the weekend and after school (try and avoid this period as the tiny place fills up with hulking, shouty teenagers all clamouring for pies), but if you go mid-morning or around lunchtime it's usually not too busy. The staff are friendly, the food is good, it's worth going if you like bakery food. Highlight: steak curry pie. Lowlight: still the quiche, I'm afraid.

OK now I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is one of the best mom & pop bakeries…read morethis side of Auckland. The Boston Bakery (for which I have no idea why it is named after a city in the States!), is quite unassuming and from the outside isn't very distinguishable from any other old school bakery. Except that first of all the family that run it are the loveliest people and if you're lucky their little super adorable daughter will run the EFTPOS machine for your purchase. They also cherish their regulars; for example my partner used to be a regular and then moved overseas for 3 years and they still remembered her after all that time! And then there's the pies, oh sweet sweet delicious heaven-sent morsels of delight! They have the standard fare which drive a hard bargain at $3.60, but then they also have 'fancy' pies for $4.20 which include rockstar gems like Steak, Mushroom, Bacon and Cheese, or Chicken, Camembert and Cranberry, or Steak and Kumara, or Butter Chicken and Broccoli. My personal favs are the first 2 aforementioned pies and I really have to discipline myself as I have to walk past the Boston Bakery twice a day, 5 days a week. If you are in Mt Albert and need to fill the gap, swoop up one of these hand-made with love treats.

Amazing bakery! The BEST pies and desserts in Auckland!…read more It was my last day in NZ and I am so glad I found this place. I got to try a potato top for the first time and it's a mouthful of mashed potatoes and meat and pastry and I will miss it so much.

I recently popped into Paris Mt Eden Bakery because I needed a couple of baguettes for dinner. I…read morechose the bigger of the two versions on offer, at $3.50 each they were soft and doughy inside and just enough crunch on the outside for satisfy family at dinnertime. Bringing a slice of France into the village, this little bakery had a nice range of patisseries on show as well as bakery filled rolls and pies. Coffee to your order. If you are not rushing in like me with a quick purchase, there are tables with some seating outside.