The Kirk Cafe — Restaurant in Hamilton

Interacial Breakfast! Egg Benedict with Miso cured Salmon.

When I saw one of the items in the menu where a popular Western Breakfast (Egg Benedict) intertwined with Asian styled cuisine (the miso salmon), I just had to try it. It seems to be an inextricable attempt to fuse the two extreme differences in taste and temperature, yet, for a food lover, I'm intrigued.

Before today, I had never heard of this cafe, but it was the nearest to the destination where I drove my wife to her appointment.

Looking through all the reviews, I really appreciate the owner of the café replying to all their reviews, whether good or bad. This shows that they have their customers' interests in mind.

In our short visit to this place, we like the ambience, and my wife loves the plants on the wall. The background music is pleasant and sets the right mood for a nice breakfast moment with my wife. The owner and the staff made us feel welcome with their smile and attention. The display item looks interesting, but when they handed us the menu, it was a really game changer. There isn't too much to choose from. In fact, it is what a café ought to be. As I browse through carefully, one item captured my attention - the Egg Benedict and Miso Cured Salmon.

After a long wait, which is so necessary, as good food deserves to be waited, my order came. It was really a wonderful work of intricate art. There are so many items in one dish to satisfy my gastronomical cravings. Besides the Smoke Feta whip, which is not a part of the item stated on the menu and too salty, the rest is great. Initially, I thought it would be difficult to have warm and cold food on the same plate, but I was proven wrong. It was a good combination.

I also ordered a cup of expresso and a few coffee beans to have simple coffee quality testing, and the coffee bean is robust, well roasted, and fresh.

As this café is more when an hour away, I'm not sure would I return. But, if I'm in this area, this place would be a top choice...

We visited the Kirk Cafe earlier this week, and were a bit shocked how unaccommodating the cafe is if you have babies or toddlers.

1. prams need to stay outside, even on weekdays when there are hardly any customers inside. I can understand this rule for busy weekend times, but not when it's so quiet (I've been to much more cramped cafes and never had this issue). Even though I'm 37 weeks pregnant, I ended up carrying my 18 month old crying son and our bags into the cafe.

2. Once inside, we were told there was no highchair for us to use. Apparently it got broken and not replaced again.

3. We asked whether we could sit outside in the grass (easier to manage toddler in the garden than inside). It was a beautiful sunny and dry day, and hadn't been raining the last couple of days. We were told it's not possible as it is too muddy. The lawn looked perfectly fine and there were even 2 tables already outside. We only asked to put a couple of chairs on the lawn.

4. the inside area didn't have many options for managing small kids either, (no highchair or play area), and I didn't want to spend the whole time running after him.

I voiced my disappointment to staff member and asked what families with babies/toddler were supposed to do, but was only given a "sorry we can't" answer.

If I may propose some solutions to the cafe: especially when the customer is a heavily pregnant woman with a small child, I feel you could have been a bit more accommodating and made an exception to the no prams & no sitting outside rules have at least 2 highchairs available, so that if one should break or be used, there is at least another one

We ended up ordering takeaway coffees and left feeling really disappointed at the lack of sensibility to our situation and no willingness to provide solutions.

The reason for my stars is that the coffees were good and the food...

They were busy and we understood that there would be a wait, but after an hour wait for breakfast we didn’t expect this for $30. The hash was overly greasy because it had been deep fried and far too salty with very heavy spices as well - this wasn’t edible. Three stars because their spinach & feta muffin was actually quite nice, and the other cabinet sandwich we ordered was also ok, but this was definitely not worth the hour-long wait. I did tell the staff how terrible it was and that it wasn’t edible and I was offered free drinks but I didn’t want free drinks, I just wanted my family to have a nice breakfast before heading back to Auckland. From my experience today, the high rating of Kirk’s is undeserved, and we ended up going to Grey St Kitchen and the hungry one of us had a much better, faster meal even though there was more than double the customers there. I never write reviews but felt so misguided from all the amazing reviews that I feel the need to share my experience. However, the staff were polite and their display cabinet and bathroom was clean, and the cabinet food was ok so 3 stars is above fair for an underwhelming experience. Although we do understand that small eateries can be jammed up with the holiday rush, I think there are many better options just 3-4 minutes away from Kirk’s and the sub-standard food we were served was definitely not worth an hour wait. To top off the frustration, the two ladies who arrived and ordered after us were served first so it was not a great...