Neo Cafe & Eatery — Restaurant in North Island

The food at Neo is consistently delicious despite how busy the cafe can be at times. For 12:30pm on a Sunday, we managed to get a table for two relatively fast, and the staff were very swift to clean tables upon customers departures.

I love the ancient grain granola bowl (GF, can be made vegan) however the portion was quite small, had minimal fruit and granola unlike previous times I have had this dish. It was as if they tried to hide the small portion with the rhubarb compote and yoghurt. Regardless, the bowl was scrumptious, just left me needing more.

The chilli scrambled eggs were nice, but felt as though the tomato relish was overpowering. It needed more chilli seeming it was labelled a chilli dish after all. The sourdough wasn't too difficult to cut which was nice, as sometimes it requires a chainsaw to get through.

Overall, the food and service at Neo is absolutely supreme, but the atmosphere is very unfavourable. It is quite a cramped cafe and mortifyingly loud - I highly doubt the people "reading" were actually reading. I could barely hear myself speak with the banter upon customers in conjunction with the music. This is not Neo's fault, rather customers just need to be a bit more aware of their volume. Bonus is that there...

There were so many other delicious options on the menu that we will definitely be back to put Neo's team through their paces again.

Today we tried Neo's version of Eggs Benedict, which has a house made hash brown/potato cake under the eggs, with bacon and hollandaise. This was substantial, clearly their own creation and proclaimed delicious There was also a good range of sides that could be added, so some black pudding went alongside.

My choice was the carrot and kumara fritters. This turned out to be a carnival of exciting flavours. The fritters themselves were excellent, but the experience was even better with the additional flavour combinations on the plate. I had taken the "add bacon" option and so had the bacon's saltiness to add alongside the tang of whipped goats cheese, the spice of relish, the fresh notes from salad greens with shaved fennel and the richness of the poached egg and sliced avocado. All together a wonderful range of ingredients, with lots of great mouthfuls that varied.

Good coffee and friendly helpful staff made this an all round...

Atmosphere: cafe is very high rated on the internet and social media so I was expecting some good foods. Went on Saturday at 10 am, and the line was crazy long, so we went again on Sunday before 9am. We waited for 5-7 mins for a table to be available. The staff was VERY FRIENDLY and helpful, so no complaints on that at all! A lot of people, so it can be a bit cramped, but nothing too bad.

Foods: We ordered 2 salmon egg bene, flatwhite and chai latte. Drinks we just alright, but the food was disappointing 😕.

Poach eggs were perfect, but grilled salmon was bland, although well cooked. The homemade hashbrown tasted burnt on the outside, so kinda kills the taste. The food together is just mild and unflavourful.

I would suggest for the hashbrown to be less burnt and maybe give the option of smoked salmon or grilled. Personally, a substitute for saltier smoked salmon will bring out the flavour more.

Overall, for the price paid and portion, the taste could be better. Would rate this cafe higher if either the food or coffee was outstanding but both...