Poppies Cafe — Restaurant in South Island

Man I hate giving bad reviews, but after giving it two days thought I feel like I have to. We 'popped' into Poppies for what was meant to be brunch but turned into lunch. Granted it was the day after the Twizel Wine and Salmon Festival so it was busier than usual - but this wouldn't have been a surprise with the festival planned a year in advance. Our order for our table was lost and after an hour and half my friend finally received her flat white...A table of eight that arrived well after us was served all of their meals a good 15mins before we received ours....The food, when it arrived around the same time was bland, unsubstantial and sadly cold. The avocado in my avocado smash was puree out of a pouch - yuck, the poached eggs, although cold were however very well cooked. The burgers were small, with the only redeeming features being the Watties burger sauce and well cooked chips. The pancakes were extremely doughy and undercooked - although burnt on one side, with minimal toppings. To add insult to injury for our visit - for what we received, it was freakin expensive! I don't mind paying a bit more for good food so long as it's good food! This was not the case here. We even stopped in Omarama 20mins down the road for an extra snack to get us through the remainder of our trip home. We were all pretty gutted after receiving such great food and service from other hospitality outlets in Twizel. Super disappointed. I am really only giving a two star over a one star rating because our waitress finally apologised. These experiences do happen on the odd occasion - something more than a meager apology...

Very underwhelming for the price and we were surprised by the high praise on here and TripAdvisor. The Goats Cheese Souflee entree fell flat with really no creamyness and was quite bland: it set the tone for the rest of the meal. The handmade tagliatelle was close to double the usual thickness at 5-6mm (can be seen from ours and others photos), similar to hokkien noodles, and the sauce was bland. The accompanying salad was undressed and seemed like it was out of a packet. The only saving grace was the chorizo (an extra $5). The lamb rack was well cooked but had the flavour of an average home kitchen, coated in a thick wholegrain mustard that somehow had little flavour. The rosemary in the rosti was very sharp and beetroot too sour. The best thing on the menu was the side of vegetables which were surprisingly amazing, I'd devour a whole plate of them anytime. With one glass of rose the total was $100, which is outrageously overpriced for the quality. I think this place suffers from being a big fish in a little pond, anywhere else this place would be a 3.5. Overall, well presented bland food. Sadly...

After looking at their menu on their website and the "world famous" slogan we were really excited to try Poppies! Unfortunately on arrival we were presented with a completely different menu. We eventually found alternative dishes that tickled our fancy. When they arrived the egg whites were still uncooked, the apple and walnut pancakes had no apple or walnuts that we could see or taste and the batter was not cooked through. When we informed the waitress she apologised profusely and went to the kitchen to fix it. Unfortunately the chef had no pancake batter left and could only do waffles. After already having to chose a different dish than we originally wanted we declined. At this stage we had been in the Cafe for half an hour ish. The coffee was a bit of a miss too, missing the silky top.

A real shame as it is a nice looking cafe and the menu on paper looked delicious. Our daughter enjoyed the kids waffle (was supposed to be pancakes) and bacon.

Waitress was again really apologetic when I went up to pay.

Would pay to update your website as the menus are quite...