Vibes Cafe
An industrial-hub gem where the deconstructed coffee looks cooler than it tastes, and a stellar bene is tragically sabotaged by a boldly onion-forward relish. Great vibes though — literally.
Scores
Saturday! French for eggs benedict for breakfast at Vibes cafe in Wairau valley. Woe was me when the wifey swindled me into walking the tough crater 5km first!
Nestled in the heart of Wairau's industrial hub, I experienced Vibes cafe to be cozy, vibin', and apt for greased up mechanics, vegan toque wearing eco folk, and everyone in between. I ordered a long black, whilst slipping the waitress a note requesting my oat milk iced latte, and the $26 hens eggs benedict, the waitress kindly substituting the brioche base of the benedict for a rosti.
My tough-guy guise was brutally shattered upon the arrival of my chopping board deconstructed coffee, bearing a tall glass of iced cool milk seated adjacent to an espresso shot in a beaker. Unfortunately the taste of the oat milk iced latte didn't quite live up to the coolness, landing in the 5-6 region. If I thought the coffee looked cool though, the bene looked better. Presentation was immaculate from cradle to grave; the bacon looked so good I could literally visualise it splatting on the pan as it crisped and curled into its ultimate delicious form, the eggs were an out-of-the-park home run, the rosti was pretty damned good (could have been a micron crispier - my suspicion is that the potato wasn't dried enough before frying), and the hollandaise was the perfect yolky buttery yellow; all resting upon a tomato relish that slathered the plate.
Amassing a forkful of everything, the bene made its virgin voyage from plate to gullet, only to reinforce my flavourful speculations. UNTIL pauses for suspense, the relish revealed a prominent onion flavour. Onions have layers, ogres have layers, but an eggs benedict isn't an ogre and in my humble yet omniscient opinion, onion aint got no place sharing ceramic real estate with my brunch; pretty big half point deduction right there.
I was impartial to the accompaniment of green leaves, and the plain flavoured prawn crackers looked cool but I wasn't impelled to gobble them all down.
Overall the staff were lovely, the atmosphere was great, the coffee unremarkable, and the bene sullied, but with many redeeming qualities - a 7.7 / 10. Final arbitration reveals a madrosti_ score of 7.8 / 10.