Altura

About time that I wrote a story about the visit to Altura in Auckland. Actually, technically speaking it is in Albany. Altura has been a long-time favorite for coffee and breakfast. They roast their own coffee, so the place usually smells good.

Anyway, we went there with Sharon, Sandra, Jayna, plus Mum & Dad. The Eggs Benedict was always one of my two favorites, the second being Sweetcorn Fritters. In keeping with tradition I went with the Eggs Benedict, thinking ahead to this blog entry.

Altura-style Eggs Benedict is delivered on an English muffin, with a hash brown in the middle, plus smoked salmon and the usual eggs. My memory told me that this was a treat to be looked forward to, however in the end it was a little bit of a let-down.

The hash-brown was a bit too light on the "brown" side. A few more seconds in the deep fryer would have made a world of difference. And the hollandaise sauce was a little thin on the ground. Other than that it was fine, but as I said it did not really live up to the memory.

So, the scores:

• Eggs - 9/10 - nicely runny but the whites were done just right
  
• Bread - 9/10 - nice English muffin
  
• Hollandaise - 7/10 - was fine but it needed some more
  
• Coffee - 8/10 - the coffee was ok
  
• Ambience - 7/10 - on the hot side with not enough ventilation and a bit noisy/echo-y
  
• Total - 40/50

So in summary, it was good but not as good as I recalled.