LauraNotts

Hmm not sure about that. But when I make pancakes using eggs flour and milk they aren't the same as when a skilled cook makes them with eggs flour and milk. Funny that - maybe I'm using UK stuff? Or it's because I'm English? Thoughts?

jmh

I think the flour is different here, but eggs and milk seem the same. I always buy free range eggs and non-homogenised full fat milk, so that may make a difference. One of the tricks chefs used to to stick with traditional butter rather than the newer processed oils.

whitesand

Well said. The price and standard of café food here is terrible. I hate muffins and never ate the damn things until I came here but order these because they are the cheapest thing on the menu. Last week I paid $4 for tea which consisted of the cheapest lemon and ginger teabag you could find. You can get decent ones in the shops for $4 for twenty!

scrubbedexpat094

I make my own pancakes and they are equally as good if not better than the ones I can buy in a cafe. I prefer to use Homepride flour when possible because it is much finer than any of the other NZ flours I have tried. I get a much better rise on cakes if I use Homepride too.

That's with my home economist hat on. Pancakes are the easiest thing in the world to make. Just don't tell a Blue Peter presenter that !

Orange pony

Home brand is just as good ! Use self raising tho and no baking powder , whole milk free range eggs raw sugar and then real butter in a cast iron skillet , cheap as chips and make thick fluffy scotch pancakes or pike lets as they call em here . Served with crispy bacon bananas and maple syrup ! That's it I'm salivating and off to the kitchen � ����

LauraNotts

I actually have made some passable efforts at the thick pancakes since encountering them here I'm getting better with each try.

But I do enjoy treating myself to some made by someone else early in the morning looking out over the Avon after a week of night shifts and watching the rest of the city wake up. I know I am paying way over what it would cost myself to make them but it's a treat and I enjoy it

scrubbedexpat094

Can't blame you for that Laura. Always good to have someone else prepare the food, place it in front of you and do the dishes when you've finished. More than happy to pay for that every now and then. Went mad on the American style pancakes for the first couple of years we were here but I'm a crepe lover at heart.

Tend not to buy breakfast out as I'm usually disappointed with it. Crap sausages, streaky bacon....yuck! I want to eat meat not fat. Rubbery mushrooms, baked beans over-loaded with sugar. Just awful. The worst breakfast experience I had was in a cafe in Manly a few years back and the chef had squirted a pattern of mayonnaise over the plate before putting the breakfast on top!!!!!! I loathe mayo with a passion, so the whole breakfast was ruined for me.

LauraNotts

I am selective. I basically only buy pancakes - just call it OCD Obsessive Culinary Disorder.

*makes obligatory 'load of crepe' jokes*

And yeah I would be hugely disappointed with what you describe. Yuck...mayo and a cooked breakfast? Honestly, sometimes you feel like you're living on the other side of the planet.

Bo-Jangles

My point exactly, used to be a regular Sunday treat for us to go out for Breakfast in the UK but way too expensive here and whenever we have done we usually end up being disappointed at being $40 or more poorer for the experience of some plasticised shoulder 'bacon' swimming in garnish of tomato relish, or lettuce, grated carrot or a slice of orange.

Orange pony

Whilst I understand missing certain parts of our English life . I do think it sad that on moving to a South Pacific island on the otherside of the world that we would expect to find a propr full English breakfast !!? It makes me laugh when my in laws come over and say goodness look at the price of Branston pickle !! It's New Zealand ! Not England in a different location . I think it's fine to moan about the general price of food / quality etc but not to say it doesn't match up to the way we think it should be in quality

jmh

That's not been my experience. The cheap cafe style outlets are as bad as you say, but I have paid $17 for a full cooked breakfast which was delicious. I felt it was a bit too much low fat, which the trendy ones try to do, but otherwise very tasty. I can recommend the breakfast at the Waipu Cove cafe (I have not connection with the business)

whitesand

The last time I was in Cyprus we had great British breakfasts of good quality bacon, tasty eggs, beans and tomatoes. Plus lovely local bread, all for the price of one pound fifty pence! If they can do it over there, can't see why they can't do this here.

I think it's lack of experience elsewhere in the world which makes the cooking vey repetitive and boring here. My heart just sinks then I go into the supermarkets and see the bakery counters. Horrid, horrid, horrid!

And, never, ever changes. Same old, same old.

Bo-Jangles

I don't think anyone is talking about missing parts of English life, only the relative cost and unfathomable reason why it should be so much more expensive for many things; the breakfast is only one example I chose, there are plenty of others.

I would say the 'English' breakfast fry up / bacon & eggs etc is almost as important feature in the Kiwi way of life, or why else would it feature on the menu of every café in the country.

We're not exactly on a remote tropical island when it comes to cafes there are thousands of them and their menus are largely made up of breakfast items; eggs, fried, poached or scrambled. Usually $14 and upwards regardless of when, where and how - the prices are the same in almost every café regardless of quality or location.

If we were looking at the higher end of the spectrum with free range eggs, good quality sausages and bacon then fair enough it could be justified - but we're really not.

scrubbedexpat094

Quite

BEVS

What ! You have got to be kiddin' me or it is as you say, you chose not to use cafes or chose the wrong ones somehow. Not that it matters which overseas cafes you did frequent at all but you were missing out . We've been in plenty of good cafes over many decades. All churning out a whole lot of decent grub. The point being here ,I suppose, is the price you pay for said nosh.

Cooked breakfast at our local cafe in the village will set us back a good $45.

Cooked breakfast at a cafe right on the beach where we came from in the UK will currently cost us $25.

Cooked breakfast at a good cafe that we really like in Takaka. $40.

Coked breakfast at a great little cafe right on a beach out on a fab bit of headland not far from where we lived. $16 for both of us. Special place.

... and what is all this about NZ not being into full cooked breakfasts. That is a bit like saying they are not into BBQs and those blimmin' muffins.

I will also add that there are difference in the flour on the shelves here. Someone explained why that is so once. A search may chuck that one up.