Licorice Cafe

Rating: 2

We ate lunch here in December 2021.

Creamy mushrooms on toast
Stuffed kumara
Liquorice slice

If a place is named Licorice Cafe, you’d expect a pretty great liquorice slice. As it turns out, the liquorice slice is not the main event here, liquorice is displayed on every wall for sale.

The slice itself was mostly just sugar, with coconut on the side, we couldn’t taste the liquorice at all. They used liquorice all sorts in this slice, and perhaps that was more for a bit of colour, but it would have been cool to have some actual liquorice in something, instead of only having it for sale in buckets.

The mushrooms on toast were pretty good. They were flavourful, the bacon on the side was crisp, and the bread was fresh. Unfortunately the bread was also a bit undertoasted, but that’s hardly a deal breaker for what was otherwise a really good dish.

The kumara looked great, and was a very healthy size. Unfortunately it just didn’t bring it. The contents were just mashed kumara, corn that you couldn’t taste, onion that you also couldn’t taste, and a small amount of some kind of herb that you also couldn’t taste. It was pretty much just a plate of mashed kumara. You know what, that’s a little unfair, there were a few sundried tomatoes on top, not enough, and there was a generous serving of sour cream on the side, it was nice that they weren’t stingy on that front.