A'ruma Café is a Malaysian themed cafe tucked away in the suburbs of Albany. By chance, we were hankering for a taste of home and found this cafe open on a quiet Saturday morning on the North Shore side of Auckland. It has a very cushy layout - hipster-ish as per a lot of cafés popping up lately. One wall is covered in chalkboard paint and doodles of the Malaysian countryside with tiny kampong houses and palm trees adorn it. Staff are friendly and service is prompt. In regards to the food, for any Malaysians wanting to be transported back to a blisteringly hot kopitiam in Malaysia with a ceiling fan working feverishly to abate some of the heat...you may be sorely disappointed. The triangular pastry in the photos depict curry puff or karipap (in Bahasa Malaysia.) Usually served piping hot from the deep fryer with a spicy potato and chicken (sometimes beef) curry on the inside, this curry puff is not that of home. Nice, it was, but authentic? Not exactly. It uses puff pastry which is lovely in itself but curry puff when deep fried has a hard shell rivalling that of fried chicken. The curry was nice but nothing to write home about. The missus had a bowl of laksa which tended to favour the coconut milk rather than the spice, giving it a slightly Thai green curry taste rather than that of true blue laksa. I ordered a big breakfast - as depicted, the eggs were nicely done and the meal was enough to satisfy me. Definitely not the best big breakfasts but then again, I was at a Malaysian styled café. If I wanted an authentic big breakfast, there are plenty of other places to go to. The milky drink filled to the brim is teh tarik - supposedly, "pulled tea." This is strong tea with condensed and evaporated milk, poured from one mug to another mug where the splashing of tea into the mug forms the ubiquitous bubbles on the top of tea. A amateurish attempt at steamed milk, perhaps, but it is delicious. This one...unfortunately falls short. Instead of strong tea with condensed and evaporated milk "pulled" to perfection, I got a tea made with steamed milk - good if you have a espresso machine with a steam wand but teh tarik, it is not. That said, teh tarik itself is not hard to make and the ingredients for it are readily available. I left feeling slightly cheated, even though I know I should not. The food was decent, the staff were friendly, service was fast, but with some Malaysian styled cafés and restaurants capturing the authenticity of the experience, this one sadly failed to do the job well enough for me.

The set menu is great value. $20 for a 3 course meal, bonus!