Food Hub - Papatoetoe with $6 meals...

Picture credits: Food Hub - Papatoetoe (Facebook page)

Yesterday, I got invited to have lunch with a friend at the new Food Hub at Papatoetoe which is just opposite the new New World store in old Papatoetoe and was delightfully surprised by this neat space and place to dine for our communities.

So if you haven't been in the area for a while, it used to be the old Papatoetoe bowling club that I used to drive past, back in the day, when I used to be a member of the Allen Brewster Papatoetoe Gym.

It's now been refurbished with a place for dining as well as an outdoor space and if you've been around long enough, you might even  recognise the White Lady, a long food caravan that I remember being around when I was at Uni and if you needed a bite to eat in the city and it was late at night when all the food places had closed (before it became 24/7).

There's also a community networking component with food education programmes for community groups, schools etc with the concept of 'food to table' of having community gardens etc. and the food is just simply divine and for $6 a meal - it's probably the best bargain out there. It's presently open only on Wednesday and Thursdays from 10 am to 2 pm and they're soon to be trialing being open on Fridays as well.

So yesterday I had a vegetarian curry (and I didn't even realize that it was vegetarian) with beautifully aromatic spiced rice and a lovely yogurt sauce and then today I took my beloved to have a taste in having lived in Indian for a few years and he absolutely loved it and gave his excellence rating and even had a second serving as it tasted genuine, with a lot of love for all those curry lovers out there.

I decided to have the pumpkin soup with a soup and it was hearty with lots of veggies and a swirl of possibly cream? and with a hotly buttered scone was absolutely filling. We topped it up with a Berry Nana smoothie $3 (small) or $5 (large) and they were healthy servings and took home their $1 afghans that were crunchie and lovingly homecooked.

I have no hesitation in recommending this to our community for a neat day out of the office as there's space for office team meetings/hui or just to take some family and friends for lunch out that is at a reasonable cost that supports our community initiatives with some time out.

The Food Hub has been open since late last year for a trial period of some 18 months hopefully it continues to grow giving further support to local social enterprise and other community initiatives that support our whanau and NGOs (non-government organizations) as well as those working for our communities in government initiatives and education.

Give it a go, you'll definitely be back for more...