The Fat Dog Cafe is a funky, family friendly cafe centrally located in downtown Rotorua.  It’s brightly decorated and there is both indoor and outdoor seating.  We choose the outdoor street seating.  They also have a courtyard with seating available.  The restaurant is very informal.  You order at the counter and then they bring your meal to your seat.  There are vegetarian options available.

They were offering a few different specials when we were there which we both chose since they were substantially cheaper than the regular fare.  Ian chose the Spicy Barbeque Chicken, $15NZD.  He found it really dry which was impressive in a way since it was swimming in sauce.  He really didn’t like it and only made it through half his meal.  It was served with a good mango salad which he enjoyed. 

Wendy had the Risotto Cakes with mango chutney, which was the vegetarian special, also $15NZD.  The cakes were an interesting blend of rice, cheese, spinach, pumpkin, and pumpkin seeds and were really good.  The salad it was served with was fresh and crispy but unfortunately the dressing was completely tasteless – and there was a LOT of it!  Wendy rounded out her meal with a double mocha, $5.50NZD.  It was good, although the foam was a bit lacking.

Regular dinners seemed to run around the $30NZD mark.