Two Fat Chefs, Paraparaumu Beach

 

Rating: 0/10 Complaints 

- Good Food, Funny Waiter, Friendly, Comfortable, Good Size, Delicious, Waffles, Black Pudding

Anyone seen the "not bad, good size"fishing meme? Well this place has nothing to do with fishing apart from being at the beach, but knocks it out of the park each time with food that is both not bad, i.e excellent, and a good size. 

I like to frequent this beachfront restaurant with the very patient Mr Karenson and our good friends (yes Karen has mates), we were attending just about every weekend at one point until the spiralling cost of living limited our visits somewhat.

The first thing that stood out to me was the extensive menu. They offer breakfast, brunch and lunch (are these all essentially the same thing depending on how hungover you are?) and have a range of options for various dietary requirements such as vegetarian and gluten free. You can also swap out items and request adjustments if you're allergic to something or doing keto, which makes for easy and stress free group dining where everyone gets exactly what they wanted. There's a whole range of food catering to everyone from the health fiends to the meat aficionados. 

This cafe consistently gets it right from the start by serving good coffee. The barista is one of the friendliest I've come across in the wild, makes a mean hazelnut flat white and you'll often get a wee sweet with your coffee which is a nice touch. I've never had a bad coffee here and you can sit in the window enjoying the sunshine with your coffee. You can also order a range of smoothies and shakes with or without dairy.

They do an incredible big breakfast which comes with not only the usual suspects such as sausages, hash browns and mushrooms, but also the welcome addition of black pudding which you can add on request for a small fee. For those not in the know, this stuff started life as a struggle food born in the Frozen North and is now served at bougie brunch in fried slices of iron-rich beauty. I'm not talking about the little sausagey ones you get at the supermarket either, but slices the size of your palm from Eastbourne Butchers. Fat Chefs cook it to perfection and you can also order it as a main dish here. 

The cafe appear to make their own hash browns which are as thick and satisfying as a lazy Sunday afternoon. They're particularly good in the dish of slow cooked beef cheeks where they provide a vehicle for the jus.

The steak sandwiches served by this cafe are the sort of thing that will literally have you ordering two. Our mate did exactly that and finished both to the astonishment of our table and the comedian waiter (more to come on this chap).

You'd be forgiven at this point for thinking oh, this sounds nice but what if I'm just wanting something light or healthy or with a few greens? Well no disappointment necessary at Fat Chefs if salads are more your jam. They serve a mean smoked salmon salad and a beautiful Moroccan lamb salad among a few others. Unlike most salmon salads I've tried, they don't skimp on the salmon and the entire thing is layered up so there's no boring bits at the bottom. The Moroccan lamb is similarly intriguing, not a boring salad at all and full of flavour.

There's nothing I love more than ordering dessert for breakfast, smashing it in 15 minutes flat and kidding myself that I'm being healthy because I ate a fruit. The waffles here fit the bill splendidly - they are gluten free, come with either bacon/banana or a surprising selection of seasonal fruit ( I got 5 different fruits last time I ordered these). They also come with cream and maple syrup to satisfy all your sugar fiending. There's also a good selection of cakes and slices in the cafe cabinet, so if you didn't eat enough dessert at breakfast you can always get some for later. In fact I recommend getting something for later because you will be thinking about how good the cake looked for a week, then if you go back the following week it will be a different cake.

The place is always quite busy but this is testament to their excellent food and service. One of the staff members here is absolutely hilarious as well. He has his own comedy show, managed to rope us all into going to see that and it was honestly one of the best nights out I've had, laughed the whole way through and now feel like I know far too much about this chap's life. Really friendly and genuine guy and I appreciate the good vibes at the cafe and being able to have a laugh instead of having to pretend to be polite, which I struggle with.

Top marks for this cafe and no complaints. Make sure you don't have plans after eating here, so you can snooze off the food coma.