Every student knows that the best feeling isn’t when you get an A, or when you smash that Kendrick rap verse – It’s when your parents come up for the weekend and pay for ya food. This weekend I was blessed with the parents visiting, and I had free reign of deciding where to go for lunch, dinner and brunch (F*ck yes.). Let’s start off with Saturday lunch eh? After having to grab an Uber from the airport for my parents because they refuse to download the app themselves (classic gen Y iPhone users), they treated us to a beautiful lunch at Karaka Café – which I guess you could say makes up for the whole Uber kerfuffle.
Karaka café is famous in wellington for being the peak summer location to sit back on a bean bag, drink in hand, soaking up the sun and beautiful surroundings. In winter this place can become a little sparse as it is mainly associated with the whole outdoor seating situation, but lemme tell you – they do not let the lull in customers or the slightly depressing wellington winter weather affect the quality of their food. No way hosé. This place is perfect for large groups as they have heaps of massive tables both inside and outside to park yourself at – which was lucky for us because our family is quite literally a small army. After being seated, we were tended to straight away. My drinks order was straightforward – coffee no.2 of the day to try and finally beat the overbearing hangover and shame from the night before (I’m sorry mum, I got a little too white girl wasted), however the food orders was a bloody ordeal and a half. They serve their brunch until 3pm which is dope as eggs is the hangover saviour, but their lunch mains also sounded like my migraine lord and saviour – so you can imagine I was in quite a pickle. In the end, the inner brit took over and I ordered their fish of the day serves with slaw, tartare sauce, and a MOUNTAIN of chips (again, F*ck yes.).
when the mains started coming out, food envy anxiety took over as my boyfriend had ordered the seafood chowder, and If you know me, you know seafood chowder is my weakness – no matter how fishy my breath will smell afterwards. But when my mass of a meal was placed in front of me, all envy was washed away, and I was one smug somebody indeed. The fish was lightly battered and crispy (yas), the chips copious and crunchy (yaaaassss!), the slaw fresh and flavourful (YASSS!), and the homemade tartare sauce tangy and tart (YAAAASSSS QUEEN!!!). Overall – a bloody brilliant plate of fish and chips that tickled my taste buds, stuffed my stomach, and put a smile on my dial. The rest of the food was equally as beautiful and yummy – seafood chowder, chicken pizza, chicken burger, calamari – everything was SUBLIME.
For my first time properly dining at Karaka and not just getting slowly sloshed outside on their beanbags, I am super-duper impressed. So, I think I would be an idiot to give them anything less than an 8.5/10 on the CCL scale. Their food was super yum and had heaps of variety, their service was tip top, location on point, and the cherry on the cake was that their menu followed their homage to Maori culture, with everything being in Maori with English translations – something that I feel many more cafes and public places should get on the bandwagon for! If you are looking to get your food fix with a big group of mates, or even if it’s just the two of you, definitely don’t overlook Karaka Café, as it may just have the perfect plate to fix your hunger cravings.
Cafe Crawler Lucy 