Fat dogs and cool cats

At The Fat Dog café in Rotorua, a few hours south of Auckland, they give you a wooden painted cat to take to your table while you wait for your coffee. Or your porridge with cream and brown sugar or your homemade soup with chunky wholemeal toast.

If you have coffee, though, on the spoon you’ll find two white chocolate buttons, which you can either stir in instead of sugar, or pop into your mouth, one at a time. Or both together, if you like. The only thing that beats that is a huge bowl of their hot chocolate, which comes topped with chocolate marshmallows and a good dousing of cocoa.

There's always a Scramble of the Day (today's is cheese and mushroom - think omelette with texture on toast) and a towering veggie burger which is floored by gravity when it lands on your table.

In the evenings at The Fat Dog, they dim the lights, set candles twinkling on tables and crank up the music a notch. This all makes the Glamour Puss Pinot Noir taste even better.

There’s writing all over the wall, even on the ceiling and on the plates.

Amongst other things it says that Cool Cats Go To The Fat Dog.

No sign of the fat dog, though. Apparently he was a black labrador who belonged to the previous owners. He's since moved on - rumour has it he started up his own place in the next town. I'll let you know if I find him.