Botswana Butchery review

Whenever friends go away, I quiz them about the fun things that they do and what they had to eat. To me, one of the defining memories of a place is in its food. Rightly or wrongly, I associate mussels with Normandy, gelato with Italy, mango sticky rice with Bangkok, giant wontons with Melbourne and wine with Otago. Now I can add to the list: whopping big steaks with Wanaka.

Botswana Butchery is a bit of an institution in Wanaka with a few people mentioning the restaurant to us as a good place to go for dinner. Botswana Butchery is part of the little Post Office Lane family of eateries, which also includes two bars and a great pizza place.

Despite its rather gruesome-sounding name, it is in fact a nice steak restaurant. It's upstairs, above one of the bars and it feels more like you're in someone's lounge than in a restaurant with its heavy curtains and soft furnishings.

Slight confession here: I'm not really a steak person, I don't think that I can eat a whole steak, no matter how delicious it is. I love to nibble and steal a bit from your plate, but that's probably the extent of it. Lamb or chicken on the other hand, I can definitely handle! I'm lucky - in the interests of providing you with a full review, of course - that Mr H loves a good steak and he has it how you're meant to: medium rare.

Mr H had a huge craving for some crayfish and he almost went for the lobster tail ($60) but you can't go to a steak restaurant and not have anyone order steak! So being the generous person that he is, Mr H decided upon the eye fillet ($31) while I opted for the lamb shoulder roast ($35). My dish came with all the trimmings but the steak didn't so we ordered a few sides of mushrooms, duck fat roasted potatoes and pear, blue cheese, walnut salad ($7.50 - $9.00).

The local lamb shoulder was rolled and cut thickly but roasted beautifully so that it was tender and moist. It was served with creamed leeks and silverbeet, onions, herb potato rosti and rosemary sauce (they described it as 'jus' but I'm not fancy enough to use that word!). I was suprised at the size of my dish, or was that naive of me, considering that Botwsana Butchery is a steak restaurant?

Mr H had a happy look on his face as he tucked into his eye fillet. And as I mentioned, while I can't finish a whole steak to myself, I like to steal a bite. And the bite that I did steal was delicious! With the sides that we ordered, it rounded off Mr H's meal quite nicely.

Our waitress approached us after we had our meal, wondering if we would like some dessert. I ummed and ahhed, poked my stomach to see if there was any room. Much to my disappointment and considering the size of our meal, there was no way that we could even split a date steamed pudding between us. So we left Botswana Butchery without dessert but full and contented.

Botswana Butchery - Wanaka

Post Office Lane
33 Ardmore St
Wanaka
Phone 03 443 6745

A windy appetite-suppressing drive over the Crown Range is not needed to sample Botswana Butchery's fare because following the success of the Wanaka restaurant, a Botswana Butchery has opened in Queenstown.

Botswana Butchery - Queenstown

17 Marine Parade

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