Big Fig Restaurant: Fresh Slow Cooked Food in Wanaka
The Big Fig at Wanaka was a restaurant that claimed to serve slow cooked food in a fast manner. I thought that was really interesting and decided to stop at the Big Fig for a meal.
There were benches outside for outdoor seating. They were covered by big umbrellas to protect people from sunshine. But it was a pretty cloudy day. The building had stone walls and a roof that extended to cover the patio area.
I looked at the menus and sign boards outside. One said that it was a discount day on all veg plates. The other listed the kind of things they served, like slow cooked meats, marinated chicken and vegetable tagines along with house-made cakes and biscuits.
I pushed through the big glass doors and went inside. The Big Fig was open every day between 8am and 8:30pm.
The restaurant staff were all really busy serving customers at the counter. There were a lot of people inside the restaurant. So I was sure that the food must be quite good. There was a big blackboard with the menu written on it behind the counter.
The menu listed the hot drinks and cold drinks on offer. There were different flavors of tea, coffee, hot chocolate, juices and sparkling water.
On one side were the wine and beer options, like chardonnay and rose. Customers could buy local craft beer on tap or in cans. Mulled wine, apple cider and local ginger beer were some other options.
Fresh baked goodies like cakes and bread loaves were displayed in the bakery counter (just like in Kai Whakapai Cafe). Everything looked really delicious.
The tahini and chocolate cakes and brownies looked especially unique. But there was also sticky toffee cake and apple, raspberry and rose cake.
One side of the counter had Turkish gozlemes and cold pressed juices, smoothies and Bircher muesli.
I moved forward and looked at the salads. There was shaved broccoli salad and carrot apple slaw.
The prices were listed on a board (and they’re definitely a lot cheaper compared to the prices in Francesca Italian Restaurant!). You could choose four options for the small plate, five options for the medium plate and six options for the big plate. But you could only pick one type of meat for each plate.
I went to take a look at the options I could choose. Everything was displayed for the customers to choose from.
There was sweet potato gratin, carrot and tamarind tagine and lemon almond pilaf among other things.
The juice pulp falafel, chicken and beef all looked very interesting. I just had to tell the servers and they’d make a bowl for me.
I decided to order two medium bowls.
One had the chicken tagine and the falafel along with salad and vegetables. I also asked for some sauce to top this bowl.
The other had falafel and pomegranate beef cheeks with salad and pilaf. I decided not to add any sauce to this dish so that I could taste the flavor of the other ingredients.
I went outside to sit. The tables were filling up very fast and there were a lot of people coming into the restaurant.
It was raining a little. I could see so many birds sitting on the roofs of the cars parked nearby. They looked very sweet.
The birds had even hopped onto the tables that were already empty so that they could eat the crumbs. I decided to take pictures of them from up close.
I had ordered two drinks to eat with my food. There was iced coffee and iced chocolate. The coffee was quite strong and the chocolate drink had syrup at the bottom. They were served with metal straws so that customers could drink it without an issue.
