I honestly cannot believe how many curry joints there are in Taupō. All the best eats in Taupō on Tripadvisor are curry restaurants. Did a feel like curry, no, and so I slightly struggled to find somewhere else to eat that wasn’t fast-food or pub food.

I managed to find SMK an American styled BBQ eatery that also has a joint in Rotorua interestingly enough. I decided just to order some food beef from the pit. For some reason, I thought that the beef would come in slices but it arrived pulled and it was sitting on top of some rice. Also, there was a generous amount slaw and a smoked mac’n’cheese.

The coleslaw was really good and complimented everything else well, plus I was getting some vegetables. The mac’n’cheese also had some nice pieces of bacon inside and loved the smoked flavour with the crust of cheese on top. One slight issue that got me was how gluey it was, but it tasted really good. The pulled beef (which there was a lot of) was really good and I loved how there was some southern styled rice underneath to soak up all that juice and then give the meat a bit more substances to it. The beef was nicely cooked and had a good smoked flavour to it.

It looks like SMK also make their own chilli sauce and that was real good. It had a real good kick to it and just heightened everything really well as did their BBQ sauce but the chilli sauce was better.

Overall really good food and really good service.

Address: 40 Tuwharetoa Street, Taupo 3330

Website: SMK