Mokau Butchery and Food Caravan sits at 39 North Street, Mōkau, a butcher and food caravan on the Taranaki coast where State Highway 3 crosses the river. It holds a 4.4 rating from 51 reviews, with sausages the most-mentioned item and whitebait also mentioned; customers praise meat fresh off the farm, thick smoky bacon and flavourings to match. Updates go out via Facebook.
A country butcher's trade stands or falls on freshness and honesty: sausages with high meat content rather than cereal filler, bacon cured on site, meat that hasn't travelled far. The useful questions at any counter are what's in the sausages, what came in this morning, and what you should take home tonight. In farming country the answer is often whatever came off a nearby truck, so let the butcher steer you — sausage for the barbecue, shank for a slow oven.
Reviewers call it worthy of a detour, a fair tip for this stretch of coast.