2011 EAT OUT AWARDS

Written by Brent on November 18th, 2011

If my editor ever wanted to get rid of me, all he would have to do is insist that I start using stars to rate restaurants. When I still ran a weekly theatre review, people would often ask me: “Why don’t you use stars like the other newspapers?” My reply: “Why do you need stars if you read the review?”

I understand the concept of awarding stars when it comes to rating wine, running shoes, generals in the military or the creditworthiness of Greece. But it is dreadfully unfair and misleading when applied to experiences such as a Shakespeare production or a banquet in a Chinese restaurant.

The Zagatification of life keeps spreading. In Europe, star ratings are closer to hotel classification — there is a strictly controlled checklist so that you know what it means, and the public has a pretty good idea of what a three-star Michelin restaurant is.

But the newspaper critic’s star ­system is in his mind and readers come with their own assumptions of what it should mean, so the system is flawed from the outset. There are places I would give five stars for their dumplings but readers would scream at me when they see the tacky venue. There are other eateries where they could put me in a golden armchair and serve me champagne in a hand-blown glass and I would still knock off a star if they tortured me with loud, inappropriate music.

Yet there is no point arguing with the Zagat restaurant guides — they are a phenomenal success story. Unsurprisingly, they started in the United States where folks like things simple: on or off, good or evil, for or against us, dead or alive.

Zagat bases its stars on the ­opinions of thousands of voluntary reviewers. Its method prefigured what is now ubiquitous on the ­internet — from Amazon.com to ­Rottentomatoes.com. You can even rate the reviews.

The most useful and comprehensive national guide for restaurants in South Africa is Eat Out. It does not use stars officially but it does encourage online readers to post reviews and aggregate an average user star rating.

“Restaurants are automatically notified when a review is posted and given the opportunity to respond,” said Anelde Greeff, content ­director of Eat In and Eat Out. “We don’t ­censor as a rule. We fix obvious spelling and grammar mistakes and delete offensive language.”

Awards, also ubiquitous these days, involve a lot more thought and discernment than arbitrary stars. So when it comes to selecting the 10 best restaurants in South Africa, is it any less problematic?

The annual Eat Out DStv Food Network Restaurant Awards will be announced on November 20 in the Rotunda at the Bay Hotel in Camps Bay at what promises to be a spectacular dinner (R1 000 a head) prepared by several of the country’s top chefs.

The sole judge is Abigail Donnelly. She received “input from a panel of professional reviewers across the country”, comprising more than 30 individuals. Restaurant customers — 75 000 readers — have been able to submit their reviews online and input from both these sources was taken into account before the judging started.

The awards really are a big deal in the industry.

But how do you weight food, ambience and service to ­produce an overall fair assessment?

“My philosophy is that taste is the emotional component of a dish. It is about caring, passion, ­dedication — an uplifting philosophy and ­consistency that shines through,” said Donnelly.

To be on the top restaurant list, an establishment must “set standards that lift the restaurant industry in South Africa to new heights”. Out of a total of 100 points, food counts for 70 and is broken down as ­follows: appreciation of the use of local, ­seasonal produce, ethically sourced animal products and ­sustainable fish species (15); presentation, plating and accuracy of the menu ­description (15); taste (25); value for money (5); and wine choice (10).

Service counts 20 points and ­covers the diner’s experience from making the reservation to settling the bill, the attitude of staff, their knowledge of the menu, specials and wine, and the willingness to go that extra mile to accommodate special requests.

Ambience counts only 10 points and covers an establishment’s atmosphere, comfort, design, interior decor, glasses, cutlery and linen, cleanliness, music and bathrooms.

This year Eat Out will also announce winners in six new ­categories: best Asian restaurant, best Italian restaurant, best steakhouse, best country-style restaurant and best bistro, as well as the Boschendal Style Award for “the most stylish restaurant”.

To get into the top 20, the restaurant “must illustrate astonishing talent in an establishment of world-class standard. It must leave you inspired and enraptured.”

This year’s nominees:

Azure Restaurant
Babel
Bosman’s
DW Eleven-13
Grande Provence
The Greenhouse
Hartford House
Jordan Restaurant
La Colombe
Mosaic Restaurant
Nobu
Overture
Pierneef à La Motte
Planet Restaurant
Roots
The Roundhouse
The Tasting Room
Terroir
The Test Kitchen
Tokara

Published in the Mail & Guardian

 

Turning the tables on disability

Written by Brent on September 3rd, 2011

People with mental illness and disability – or as current politically correct speech has it, the intellectually challenged – suffer an enormous amount of discrimination and isolation. Broader society is impatient, defensive, usually awkward, and often hostile if not openly vindictive towards them. Meanwhile 99% of what irks the world is perpetrated by those ostensibly of sound mind.

Fortunately, under our constitution, people with special needs qualify for “disability grants” (over one million South Africans currently receive permanent disability grants). But that doesn’t change the need for a sense of self-worth, to enjoy meaningful work, to have at once some independence and yet the feeling that one belongs to society.

20 Breda Street is an old mansion. It was a hostel for young women and home to some of the Jewish refugees who came on the S.S. Stuttgart in October 1936. The house has remained to serve the Jewish community and today it houses the workshops for Astra, a sheltered employment centre. Started in 1950 with one person, there are now 65 people working here, all with special needs.

Director Merle Furman took me on a tour. Upstairs and downstairs there are various work rooms, one with several magnificently old wooden looms, still in use, producing quality work. A soft baby blanket is in the making according to pattern and design by its operator. There are sewing rooms, rag doll manufacturing and a carpentry shop making doll houses. One fellow collects stamps from envelopes to sell to philatelist dealers for the centre. I notice a page of six-cent Ugandan stamps with George the Fifth’s head on them.

All the manufactured items are available in a spacious gift shop.

There is also a restaurant café open to the public. Renovated and reopened in March last year, it is now housed in a solarium with views of Table Mountain and Lion’s Head. Glass panel walls can slide open in summer and there is an outside table too. It’s an airy, comfortable space. Twice a day, a dear called Margaret Catzel plays the piano.

There is no signage on the street, just look for number 20.

The waiters greet you and introduce themselves. As several struggle with writing, the menu is accompanied by a pen and a form on which you fill in your own order.

I found staff interactions relaxed and virtually normal. One was gratified by the thought too of how the tables are turned here – since some of the waiters would probably be less enthusiastically welcomed in return if they went as patrons to certain restaurants in the city.

Destigmatization and breeding familiarity is an important function of this kind of establishment.

The kitchen is kosher and all items are milchik – in practice it’s vegetarian, though there is tuna lasagna and smoked salmon bagels. (The chef overseeing the kitchen is fully qualified.)

Breakfasts are the normal options (no bacon of course): muesli, yoghurt and stewed fruit compote or omelettes, scrambled and fried eggs with tomato and toast. For light meals there are sandwiches, salads, baked potatoes; and then there is a soup, quiche, and pasta of the day. The thick, traditional butternut broth I tried was quite fortifying.

The restaurant kitchen also does outside catering, providing large foil containers serving eight persons by pre-order. Prices are reasonable.

Coffee time is also open on occasional Sundays (they do advertise in the paper) and available for for private functions.

I doubt there is anything like it elsewhere in the world.

COFFEE TIME at 20 Breda Street, Gardens. Tel. 021 461-8414. Open for breakfast (served all day), teas and light lunches. Monday to Thursday 8am to 3.45pm, Friday 8am to 3pm. Booking essential.

This article first appeared in the Mail & Guardian, 12 August 2011.

 

Fasting and feasting

Written by Brent on September 3rd, 2011

Not eating certainly builds character; if it is by choice, of course. Well over a billion Muslims will observe the fast of Ramadan this August. The faithful refrain from smoking, eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset for 30 days. Imagine – no coffee.

Ramadan is the 9th month according to the Muslim calendar. In the Southern Hemisphere this year it’s an easier time thanks to our short days in August (around 10 hours in Cape Town; 15 hours currently in the United Kingdom).

Ramadan commemorates the month in which the holy Qu’ran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. It is a period of greater introspection, of doing good deeds, of contemplating the word of Allah. The mosques have special congregational prayers and the entire Qu’ran will be recited within the month.

Fasting exists in many religions, not only the Abrahamic, but also in Hinduism and Buddhism. It can positively focus the mind and build solidarity. (Purges and fasts have also become popular among alternative health practitioners.) But in Islam it is one of the pillars of the faith, and a time to turn away from worldly ways.

In some parts of the world, however, Ramadan is becoming commercialized (as Christmas has in the West). The Middle East television channels run special soap operas during which period many companies spend half their annual advertising budgets. A few years ago in Lebanon there was a backlash against the extravagant night feasts in tents that included belly-dancing.

Suhoor is the morning meal, before sunrise and prayer. The Cape Malay word for this was “sowah”, but Arabic terms have in recent times become dominant.

The breaking of the fast after sunset is Iftar (the Malays call it ‘buka puasa’). It’s such a special time among the Cape Muslim community that this year I joined my friend Faizel and his family in Belgravia to explore their tradition.

The kitchen has been busy. The daughters complain genially that they work all day and still have to do the cooking. (I’d find it extremely hard to prepare food after fasting all day without tasting it, not to mention all those enticing smells, but then I haven’t had the training.) More and more people buy food ready prepared, and there is a growing trend to go out at night to halaal restaurants (Kaprino’s in Green Point is running a Ramadan buffet special).

It is 5:45pm and seven-year-old Aaliyah is rearing to go. Children start with half-day fasts until they reach puberty. She has a pink napkin wrapped plate of granny’s bollas (spherical donuts with coconut). The tradition is to go door to door swopping treats with your neighbours. We head off from Martin Luther Street towards Salaam Street.

Aunty Jessie, who has a reputation for her chicken curry, has made flapjacks; there are pies in the oven, and on the table samosas, dhaltjies (deep fried chili bites made from pea flour with chopped spinach, lettuce, grated onion or potato) and bhajias (chili bites but with bigger leaves).

On 8th Avenue, Aunty Wieyah has samosas and pancakes (without coconut, because, she jokes, her husband says coconut, not smoking, makes him cough).

It is nearly sunset. Faizel tells me that years back everyone used to wait outside on the pavement to listen for the call to prayer as the mosque was rather far away. Today, we wait, tuned to Radio 786 (the number is a numerological abbreviation for the phrase “in the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate”).

We break the fast with a single date, in accordance with the tradition of the Prophet. After prayer, the table is set with a fine spread.

Rukeya serves her thick spinach and beef soup, and offers us a glass of cold pink falooda, made with milk, elachi (cardamom) and rose syrup and greenish basil seeds (which Faizel calls ‘frog eyes’).

Then there are bowls of Amina’s delicious, warm milky boeber (made with vermicelli pasta, cinnamon sticks, sago, sugar, to which sultanas and almond flakes are often added).

Aquilah has made sweetcorn fritters; Nadia has attended to the Jasmine rice (best soaked in cold water for an hour before cooking); Faizel has prepared a scrumptious butter chicken – cubed fillets sautéed in butter, with ground coriander, chilies, cumin, tomato paste, cream, and a sprinkling of fresh chopped coriander.

I understand why some people even put on weight over Ramadan. But Faizel’s father, Ebrahim reminds us, “You never know what is on your neighbour’s table, if anything.”

Once everyone has finished eating, in Muslim tradition, the food no longer belongs to the hosts. At weddings and functions guests load and take what is left, colloquially called a “barakat”. I know I’ll enjoy mine tomorrow.

This article first appeared in the Mail & Guardian, 12 August 2011.

 

French cooking with Nadege

Written by Brent on July 17th, 2011

Nadege

French is to fine dining what Italian is to opera or Russian is to ballet. They are superlative adjectives, the acme of the art. After all, wasn’t the modern restaurant born when revolutionaries of no fixed abode flocked to Paris and the best chefs in the world, those of freshly decapitated aristocrats, found themselves unemployed? Actually this is just a popular myth invented by the Goncourt brothers.

Restaurant comes from the French word for a restorative medicinal bouillon. Hence, “restaurateur”, a person with skill to do this (and not ‘restauranteur’). Places serving these tonics were common before the revolution and catered to the fashionably delicate.

The revolutionaries however promoted working-class eateries for fraternal feasts and communal square meals. They spurned the former chefs to the aristocrats, executed at least one who had managed to find a job in a revolutionary kitchen, and were suspicious of former royal staff. Nor would they have anything to do with extravagant dishes or such ‘wasteful’ ideas as reductions. Louis XVI was arrested when he stopped to stuff himself at an inn, while attempting to escape.

After the Terror however, Parisians began to recover their joie de vivre and the restaurant tradition of the west was born from the innovations of the ascendant new bourgeoisie.

Separate tables were introduced; kitchens were sealed off; establishments became gilded and decorated with chandeliers and mirrors; menus were instituted, listing a variety of dishes, often with their provenance. ‘La carte’ means both ‘menu’ and ‘map’.

From the outset, restaurant criticism (modeled on the drama review) and early guide books to the eateries of Paris played a major role in shaping the institution into its modern form.

During the 19th century, restaurants became fashionable places frequented by foreigners, particularly the British and Americans who found Paris remarkably cheap.

French chefs were trained through a system of apprenticeship arising from the former guilds. They worked hard at protecting their craft by persuading the rest of the world, particularly the English-speaking nations, that as the inventors of haute cuisine they possessed its secrets.

There may be a Starbucks in the Louvre and a MacDonalds on the Champs-Elysées, but the French have been remarkably successful in retaining their pre-eminence.

My partner in gastronomy, Munchkin, and I decided to go for a French cookery lesson. In Cape Town there are numerous cookery schools in various formats. These run from amateur to professional, include demonstration chef’s tables, six-week long curricula covering the bases, day-long explorations of specific ethnic cuisines, ‘fun’ internships in actual restaurants (for which you pay), and even raw food courses where you learn to not to cook food.

I particularly liked the sound of one run by Nadège Lepoittevin-Dassé. She promises to help one reach the “fabled status” of Frenchiness. Here you book as a private party with up to six friends. You agree beforehand on a menu. You cook and eat the meal at her home in Fish Hoek overlooking the ocean. Nadège says from the bedroom you can sometimes actually hear the whales when they come into the bay to breed.

We arrive with wine, our aprons and sharp knives, as instructed. Nadège, always neat, precise and professional, has recipes printed out, the menu chalked on a blackboard in her elegant hand, and work stations set at the domestic kitchen counter. Chanson and French pop play in the background.

Nadège, who is taking a respite from the financial world to pursue her passions, has been in South Africa for ten years and her enthusiasm for the country is infectious. This September she will also be running an impressive-looking culinary tour of her home province Normandy.

We start with onions and tips on how to slice them up with the minimum of tears. But the secret to French onion soup lies in the stock already prepared by Nadège about which she briefs us. Nadège says this dish is a favourite at midnight on New Year.

Her class is open to skilled and unskilled chefs. She doesn’t blink an eye when I drop an egg on the floor or when Munchkin pours the yolk and milk meant to baste the puff pastry for our fillet en croûte into the blender with the chicken liver paste for coating the beef. I however blink when she adds a good measure of very fine Cognac; no cheap substitutes in this kitchen.

Next up is the reason I’m here – to perfect sauce Béarnaise. Nadège inducts us into getting the sabayon base frothy and airy and stable enough. I then discover what I have been doing wrong all these years. Of course, I can’t give any secrets away here.

For dessert we fold a lemon soufflé. When we remove it from the oven Nadége shushes us; if it has turned out a success the slightest noise will make it collapse, she jokes.

It has been an enchanting evening and we still get to eat the delicious fruits of what has been a near effortless labour.

Contact Nadège at: http://www.nadegecuisine.com/Contact.html for cooking classes.

The tour to Normandy is from September 5 to 12.

 Further reading:

The Invention of the Restaurant by Rebecca L. Spang (Harvard UP, 2000)

Haute Cuisine: How the French invented the culinary profession by Amy B. Trubek (University of Pennsylvania, 2000)

 This appeared in the Mail & Guardian on 1 July 2011.

 

Tipping point

Written by Brent on June 15th, 2011

My lesser self wants to giggle when a waiter introduces themselves as, “My name is –– , and I will be your waitron.” What a dehumanizing term. It says: I’m a sexless cog in a machine to serve you. The other extreme is “I’m your service ambassador”.  How pompous. It fills me with dread. I know the service is going to be hard work, like negotiating a trade agreement. These are true believers. The specials will be recited with immoderate detail. You will be menaced by a three-foot-long peppermill. If the ambassador isn’t looking down their nose, they will be complimenting you on your choices, one of several idiotic habits waiters develop, such as the presumptuous inquiry, “Is everything alright?”

There are places where three waiters will ask this in succession giving the impression the establishment lacks any confidence. A waiter should simply ask if there is anything else they can get one, just once and suitably timed.

Then the crux: what is an appropriate tip for an ‘ambassador’? Is it more or less than for a ‘waitron’?

If you’re like me, irritations, pet peeves, sheer folly and shabby service makes no difference. I still tip upwards of 10%. Tipping usually feels somewhere between a toll fee and an act of charity.

If the idea behind tips is to incentivize, anyone who eats in Cape Town knows it doesn’t work. The cheapskate is not going to tip well, no matter how good the service; and no matter how bad, most people are shamed into adding 10% regardless. I’ve had appalling service where the waiters are 100% dependent on their tips, and brilliant service where the service charge is added automatically.

Tipping is a messy business and many diners find it stressful and confusing. How messy it gets, I’m about to relate. Unlike New Zealand or Japan (where to tip is to insult), we’re stuck with it.

Governments don’t like it either. In some places the taxman presumes waiters earn 10% of turnover. In Paris a 15% service charge is added by law.

In the United States tipping is a national scourge. A waiter in Los Angeles once gushed breathlessly when she brought me the check, “I do this for all my clients,” she said. “15% is the minimum, 18% if you liked the service, 20% if you happy with me.” On the slip she had written down the total next to each percentage with a smiley face in blue ballpoint pen.

In New York 20% is now standard, though many diners calculate this on the before general sales tax total, and some tip lower on the bar portion.

In China you never tip, but in New York’s Chinatown my exit from a cavernous restaurant was blocked by a stocky man with folded arms and the demeanour of Oddjob in the Bond film Goldfinger – the one with the lethal bowler hat. “Where’s the tip?” he demanded.

In London, a ‘voluntary’ service charge of 12.5% added to the bill has become common. South African tourists are mostly unaware of this and regularly add 10% on top.

The argument against tipping that says parsimonious restaurant owners are just foisting their wage bill on the diner is fallacious. Yes, you are covering the wage bill by tipping, but the personnel are in theory being paid what you felt they were worth. The alternative would probably just be higher prices on the menu.

In parts of Europe, where waiters are paid adequately, tipping is not expected. In South Africa, waiters in upmarket restaurants are earning fairly well actually, considering the skills for the job, and relative to the average income of the population. Many also escape tax. In a high end restaurant that has 200% markups on the retail price for wine, it is quite possible that the waiter is earning more from the bottle than the estate that made it. Seriously.

But waitering can be tough. This column was prompted by a dreadful altercation I saw in a Portuguese eatery in my street. A middle-aged, rather nasty-looking couple had left no tip. The perplexed waitress asked if anything was wrong. The male half of this villainous pair released a torrent of abuse, repeatedly shouting, “An outrage! How dare you?” No comment was made on the service, only her audacity to expect a tip. The waitress stood helpless, tears streaming down her face, trembling.

A compulsory service charge however gives the restaurant owner full power. In the UK, several cases were exposed where the service levy was not paid over to the staff. In one, it was used to pay the minimum wage and the balance retained by the owners. In another, it was used as bonuses for the management. I know of one five-star hotel in Cape Town where years ago the shop stewards took the vast amount of tips (several hundreds of rands for each of them) and handed the waiters R20 at the end of the evening.

In many places, credit card tips never reach the waiters. Deducting 5% for credit card commission before paying on to the staff is however sensible accounting.

I recommend where possible pay cash directly to the waiter. Of course, you don’t know if the place is operating a tronc or if the plongeurs are to get a share, but at least you have completed your side of an established expectation.

Article appeared in the Mail & Guardian, 3 June 2010

 

Eating Fynbos

Written by Brent on May 23rd, 2011
I find 'my boat' in Paternoster

I find 'my boat' in Paternoster

Kobus van der Merwe

Kobus van der Merwe

Though it has not been immune from development, the West Coast fishing village of Paternoster, 120km north of Cape Town, has maintained much of its charm. White-washed, self-catering cottages for holiday hire now concentrate along the beach. At least the buildings are pleasingly small and sympathetic in scale to the flat almost endless stretches of blinding white sands that make this barren coast so scenic. 

You might not want to be caught here at the height of the summer season when the place becomes a parking lot for coach tours. The second you open the car door you are besieged by offers of fresh crayfish and mussels, presumably hidden in the plastic bags the local urchins hold up to view.

There are other good reasons to visit. As you enter the town, you will find on your left the Oep ve Koep general dealer store, a relic from a bygone age still surviving. Behind the store is a tiny bistro, seating at a big push 30 people, though the chef-proprietor silently hopes he will never have to entertain such numbers.

Chef Kobus van der Merwe runs a one-man show. His kitchen is neatly organized with a small office at the back. The batterie de cuisine is certainly modest, but what this chef has is a superlative command of presentation and an acute sense of taste and balance. Most importantly Van der Merwe has a yen for adventure to match his remarkable palate.

Here all the elements for a good story come together; he is what food critics like me dream of finding. He is world famous in Paternoster. His operation (started last season) is artisanal, intimate, personal, and off the beaten track, yet the finished product is consummately professional. A plate at Oep ve Koep looks as if it came out of the kitchen at Jardine’s. Best of all, Van der Merwe is forging a new cuisine, introducing us to tastes most of us have not previously experienced, and he is doing it with ingredients indigenous to the Cape.

In the gravel courtyard at the back, fringed with multi-coloured bougainvilleas, and surrounding a manatoka tree are a few stone chairs and tables covered by funky tablecloths, sporting such themes as Facebook or Football. A small striped field mouse, courageously diurnal, seemed to have free reign outside. On the border of the dining area, a vegetable patch and organic herb garden are cultivated in old wooden fishing boats, to which the chef makes intermittent trips during the course of the meal.

In pots beside the kitchen door he keeps edible fynbos. You will find wild sage (salvia africana), dune salvia (salvia africana lutea), Cape sour fig (carpobrotus edulus) and its relative the Eland vygie (carpobrotus quadrifidus) with bigger fruit and yellow flowers. There is dried red seaweed, “klipkomberse”, sea lettuce (a bright green, edible algae that looks remarkably like lettuce) and some fynbos herbs used to smoke food. The curiosity to see what he will produce with all this certainly excites the appetite. 

While we consult the menu, three of us unwind with doorstops of white plaas brood and a very fine chenin blanc from the tiny Secateur’s Estate in Paardeberg, with the claim on its label that it is “handmade” (or should that be foot-made, one wonders?).

As an amuse bouche on a block of painted white wood is crumbly porcini mushroom ‘soil’, sour fig, freshly picked rocket, and moskonfyt (a Cape grape must jam, once ubiquitous and now increasingly hard to find).

The menu, chalked on a blackboard, varies daily. Choice is easy; we decide to have everything.

For starters, a West Coast salad (R40) with slices of quince balanced with segments of grapefruit, feta to add body, and descriptively called seekoraal (as it looks a bit like  fingers of thin coral).  Also called sea asparagus or samphire (salicornia)it grows in very specific patches along the coast and even further inland in brakish vlei waters.

The other starter, strips of calamari (R40) in a bowl of hot and sour broth garnished with coriander was inspired by local “kreef” curry, but Van der Merwe is allergic to crayfish.

We also opt for a main course to share as a starter – bokkoms (salted and wind-dried  fish fillets) from massbanker (horse mackerel) slightly reconstituted in a marinate of olive oil and lemon juice then panfried and served on thin slices of toast  with  green apple slices, citrus beurre blanc, basil, poached egg, seaweed garnish and a few gooseberries. It is a main, but unless you have acquired the taste for bokkems, which I recall years ago hanging above bar counters like tobacco leaves in rustic pubs, the fish will be too pungent. Using thin slices instead of the whole fillet would make this a perfect dish to my taste.

The main courses: ‘Paternoster palak paneer’ (R55) made from homemade buttermilk ricotta, topped with buttermilk ice-cream and accompanied by dune spinach (tetragonia decumbens), which is wilted slightly; raw, it is bit wooly; blanched, these bright green leaves make a succulent warm salad. The young tips of the plant are cooked in the masala sauce.

Sandveld potato dumplings in a Polish style (R60), are shaped almost like oversized ravioli, sprinkled with whole blanched almonds and mangetout,  ladled with a sauce of mushroom and herbaceous, slightly nutty purslane (in French porcelaine).

A square of beef bobotie garnished with baby nasturtium leaves is accompanied by beetroot, cabbage and apple, a condiment of fruit chutney made from peach and prune, and a delicate sambal of coconut and banana.

Umqa (R48), made from Invicta maize rice meal, is traditionally cooked up with pumpkin and butternut.  Van der Merwe has transformed this by cooking it as a creamy risotto, adding wine first and then ladle by ladle, chicken stock. The finished dish adds slow roasted tomato with a little balsamic vinegar, combining familiarly with the parmesan.

For dessert there is a choice of sorbets, including rose geranium (pelargonium graveolens) and such unusual but successful combinations as  grape and olive oil with basil; pineapple and lemongrass. He also makes an avocado sorbet, but it is not served as a dessert.Finally there is honeybush tea panacotta (a reduced cream) and moerkoffie.

This is one local gastronomic experience not to be missed.

Oep ve Koep Bistro, Saint Augustine Road, Paternoster, Tel 022 752 2105 . Open Wednesdays to Saturdays for breakfast 9–11am; lunch 12:30–2:30pm; Sundays from 9–10:30am and noon to 2pm.

Edit: This article first appeared in the Mail & Guardian on 13 May 2011.

See also Kobus’s beautifully illustratred blog: Sardines on Toast.

 

South African restaurants in London

Written by Brent on March 25th, 2011
Biltong at Shaka

Biltong at Shaka

Koeksisters at Shaka

Koeksisters at Shaka

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you had South African friends in London in the 1980s, you may remember their plaintive requests for comestibles from home. The collective of exiles, draft-dodgers, economic migrants and stranded backpackers living in squats would pine for such things as Koo canned guavas, Safari dried fruit, Mrs Balls chutney, Pecks anchovette paste, Melrose cheese triangles, Ouma rusks, Marie biscuits, mebos, Peppermint Crisp and of course biltong. We were also the first in the world with Appletiser. The British Marmite, the exiles said, might be the original but was thinner and didn’t taste as good as South African.

Economic sanctions were on and Cape fruit was still banned or re-labelled as produce of Israel.

Getting on the flight to London, you would easily find yourself carrying an extra ten kilograms of groceries in your baggage and a couple of bottles of hefty Pinotage in your hand luggage. I remember the more adventurous smuggled “Swazi gold” and Transkei dagga to their loved ones inside dried fruit rolls.

As late as 1999, on a trip to New Zealand, I was baffled to find a section of a food aisle in an Auckland supermarket dedicated to such South African eccentricities as canned spaghetti in tomato sauce, liver paste, Ricoffy and Koffiehuis.

Nowadays, what you can’t find overseas you probably don’t want. In almost any London restaurant you can order rooibos tea. At one stage, Fortnum and Mason’s exotic food hall range even carried vacuum-packed, salted Mopani worms.

The South African community has continued to grow around the world and especially in London. I can no longer count the number of restaurants, from the Wolseley tea room to the corner Wagamama noodle bar, where the young waiter with an unstable English accent turns out to be a thinly disguised fellow countryman. Once unmasked, it’s all smiles and bonhomie.

South Africans now own and operate several restaurants in greater London and I know of another in Manchester. These serve such local dishes as butternut soup, kudu carpaccio, samoosas, boerwors, ostrich fillet, springbok, crocodile, frikkadelle, bobotie, potjiekos, bredie, steak with monkeygland sauce and melktert. It’s enough to make one believe we have a national cuisine.

In Camden, the £5.5 million, 2500 square metre Shaka Zulu has just opened. Appropriately gaudy and staged on two floors, it has a braai restaurant, oyster bar, and night club. 

The sporty Bok Bar near Covent Garden, which had been around for several years, has closed, just months after world cup fever. It was always a bit of a claustrophobic dive and had that barroom malodour.  It used to serve such things as prego rolls, chakalaka, and a “Schalk burger”.

In central London, right next to the Palladium just off Oxford Street, is the Cape Town Fishmarket. It is almost identical in design to their local branches (they now have 24 stores in six provinces); decked out in blues and greys, with slate floors and slate-patterned table tops, banquettes, a conveyor belt sushi bar, a counter display of fish and shellfish on crushed ice, and a rather bare aquarium. They also play noisy 80s and 90s pop rock hits. On the walls are greatly enlarged historical photographs: Kalk Bay snoek harvest, fishmongers in District Six in 1936 pushing their cart laden with long, glistening snoek; fisher folk in fezzes from 1909, and the Cape Town docks with horse-drawn carts.

 Available South African wines are mostly from well-known corporate estates such as Nederburg, Lanzerac, Boschendal, Van Loveren, Douglas Green, and this month they had Beyerskloof Brut on promotion.  In stock a few vintage wines such as a Simonsig Tiara 1998 (£44.95), Le Bonheur Prima 1995 (£38.95) and a 2001 Hartenberg Merlot (£42.95).

 In addition to the sushi they offer bento box lunches and a tepanyaki grill.

 I popped in to try their seafood curry (£19.45) which is served in a small three legged cast iron potjie. In a peppery brown sauce, rich and thickened with onions, were four tiny black mussels in open shells, a few calamari tubes and tentacles, a titbit of crawfish tail, three prawns with the heads on, and a small piece of fish. There is nothing wrong with the food, but there’s nothing here to write home about either.

 As is the trend with London restaurants a 12.5% service charge is automatically added to the bill.

On my way out, I overhear the man in the banquette next to me tell the waiter, “One of the few places I can go to where they don’t say ‘what?’ when I ask for brandy with my Coke.”

Cape Town Fish Market, 5 & 6 Argyll Street, London. Tel: 0207 437 1143

Chakalaka Restaurant, 1-4 Barley Mow Passage, Chiswick, London. Tel: 020 8995 4725.

Jabula, on the waterfront side of Manchester ship canal, Manchester. Tel: 0151 3551163. Map on website: www.jabula-restaurant.co.uk

Shaka Zulu, Stables Market, Camden, London. Tel: 020 3 376 9911.

This article first appeared in the Mail & Guardian 18 March 2011.

 

Raw food, raw deal

Written by Brent on November 9th, 2010

One of the great breakthroughs we humans made in our evolution was cooking. When it happened, we simply don’t know, but we are quite sure it was already part of our culture 250 000 years ago. A body of scientists believe we learned to cook 2 million years ago, and that this is the crucial factor that drove our transition from primitive Homo habilis to Homo erectus. It is a plausible theory that would explain how we developed an ever-bigger, calorie-demanding brain, while our jaw and teeth grew smaller and our big australopithecine gut shrank.

A leading proponent of this theory is Richard Wrangham, whose Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human(2009) is circumstantially persuasive. Unfortunately, he lacks the hard archaeological proof, but that is not surprising; traces of a steak cooked and eaten 1.9 million years ago at a temporary campfire will be tricky to find. Some evidence for controlled use of fire has been proposed for burnt bones found at Swartkrans dating to 1.5 million years ago.

The only animal to cook its food places us at a distinct advantage. Cooking tenderizes food, improves digestibility, vastly increases the calories we obtain, and reduces the energy we expend digesting our food. Cooking may destroy some vitamins, but not always, and not enough to outweigh the caloric benefit. More beta carotene is absorbed from cooked than raw carrots; cooked tomatoes give us far more lycopene (one of nature’s most powerful anti-oxidants) than raw tomatoes.

The discovery of cooking was probably accidental. Some hominid dropped a piece of meat or a tuber in the fire and noticed it smelt and tasted better and gave him more calories. Meanwhile, wild animals are awash with worms and amoebas from their uncooked diets.

Raw foodism started as a fad in the United States. Woody Harrelson is apparently one acolyte. It spread to New Agey and herbivore circles in the UK, where the first raw restaurant opened in 2005 in London. It was the kind of place where you leave your shoes at the door and eat raw flax crackers. The movement is now belatedly catching on in South Africa.

If you have poor eating habits, and frequently consume junk, fast, and pre-prepared foods, then you should definitely increase your raw food intake. But if you convert to raw foodism, as a greenhorn you should be aware of the serious health risks it can entail. Unpasteurized milk is an unsafe idea. Serious outbreaks of salmonella are regularly caused by contaminated vegetables and not meat. To impose a raw food diet on children is a potentially lethal experiment.

The Giessen raw food study conducted in Germany on over 500 long-term raw foodists made disturbing findings. Half the women developed amenorrhoea. Responsible adherents agree that raw foodists should take vitamin supplements, in particular B12.

Raw foodists often proselytize with mumbo jumbo like ‘body alkalinity’, and Kirlian photographs comparing the auras of cooked and raw tomatoes. Then again, I don’t believe in Santa, the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny, so perhaps one should treat my scepticism with caution.

The more militant advocates of raw food make some idiotic claims. Let’s get this straight: cooked food is not bad for you; the healthiest specimens on and off our planet, from Olympic athletes to astronauts, prefer cooked food.

My favourite among the absurd claims is that our immune system perceives cooked food as an intruder and sends out legions of white blood cells to defend us against it. Then there’s the ridiculous enzyme claim. We kill the enzymes in food when we cook it, which is not only murderous to our karma, but means we lower our ‘enzyme potential’, whatever that is. Actually, our enzymes try to digest whatever we swallow, uncooked or cooked, food or not, and it’s a process indifferent to the miniscule enzyme content in the raw produce.

One thing though, raw vegan foodists are thin. Researches examining people who have been strict adherents for over 10 years found them to have below normal bone mineral density. The most appealing thing about this diet, and virtually the only thing that is scientifically verified, is that you can eat endlessly and not worry about putting on weight.

Don’t misunderstand, I am an eager omophagist. I eat a lot of raw food, but stuff mostly frowned upon by raw foodists – steak tartare, Parma ham, prosciutto, rollmops, carpaccio, smoked salmon, ceviche, sashimi, and oysters. I regularly pig out on pesto, coleslaw, green salads and crudités. I love guacamole and mayonnaise (both of which are revolting when cooked).

The raw foodist’s kitchen has no stove. Instead, they use a food processor, juicer, blender and dehydrator. Technology helps grind up into manageable quantities the otherwise gigantic volume of raw produce they would have to spend all day chewing through themselves.

Even though much of it is mushy and cold, they do create some incredible gourmet dishes. Nori rolls with sprouts and salad fillings make delectable sandwiches. Maca powder, hemp seed powder and spirulina are favourites. A staple is the smoothie that combines fruit and a green leaf veg, such as spinach. Local product is embraced with enthusiasm, such as buchu and aloe juice. And then there’s chocolate – raw chocolate made with unroasted cacao beans and cold pressed virgin coconut oil, sweetened with organic blue agave nectar (heated, but below 60°C) and vanilla pods.

Find out more:
Superfood Superstore, 13 Bell Crescent, Westlake Business Park, Tokai. Tel: 021 702 4980.

Kwalapa Organic Wholefoods Store, 31 Newlands Avenue, Montebello Design Estate, Newlands. Tel: 021 687 9314

Honest Chocolate sell their products at various outlets. Website: www.honestchocolate.co.za

This article appeared in the Mail & Guardian, November 4, 2010

 

Oktoberfest in Cape Town

Written by Brent on October 15th, 2010
Picture: David Harrison

Picture: David Harrison

This October marks 20 years since the East and West Germanys were united. German politicians prefer to call it die Wende (‘the turnaround’) since the word ‘reunification’ is politically sensitive and problematic on historical grounds.
The celebration coincides with the 200th anniversary of that great swilling of beer – the Oktoberfest – when Bavarians (according to the City of Munich’s Department of Economic Development) quaff a mind-numbing 7 million litres of the brew. The beer is quality stuff, unadulterated thanks to the Reinheitsgebot (‘purity law’) of 1516. The only ingredients allowed are water, hops and barley-malt.

My first lapse in a Munich beer hall was before the Berlin wall broke. Hofbräuhaus was celebrating its 400th year. It was everything I’d expected: a cavernous hall with an oompah band and six thousand people shovelling outsized pretzels and sausages. Some had brought their own ornate tankards. Strangers locked arms and sang lustily, rocking on benches. Blonde, buxom waitresses with pigtails and dressed in dirndls, bustled about shouting vorsicht (“caution!”), carrying up to eight giant glass beer mugs at a time. I saw one guffaw good-naturedly when a drunken male patron pinched her plump hams. She didn’t spill a drop.

Earlier this year, I returned to Munich’s bacchanalian beer halls. My favourite (for sentimental reasons really) is the Augustiner, originally a monastery. Nothing much had changed, except now more than half the clientele are tourists, while Alpine barmaids are in short supply. Instead, I was served in perfect German by a woman of East Asian and by a man of Indian descent. To get a litre of beer (6.90€) you just ask for “Ein Maß bitte”.

The Oktoberfest, which started life as a horserace, is a very Bavarian event, but it has spread to other parts of the world. Expats and their progeny tend to put regional prejudice aside outside the fatherland.

The double-storey Paulaner Brauhaus in the V&A Waterfront is more tourist magnet than trap. They have a loyal local following and offer party kegs of beer (up to 30 litres in size) by prior arrangement. Two impressive, giant copper beer kettles stand at the rear of the bar counter; you can see steam escaping every now and again. A malt mill is visible behind glass. The beer is made on site under brewmaster Wolfgang Ködel. He is brewing up a special batch of 6000 litres of dark amber-coloured beer for Oktoberfest, which runs here in Africa until the end of the month. The oompah Songscape Bierfest Band and KeeZee, a German-born female singer, will entertain the crowds. The 450-seater outdoor beer garden is partially covered by a Bedouin tent.

The menu is Bavarian and I can highly recommend all their signature dishes. The crusty, dark crumbed pork schnitzel (R95) is moist and scrumptious inside. It comes with chips, but try ordering it with their traditional-style potato salad (kartoffelsalat) prepared with vinegar, rather than mayonnaise. If you’re very hungry, then you can’t go wrong ordering the crispy, enormous roast pork knuckle (R105). Naturally, they offer a range of sausages (Germans apparently eat 30kg of sausage per person per annum). The nine grilled ‘Nürnberg-style’ sausages (R95) arrive in a pan with mash, mustard and a flavourful sauerkraut fermented to just the right tartness, rich in apple and not too sour. A little-known fact is that Captain James Cook considered sauerkraut one of the secrets to his success on his long voyages.

Also celebrating is Dinkel, the charming German bakery conveniently close to Cape Town’s German school. Under the new ownership of Brigitte Pack and her husband Gerhard, they officially launch with Oktoberfest specials. The bakery takes its name from the German word for spelt. Spelt, also called German wheat, has been grown at least since 4000BC. It is noted for its high protein and moderate gluten content. Dinkel make a 100% dinkel bread. It is light, nutty and tasty, and amorous of olive oil. They use only stone-ground flours and organic produce. Among the many baked attractions are sauerkraut bread, Blackforest rye and salty pretzels.

In numerous ways, I feel the Germans have it right. In the beer halls, you get excellent fare and lots of it at a sensible price. There’s something very democratic about their delicious, wholesome and large food, and about beer in general.

Paulaner Bräuhaus, Clock Tower Precinct, V & A Waterfront, Cape Town. Tel: 021 418 9999.
Dinkel, 91 Kloofnek Road, Tamboerskloof, Cape Town. Tel: 021 424 3217.
Augustiner Großgaststätte, Neuhausenerstr 27, Munich, Germany. Tel: 089 231 83257.
Hofbrauhaus, Am Platzl 9, Munich, Germany. Tel: 089 290 1360.

This article appeared in the Mail & Guardian October 15, 2010.

 

Prima on wheels

Written by Brent on October 1st, 2010

Photo: David Harrison

Photo: David Harrison


As the old adage goes it takes a foreigner to show one the beauty of your own town. Although I have lived in Cape Town most of my life, I was unaware that visitors could climb right up into the lantern room of the Mouille Point lighthouse.

A landmark heritage building in red and white candy stripes that has saved and guided countless ships from as far back as 1824, everyone I know calls it the Mouille Point lighthouse. In fact, it is the Green Point lighthouse. Its misnomer stood a hundred meters further away before it was destroyed. The etymology of Mouille is contested too. Old Dutch has ‘moeilje’ for breakwater. The origin seems likely to be from the French military, the verb mouiller employed when casting anchor or from the past participial for “wetted”. Other sources claim the name comes from the tribes known as the Hottentots and Strandlopers who called the land Kai Haa Mullai.

Whatever the origins, almost up and until the millennium, the Mouille Point residential strip was considered second-rate. Residents complained about the regular pea-soup mists and the foghorn (upgraded in 1986) that blared at all hours of night. Not that long ago, even student friends could afford to rent ramshackle flats here. Then the big property developers moved in, buying up the last city seafront lots, knocking down many of the old blocks and building luxury apartments, more than half of which seem to stand empty all year except for a few summer months.

In the 1960s and 70s, the Doll’s House drive-in roadhouse served hamburgers and hotdogs to people in their cars. Patrons had to compete with brazen flocks of scavenging seagulls.

There are today a number of smarter eateries taking in the view besides that old survivor Theo’s Grill, which opened in the 1980s. You’ll find deli cafés such as Café Neo, the Sundance Gourmet Coffee Company and the Newport Deli; boutique restaurants like Café Splendida; large, watering holes and hangouts trying to be trendy, including Pepenero Italian seafood restaurant, Wafu and Wakame.

Now an enterprising Berliner, Andrej Brandt, has set up a mobile pizzeria, Prima on wheels, at the lighthouse. It was he who first made me aware of the small museum inside.

¬¬Out of his Volkswagen LT35 panel van, which incredibly has a built-in wood-fired pizza oven, Andrej and his team of baristas, Malwandi Notyena, Thando Mini and Thando (Tito) Luakhe Peter, serve pizzas, excellent coffees, espressos and cappuccinos, freshly squeezed juices and some fine desserts.

His pizza dough is made only with stone-ground Eureka flour. Options include tuna with onions; salami and green pepper and margaritas for vegetarians. His Parma ham and rucola pizza is a winner, as is the Norwegian salmon (fresh on top, not grilled) with capers, mayonnaise, a dot of raspberry jam and a little red onion.

Ever since he started up in June, when most of his clients were the scores of police deployed for the FIFA World Cup, locals have taken to the hardworking and talkative Brandt with enthusiasm. On a summery day, the public spread themselves out on the lawns, chatting, reading and relaxing to the sound of the sea.

A photographer by profession, Brandt worked in the film industry for many years. He first came to South Africa in 1996 and loved the country. “Once here, you never get away anymore”, he says.

His wife is director of Boss Models Cape Town. They hand-built a guesthouse in Yzerfontein, the Light House, a fetching American-style clapperboard beach home.

Brandt’s food stall is a big hit with the many dog-walkers on the esplanade. With typical Berliner verve, he provides bowls of water for thirsty mutts, and even makes his own special organic dog food. It is so good, humans can eat it too, he says. Some locals have become quite agitated when Brandt skips a day or two in inclement weather.

But not everybody is pleased with this civilized state of affairs. Brandt, who rents his premises from the lighthouse, says Councillor JP Smith, he of the vice squad and Chair of the Safety and Security Portfolio Committee of the city, turned up with a dozen police to evict Brandt, claiming there is a zoning issue. Brandt says, laughing, that Smith backed up these claims with maps printed from Google Earth on which he had drawn borders. He was unsuccessful.

Here’s hoping that long may people and their pooches be allowed to enjoy a cup of coffee and a bowl of water or a slice of pizza when out for their promenade.

Prima on wheels. Green Point lighthouse. Tel: 083 299 0500.
The Green Point Lighthouse Museum. 100 Beach Road. Entrance costs R16.