Rossouws Restaurants

I hate feeling disloyal, but that’s how I feel writing a luke-warm review of this place. That’s because I love the proposition - real SA look and feel of an old corner cafe, and a menu that features SA comfort food like bobotie, snoek pie, sardines on toast.

I would still encourage anyone who has not been to go however. It’s a colourful, idiosyncratic joint, and they had Abdullah Ilbrahim playing loud. Egg-shell painted colour walls, linoleum floors, wood tables, sweets on the counter.

But: a spicy calamari that defined blandness, fish cakes that were ok, bobotie that really failed to capture any potential, yellowtail fish supposedly done curried but with little to show for it, and not strikingly fresh. All with a diced tomato and cucumber, iceberg lettuce salad (I’m not a lettuce snob, in fact I think lettuce is water barely held together, but everything with the same salad?).

The dessert of flourless chocolate cake and dark chocolate ice-cream was stellar though, and the prices are reasonable. Compact wine list with good picks too. But offish service, supercilious, and a manager that sat outside reading.

Perhaps its just going through a poor patch. I hope so, because any place that serves sardines on toast for breakfast has got soul.