Ginja, Cape Town
Excited about eating at this highly-rated city spot again, last night was not what I had hoped. First off was their unsatisfactory reservations system. I left a message requesting a table, missed their return call, called back only to find that I did not have a reservation and had to make another for a time that was less suitable. Of course I may not even have got a table. The place looked pretty shabby (though it’s always gone for that inner-city cool “grunge” thing) and there was a malodour wafting in and out all evening (which they probably had no control over to be fair). Service was confident but perfunctory and often missing, on other tables aperitif glasses remained on the table way into mains. My starter duck was stringy and tough, but they dealt with this complaint well; while my lamb main was very good. One of the strengths of the experience here is the highly creative plating; while the confusing menu, with adjectives spilt under a heading like “lamb,” makes it hard to know what you’re in for. The night was summed up by my friend D’s response to his “chocolate landscape” dessert that he hardly touched: “I’ve got agoraphobia.”
How the mighty have fallen. I loved Ginja and have been a long term evangelist. Starters were indifferent to bad. Service was slack for a restaurant of this calibre. Empty bottles and glasses littered tables around us. Complaints, which were necessary and requests for service were however handled well. The duck starter being tough enough to avoid and send back is not ok at this level. the mains were as good as I remembered, with my seafood being fantastic with the prawns amazing and the scallop making up for the disappointment of the scallop starter (2 of the 4 starter scallops were mostly harmless. The linefish component was a little salty though. The desserts were uninspiring despite exquisite presentation and verbal description. Menu descriptions have got so clever that they do not describe anything, but are an un-punctuated mess of interesting words.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:19 amI couldn’t agree more about the menu descriptions. It’s highly infuriating having to decipher which of the list is likely to be the main ingredient and not just used to wipe the pan… Though, this is not the only restaurant in Cape Town that thinks its makes the menu more flamboyant. I find it an affliction of most ‘Fusion’ restaurants, who don’t always consider that less is sometimes more.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:46 amOn reflection I must disagree with one of thing JPR said, I still find the décor does the job.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:07 pm