Rossouws Restaurants

The Hungry Man and I arrived excited and hungry at Rust en Vrede for the second of their two theme evenings of the year: this the winter game menu. A couple of speeches established that chef David Higgs had actually shot the kudu himself, though he admitted that the pheasant were beyond his hunting skills. I’m no hunter, though do believe that there is more authenticity in killing what you eat yourself. The extraordinary distance between ourselves and our (skinless, boneless, bloodless) meat is a more acute moral crisis than the choice of whether to eat meat or not.

The food was exceptional. While I thought the first course, terrine of lentils, foie gras and game birds with a warm salad of fresh peas and truffle could have had more depth of flavour, it was (as THM pointed out) a perfect launching pad - built on freshness and texture.

Kudu and bean broth with warthog and coriander sausage was superb, a real winter classic; while the main course - eland loin dusted with a “biltong spice” resting on a “denningvleis” risotto (a traditional Cape style of meat, shredded and often preserved) with a quince confiture - was sublime. The venison was tender and beautifully flavoured, the combinations sure. The risotto was very good, with some forest mushrooms hidden in there and a perfect “crunch”.

Goats cheese baked in butter puff pastry together with a pear and apple salad to finish - I thought the cheese (Sante Maure de Touraine) could have done as well solo, but there was no harm in the decadence of the crust, perfectly cooked. As ever, good service, and our table looking onto the kitchen added to one of those most memorable evenings.

This Italian veteran today impressed me with some superb gnocchi. The woman who served us was pleased to announce that she had made it herself and I was pleased to compliment her warmly. Then I tried the tiramisu, since she acknowleged that she had also made this, and with the suggestion that it, too, was the business. When I left half uneaten (it was in the tiramisu family, but not the prettiest relative, being pretty dry and shy in flavour) she hardly batted an eyelid, and did not ask if anything was wrong with it. I certainly didn’t say I was full. I found this surprising, also telling.

By the way, they currently have first-of-season artichokes as a special if you’re interested. Regrettably, they forgot to tell us when we ordered.

Mario’s. 89 Main Rd, Green Point. 021 439 6644

A few weeks ago, I posted this blog on a great chef’s table at Lafayette in Stellenbosch. On the night, my water was “free” in that it was included in the bill. Today, on Cape Talk, the restaurant had to defend a customer’s complaint at being charged R2 per glass of water and R10 for a jug. The manager explained to the radio station that this was in line with their “water-wise” philosophy, and to make people realise that water does not, in fact, flow freely. While I support their care for the environment (they recycle and use grey water appropriately) I think this is a very poor example of customer interaction, since it is so egregiously out of step with other restaurants and they do not explain their point of departure clearly. Plus they make a margin on this water that is remarkably high - so their lesson in value becomes an irritation, not a learning. What if they playfully charged 10c for a glass - with a message about water preservation on the menu?

This hotel has seen it’s fair share of changes in the last few years, none of which have raised it back to the culinary heights it achieved under Bruce Robertson (now at The Showroom). Under new chef Christophe Chabanel there is certainly the drive to change this. They’ve also called on the experience of Liam Tomlin, ex of Australia’s famous Bank restaurant.

The menu for lunch today was interesting on two fronts: the plates were largely bistro in personality, and the prices are international. So, as we all know, price only becomes a point of discussion once the value balance tips to the wrong side.

A Caesar salad (R80) arrived with all in place (barring a few alien cocktail tomatoes), the sauce was fine but not profound. A steak tartare (R90) was plated in a playful manner, a long plate with the steak to one pole, the chopped bits and bobs in the middle, and a mini-Tabasco bottle on the end - along with a jar of catering-grade tomato sauce… do these guys want to ruin the tomato’s reputation?

Mains: a R120 pork cassoulet that was decent but not thrilling enough to travel for, and I did not get the impression that the sausage had more complexity than Escort’s finest. Side order of risotto was good (included). The R160 fillet bearnaise, we were told, came with a side of veg but this did not arrive, instead with a form of daupinoise potato and a salad of watercress, some leaves disconcertingly yellow. The steak was very good, however, the sauce also.

The highlight of the meal - cost versus character - came with the dessert: a great “confit” of grapefruit with a home-made icecream. As they reach their heights, however, the lows set in - awful coffee (arriving before my dessert (?)); the errant side of steamed veg suddenly arriving after our mains are finished and without our having any cutlery? Friandise that were of a straight-out-of-the-fridge variety, and tasting like they had come from a supermarket shelf not long before that.

So aside from generally competent, over-priced food, the chief problem was the service. It was very friendly and willing, but extraordinarily poor, by the “five star” standards of the place, and by the expectations set by the prices on the menu. Plates not cleared, dishes not understood: “Arniston bouillabaisse is a French word for soup, sir”. Really?

If you want fish and chips you can indulge at R150, platter for two R950. You can also drink a glass of First Growth at R3000. Clearly they don’t really aim to satisfy local walk-ins like me, but the deep wallet of the already-installed room guest. He or she is likely to enjoy the new comfort food direction - but I fear he or she will also think these service levels are somewhat off the international norm, and that’s a shame.

A quick lunch yesterday, we thought we’d check out the Bistro at this modern winery but it’s closed on Mondays and Tuesdays (bizzarely, since you would think they’d rather close the “main” restaurant). Asara now have a very modern luxury hotel as of May 2008, complete with a Grand Ballroom for conferences and weddings and two restaurants, Raphael’s for French-inspired cuisine and Bistro & Tapas for lighter Mediterranean meals.So we ended up at Raphael’s which has a great setting, good service - and a very curious menu that could belong to a steakhouse, certainly not to this “fancy” hotel. However, the longer I looked at this place, the more anodyne international-hotel it looked and the less I liked it, notwithstanding all the money spent.

There’s also a fantastic home and kitchen-goods shop on the property that seems deeply misplaced - surely it belongs in a mall? Will people come to a winery/hotel to buy upscale coffee machines and plates?Anyway, the food at Raphael’s is ordinary and certainly not worth the drive (it’s the kind of food that, as soon as it arrives, you lose interest in eating it). However the Bistro menu is far more exciting and I have heard some good things, so perhaps next time?

Yesterday I was on the way to the airport and was recommended to eat at Bayleaf and Sage at the Blubird Centre on Athol-Oaklands, so stopped there on my way. As I looked at the menu, it struck me that the fish and chips here would likely be replicated at Bellagio, a restaurant across the same parking lot. So I devised a quick “taste-off” to test the two kitchen’s offerings for quality and speed of service (only because I needed to move swiftly to fit this in before my flight!).

So, tongue mostly in cheek, I offer the following “fish and chip” showdown between two establishments in the Blubird Centre: Bayleaf and Sage, and Bellagio. Continue reading…

This Shane Sauvage is clearly a character of the individual sort. It takes character to open a restaurant like this, one that has so much chutzpah and kitsch that you want to say “surely a joke?” but find it hard to resist once you’re in the space and eating the food. From the wishing well to the OTT interior with its bad Afro art, this place is full-bore. Even his media notices are emblazoned all over the restrooms. But the service is attentive and applied, explaining the multiple specials with love and care.

The food is madly eclectic, true fusion. And pushed so far, fusion actually makes sense as it’s own class of cooking. There’s also a healthy dose of humour. “Hot and slow” snails, vodka flambéed only to warm the glass for brandy in homage to Napoleon’s Russian campaign. Flavours are monstrously bold, and there is at much exuberance in the food as there is in the space. So prawns are wrapped in venison and draped over fillet, all covered in a mustard cream so bold that the prawn is lost - so why do it? Then there are veritable innovations that really work, like his Aztec mushrooms, where tequila and chocolate combine to embolden the ’shroom.

This is not for everyone, food as fun and games. But it is such a tonic to the anodyne fare served at so many fashion-first vampire restaurants. He’s got a cookbook, and with its wonderfully personal insertions I was loving it - until he revealed a whole chapter cooking for KWV. That’s like La Pentola cosying up to the Dros.

The name is very obviously a joke, once you get to this sparsely decorated pizza (and a little pasta) space. Most people prefer to sit outside on the streetside patio than inside the store-room like room with its standout colour-spotted floor, mosaic-adorned pizza oven and stacks of pasta, flour and tomato in the raw. “Industrial deli” may be the school it derives from. The pizza comes in regular and “pizette” and desserts are also pizza based. I like mine crisper and thinner than they make here, but they are hand-made and wood-fired, and the locals make this a lively, honest joint with welcome swagger in the step.

Real colour in the palette of any city’s cuisine is a wonderful thing. Zemara provides colour in tins-full of acrylic. The cryptic menu lists simply “chicken farm style” or “peanut sauce chicken” or “rabbit/goat/tripe Zemara style”. I was recommended to try the tilapia (fresh water fish) fried. They have a grilled version and a sauce Zemara version - but today both were unavailable, as was the rabbit. I wasn’t in the mood for goat.

So I settled for the mysterious farm chicken, along with some cassave “pap” or porridge and “saka saka”, a type of vegetable, like spinach that’s mushed with dried fish. The food, after a wait of 45 minutes, came with a small bowl of the most impressive chili that I have ever had the honour of meeting. A small sample and I was sneezing uncontrollably. From this impressive individual to the least - the chicken. It was tough and stringy, but maybe that’s what farm style means? This was no supermarket tamed bird, but a Clint Eastwood bad-ass. It came in a thin tomato, celery and onion sauce, with some “brede” (another mild green).

The cassava mash was most unique as a first-timer to its taste (none) and texture (lots: like a Chinese bun, all gooey and gelatinous, with a fibrous texture too). The saka saka was the standout though, an earthy, slightly wild flavour of distant lands (the African interior, the Congo that the owners hail from).

The place is odd, a non-descript space in ochre with glass-topped tables and a few stabs at African art (a springbok head behind the bar, carved animal wooden door), a bare wall wine rack, and a parking lot in a part of town that needs a hellava lot of TLC. The sign says Zemara in A4 pages printed per letter, and the old gent that arrived in his VW Beetle was wearing rugby shorts and socks, with a leather jacket over his shirt.

This certainly is more of a night-time restaurant. The old-world (chintzy Mediterranean) country style of the place translates better with a fire in the hearth and lower lights. But. The poor music and scatty service (from a telephone reservation that was disconcertingly vague to constantly auctioned dishes at the table and nervous responses to non-orders of aperitifs) is not what you’d expect from the top end of Pretoria dining, or any dining. I also don’t expect basic wine glasses and plenty of typos on the wine list, but this could be put down to character.

A more alarming moment was the remarkable alacrity of the kitchen. The fact that Daniel, the chef-proprietor, gives you the menu verbally is remarkable and promising (of freshness and craft) until you compare notes with your dining companions and realise that quite a few of the dishes are often repeated. Then, when the starters emerge within ten minutes of the order, you become concerned. At least I do. The mains were as swift.

However, on the plate, the quality is good. French with Asian elements is the tone of the day, and the execution is sound and confident. Interestingly, for all the personal attention to the delivery of the menu, by the patron himself, no-one bothers to check if the result is palatable. It was, on this occasion, but I am not left with a sense of security.

La Madeleine is, through sheer experience of the chef, still worlds’ removed from other “sophisticated” pretenders. But its persona has overtaken its delivery, and expectation has trammelled excitement. It’s like hearing your father’s war stories for the first time since you were ten - the words are the same but the thrill is gone.