Terroir, Stellenbosch, Nov 09

By JPR | Published: December 10, 2009

Revisiting this friendly space is always easy, there’s such a lovely relaxed country feeling. For those who have never been, it’s elegant rustic, certainly unpretentious for the stylings of the food. Terracotta and wood, treed patios and blackboards. In earlier experiences, service had been the Achilles’ heel, but today all was good, a continuation of my last meal here. From the call to check my reservation to the good greeting and seating where I was offered a table inside or out. The waitress also inquired whether I wanted local or foreign when it came to the bottled water – and there was a polite indication of extra wines on the blackboard. The wine list, too, has seen development and today offers a good spread that’s decently priced, with estate-own wines particularly good value. … continue reading

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Waterkloof, Somerset West

By JPR | Published: December 8, 2009

Space, space and views galore at this ultra-modern winery that teeters on the brow of the Schaapenberg – undoubtedly the most view-rich restaurant in the Cape. High volume spaces with an industrial, modern aesthetic in concrete and glass, steel rafters as frames and very bold art – but if you like frills, Katie Mehlua and candles you won’t find them in this masculine environment. Warm wood floors offset the white linen and blonde wood, but there’s a down-light that somewhat dulls the faces around you.

On one side you have a views onto the winery works and a unique bar/lounge, on the other, the vine-bedecked hills, and in the south, sea. Visually it’s most arresting, but be warned that not all tables have the sea view – which somehow manages to steal the show as the sun sets, even though the vista of the mountains is utterly spectacular.

On this first visit the waiter and staff were good, explaining the identity of the vineyards, and topping my red a little when I suggested that the pour on my previous white had been parsimonious. There was a little bit of “plate-auctioning” on the starters (“who’s having the…”) but the rest was seamless. The glassware is beautiful, as are the plates and bowls, the wine is served at a perfect temperature. … continue reading

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Pomegranate, Stellenbosch

By JPR | Published: December 7, 2009

On arrival, I was again struck by the feeling of seeping nostalgia of this farm. The buildings carry their historic air with weight. On the other hand, if your preference is authenticity, this is the place. Chef-proprietor Mike Israel has – however – a perennially enthusiastic air. He’s always on hand to give his personal sing-song debrief on his cryptic menu (which reads just “game” or “soup”). This is one operator who knows the value of spending time with his guests, and he flits between kitchen and table constantly, only pausing to toss a duck aside (they patrol the grounds with cocky authority). A chef who leaves the kitchen? Well, another chef is now listed as your host, reassuringly.

This day the weather was perfect, though warm, so a table on the lawn. A glass of KC sauvignon was ideal with the prawn risotto – well cooked, al dente, enriched just enough and with three crisp prawns. It needed a little of the Sauvignon and black pepper to cut through, but both were available and the rice’s texture was perfect with the wine, plus the portion was ideal. A good start.

My duck breast was ideally cooked (unless you like yours bloody, which is a silly faddism in my opinion) with crisped fat on herbed mash, alongside just some plain veg and a light jus. Again good, not fire-starter, but solidly good and reassuring. Then a creme brûlée made with… duck eggs – good too, although sugar a little granular, the creme was delicious if a touch too set. All served with a rather retro spun sugar tube.

So there it is. It’s not a cheap meal, two courses likely to cost around R160 before drinks, but it’s refreshingly free of pretence and the food is conservative in the best sense. Judging by the tables around me, the kitchen is slow, so prepare for the languid lunch – not too hard on a wine estate. And re-reading my last report, there’s a consistency of style, plus improvements.

Vergenoegd Wine Farm. R310, Stellenbosch. 021 843 3248. Tues-Sat lunch and dinner; Sun lunch.

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Bistro Sixteen82, Steenberg, Constantia

By JPR | Published: December 3, 2009

This newcomer to the winelands of Constantia is a real looker – but can a bistro that can’t spell “moules” be trusted?

Alongside the radically redesigned tasting room, with its quirky and very striking glass grapes feature, you walk on into a room that has a relaxing inside/out flow, driftwood elements and lots of white leather. It’s all been designed to the hilt, and as a result can’t escape having a hotel-like feeling. But the huge windows onto the winery and the garden do add a “living” dimension: although the winery view is of clinical stainless steel tanks and the garden immaculately groomed. Then there are water features with summer benches alongside – good for the smokers but also very prone to heat. In fact, the whole is ultra summery, winter will add an interesting dimension.

The “summer” menu is divided into sections with cute titles like “stimulate, rejuvenate and inspire” – which, according to the eternal law of promise and delivery, was likely to mean slightly more mundane results. Items included: roast marrow bones (summer?), seared scallops, a summer risotto with broad beans (broad beans are spring pleasures, and already out of season?), Caesar salad, Asian duck salad. Or be “inspired” by a tartine of salmon trout, sautéed gnocchi with pancetta, “moulles”, a charcuterie platter with “artisan” bread, rib eye steak or steak sandwich. Mains around R75 and all courses R50 to R90.  For a summer menu there was lots of red meat: a steak sandwich, a rib eye, a tataki, charcuterie.

Perhaps the menu’s posturing is inspired by the wine list, which features Steenberg’s offerings under the (self-ordained) categories of “premium, super-premium, ultra-premium and icon.”  ”Icon” being reserved for their white blend, Magna Carta, which has only seen one vintage released to date – and is already an icon? No, icon obviously refers to the price, so beware.

As ever, expectation and delivery: it’s all on the plate. The Caesar was served with mixed leaves… but including cos, there was a good application of anchovies, excellent quail eggs but an insipid dressing. The summer risotto was well cooked and tasty, but there were no broad beans in it, even though these were the first featured ingredient? A very standard salmon trout portion was served on a very poor baguette – and with the very plain quality of the bread rolls, the “artisan” bread claim started to creak. Linefish was decently cooked with good garlic mash and a smoked tomato sauce that tasted as promised. A beetroot and goat’s cheese salad with candied walnuts, was fine, “wysiwyg”.  One dessert, a summer berry gratin, was good; but the Origin coffees were not well made at all.

So the portions are light, the fare breezy and on the whole good, if inaccurate, café grub. It’s on the expensive side but then you do have the very hip setting, and the service was very good. There’s also a “raw” bar counter to sit at for the modern proletariat comfort sushi & etc. It’s not a bistro, but it is worth a look.

Open daily from 9am til 8pm. 021 713 2211. Website here.

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Vanilla, Cape Quarter Extension, Cape Town

By JPR | Published: December 1, 2009

Perhaps the most ambitious of the new restaurants in the new De Waterkant, others being Cru Café, Viola, and Lazari (which all have more of a café feel) is Vanilla – operated by the team behind Camps Bay’s Tuscany Beach. Here they spent as much as R7 million on the decor… and in keeping with Tuscany’s “vibrant” style, Vanilla looks like a movie set from Ken and Barbie’s version of Miami Vice. There’s even a white piano on a mezzanine level. Upstairs has a more enclosed feel, but the “open wall” sensibility of the whole development also pervades Vanilla, and a view of an ATM or a perambulating Capetonian is likely. For example, we had conversations with two tables alongside us, so “open” is the feel.

OK, it has only been open for a few nights, so easy on the drama, but I immediately had the feeling it would take some doing just to get a glass of wine. (The man at an adjacent table overheard me and said the best way to enjoy the place was tiddled, but getting to be so would take a while). And when I did get a glass, the wine was baked – even though the wine list carries on about their superior wine delivery system. The wine list is also full of typos, which never inspires confidence. (And “sashimi” spelt wrong on the menu also leaves you doubting whether you want to try the sushi…).

The menu is a “best of” hits and classics with something for everyone, including sushi – that modern comfort food – of course. And you know, the food wasn’t half bad, although pricey. It was a quick in and out meal, but our blue cheese and pear salad was full of macerated flavour, the salt and pepper squid was light and delicious, and the salmon well-cooked and served on a bright, al dente risotto of fennel and vanilla (I had to). So will be back for another look.

Open daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 021 421 1391. Ave spend for two courses R160.

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Gourmet Burger Co. vs Delux, Durban

By JPR | Published: November 30, 2009

At Gourmet Burger Co. in Durban North they proudly advertise their use of organic local rump beef (which does not necessarily mean more taste, but helps us feel more righteous…); also buns cooked on to premises to fit the patties (but end up being bigger than the patty) and with less sugar to show the meat flavour off better; also that the fries are hand cut. So a considerable statement of intention to quality.

The place is lovely, with a big wooden deck and window doors onto the interior with its screeded floor and white modular plastic chairs. The look is very “Wallpaper magazine” with earthed colours and chocolate browns. My burger came in standing tall, spiked by a kebab stick and topped with a solid slice of pickle. Bun was toasted and tasted good, the lower half featured some fried onion underneath the patty, which was char grilled. Some red  onion atop, plus tomato slice and butter lettuce. Fries were thin, come with a very eggy & flavoured mayo; plus they automatically brought the right ketchup.  It cost R49 and was very good. They also specialise in milkshakes, but I don’t.

Delux is on Davenport Road in Glenwood, and speciality burgers are their game – as is a youthful scene with MTV-style music and a big patio deck onto the street. At night, it swings. Daytimes, however, the look is tatty. The fittings look scruffy and worn and the brick interior and concrete floor seems cheap, as do the hard, white plastic chairs (could it be that these are the same chairs as at Gourmet?). A prominent bar tells you this is a party joint, with burgers. My burger, at R55, was heavily sauced with a BBQ sauce as well as a relish sauce like monkeygland and the meat was not memorable, with a dense texture and no grill flavour due to the heavy saucing. Good fries, though, spiced. The waiter tried to upsell me to one of the “gourmet” burgers – and I think, retroactively, that he was trying to do me a favour.

Gourmet takes it, even before the organic extras.

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Neo Cafe, Durban North Beach

By JPR | Published: November 28, 2009

Everyone loves a bargain meal, and South Africans love Portuguese. Neo is in the heart of  North Beach, but in a strip that looks like something out of South Central Los Angeles, without the rap music. Durban, on the whole, has lots of potential for far-seeing developers, indeed the promenade currently looks like a Pacific rim earthquake zone as furious upgrades are in full swing.

Neo is a bar with a beer garden that serves as a restaurant in full plastic livery (green and red, naturally). Beer branding also happily displayed. The menu dishes up all the classics, and our quick sample of the chourizo in flaming pig, giblets, and chicken peri-peri suggests that this is a place where the eating is secondary to the socialising. The food is dependable, though safe to bland in terms of flavour, and not as good as Fiel Amigo, for example. The salt shaker and bottle of hot sauce is often required.

Summer Square, Sol Harris Crescent, North Beach. 031 332 2299. Mon-Sat lunch and dinner

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Fiel Amigo, Glenwood, Durban

By JPR | Published: November 27, 2009

A neighbourhood house in Victorian style that’s been transformed into a Portuguese local. A well-worn mood pervades, while blue and white accents and patterns, wine posters and a down-home soundtrack add Lisitanian flavour. The owner is on hand but there’s no pushiness, in fact the general service tone is casual bordering on slack, which is fine because the spacious veranda and deck invite lingering, no worry meals.

Good aromas from the kitchen while you look at the menu with it’s diversions into Portuguese dining lore and photos to jog your memory – as if the cuisine has just landed… what first landed on my plate were very good giblets served in a bowl, tender and rich in a buttery garlic and bayleaf sauce. You really want to get stuck in with a bread roll and mop it all up. Kitchen comes unstuck with an all-at-once lunch rush, but when it comes out, the chicken is served in a metal pan and is slathered with peri-peri of a clearly home-made nature. Fat chips alongside, and it’s a winner, the chicken moist but with that chewy grilled edge.

No desserts because “they haven’t arrived yet” was ominous though, as was the waitress not knowing what aguardiente was. Then again, she did know it as fire-water. Espresso ok, the whole experience suggests this would be a good place to localise oneself if you live close – but drive only if you yearn… Or if you love this cuisine.

0312014048

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The Grill Room at Oyster Box Hotel, Umhlanga

By JPR | Published: November 25, 2009

The hotel is a knock-out. I’ve heard how many millions were spent renovating it, and I love it when you see money put to splendid use. The detail, the spaces and the feel of the hotel is delightful. I would recommend anyone goes to take a look, and be sure to go to the Lighthouse Bar upstairs.

But that’s where the delight ends. Order only something from a bottle at the bar (the dry martini I tried was sweet and dilute) and try to avoid eating here. The Grill Room is the upmarket restaurant, and it is alluring in its deep lighting and dark carpet with white outlined squares… a French naval theme. It’s quite imposing on arrival, you think you need to be dressed well, but then you begin to look around and notice that the white chairs are faux leather, that the paintings on the walls are specially commissioned “lifestyle” scenes of the immediate surrounds in a Hallmark idiom.

Anyway, it could all have been casual-sophisticated in a cheeky way if the kitchen delivered… But first the service. A self-announcing waitress was replaced by charming gent who then kept getting his good work undermined by the confusion of who was serving me: e.g. he suggested leaving my Caesar salad on the side for my main as I had not really touched it. But she whisked it away. Bread never never appeared for the butter and specially-designed spread, and my other setting at the table was never cleared. My lunchtime trattoria did a better job of the basics.

Wine list is good also with international picks but remarkably poor by the glass. Pompously, there’s a water list, although they do also guarantee the tap water. My amuse of lobster bisque was highly spiced with pepper and also overly sweet. Then the over-sized plates took over, the first with the Caesar that lacked any flavour whatsoever, though all the bits were in place and the egg well poached. The “Posh” fish and chips consisted of sole, curiously I was warned by the waiter that it was deep fried. Should have known. The fish was ruined. Fishfingers would do as good a job and this dish cost R165!

Many of the dishes on the menu (which is really a bistro menu with grillhouse elements and a few curries) feature “OBH” fries, which are simply shoe-string and dry. Other items: risotto, crayfish and prawn cocktail, eggs royale, kataifi prawns, chicken noodle soup, chicken vindaloo, “black forest” duck, pork belly, oxtail with beans and mash, hand chopped sirloin, bearnaise fillet.

There’s no value here, and I fled before any dessert. What bland, over-priced food for such a lovely space.

031 514 5000

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Aubergine/Andreotti’s, Hillcrest

By JPR | Published: November 23, 2009

For some reason, I was expecting an old-school feel to this well-respected resto, but found a slick, comfortable, mod-casual bistro. Soft lighting, chic music and waitresses, diner-style chairs (not ideal for prolonged lounging) and lots of wood. Not a big space, the division into two nominal spaces was a bit of a mystery (later explained as a rental agreement issue). I was dining alone, and a chef slipped me a GQ to read, nice touch.

The kitchen is open, and a wine locker suggests a good list, and delivers, also with a few internationals; while the menu is titled by month, and specials supplement the menu. The overall idiom is bistro and grills meet pastas, with provenace of ingredient listed were appropriate. Service was very sharp – some of the best I have experienced in recent eating. So for example, I said that the red wines by the glass were not inspiring, and waitress quickly offered to see what other bottles the chef had open, brought me a good wine.

So, pasta gamberi to start: properly cooked, with springy texture, prawns very good. Seasoning was light, but extra garlic (fresh), chilli and Parmesan on side did the trick. Portions continued to be enormous with the pork belly, lentil and spinach main. Comes with an unctuous creamy mustard sauce studded with bacon and the most outrageous crackling. At many of the tables I saw take-away boxes, so value is a given.

An apple tarte tatin was the Achilles heel of the night. Well seared edges, but the base wet and the apple too slight as a presence. A toffee choc ice-cream on top was really good though. Well-extracted Lavazza to finish, helped by a good after dinner drinks trolley. I’ve heard that consistency can be an issue here, but my first visit was by and large a charm.

20 Hillcrest Centre, Old Main Road. 031 765 6050. Tues-Fri lunch; Mon-Sat dinner.

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