South Africa part 3

Culinary South Africa

Our trip was based on culinary experience and South Africa offers plenty of possibilities to eat the world around. 

We started with Portuguese style restaurant, that actually offered a bit of international cuisine, with a Portuguese accent. They fancied green hot chilli avocado pizza with danish feta that our "tour leader" took. He said it was excellent.

Green hot chilli avocado pizza

Near to our hotel at Gardens district we also found very modest Italian restaurant with wooden pizza oven. And not far from that we had really spicy thai diner. Also Indian restaurant, vietnamese and many other options are available. And the main ingredients are excellent quality. 

One night we decided to have an elegant diner to witch we even dressed up. Between down town and waterfront in an area of old storehouses there is an elegant restaurant where I tasted the most delicate ostrich carpaccio and ostrich filet. 

For some reason "these elegant restaurants" seem to save with inner lights and we needed the flashlight from our smartphones to be able to read the menu. 

springbok carpaccio 

We also learned that in some restaurant desserts are the largest portions of the whole menu. It is highly recommend to think what you order as a main course if you want some sweet afterwards. That one below was a regular size. 

To continue our culinary trip, we also tasted some Belgium style cuisine at the Waterfront and at Camps Bay we had a sunset smoothie one night and another night Italian diner. Again light in the restaurant was optional, while food was excellent also the way it was set in a plate. 

In every restaurant we met only nice people, ready to serve us. 

Salmon salad with avocado

I had the best Vodka-Lime sorbetto ever, and I hope they take it as a regular to their menu adding some ginger in it. Fits to the name of the restaurant too. 

Talking about cocktails; I am not a cocktail lover, but time to time, I like experiment by tasting some. The best Bloody Mary ever is to be found in the area of Cape Town. Two memorable ones: one at Camps Bay at the restaurant we dined and the other one at Sea Point. 

We also had some beautiful oysters at the V. A.  Waterfront and Turkish diner with a lots of mezes at the area where old warehouses are.

No need to take them all

Just about 40 minutes by driving to the winery area there is this typical Dutch look alike village called Stellenbosh to visit. We followed the food steps of our tour leader, to whom the visit in South Africa was already his 5th one. And again our gustative pallbearers were not disappointed. 

monster hamburger

An other winery town near Cape Town we visited was founded in 1685. We could have done a wine tour, wine and culinary tour or just wine tasting. We took the last one. And then enjoyed our lunch in the restaurant. 

A bit further a way, where we stopped on our way back from the region of Eastern Cape, there is this little jewel called Franschhoek. We had diner and breakfast in this Italian style restaurant where they write Bruschetta without "s", because locals don't seem to be able to pronounce it as Italians with the "s". 

They served dishes that were like in a competition of Master Chef:

Driving towards Cape of Good Hope we stopped in a small town where Pinguin colonies are to be admired. Its called Simmons Town. We all ordered mussels with creamy sauce, but unfortunately just one mussel was bad and one of us (not me) got ill. 

The day after me and the Croatian lady headed to the African Restaurant in down town I was suggested to visit, and we enjoyed lovely South African beer and delicious dishes.

Visiting a "friend of a friend" at Betty's Bay, nearly 2 h driving from Cape Town, we had lunch in a small village called Kleinmond (small mouth). Mussels and oysters are to be found everywhere in the cost line. 

Here we ordered oysters to start with that were excellent and some fried fish and calamari with chips. The portions in this restaurant are huge ! I could barely eat those calamaris and some chips. I took the fish in a doggy bag but forgot it to the house of our friends. Calamaris were cleaned with perfection. This is something I learned while working as a student in a Greek Restaurant in Helsinki, that nowadays do not exist anymore. The rule was to take out the whole skin, the marrow bone that looks like a piece of plastic and the chewing gum type inner skin. Many restaurants leave the last skin or buy bags of nearly cleaned ones and it makes eating calamari like chewing a gum. 

I didn't know what to do with all that food we didn't eat, but as a hint to the travellers to South Africa, you may take remaining food with a doggy bag and give it away to the parking assistants, or in some case to the waiters to take back home. Make sure you don't give away something already started, to be educated. 

In Hout Bay that is about 1 h driving from Cape Town and where swimming could be possible when there is not much wind, with the water temperature of nearly 18°C we had again this lovely meal in a restaurant, where dishes were combined as if the chef was a winner of the Master Chef competition. 

avocado scampi salad

On our way to the Garden Route we slept few night over at the Oudtshoorn: A town of universities and restaurants that shut their doors at 9 pm. When we arrived it was nearly 10 pm and all we had left about the choice was a gas station. They had a lots of these english type of pies. We had few bottles of wine from our visit to winery and bought those pies, and some cheese to go with it. 

The evening after, we were more prepared and walked from our hotel to the restaurant that had the most delicious popotie pie ever among other delicious dishes. Popotie is something like Caribbean and African mixture.

In our stay at Knysna, a small pearl in the Indian Ocean at the Eastern Cape we enjoyed oysters, more oysters, some sushi and delicious king prawns, but most of the times "termites" arrived before I could take a picture of any of those dishes. 

One night we were so tired by all that travelling that we just stayed "at home" and enjoyed some wine with some cheese and chocolate, cause we rented such a beautiful house at the Thesen Island  

white chocolate goes with white wine

South Africa has excellent wine and beer to flush down all that good food and has nothing to envy Italy, France, Chile, Australia, Spain or other wine producing countries. 

It was markable fact that wine is not over charged in the restaurant and the price of a good wine in a winery is exactly the same in the liquor store. 

Next time in South Africa I shall go and visit all those wineries and I can swear there are plenty to get drunk at. 

Cheers !

pink panther

Photos by author; please ask permission to copy and paste 

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