The Wonderful Delights of Cape Town Cuisine

Ah, yes, after being on a bit of a hiatus due to the masses of newly acquired school work I had to attend to, I, Alex, am ready to blog once more and this time on perhaps one of the best things about living in Cape Town, the food. It’s so wonderful, in fact, that I’m not even quite sure where to begin. I suppose I should start with one of our most frequented facilities, the infamous Pancho’s. In case you all forgot from our previous blog posts, Pancho’s is a Mexican restaurant just a walk down the street from us that serves some of the best shredded beef tostadas and lemon margaritas around. We enjoy it so much in fact that we treat ourselves to the fried and salty goodness every Monday night, along with over 10 of our closest friends. The picture below hopefully gives a fair representation of one of the many delectable dishes on the menu.



Oh, and then there’s a great little eatery just a block past Panchos called Café Ganesh that is perhaps one of the cutest mixtures of hodge-podge chairs, decorations, and people around. I would highly suggest the eggplant parmesan or perhaps the five-curry roti (both pictured below)!





It most certainly would not be a complete food blog without the mention of The 1890 House, apparently and rightfully known as one of the best sushi joints in Cape Town, it is conveniently located right next door to Café Ganesh. I immediately fell in love with the seared Ahi tuna roses, and Kristine, raves about the sashimi and nigiri. Even the non-fish lover Callie has found something to her liking on the menu, Kung Pao chicken. In addition to the fantastic food, the atmosphere is just as enjoyable. It’s clear that the sushi preparers have fun with their jobs and their creativity is reflected in the beauty of their dishes. Then again, with the ingredients they have to work with (fish FRESH from the ocean) it would probably be pretty difficult to make anything unappetizing.

Then, there’s Crespella, a three-tabled restaurant where each and every pancake (crepe) is prepared fresh and lovingly by the owner, one at a time. Because of this seemingly painstaking process of specially preparing each crepe, you may be salivating for a while before it’s finally your turn to dig into the savory or sweet gooyness. Trust me though; it’s well worth the wait, particularly if you happen to be ordering my personal favorite, banana and nutella.

Last up on the cuisine tour of Observatory is Queen of Tarts, located just across the street from Crespella. Upon entering this restaurant and bakery combo, one is greeted by an assortment of antique kitchen supplies lining the walls, a steel blue and white color pattern, mounds of tarts and cakes ready for the eating and a menu that is to die for. I cannot remember eating a better salad in my life than the. grilled aubergine, pesto, feta, red pepper, fresh tomato salad. It comes out as a mound of perfectly prepared freshness that I have yet to see competition for anywhere else. While all of the restaurants listed above are friendly to your wallet, Queen of Tarts is perhaps the best visual of how eating in Cape Town can be described as eating gourmet on a McDonald’s budget. My dream salad and fresh squeezed lemonade comes in under 10$, and the hand-made tarts I spoke of are under $3, the perfectly frosted cupcakes, under $2. While the exchange rate of 1 U.S dollar to almost 7.5 Rand does play in our favor, I believe credit must also be given to the local restaurants charging fair prices for their menu all the while making it an absolute pleasure to the taste-buds.

Oh, and as promised, the picture from Old Biscuit Mill of one of thee most amazing sandwiches I have ever consumed. It consisted of rare rump, honey mustard, lettuce, tomato, onion marmalade and the perfect dash of salt and pepper. Heaven on a bun.

(More pictures of each of the mentioned cuisines to come later!) Tune in later this week for an entry from Kristine about some of our volunteer experiences in the Townships.

Met liefde van Afrika,
Alex

One of those nearly perfect days

Good Morning and Afternoon!!!

After many threats and angry emails, we decided it is time to update the blog.  We apologize for less than regular posts.  There is no excuse except that we’ve been having such a great time that the blog was put on the back burner. Oops. BUT you are in luck because in the next week or two, each of us will be talking about different experiences and parts of our life here. 

Today, Cape Town is excruciatingly hot.  It is 3 pm now and the mercury is continuing to push into the upper 90s.  Our lovely little house, like most homes here, does not have air conditioning of any variety.  We opened the windows early this morning thinking it would cool it off.  Huge mistake.  There is no breeze (the “Cape Doctor” has apparently taken a vacation day). Closing them will only trap the heat and begin to cook us, so the windows stay open and we continue to melt, hoping for just the slightest breeze. 

Kristine and Alex have a heavy workload this week with two papers to finish by Friday.  The heat is slowing them down a bit but both are hard at work in their rooms. Or at least they appear to be hard at work.  I’ll go get both of them their favorite smoothies soon to keep their spirits up and to cool them off.

We have done a lot since our last post but I’m convinced my computer is emitting extra heat into my room, so I won’t go over all four weeks.  I will however, tell you about yesterday.  We went to The Old Biscuit Mill.  Every Saturday the converted mill is made into a farmers’ market of sorts.  There is an area for food and one for retail.  Walking through you can sample, try on, buy and gawk at each booth.   

It should come as no surprise that we started with food. Overwhelmed at first, we had to do two loops before we decided on what to have.  Quite honestly, I don’t think we could have made a made a bad choice.  There was an assortment of baked goods, cheeses, meats, spreads, sandwiches, pizzas, salads and the list goes on.  We settled on a steak sandwich called the Cowboys Rump.  It was one of the best food experiences we have had so far and we have had a lot of great food.  Absolutely delicious.   There is more to say but Alex is going to talk about food in a later post, get excited.

Next, we went to the retail portion of the mill, which is probably more interesting to girls than guys, so naturally we had to see it all.  There are shops with home décor, boutiques with a variety of very cute potential gifts, a store completely dedicated to beads, art vendors and designers with their latest trends. Because we have been doing some shopping lately we resisted the temptation to try anything on but it would have been all to easy to buy just a few more dresses.  There is a lot of be said about South African fashion but I’ll just say that women here know how to dress and after multiple shopping trips, I think we are beginning to fit in.

The Mill is delightful.  If you ever visit Cape Town and you need something to do on a Saturday morning, I would highly recommend it.   There is a good chance you will find us there every Saturday until June.

We spent the afternoon and evening exploring the top of Table Mountain.  The mountain range surrounds Cape Town and there are quite a few hiking trails that lead to great views of the city.  For those less inclined to hike, or in our case, hiking just was not in the cards, there is a five-minute cable car ride to the top.  The car slowly rotates so that passengers get a 360-degree experience.   We had a few friends do the hike and we timed it just right so we met them up at the top.  While they took a deserved rest at the mountain top café, we explored the trails. 

Going up.

Once again the magnificence of Cape Town stunned me.  It was a perfectly clear day, yielding what seemed to be an endless skyline.  I really don’t think there is a more beautiful place.   It is hard to describe because I am not sure there are words that do this place justice.  We tried to capture it though and took around 300 pictures between the three of us in the span of and hour and a half.  Here are a few of them.

After our exploration, we all took the cable car down and went to dinner at a restaurant in Sea Point, an area of town by the water.  The sun was setting just as we sat down for dinner, a perfect ending to another nearly perfect day in Cape Town. 

Met liefde van Afrika,

Callie

More pictures will be on www.apieceofcape.shutterfly.com by the end of the week!