Linni Eats Cape Town: Ocean Basket

I’m a big fan of puns, so when I read that the slogan for the Ocean Basket seafood joint was “Your Sole Provider,” you could say I was hooked.

At Cape Town’s Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, it’s hard to tell where your best meal is hiding. Herds of tourists disembark from short boat cruises to Robben Island while others stampede through the mall on a hunt for “authentic” wooden salad spoons and carved ostrich eggs. Everyone’s hungry for seafood and it’s nearly impossible to tell the fried fish chains from the real thing. The Ocean Basket may not have been the most glamorous of the area’s offerings, but it certainly wasn’t the seediest either.

I should mention that we had my roommate and his friend in tow, both from Namibia, both sushi virgins and possibly even seafood virgins. Certainly chopstick virgins. That part was fun.

Our table of four decided to share a California roll, a salmon roll, and the Princess Platter. The table’s sushi veterans were unimpressed with the Ocean Basket’s take on those standard rolls that had too much rice and hardly tasted like fish, but we were too busy educating the Namibians to care. It was good that we saved room, however, because the main course was enormous.

The Princess Platter comes with 18 prawns, grilled sole, French fries, fried haloumi cheese, and grilled calamari steaks, all on a bed of spanich rice. The prawns, eyes and claws still intact, felt and tasted like buttery delicious lobster and were just as fun and messy to eat. I’m not usually a fan of calamari, but the little orbs they served were seasoned perfectly and gave me new appreciation for what goes into the glorified fried version you see on so many appetizer menus. The sole was also seasoned and grilled to perfection, and had a texture that reminded me of the ocean’s presence just outside the balcony.

The rice, bright yellow and infused with diced vegetables here and there, had sat patiently on the bottom of the fish, soaking up all the juices and waiting for us to discover it’s presence. The wait was worth it because I have never had rice that moist or flavorful, at least not outside of a risotto. And possibly my favorite part, though it would be impossible to choose, was the haloumi cheese. I think pan-fried cheese should just become a part of every region’s cuisine; those crazy Grecians yelling “Opa!” have the right idea.

Our waiter Wellington kindly wrapped up the massive leftovers we had while we paid the bill—less than ten dollars a person. Once the shock and awe wore off, me and my food baby collapsed on the bus and slipped into a rice-induced coma the whole way home.

Linni Eats Cape Town: Fat Cactus

Call me ignorant, but when departing for my great South African adventure, I actually contemplated whether or not cows existed over here. I didn’t know what to expect in the way of milk or steak, and I was prepping myself for five desperate months without a taco. The thought gave me nightmares at first, but I was learning to cope.

So you guys back in California can understand how I felt upon hearing about a Mexican restaurant just a three-minute walk from Liesbeek Gardens, the res hall I call temporary home. And you can further feel my excitement upon hearing that this place has a happy hour from noon to 6, every day.

Six hour happy hour? Does it even matter if the food is good?

To me, yes. To a Mexican-obsessed, carnivorous, can’t-go-a-week-without-asada girl like me, a thousand times yes. So it was off to the Fat Cactus to test their tortilla-wielding skills, with a slightly diminished set of expectations than the ones I bring to California’s burrito joints.

Seated in our booth at this overwhelmingly decorated space, I could have convinced myself this was the States, easily. There was so much spurious Tex-Mex paraphernalia lining the walls that I half expected our waiter to come out and say “Welcome to Chili’s!” I appreciated the effort, but seriously—how the heck is the food?

The menu was definitely not limited to Mexican, that’s for sure—burgers and rib-eye steaks were easy to avoid, though, since they cost a lot more than the Mexican fare. I should mention that this section of the menu was called “South of the Border.” Funny, I’ve always wondered what type of food they eat in Antarctica.

Anyways, we started off with sweet potato puffers, which were basically sweet potato chips served with salsa, guacamole, and bean dip. The chips were baked so I felt better about gorging on them, but there was no excuse when the chips ran out and I went at the bean dip with my spoon.

Their quesadillas are named after musicians, and while the Elvis was tempting with its bacon and banana blend, I went for the Zappa—steak, jack cheese, and avocado. The steak was straight out of a taco truck, cooked in chunks and marinated in a fashion I thought only immigrants and Rick Bayless had mastered. They stayed true to their Chili’s roots by topping it with endless amounts of guacamole and sour cream, but it was easy to push to the side.

The feta and mushroom Clapton quesadilla was also satisfying, though not necessarily what you’d call traditional Mexican. Their nacho platters were big enough to be whole meals, and served that purpose for many at my table. The enchiladas were served deep-dish style in a mini casserole dish and I didn’t get to try them, but they looked appropriately melty and indulgent.

All in all, this meal was pretty pricey by Cape Town standards. Even happy hour marg pitchers set you back at least four dollars. It isn’t the cheap and greasy joint I’d hoped for with dollar tacos, but I can’t complain. At least I know now that there are some cows nearby to satiate those asada urges.

Linni Eats Cape Town: Nyoni's Kraal

I’ve spent the better part of my young adult years wondering where the hell my last name came from. German, Irish, Swiss, French, Welsh—none of my heritage seems to suggest the bizarre word that is “Kral.” I’ve always felt a little alienated by its lack of meaning.

Slowly, though, the name has come up in bizarre places. In Amsterdam, I came across a Kral Photography, and my guidebook to South Africa mentioned that those colorful huts on the beaches are referred to as “kraals.” These Dutch hints finally lead me to Nyoni’s Kraal, a traditional South African restaurant on Long Street in the Cape Town city bowl.

Though the word itself is Dutch, the restaurant’s décor is very…safari. Elegant safari. The kind where you’d sport matching scarves, earrings, and pumps with your khaki fatigues. The staff is laidback and offered to put the African Cup of Nations game on for us, though it seemed very anti-whatever vibe this place was going for. The wealthy Afrikaner diners may have been put off, but we certainly pleased the kitchen crew, who peeked out to check the score every five minutes.

They brought out some steam bread for us with an assortment of garlic, chili, and herb butters. I should mention that steam bread may just be the perfect way to start a meal—the lightest, most airy slices I’ve seen, subtly sweet, encased in a thin crispy crust that is somehow as light as the rest of the loaf while still being crunchy. The menu was divided into many categories, including braai, South African, and Cape Townian. The Kraal purse was a starter of striped crunchy filo surrounding the spinach and feta mix that everyone in this city seems to go crazy for.

The local lasagna was a heavy endeavor, comprised of cream sauce-soaked vegetables in a bowl beneath a flat pasta sheet coated in melted cheese. (Other restaurants in the area have proven that that is how they do lasagna in Cape Town.) I tried a classic South African dish, the breyani, a hump of minced beef and rice with sweet Indian spices, topped with diced tomatoes and a cucumber-yogurt sauce and flanked by little fried bread balls that were hush-puppy-esque, though a little tougher and therefore not as good.

The meal was topped off with the epitomous Cape Town dessert item, malva pudding. This liquor-drenched spongecake was like gingerbread doused in brandy, served with vanilla cream sauce and ice cream. I’d been warned about this staple, as if it would be scary or difficult to sample, but it was definitely an enjoyable experience.

I was sad to see the safari come to an end, but delighted to know that if all else fails, I can identify with Dutch South African colonizers! They may have a history of oppression, but they sure know how to cook.

Linni Eats Cape Town: Cocoa Wah-Wah

Cocoa Wah-Wah. I don’t even know where to begin. If ever heaven existed on earth, it may very well be in this South African paradise of refreshing drinks, Michael Jackson-obsessed waiters, and free wireless internet. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

This Eden hides on the main strip near the University of Cape Town. If it has any signage, it’s obscured by large trees—I thought it was a dentist’s office for my first few days here. But the whispers of free internet circulated and soon throngs of wireless-starved and Facebook-obsessed Americans made plans to visit the café.

The interior smacks of sunshine, with white, yellow, and orange everywhere. One side features a wall covered in alphabet magnets, which the waiters have arranged to say “Obama=Bliss.” There’s a basket with blankets and games like Monopoly and Jenga and a table stacked with magazines of every genre. Pastries adorn the countertop and bottles of hard liquor are propped upside down behind it, at-the-ready for shots when the slow wireless has got you cranky. The mirror in the bathroom says “You are beautiful,” but the African waiters will tell you the same in between their renditions of “Thriller” and old Craig David songs. And I haven’t even gotten to the food.

My first time around was a bowl of Bulgarian yogurt with meusli, papaya, pineapple, apple, and dried banana. In a place that seems casual, I was surprised to find they’d artfully drizzled a honey swirl across the bowl’s rim and dashed some cinnamon on there, too. Their drink specialty is the Crush, and the Mango Mint Crush gave me brainfreeze after blissful brainfreeze. The Chai Chiller aint half bad, either.

Moving on to sandwiches. While my dining companion wasn’t wowed by the sloppy mess of a cheeseburger, Cocoa specializes more in healthy fare. She sampled the Sun-dried Tomato and Feta Tramezzini during another visit and while the bread was a little too much for the minimal amount of ingredients, the taste was on par with other Cocoa fare. Their chicken and avocado wrap features orange-tinted chicken that tasted like tarragon, and all these sandwiches come served with a side of roasted veggies and the best fried potato wedges I have ever tasted—no joke, they actually look like potatoes and go perfectly with the South African ketchup that actually tastes like tomatoes!

Other winners on the menu include the Pesto Almond Pasta, grilled cheese and tomato, and grilled mozzarella, olive, and tomato sandwich. These pressed flat “toasters” are served on dark sandwich bread and are kind of a steal if you’re coming here broke. Another money-saver is the Breakfast Expresso, a standard breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast with tomato slices and jam.

Have I still not convinced you to buy that one-way ticket to Cape Town? They offer a make-your-own-muffin service, where you drop by anytime before 11p.m., when they close for the evening, and put in an order for a muffin that you can then pick up the next morning. You can choose from a cocoa or pumpkin base and add things like espresso and white chocolate. Muffins that come standard daily include the spinach and feta, carrot cake, and banana meusli. And the star of their bakery case comes in the form of a chocolate-chocolate cookie with a fudge center that they insist on heating up for you before you eat it. It’s the size of a discus and weighs about the same.

Now that I’ve typed the longest internet café review in the world, I’m going to leave you on this note—all the things I’ve mentioned cost around 50 rand or less, which means you can walk away from Cocoa no more than six American bucks lighter than when you came in. Enjoy your flight.

Welcome to Cape Town!

Whoever told me that South Africans eat nothing but meat and starch (cough, LonelyPlanet, cough) must have never visited the country. I’ve eaten a lot in just a few weeks, and while meat and starch play important and delicious roles, they’re far from the only thing offered.

That said, all bread I’ve tried is extremely hearty. Even the bread offered as a precursor to dinner at restaurants is brown and full of seeds. The one exception is steam bread, a traditional recipe with some beautiful name that I’ve forgotten, though I’m pretty sure it has clicks in it. The slices are very light, the interior moist and airy, while the thin crust provides a quite satisfying crunch. And to top it all off, there’s this fruity sweetness to it that I can’t place, but it’s unlike any bread I’ve ever tasted before.

We’ve had multiple braais, which is what the South Africans call their barbecues. They’re eerily reminiscent of American barbecues, serving meat with Italian salad, beer, and perhaps even beans. One afternoon, we got roasted lamb that fell apart after hours on the grill, all stacked in the corner of the braai, ready for scooping. I had way too much of this, and thanked the man behind the grill a zillion times. They’re very proud and competitive about their braais, so I figured it was the least I could do to show my appreciation.

Another braai served boerewors, a spicy sausage that was red inside, for some reason unknown to me (but I try not to question when things taste good.) The campus food is also stellar—we found a tiny Indian stand made of brightly painted wood, sort of giving off a circus vibe. The tiny woman behind it served up apple cinnamon, butternut squash, and spinach & feta samosas. Did I mention they were 60 cents each and the size of my fist? Did I also mention this stand is in the philosophy and politics building where all my classes are? Yeah.

They like to call their paninis “tramezzinis” here, tahini is referred to as sesame pulp, and sunflower seed oil is just sunflower fat. It’s very difficult to find skim milk or yogurt, I’ve only seen one McDonalds, and there are KFC’s everywhere.

Drinkwise, I’ve sampled the local Castle and Black Label beers (Black Label is the way to go, as if you can’t tell by the name). Amarula is their cream liquor from an African plant, but it’s pretty indistinguishable from Baileys. Instead of Smirnoff Ice with a variety of flavors, here they just offer Smirnoff Twist, a lemony bottle of 5.5% alcohol that could pass for Sprite if it really wanted to. I tried the locally-brewed sorghum beer, made from sorghum and served in a huge wooden bowl. To be quite honest, it tasted like beer-flavored yogurt that had been left out on the counter for a few days. But the experience of drinking it and passing the huge bowl around was a fun one.

And finally, I ordered my first frilly mixed drink in a restaurant my second night here—it had a fancy name that other Americans at my table knew, but I can’t recall. The umbrella spear sported some pineapple and lime slices and sat atop a mix of ginger beer, dark rum, and lime juice. At the risk of pulling a she-who-must-not-be-named, yummo.

I should also mention that, at a bar called Rafiki that played Sublime and the Beatles, I asked for a lime to accompany my tequila shot and was given another shot of lime flavored liquor. Noted.

GLOSSARY:
Boerewors—spicy sausage
Breyani—mix of rice and minced meat, sweetly spiced with yogurt sauce
Malva pudding—brandy-soaked sponge cake topped with vanilla cream
Geelrys—rice with raisins and spices
Blatjang—spicy fruit chutney
Smoorsnoek—flaked snoek with potato slices and tomato
Witblitz—strong spirit distilled from peaches
Sosaties—kebabs of meet, onion, and dried fruit basted in a curry sauce and grilled
Bobotie—minced beef baked with egg custard topping
Melktert—milk tart with cinnamon topping
Mealie papp—porridge/grits
Bunny chow—portable loaf of bread filled with curry, made during apartheid when blacks weren’t allowed in restaurants


STILL TO TRY:
mealie papp, bunny chow, ostrich, cape malay cooking, bobotie, melktert, sosaties