Cape Town by Mouth

Supper clubs or pop up restaurants encompass a whole range of setups from dinner parties with strangers at some eager cook’s home to creative evenings with a famous chef spreading his wings in an odd setting. Often based on invitation and membership, people are drawn in by the surprise and secrecy (It is actually illegal in most countries to sell food and alcohol without a license so the organizers have to keep things hushhush). Dining at a supper club is a social experience. Far from the typical restaurant behavior of avoiding seeing or hearing other people, part of the fun is having random conversations with strangers. Supper clubs also clearly belong to this great global trend of making things small,  local, cuddly and anti-corporate.  There are tens if not hundreds of these in major cities like New York and London (see coverage in the Guardian and in the New York Times over the last couple of years) and they have finally made it to this southern most tip of Africa.

Full of anticipation, The Chimp* and I went to our first supper club on Thursday. The one we visited was the last in a series of supper clubs called Chop leading up to the Toffie Food Festival. The supper club was located in a secret venue downtown. I arrived at the address and was greeted by a picture of a knife and a bleeding finger at the door. Hmm.. I knew I was at the right place. Three flights of stairs took me to a room decorated with brown paper. Brown paper as a video screen, brown paper as a wall, brown paper as a table cloth and brown paper as chair covers. Lots of brown paper. Even the cutlery was served in a brown cardboard box. The food was nothing short of spectacular. Snacks of salty popcorn, biltong and pickled quail egg, perfectly cooked veal brain raviolis with sage butter, angus beef steaks with smoked potatoes (and a photo of a salad!), vodka tonic jelly, flambeed chocolate pancakes and coffee and witblits (local spirit). (Our) creativity hit the roof when we were served the vodka tonic jellies. The lights were switched off and we here handed glow in the dark pens. Suffice to say that our hands and faces were beautifully decorated by the end of the evening.

Blurry glow in the dark fun

The supper clubs, I have come across on other local foodblogs and the media have all been from the professional end of the spectrum. Very innovative and well organized. Taste magazine covered one where the décor changed seven (for each course) times during the evening. I do hope the more amateur end of the supper club movement becomes popular here in the Cape as well. In my dear native country, Finland, they have even gone so far as to organize a national supper club day. Anyone who loves to cook and fancies opening a restaurant can do so for the day. It has been so well received that the third one (in six months) is coming up in November. The funniest one I have read about was a sandwich bar on the third floor of an apartment building that delivered its orders with ropes and baskets. Genius.

*My husband, Cameron, is upset about not having a pseudonym like the other foodbloggers plusones. The chimp is actually what his mum calls him ; )

Restaurant day in Helsinki- image from FB page

Restaurant day in Helsinki- image from FB page

I was quite hesitant to visit planet for a bit of a stupid reason. The name. Maybe it is just me but having a restaurant called Planet in a five star hotel doesn’t make me think quality. I must admit that I am also not a fan of eating at hotels. Especially ones that are decorated with chandeliers and antique furniture.  The Mount Nelson however got me (and it seems many others) with their six course vegan menu.

elegant setting at Planet

We do a fair bit of vegan experimentation in our kitchen. Often it ends with me adding a bit of cheese to just “round” it up. Vegan food often has this earthy “thin” watery quality to it (and no I don’t meant that it makes you thin which it probably does as well). Planet is the second time (other one being Pure Food & Wine in New York- seriously recommended) that I had vegan food that actually tasted creamy and might I add spectacular.

Lentils, aubergines and cashew nuts at Planet

We started with lentils rolled into aubergine with cashew nut paste – earthy and satisfying. We continued with apple and parsnip soup and a mushroom risotto which would have been difficult to identify as vegan in a blind tasting. The main course was a bit disappointing. The components were tasty things like chickpea fritters, curry tempura mushrooms and toasted quinoa but they just didn’t quite work together (for us anyway). You get the feeling that they are trying to make up for a lack of meat with quantity. The desert was exceptional and more than made up for this. Rich velvety chocolate mousse with no eggs or cream. The wine pairing was exceptional with all dishes. We especially enjoyed the combination of De Grendel pinot gris with apple and parsnip soup.

chocolate mousse without eggs and cream at Planet

Main course at Planet

Planet just goes to prove how much you can do without animal related products. There seem to be at least two tricks. One is to puree some of the key vegetable finely. The mushroom risotto was made creamy with finely pureed mushrooms or so we were told. The other is that cashews and soy beans can elevate any dish. Try soaking cashew nuts for a couple of hours in warm water, whizzing them up, straining and using it as a milk substitute. In Malay cooking they sometimes add nut milk to a curry as a lighter substitute to coconut milk.

Service was attentive. Slightly nervous but clearly well trained. It is the type of place where they give you a little chair for your handbag and put a slit in the napkin so you can use it as a bib. That being said, the food could have used a bit more introducing.

It is hardly the type of place we will be going to regularly but we will be keen to revisit to see what new wonders Chef Liebenberg has created.

Mount Nelson Hotel
76 Orange Street
Gardens
+27214831000

www.planetbarandrestaurant.co.za

Dine under the stars

I love that local produce and growing your own veg has become such a thing in Cape Town. I can think of at least three other restaurants that do it Fresh, Johan’s at Longridge and Eight (Spier) and countless others who make great strives to buying only local seasonal produce. Local and seasonal is a great trend worldwide. Most of Ramsay’s kitchen nightmares end up solved with a local seasonal menu. In New York there is even  a truck that grows salad leaves for aspiring locavores.

One of those ugly views

Broccoli in a vase. Why not?

85% of Babel’s vegetable and herb needs are grown on the farm and they even form an integral part of the décor. Babel has broccoli not only in carpaccios but flower vases. It looks great. Babel is set on the beautiful fruit and wine farm of Babylonstoren in Stellenbosch next to a couple of other spots I have been meaning to visit (like Anura for a cheese tasting). There is a stunning old manorhouse but interestingly the restaurant is not there. Instead it is housed in an old shed-type building done up floor to ceiling in white and crome. The design is quirky and interesting to say the least: a huge bull watches over the menu written onto tiles. Walking into the space evokes this lovely feeling of freshness and you know you are in for something interesting.

Babel offers quite a varied menu with slow cooked lamb, local trout and broccoli carpaccio. Dishes that really stand out are the yellow, red and green plate. Each containing a soup and a little salad in their theme colour. Cameron’s green plate was the winner this time with its beautiful mix of fresh leaves and apples. I enjoyed my yellow salad of pineapple and nasturtiums, but my coconutty soup could have had more of an edge to it. We also enjoyed some lovely fresh fruit&veg cocktails with our meals. Beetroot and guava will be a regular combo in our kitchen from now on.

Broccoli carpaccio

Having a wander through the gardens is a great way to end your meal at Babel. The vegetable gardens grow 100 different varieties of vegetables and some of the largest happiest chickens that I have ever seen. They don’t use pesticides in the garden but cannot call themselves organic as the fruit on the surrounding fields does get sprayed.

One of the most striking things during our whole visit was the genuine excitement and enthusiasm from the whole staff. We even managed to get a friendly tour of the guest cottages on our way out. Done up beautifully, guests are welcomed in rebuilt workers’ cottages with a vegetable basket from the gardens.

Veggie box welcome

Another tough day in the winelands! Thanks Robyn from Koek for the tip.

Babylonstoren

+ 27 (0) 21 863 3852

www.babylonstoren.com

There is a new market in Cape Town. Yet another one I hear you think? There do seem to be quite a few around and many of them seem to have very similar produce on sale. In contrast to most of the other markets that sell lots of foodie goodies to take home, Bay Harbour market focuses on eating and drinking on the spot (That being said almost half the floorspace is devoted to clothes and handicraft).

Cool market vibe with tree stump hanging from the ceiling

Tasty tortilla from Nacho mama

The market is set in an old fish factory in Hout Bay right at the commercial end of the harbour. The walls of this cool industrial space are lined with foodstalls and interesting decor.  Who would’ve thought you could make a chandelier out of a tree stump? Mellow jazzy tunes play in the background while hungry Capetonians enjoy their Saturday morning feasts around communal tables.

Nacho Mama at Bay Harbour Market

oooh melktarts

We started our feast with a great burrito from nacho mama.  A toasted tortilla wrapped around a well balanced combination of guacamole, beans, rice and sour cream with a spicy salsa. We also devoured a  veggie wrap from sunshine satay. We ended our meal with coffee and a stunning melk tart from Nap. We skipped breakfasts, as they looked a bit heavy for our taste.

It was refreshing to visit a market manned by lots of newbies. Endearingly, one of the stall owners said that she doesn’t do this often so it would be better if I took a seat and waited for her to bring the food to me.  In contrast, some of the other markets have  producers which have already become so well known that you find them in supermarkets. I  guess it is challenging to decide which producers are too commercial as you do want to support successful entrepreneurs.

Anyway, I warmly recommend going to Bay Harbour Market. I hope it retains its great level of enthusiasm.

Oh yes and there is even  a portable ATM at your disposal : )

31 Harbour Road
Hout Bay

http://www.bayharbour.co.za/home.html

Back in Cape Town and back to South African cooking with a bang. Bredies, spicy stews, are highly South African and so are waterblommetjies. First discovered by early settlers, waterblommetjies, waterlillies, really capture my imagination as an ingredient. I mean look at them. Don’t they look almost extraterrestial with their “scale”-covered stems? Maybe just me with my Star Trek obsession. Compare them to the dainty Finnish waterlillies (see pic below of a submerged waterlilly at our summerhouse).

Scaly aliens... no waterblommetjies

Submerged dainty Finnish waterlilly

After all the pies, custards and creamy mushrooom dishes in Finland, Cam and I thought we would have a vegan week. I bought some waterblommetjies thinking I would make a vegetarian meal, a waterblommetjie stew. I browsed through lots of recipes and it seems that all of them have more lamb then waterblommetjies in them. Typically the waterblommetjies are steamed separately and only added to the lamb stew in the end. Hmph. So much for our vegan week. Well the lunch at The Table at de Meye was definitely not light and vegan either ; )

A bowl of comfort on a cold day

Anyway this recipe is a combination from a couple of websites, but mostly Michael Olivier’s.

For four:

3 medium sized onions chopped

2 cloves of garlic finely chopped

2 green chilies finely sliced

2 cm piece of ginger sliced

4 cloves

4 all spice berries

grated nutmeg

800g stewing lamb with bones (dust in some flour if you want a thicker stew)

1 cup of red wine

500 ml of beef stock

4 small potatoes cut in half

juice from one lemon

500g waterblommetjies

Oil, salt and pepper

Fry the onion, garlic and chillies until just starting to brown and remove from pan. Brown the meat in small batches (small so the pan doesn’t cool down too much). Move to the side. Toast cloves and all spice berries until fragrant. Combine everything and make sure you keep all the juices and cover with red wine and beef stock. Add grated nutmeg. Leave to simmer for about 2 hours until the meat starts to come off the bones.

Soak waterblommetjies in salted water for about 45 minutes to let any uninvited friends crawl out. Steam them until tender.

Add the potatoes to the stew and simmer until they are cooked. Add the lemon juice and finally the waterblommetjies just before serving.

Back in Cape Town. Back to blogging. I had the most stunning six weeks off traveling, getting new ideas but mostly just being offline and relaxing. A break from the tough life of visiting restaurants and tasting beautiful Cape Wines.

Cottage on De Meye winery

The Table at De Meye is off the beaten track. Quite close to the N1 and not far from Paarl, yet it is in an area of Stellenbosch that we hardly knew existed.  As soon as you step out of the car, you know that you have arrived somewhere special.

This little cottage on De Meye winery simply oozes warmth, hospitality and a passion for doing things well. Mismatched chairs, herbs and onions hanging from the ceiling make you feel right at home.

Quirky little touches abound

The menu is completely set (other diets are catered for). The day we visited, the starter was a soup with plump west coast mussels. Succulent veld reared lamb was served as a main on a bed of haricot beans accompanied by couscous and lovely baby leaves from the farm next door. Dessert was a baked cheesecake that despite being a baked cheesecake somehow managed to be light. Magical. We ended our meal with a cup of coffee on their sunny lawn.

Delicious shoulder of lamb

Owners, Camilla and Russel, strive to buy from small local producers where possible. The lamb comes from a farm close to Laingsburg where they rent a cottage. The delicious sausages that you can take home are made from pork from  the same farm.  The drinks menu supports this local policy. Darling brew beers are served alongside the de Meye winery’s wines. The Table offers the de Meye wines at pretty much cellar price so it is a great way to get to know this boutique winery. A bottle of unoaked chardonnay for R60 is a steal by any standards.

cheesecake with fresh strawberries

With all the shared platters, the Table at De Meye is a great spot to visit with a group. Wholesome, down to earth food that makes you smile. What more could you want? Mental note to book for that family lunch next Sunday.. Booking in advance is essential.

PS. The co-owner of the Table at de Meye, Russel Wasserfall, is a renowned food photographer. His work adorns all the major food magazines and he has shot some beautiful books as well. There is a new one on South African cheeses which I shall rush out to buy when it comes out. Needless to say taking photos of their lovely set up made my hands tremble. Have a look at his photos on their website to do the place justice : ). Russel also does great food photography courses.

De Meye Wine Estate

Stellenbosch

http://thetablerestaurant.co.za

Russel 083 252 9588
e-mail rwasserfall@eca.co.za