Salty Cracker Club

Sloppy Sam

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Jo's choice, Seapoint | No Comments

Five flies review

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Reviews | No Comments

Oops, been a while since the actual eatings.

So, http://www.fiveflies.co.za/.
In a very cool, many-roomed, many-bar-ed (although we just went for din-dins), big ole building in the middle of town is Five Flies.
I’ve heard varying things, mostly since going there, about the snootiness of the staff. We had a great experience - our waitress was lovely, and the one or two others who flew around our table were jovial and friendly. The maitre d’ looked a bit offish, but we only exchanged a word or two with him, so no probs there.

The food, you say?

Starters:
me, jess - Smoked salmon and cod fritters with rosti, watercress and garlic aioli;
jo - Pan-fried prawns with chilli, garlic linguini and squid ink lemon butter;
eck - Grilled field mushroom with gorgonzola, caramelized onion and creamy artichoke, truffle sauce.

Mains:
jess, jo - Springbok Wellington with mushroom duxelle, roasted butternut and foie gras, truffle jus;
me - Grilled ostrich fillet with potato gratin, mange tout, sauteed spinach and red wine sauce;
eck - Herb crusted, roasted rack of lamb with creamy garlic potatoes, fine beans and tomato jus.

Dessert:
I seem to remember that we did somehow squeeze it in, but I can’t remember who had what, when, why, or whicheeba.

The food was great. All round good with no duds.
Particular highlights were the ’strich and Eck’s lamb (informally voted overall winner).

Odd thing to note, but not really a bad thing, was the speed.
They must have an entire team of chef whipping boys / girls because that kitchen can turn stuff around like a professional ice skater, on happy juice, going downhill, blindfold. Fast, I mean. Very fast. We didn’t feel like we were being rushed, but we were surprised when our starters arrived maybe 10 minutes after we ordered them. And the mains maybe 15 minutes after the starters were taken away.
I suppose you could argue that that’s what restaurant kitchens are supposed to be like (you order your food, you get it!), but we’re used to a more leisurely pace of noshing.
I’d quite like to pop back there for lunch to see how the experience compares.

I’m not quite compote menthol (ahem) enough to do proper numbers, so have some pseudo-random ones:
Atmosphere: 6 / 10 (got a bit loud later on, with a bad table across from us)
Staff: 8 / 10 (speedy, smiley, accommodating)
Service: 8 / 10 (extra points for pace, especially when you known about it in advance)
Food: 7 / 10 (good, solid, fare, and some interesting combos)
Value for money: 7 / 10. (Um… how much was it…?)

Five Flies

Friday, February 5th, 2010

City Bowl, Eckhard's choice | No Comments

Wasabi Review

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

Reviews | No Comments

Woo!

The slightly last minute choice to do Cracker at all this month, and the choice of venue, seemed to work out well. Wasabi (official site, @ eat out, @ dining-out) in Constantia Village was great. I’m trying to keep Japanese-ish themes for my picks and not (just) sushi joints as I realise that not all the Crackers love sushi as much as I do :-). We also had a special guest star: Jess Ma!

We had a great waiter - Darren, IIRC - who employed Surfer Zen to deal with the a-bit-mad shenanigans of our table with dignity and aplomb. He was pleasant, attentive, and friendly without being intrusive - a difficult combo to get right. Also, he said Bru a lot, which was schweet :). We gave a healthy tip on the bill, which he richly deserved.

The restaurant is technically in a mall, but it’s not in the main building. There’s a satellite mini-mall thing with a few shops and a few restaurants, with much of it open to the sky (a la Willowbridge, my favourite shopping centre that’s nothing like a shopping centre, where Jo and I often go and nosh when I’m at her offices). The place was bustling but not crowded, and it felt like we had our own space, despite the fact there were a couple of table around us.

For starters, we shared a bunch of Dim Sum and related type things - lamb gyoza, chicken siu mai, prawn har gau, duck spring rolls, some tempura prawns and a Thai beef salad. The actual dim sum ones were well made (and all aufentic and stuff), and were pleasant enough, but not massively tasty. The lamb gyoza were tasty, but unlike any other gyoza I’ve had before - bit dry. The duck spring rolls were great, but the winner for me was the Thai beef salad - the sweet chilli and stuff sauce was divine and the beef was just cooked enough.

The food was a bit slow between starters and mains, but our waiter was good with the wine refills (and the jugs of tap water), so it wasn’t too bad.

For main course the table had Tuna Steak (Jo (seared (the Tuna, no the Jo) and Eck), Crispy Duck (Jess), Grilled Linefish [panga] (Jill), Steamed Salmon (me). Jo’s Tuna came out cooked, not seared, so she sent it back. No questioning from the staff, no quibbling, just apologies and a quick turn around for the replacement choona, which was fantastic. The duck was, as expected, superb - crunchy, crispy, pancakey. The Panga was very tasty - good fish! Winner for me was my salmon (tra la la) which was soft, tasty, and had a delicious delicate sauce - salty, slightly sweet.

Somehow dessert was managed by some of the table. Eck had the restaurant’s signature Peppermint Zen (a big glass of layered peppermint and caramel bits), Jess had Three Lindt Ball Eruption (no sniggering at the back!), Jo had the Sorbet Threesome (no sniggering at the back!) which Jill and I kindly helped with (no sni- um …). The Zen was great, but large - Eck fought bravely, though, and made it to the end. The Balls were good - chocolatey and appropriately messy. The sorbet was very refreshing and unusually flavoured.

I only took a flying glance at their sushi menu as I didn’t want to be tempted, but it looks like they’ve got some interesting stuff, so Jo and I will be returning for raw fish and rice soon.

Using the work-in-progress Salty Cracker Scores On The Doors Restaurant Ranking System ™ (or SCSOTDRRS for short):

Atmosphere: 7 / 10
Staff: 9 / 10
Service: 7 / 10
Food: 7 / 10
Value for money: 6 / 10

Wasabi

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Constantia, Steve's choice | Comments Off

Savoy Cabbage

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

City Bowl, Jessica's choice | No Comments

In which the Salty Cracker Team return from a hiatus (due to parental visitation and a trip to Die Strandloper) and earn their orienteering badge in Cape Town’s Central Business District.

Review from Jessica to follow!

A few thoughts on Cargills

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

Reviews | 1 Comment

Okay, so it wasn’t shortly, and this isn’t really a review, but it needs to be said that Cargills (at dining-out.co.za, at eatout.co.za) was fantastic.

It’s in the distant past now, so I unfortunately can’t remember much detail (that’s my advanced age for you), but the general standard of food was excellent. The waiter was attentive and friendly without being clingy (important in such a small venue) and the chef was pleasingly cheery when he came out to see how the food was going down. Slightly short, slightly round, very smiley. :)

I think there were mussels, Camembert, and mushrooms for starters - nummy!
Main courses were Sole with parsley lemon butter (gentle and subtle and cooked to perfection), Springbok with mixed berry jus (great red flavours to match the red meat), Confit of Duck (Jess, comments, as our resident duckspert?) Beef Fillet Bordelaise (good cow!).

There were five of us, so I’m sure I’m missing some things.
Like the stir fried veggies that are served as sides instead of the standard meh creamed spinach and fries. Very tasty.

Om nom nom!

Cargills

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Eckhard's choice, Rondebosch | No Comments

Review to follow shortly.
Possibly a collaborative one by Jess, Jo and Steve.

Fujiyama review

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Reviews, Steve's choice | No Comments

Or,

A Tale Of Two Restaurants

It was the best of Crack, it was the worst of Crack.
No, wait.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a Salty Cracker.
Uh… no.

This is not a review of Kubo’s Little Japan on Riebeek St in town, even though that was my choice for June Crackage.
Jo’s eagle eyes spotted it tucked away near the corner of Buitengracht and Riebeek street, and we hung a U-turn to park smartly right by the front door. It looked kind of quiet (and dark), but we ventured in anyways. Turns out Kubo’s is shut for the next few months, as the kind gentleman in the Boom Boom Shakalak bar on the floor above informed us.

Walking briskly back to the car, we shot off for my back up plan: Fujiyama (conveniently located under Cedar Cafe). Also looked kind of quiet (and dark), and had a “To Let” sign in the window. Twas not boding well.
However, they were open - huzzah! And tasty - hazzuh!
We were the only people in the front room all night, which was kind of strange, but kind of entertaining too. Noticed right at the end of the night that there were three other rooms there, including a traditional shoes-off, low-down-table one. Squee!

We got a little bowl of some marinated nummy, soy saucey, slighty sweety tuna for an appetiser, then dove into a table-shared two big plates of veggie and fishy tempura and a plate of chicken katsu. Nom!
The chicken was good, but the tempura was ace. Very light and crispy.

Main course action was: beef soba (soup w/ thin noodles) for Jo; beef udon (soup w/ fat noodles) for me; chicken nabe (brothy soup w/ noodles) for Jess; fillet teppanyaki for Eckhard.
My soup was very, very, tasty and had a nice, thinly sliced, chunk of meat and a few crunchy veggies in.
Eck’s fillet cubes were medium-rared to perfection.

The wine list was also reasonably priced. It is, of course, marked up from farm price, but not by a nosebleed-inducing amount (unlike someplaces *cough* myoga *cough*. Well, to be fair, most restaurants.).

The bad news is they’re closing, sort of, in the next few days. Actually, they’re moving to two spots on Long Street. One on Long, opposite the Purple Turtle, for take-aways, and one around the corner for sit-downs (the head waiter gentlemen kindly informed us on our way out).

All in all, a successful Crackage, despite the initial impending doom feeling when 1st choice was closed.
I look forward to trying their new place. Japanese food FTW!

Tags: japanese

Fujiyama

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Seapoint, Steve's choice | No Comments