Salty Cracker Club

Sloppy Sam

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Choice, Jo's choice, Outings, Reviews, Seapoint | No Comments

I wanted a comfy, homey, snuggly vibe, with no sign of pretentiousness and giant portions. Check. Sloppy Sam’s is all those things, delivered with a mediterranean flair and plenty of lamb. Lamb, lamb, wonderful lamb, rolled with garlic on kebab sticks (Jess and Stv), slowly braised into melting goodness (EL), its ribs crisped with garlic and lemon (next time, next time) or in an iraqui abgusht stew with dried limes (yet another visit needed).  Defiantly, I had calamari, which were lemony-sour, garlicky and awesome.

Food is simple, large and tasty, with beautiful flavours and the minimum of fuss. For starters, it was various culturally-appropriate things, which were very good: tsatsiki (nice but not outstanding), pickled calamari (not nearly as rubbery as all that but still kind of rubbery), deep fried crispy sardines (I have a deep fried fondness for deep fried sardines, they are wonderful), and a tomato, red onion and anchovy salad that was tasty but a little too simple for the price.

Service was friendly, casual but attentive, very good.

The venue is lovely and belies the name - nothing sloppy about this creatively decorated space. Lots of food paraphernalia (tins, bottles, vegetables, things) strung out all over the place, backed by warm paint tones and an open kitchen. Only complaint: we were seated in the window and the curtain of fairy lights made it hot hot hot. Bonus on window seating: the building across the road has really awesome coloured lights which we spent most of the night figuring out.

Overall: great place, great experience. Yay! Also, chalk up 1 to me for restraint, of alcoholic* kind, and actually driving to salty cracker for a change. Jo: 1, Stv: 37. She edges in. She’s getting there.

Atmosphere: 8 / 10 (target: mediterranean relaxation. Mission: accomplished.)
Staff: 8 / 10 (friendly, relaxed, attentive)
Service: 8 / 10 (see: atmosphere)
Food: 7 / 10 (simple but hits the spot)
Value for money: 9 / 10. (that means good, i.e. cheap :))

*Full disclosure: Drinking copiously at lunch and being unable to face much more alcohol may have had something to do with it.

Sloppy Sam

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Jo's choice, Seapoint | No Comments

Five Flies

Friday, February 5th, 2010

City Bowl, Eckhard's choice | No Comments

Wasabi

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Constantia, Steve's choice | Comments Off

Savoy Cabbage review

Friday, November 27th, 2009

Choice, City Bowl, Jessica's choice, Outings, Reviews | 1 Comment

Hitting a restaurant with a definite reputation for The Trendy is always a bit of a mixed experience - one wants to find out what all the fuss is about, and is also slightly braced for it to be mostly about marketing. The Savoy Cabbage seems to carry a lot of reputation baggage, which makes it particularly ironic that the first problem with the evening was finding the damned thing. This was partly my fault - I’d looked up the address, but hadn’t found a map or anything. In the event “Hout St., near Heritage Square” turned out to be a wholly inadequate designation because the bloody restaurant is one of those coy, understated sort of establishments with a small, discreet and rather pretentious twisted wrought-iron plaque rather than an actual sign. We drove straight past it. Then we spent twenty minutes circling the centre of town in an increasingly desperate attempt to navigate the one-way system and the incredible confusion of the Greenmarket Square roadworks, which randomly close off whole roads at whim. (What are they even doing there, anyway? apart from booting the market out just in time for tourist season?). Eventually I phoned the restaurant to get directions, and I have to say the nice man was very kind and only laughed at us a little bit. We arrived eventually, triumphant and slightly giggly.

I rather like the inside of the Cabbage, it’s got that industrial feel - naked brickwork, giant air-con ducts, interesting spaces - which managed to stay just on the right side of pretentious. The vibe is pleasantly relaxed, and there’s a fairly continual trickle of cheerful guests climbing the stairs to the upper-level bar. I’m not entirely sure that the split-level thing works, though, the giant central staircase means that some tables are tucked away, which seems to require the waitstaff to have orienteering badges as much as the guests: we sat at our table for twenty minutes before a waiter actually worked out that we hadn’t been given a menu. (We had, however, been given a complimentary canape, and after ten minutes of wistful panting a passing waiter took pity on us and opened our wine. Memo to self, screw tops in future!).

The see-saw of the experience really got going with the actual arrival of our waiter, who was a gem - one of those intelligent, amusing guys who seemed perfectly happy to plug into the relaxed and slightly scurrilous vibe which Salty Cracker appears to generate. The menu is delectable, really interesting combinations of flavours, unusual vegetables, meats and cuts. There was much debate. When we finally ordered Jo asked the waiter if we’d picked anything that would disappoint us, and he gave his list a deliberately staged and cursory looking-over at arm’s length before saying “No!” firmly. We liked him. He was also thereafter very good with keeping wine glasses and water jugs filled.

We also liked the starters, which were, I think, on the whole better than the main courses. I’d heard good things about the Cabbage’s signature tomato tart, which was, alas, absent from the menu: the butternut/caramelised onion/goat’s milk feta one I had was, however, very good, and I shall definitely do my damndest to recreate the combination at home one of these days. Jo & the Evil Landlord had the beef tartare, which I think is probably the best I’ve ever tasted - full of celery, strangely, which I don’t usually enjoy but which gave it a wonderful bite and texture. I am, however, wishing I’d ordered Steve’s starter, which was definitely the winner - chicken-liver parfait in a sort of fig sauce thing, and more like foie gras than it had any right to be. (And I have to say, I always wonder what restaurants think about the Salty Cracker tendency to pass forkfulls of a dish promiscuously around the table. And to return the plates with nothing left except fingermarks in the sauce. It’s a toss-up as to whether they’re horrified or flattered.)

Things got a bit dodgy with the main course. On the upside: man, they do large portions. This is the nouveau cuisine sort of presentation, but with portions almost twice the size of those at somewhere like Ginja. Steve’s Three Little Pigs thing was very good -three sorts of pork in a cider sauce, lovely stuff. Jo’s great hunk of veal had, interestingly, a bone sticking out of it, but was likewise wonderful, with an incredibly intense mushroomy sort of pâté thing on the side. The Evil Landlord’s warthog chunk was a bit smaller and slightly boringly presented, no really stand-out flavours. My breast of duck, served on a completely wonderful parsnip mash with endive, which I love … was tough. Overcooked, leathery, dry. I am totally spoiled for duck by the French tendency to sear the outside of a duck breast like steak and serve it rare, and I’d fondly hoped that this might be the same, but I suspect they slightly overcooked it in the pan and then kept it warm long enough for it to dry out even further. Jo, fortunately, is less diffident than I am about this sort of thing, and hauled the waiter over to complain: the restaurant thereafter gained serious brownie points by dealing gracefully with the issue, whisking my plate away to re-do it (a bit of a wait, inevitably, made bearable by being fed forkfuls by everyone else, like a baby bird). The second version was indeed rare, although I suspect they went slightly too much in the other direction; nonetheless it was good, if not as tender as it could have been.

We were too full for dessert. This almost never happens. We looked wistfully at the dessert menu, which was fabulous, but couldn’t contemplate forcing anything else down.

So, overall this was a very endive/cider sauce experience - bittersweet. On the upside: attractive, unusual setting and relaxed feel, lovely staff, some amazing food, the ability to handle dissatisfied patrons sending food back to the kitchen with a certain dignity, and without bad vibes resulting. On the downside: some poor staff co-ordination, slightly slow service (we waited a while for the starter) and some definitely dodgy quality control in the kitchen. Also, their prices are about 20% higher than somewhere like Overture or Ginja, and despite the increased portion size, I don’t think the flavour/innovation levels of the food quite justify it. Jo’s famous four-point scale comes out thusly:

• Atmosphere: 8
• Staff: 8 (but Service 6)
• Food: 7
• Value for money: 6

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!

Bread and Wine

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Jo's choice, Reviews | 1 Comment

Bread and Wine, at Moreson Wine Estate near Franschhoek, do not take the N2, allow 45 minutes for driving. Minimum. But. Worth it.

B&W has a lovely, shaded courtyard perfect for lunch. When we arrived, it was a little too shady, what with the evil clouds and all. The inside is very nice too, though, giant ostentatious chandeliers in otherwise down to earth, barn-type venue. Bonus points: Watercolours of their favourite menu items on the walls here and there (menu obviously does not change much!). (Edit: They did move us outside when the sun came out resulting in lovely summerly mains under the tree).

They specialise in home-made, cradle-to-the-grave-and-beyond-charcuterie (oh, that one’s not going to be picked up by any food magazines), slaughtered, cured, smoked and otherwise perfected by the chef. We shared a platter for a starter (R95), before the other starters that is. It was lovely and interesting and very munchable. Concensus was that it is entirely insufficient as a main meal though, but then we are piggies after all.

Backtracking, the winelist is lovely and very reasonable, since it is on a wine estate. It is their own wine, but that is not a bad thing - Chardonnay was particularly nice. 3 bottle lunch! New heights, new lows.

Starters - i specifically came back to this place (it was my birthday restaurant last Feb. I think.) because of the risotto, which was a little different this time (peas replaced asparagus, as far as I remember), but still divine. White, truffly risotto, mmhm. Jess’s not-gniocchi (stuffed with yummy green stuff! with yummy green sauce! oh, if any of the ingredients were actually remembered, this would be like a food review!). The menfolk had reddish things: an out of character tomoto-type salady thing Without Any Meat for the EL, and  something auberginy for Stv. Oh dear. I don’t remember any of the stuff! I was eating risotto! It was delectable! It caused temporary other food amnesia! Stv’s was better than Eckie’s, if this helps.

Mains - a polarisation of the table into Ladies’ Pork Bellies and Men’s Gemsbok fillets. Tough one. The bellies were rolled, and very tasty, but we have been overly spoiled by the always different, always amazing, 101 ways to make heavenly things form pig’s stomachs the Overture does, and so the Gemsbok won for me. (Of course I had the marital 50% of it!). Gemsbok had some sort of berry thing going on and was simply divine.

After that, only room for (excellent) truffles and (much needed) coffee, followed by a walk through the winelands and to the river, in which I was successfully discouraged from swimming in. Probably a good thing in hindsight, it was a bit manky, but then what are memories made of if not random bouts of bilharzia? Sigh.

Finally, service: friendly, smiley, helpful, but frequently unwilling to acknowedge the 4-of-July parade acrobatics I had to attempt to get their attentions. I am Sitting Right Here! That’s my Limbs all in the Air! But, for leisurely lunch purposes, it was, you know, leisurely. Came to R1450 with food, wine and generous tip for 4.

Veridict:

• Atmosphere: 7
• Staff:6
• Food: 7
• Value for money: 7

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