The inside is quite charming. You quite clearly get the feeling of English husband and Thai wife: he runs the bar in the front room and she runs the kitchen of nummy food (although my familiarity with the cross-cultural set-up may be tinting my glasses on this one.).
There were bits and bobs of Thai ele- and paraphanelia on the walls and tables that add an air of more Thia-ness to the place: I approve!

The food was really good, but not knock my socks off amazing. Tastes and flavours were, to my buds, quite authentic. Tastiness always trumps authenticity, but it’s nice to have both.
The portions sizes, of the main courses especially, were very generous.

As you may expect from a Thai meal, the sauces were excellent.  A great mix of flavours and strength.
Winning dish for the table was the Duck Red Curry (Kaeng Phed Ped Yang on their menu). It was, pardon my language, amazeballs. Jo became somewhat obsessed over the course of the meal with deconstructing the ingredients and preparation method (“Why is my curry not this good?” was the cry. Fret not, your curries are also amazeballs! Um… That felt weird to say.). (Upon more sober reflection, it was (sort of) decided that the WIN was at least partially due to Duck Fat ™)

(Note to self, must take CrackPicting more seriously!)

My only complaint was the speed of the service: a little bit too slow to be called leisurely. We got the impression that a lot of the other clientèle were regulars, and the fact that they were in and out while we were still there gave the impression that they were being favoured over us a bit. To be fair to them, the lady owner did say that our mains took a while longer because of the steamed fish. To be fair to us, if we’d have been told that we would’ve asked stuff to be brought out as it was ready. Not a train smash, but something to bear in mind.

So, these score thingies of which you speak…
(I’m trying to score more harshly than the other Crackstefarians: 5 means average. 10 means OMGBBQ. 1 means killmenow.)

Atmosphere: 6 / 10 (Pretty Thai things, mood lighting, sturdy but not soft furniture)
Staff: 8 / 10 (Friendly, smiley, and chatty peeps)
Service: 5 / 10 (Good, but slow)
Food: 8 / 10 (Authentic and tasty Thai food. Different enough from the other Thai places to be worth a visit)
Wine: 7 /10 (A low R20 for Corkage, and a decent and reasonably priced wine list)
Value for money: 8 / 10 (Bit of a thumbsuck, but I seem to remember we were all pleasantly surprised, especially given the amount we ate!)

The decor inside is that classic “basic but clean” look. Slightly skanky lookin’, to be honest. I have a particular penchant for places that have good food but very simple decor (such as Jewel Tavern when it was in the docks). The other Crackernauts tend to err more of the side of posh, which only encourages me to bring the skank back in. It enhances that “hidden gem” feeling for me.

We often like to get recommendations, and the staff at Xiang Yuan were friendly, helpful, and made excellent suggestions. Alas, it has been a few weeks since we were there, and my memory of individual dishes has faded. We had a mix of Dim Sum from their big and varied menu, and added the much-loved duck and pancakes combo to the table. Everything was excellent, and the prices were good (and very reasonable compared to big names like Simply Asia or Tong Lok).

Atmosphere: 4 / 10 (Not great. TV on in an unavoidable place. Lights kinda bright.)
Staff: 7 / 10 (Friendly, slightly surprised, very helpful with the recommendations.)
Service: 6 / 10 (Good, but not great. Solid, but not shining.)
Food: 7 / 10 (Good Dim Sum (wide selection, all tasty), excellent duck.)
Value for money: 8 / 10 (Competitively priced)

Haiku was great. I’ve had my Japanese-Cracker hand forced slightly due to lack of availability (if you know a good Japanese restaurant in Cape Town, please drop it in the comments!), so I’ve expanded my general theme to Asian, preferably Japanese (because i like it), preferably not Thai (because we eat it at home a lot).

The place itself is tres chic. The bar at the front is particularly swish. We’re talking dark furnishings, a few shiny bits, and lots of spotlights (hung from the tall, tall, ceiling to head high (ish)). It felt a little too trendy for me, to be honest, but the staff were welcoming and friendly (and I’m not exactly Mr TrendyPants (as evidenced by me saying Mr TrendyPants)). The back 4/5 of the place is the restaurant, with a strip all the way down one side being the kitchen and the gaggle (pot? susan? broth?) of chefs, all specialists in their various bits.

The menu is big (and missing from their web site – boo). Three pages big, packed with tasty-sounding treats. It’s divided into sections by style more than by country, so you have stir-fried dishes together, tempura stuff together, and so on.
Roughly speaking, we had:

• veggie tempura (solid, but not amazing. Great sauce, though);
• soft shell crab tempura (very good. Crunchy!);
• Chicken and mushroom hotpot (a surprise star. Recommended by the waiter on the grounds of being a lot more interesting than it sounds. He was right!);
• Dim Sum (lots of dim sum. I think I may have found a place to return to regularly for Dim Sum – is good, me like.);
• Cheung Fun (chinese canneloni, which I remember first having as chopstick-test by Chinese friends in London.);
• duck pancakes (of course. Hat tip JT. Good, but not amazing);
• Beef katsu (breadcrumbed, seared, cow.);
• Thai salad (the weakest dish of the lot. A bit too fusion, so it lost it Thai character);
• Sizzling ostrich (juicy and tasty, but not mind-blowing).

Phew! And I’m sure I missed some. We definitely over-ordered. But then, it was Salty Cracker. :)

Service was good, but very slightly patchy. Our waiter was friendly and attentive, except for a short period near the end-game when I was wanting water and to ask for the bill.

Ratings? Ratings.

Atmosphere: 7 / 10 (Very trendy, but still nice for “normal” folk. Ahem.)
Staff: 9 / 10 (Friendly, chatty, excellent knowledge of the menu, very good with recommendations.)
Service: 7 / 10 (No real complaints, but wouldn’t mention it as special.)
Food: 8 / 10 (A wide spread of countries and styles without feeling stretched or that there are any “filler” items (iyswim), and very, very, tasty.)
Value for money: 6 / 10 (Pricey for what is, especially the Dim Sum.)

So, Friday afternoon I started a new fork of research and settled on the lovely looking, friend-recommended, mostly Thai, Kitima.
They were fully booked. Gah!
Not that surprising, calling at 6pm on a Friday night for a 7pm table, but still: gah!
Research prong three lead to Salt at the Ambassador Hotel., which I booked with no problems.
Disaster averted – huzzah!

The Actual Review

We had a bit of an adventure finding the place (not very clearly marked (at night) from the Camps Bay side, and the GPS thingy had it in the wrong place), but initial impressions were good. Very shiny hotel, and the restaurant was decked out very nicely, and not very hotel-restaurant-like at all (unlike some places, *stares at Myoga*). It felt like a proper restaurant, rather than something tacked on to the hotel.
One wall of the restaurant is floor-to-ceiling windows offering a fantastic view. Alas, not so much for us, since we arrived just past dusk. Note to self: go there for lunch.

The waiter passed the water test with flying colours, although he needed a bit of a nudge for refills.
Bonus points for decanting the bottle of red we had with us: classy.

I had the slightly clever idea of writing stuff down this time, so as not to forget what we all had.

Starters

Steve: partially de boned herb stuffed quail with a fricassee of crayfish, corn & shimeji mushrooms
Jo: terrine game and foie gras with sauce gribiche, apple chutney & toasted Challah
Jess: rillette of pork with apple puree & bagel chip
Eck: rillette of pork with apple puree & bagel chip

All were excellent. That is all. :)

Mains

Steve: springbok loin with creamy white cabbage, confit potato and cherry jus
Jo: selection of cape fish & shellfish with a tomato & saffron broth & rouille toast
Jess: confit duck leg with miso broth, wilted greens and crisp coriander dressed salad
Eck: deboned lamb neck with a herb crust , creamy barley, baby onion & a reduced braising liquid

Every dish was great, but I was particularly fond of my bokkie: perfectly pink.
Jo’s soupy affair was lovely and delicate, and Jess’s Asian-y duck was cracking.

Dessert

A partially shared affair. The table had:
dark chocolate fondant with port syrup & mint ice cream
and
tonka bean tiramisu parfait serve with espresso espuma & tuille.
The choccy managed to be rich and tasty without being thick and hard-going, like dark C desserts can often be, and the mint ice cream was lovely.
Espresso espuma: funny looking, but tasty.

Scores on the doors

Overall, an excellent experience – consistently high quality food in a very pleasant environment.
We like!
I will try to mark “hard.”

Atmosphere: 8 / 10 (Reminded me a bit of Ginja. A bit trendy, but no pretentious with it).
Staff: 7 / 10 (Polite, pleasant, smart)
Service: 6 / 10 (Professional, but a little inattentive)
Food: 9 / 10 (The food was in the nouveau style, but the portions were quite generous – win!)
Value for money: 8 / 10 (On a par with other places with similar offerings, but bigger bang for your buck)

[Pssst! Looking for the short version? It's here: "cheap, good, Japanese food, despite the change of hands"]

Boom, Shake, Shake, Shake The Room

The evening did not get off to an auspicious start. The Boom Boom Shakalak bar above was quiet, but not quiet. It was fairly empty (quiet), but they seemed to be testing the maximum volume of their speakers (not quiet). Well, I whine, but it wasn’t exactly deafening. It did make for an interesting “mix” of their boomboom and Kubo / Sushi Master’s selection (of Richard Clayderman, The Magical Sound of the Pan Pipes, and assorted authentic eastern tunes). I felt The Fear that I’d picked a clanger for Cracker. Luckily this was not to be the case.

The decor was classic. Classic in the sense of horrible kitsch that sort of works, a la Minato’s.
We popped open one of our two bottles of vino (R15 corkage, btw. R15! Stick that in your pretentious pipe and smoke it, Aubergine! (Yes, still bitter about that.)) and perused the menu. Cheap! Interesting! Japanese!

And So It Begins…

We shared two plates of mixed tempura (prawns, calamari, veggies) for starters. Tasty! This was definitely Tempura Done Right and made me very happy. Bubbly, light, crispy batter, tasty sauce accompaniment. I could probably have handled another few pieces, but they weren’t stingy portions.

The Mains Event

For mains, we had a veritable 食べ放題 of goodies: beef tataki¹ with ponzu sauce; beef teppanyaki²; Chicken Kara-age³; chicken and veggies noodles fry-up; roast salmon belly; chawan mushi⁴. All the nosh was good, but stars for me were the beef tataki (pink!) and the salmon (pink!). Nom (pink!)!

The Dessert Of The Real

Then, unusually for Cracker, we had dessert. Bar one tempura and ice cream. So crazy it works.
Tasty tiny treat to round off the meal. Eck had his own, the J, J, S threesome shared two.

Conclusions, Thoughts, Comments

The total was R600, including a generous tip, which seems very reasonable given that we ate loads.
Certainly cheaper than lots of previous Crackers.

Alas, I fear that the Master of Sushi may not last. Part of it is that it’s cheap. And small. Both of these I see as plus points as a patron, but it must make it more difficult to make money. A more pertinent part is that we were the only people present. From 7 to 10pm. On a Saturday night. Oh, as they say, dear. I suspect that Kubo’s attracted a very local following that will desert the new look / theme / vibe / owner, given how fickle Cape Town eaters are.

Patented Jo Scores on the Doors

Atmosphere: 3 / 10 (kitschy decor works, but booming music is distracting. We enjoyed our meal despite it (had rather a jolly time, actually), but it would have much better without.)
Staff: 7 / 10 (Nice waitress lady, smiley sushi chef (even though we had none of his wares), very friendly and earnest owner (language barrier made interactions more entertaining / interesting))
Service: 7 / 10 (Not particularly attentive, but easily signal-able given small space, and food came well-paced, as it was ready, piping hot (esp. important for tempura))
Food: 8 / 10 (Me liked. Interesting, new Japanese food. A bit different to other places which generally serve sushi as their Japanese stuff, or some kind of bastard-love-child-fusion thing which, while tasty, is not really Japanese Food.)
Value for money: 9 / 10 (Our final bill was low for Cracker, perhaps still a little high in general, but we had lots of nosh for our cash)

Fellow Crack-ees: what was the other category we wanted to add?

________________________________
1 – basically very rare, sliced beef. Watching this being cooked was awesome. Big chunk of meat, held in tongs, waved at flame of gas hob. Hypnotic.
2 – beef cube stir fry thingy
3 – Japanese style fried chicken
4 – steam egg custardy thing in a tiny bowl. Um… google it!
5 – there is no five, you may have noticed. Except that there is because this is it. This is a secret bit. You may have noticed that we had no sushi. A bit odd when going to a place called Sushi Master. Well, since it’s only really Jo and I who are the sushi monkeys, and that there was so much other interesting stuff to try, and that I’m on a quest for Japanese food that is not sushi, we decided to forgo said raw fish for that night. Jo and I will return by ourselves, or with other sushi monkeys, and try some then. The menu looked shortish, but with interesting animals. We’ll be back!

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

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!

So, after dipping out off a wine farm lunch on Friday due to time and heat constraints, we decided to Crack our Salty selves on Saturday instead.

I was in the mood for some Japanese food, but specifically not sushi. So, after hitting the Eat Out and Dining Out sites and the EO book, I chose Benkei (menu at DO).

We did our usual frisky food swapping.
Our starters were:

• Tuna, Ginger and Wasabi Spring rolls with Sweet Chilli sauce,
• Chicken Yakitori, kebab-style
• Seafood Yakitori,
• Tempura prawns, fish, calamari and veggies
• Sashimi salad.

All were pretty nummy, but special mention goes to the Spring Rolls (crunchy and good tuna) and the tempura (nice and crispy, good side sauce).
You may notice that there were five starters for four people.
We were hungry :).

Our mains were Teppanyaki stuff:

• Beef Fillet
• Seared Tuna Steak x 2
• Seafood Platter (fish, prawns, calamari steak)

They took quite a while bringing out the starters, and the mains arrived almost the instant they took the starters away, which was not great.
The tunii arrived seared to perfection, but unfortunately a bit cold. So, we sent them both back to be warmed up and they returned pretty much cooked. I was a bit miffed, but the fishies were still very tasty.
The Beefy was done just right (nice and pink and soft and good), and Eck’s seafood-for-two was a decent mix of denizens of the deep. I admit to being surprised that he managed to get the whole lot down – it was a whole lotta fish!

Overall quality of the service could be improved.
The waiters were friendly, but not quite attentive enough – we had to call our guy back to open our first bottle of wine for us (and I get very tetchy when I don’t have a drink in my hand soon after sitting down ;-] ).
And I was a bit annoyed by the fact that they started closing up the place while were still sitting there eating. This was before 10pm on a Saturday evening. Admittedly, we were the last ones there, but still.

So, I’m glad that I chose there, and I had a pleasant evening, but I won’t hurrying back there.
Plenty more Japanese joints to try!

Non-food information confirmed during the meal:
rimshot is the technical term for the bdum-tss at a punchline. Not to be confused with (NSFW) rimjob, (Arnold Judas) Rimmer, or just plain old (bling, mofo!) rims.