Hook, Line & Sinker, Fyndraai at Solms Delta, The Orient, Elandsfontein & Savute Camp, Botswana.
Having contributed dining out and Berkman’s Blog copy to The Cape Times since March 2003, this piece was my swansong.
Hook, Line & Sinker. First published in The Cape Times.
A CAPE Times reader asked me to cover more affordable restaurants where the food is utterly delicious and a second mortgage isn’t required to dine there.
Superb food at superb value is the only reason to go to Hook, Line and Sinker. Over the last three years I’ve eaten there more than at any other restaurant. There is no décor to speak of and, even now that we have become friends with owners Stefan and Jacqi Kruger, they are still abrupt with us and sometimes rude - newcomers feel the worst brunt of their brusqueness which is in a small part genuine, but mostly put on for effect. Think of it as decoration – there is no other.
The food is another matter. I haven’t tasted better fish elsewhere. Even when I’ve purchased fish from their adjoining fish shop and skillfully cooked it myself, I don’t come near to what they serve on the plate. It is the farm butter and open-wood fire that imparts flavour and Stefan’s ability to cook fish perfectly – not to mention his mustard and Jack Daniels basting or, “red” or “green stuff”, a secret mixed herb topping that ensures that the five table, 26-seater restaurant is always busy. Just landed, fish varies in price from R89 for yellowtail to R93 for line-caught kingklip while Patagonian calamari is R79 and wild, sea-caught prawns R115.
While Stefan is at the fire, Jacqui makes the two starters (both R35) – mussel soup, a peppery, tomato-based West Coast dish or, my standard order, shrimp bisque - a sweet, creamy soup that satisfies my need for comfort eating. She also makes the Panini bread which I break into bits and add to my soup – nursery eating for adults.
Chips are fried in Malaysian Palm fat which, she claims, is cholesterol free. For dessert, their crème brulee (R27) and Wicked Chocolate Pot (R32) are both superb and topped with a melted sugar crust at the table.
On Wednesday and Sunday nights they serve steak. Start with deep-fried camembert (the half-round portion is rich and needs the cranberry jelly to cut through the fat.) You won’t be asked how you like your steak – and, to maintain peace, don’t offer a suggestion. It will be perfectly cooked. The meat is air-dried so is never bloody, irrespective how rare it is served. We asked to have our two rib-eye portions (R67 each) cut into three so that each could be prepared in a different way. The Old Man sauce (mustard and Jack Daniels that works so well with Tuna, is also superb here) but just cooked in its basting – a diamond-diver’s recipe which Stefan has shared with me, but sworn me to secrecy if ever I want to eat there again, is delicious. The matured cheddar and wild garlic sauce is great on its own, but masks the flavour of the meat.
A table salad is included on Steak nights and, as an alternative to chips, fried, roasted-style potatoes, first steamed to soften and then crisped to golden brown.
Lunch, except for Sunday which is a la carte, is beer-battered hake with chips (R41) served on newspaper-covered tables.
Their wine list is surprisingly upscale. As they are chummy with a number of winemakers, they have special and new wines before many other restaurants do. You can also bring your own and pay R15 corkage.
Avoiding their nonsense is easy: make a reservation, arrive only between 7pm and 8pm for dinner, say please and thank you and don’t ask any questions.
Hook, Line and Sinker, 028-273 8688, Crescent Road, Pringle Bay. Look for the fish on the roof.
Fyndraai at Solms Delta. First published in 48 Hours.
EVER wonder what you stand for? I think about it often – not in the short, sharp decision-making type of way but rather in a slow, ruminating happily; digesting way. It changes, of course, depending on the vantage point. When it comes to dining out, what I stand for is clear – I like local produce that is respectfully prepared best. I like it even more so when the dish reflects something of our Cape culinary heritage.
Fyndraai restaurant at Solms Delta in Franschhoek pushes this culinary bar even higher producing local, heritage cuisine at a reasonable price and, here is an important price: service ratio caveat - while delivering it with superb service.
The glass floor is a little unsettling at first but the staff is sufficiently clued-in to people’s apprehensive arrival looks that they quickly say something about how strong it is.
Other than the views of the original 1740 wine cellar beneath, the thing to look at in this open-style restaurant is the food first, and then the pictures on the wall, arranged more like a wall of family photos than a décor collection, that visually demonstrate how people-focused this estate really is.
We almost skipped the visit to the Museum van de Caab near the restaurant, which is part of the wine-tasting facility, as I find a dose of guilt before eating doesn’t agree with me. Glibness aside, though, I’m glad we didn’t. The accessible and non-finger-waving way it is arranged captivated us so much that we returned again after lunch. Make a point of going too – there will be something of interest – I found some stone-age tools from the site especially interesting and while feeling shame is the only appropriate response to something that records slavery and, much later, apartheid, (and there is a wall remembering the dead), it also records the living and, dare I say, I felt upbeat after.
29-year-old chef Shaun Schoeman is as local as the cuisine is. Franschhoek born and bred, he began at Haute Cabriere under Matthew Gordon and did two years at Aubergine (which I rate as the best restaurant in Cape Town). He has brought classical discipline, innovative presentation and local passion to the cuisine at Fyndraai. Dishes explore the diverse culinary heritage of the Cape, incorporating European, Asian and African flavours. Botanical syrups and sauces enliven veldkos, there are elements of boerekos and ‘Cape Malay’ (slave) influences blended with ingredients favoured by the Khoi people who lived in the Franschhoek Valley thousands of years ago. The Oven-baked butternut flan served with korrelkonfyt, smoked vegetables and roomkaasous is wonderful to start but the Curried smoked snoek and salmon fish cakes are better (better yet is to share, as we did). The spicy cakes are served with mango blatjang, steamed basmati rice and eiervrug fries. (R44)
I love offal so immediately ordered the calf’s liver and pickled tongue with tamatiesmoortjie, aartappelvla, balsamic and sherry sauce. (R94) and although JP enjoyed the flavour of his Springbok wildspastei, he hoped for a more traditional pastry enclosed pie, rather than the pasty on the side together with blomsalie-flavoured roasted vegetables. (R105)
End with malvatert, with sour fig custard, vanilla cream and wild berry ice (R41) and a glass of their honeyed Karri, which is also offered as a welcome drink.
Fyndraai is open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner and Sunday and Monday lunch only.
www.solms-delta.co.za. 021 874-3937.
The Orient Hotel, first published in 48 Hours.
THERE must be a catch. When something is too good to be true, it usually is, so let me get the drawbacks out of the way. The mobile phone and 3G reception there is terrible and, once you’re there, you are some distance away from anywhere else, so can’t just pop out to the Mall. There aren’t TVs in every room.
From R2800 per suite including breakfast, I challenge anyone to find another special, luxury property at a comparable price. The Orient Hotel in Elandsfontein, Pretoria will redefine the boutique hotel experience and once you dine at Chantel Dartnall’s exquisite Mosaic restaurant, it will become the benchmark for all other fine dining experiences.
The exotic allure of a Moroccan-styled fantasy is what initially attracted me, but it was the attention to detail in the furnishings – assembled more by a collector than a decorator, and a level of intimate service by owner Mari and daughter Chantel, that made me think of the great family-run hotels of Europe.
We stayed in the Constantinople suite, the most costly at R4000, 00 per night but the price must be placed in context – a suite of this size and decorated to such a standard would cost four times the rate at V&A Waterfront. Was it the 400-year old four-poster Indian bed, or the intricately carved timber swing chair, with its plump cushions and brass chains, that impressed? Perhaps it was the antique roll-top writing desk or the selection of quality books in the room with which to deepen our understanding of its setting, with themes like 1940’s adventure novels set in the East, to coffee table books on the Fall of Constantinople, that enchanted? The large feature tub surrounded by beaten-silver candle holders and a collection of glass bottles with little onion-dome shaped stoppers containing emollients and scented oils comes straight from the scene in The English Patient when Ralph Fiennes is in the bath. For me it was the Persian carpet on top of the marble bathroom floor, bathed in sun streaming through the massive windows, which made it hardest to leave, curled up as I was like a cat pretending to be a Pasha with my head propped up by a scarlet cushion.
Cuisine at Mosaic, rightly recognized by Eat Out as Top 10 in the land, is as magically unexpected as the hotel but rooted in Europe rather than the East. Six courses with wine are R695. An amuse bouche of black truffle custard sets the tone. The oxtail tortellini with a velvety oxtail jus is a triumph of flavour and texture and raises such a conflict of conscience – to eat it slowly to savour every mouthful or to greedily indulge and pray for another helping. My mouth is wet with longing just thinking about this dish. She also has a light touch and feminine dexterity in her plating style using flowers and herbs as delicate garnishes. The Norwegian salmon gravadlax and oyster tempura is an example of this lightness as is the raspberry and passion fruit crème brule to end.
They are offering mid-week specials for R2500 per couple that includes champagne and canapés, dinner and a movie in their Petit Alhambra Private Cinema. Don’t miss the Tienie Prichard sculpture museum when you visit.
www.the-orient.net. 012 371 2902/3/4
Savute Camp, Botswana. First published on www.gotravel24.com
ONX MANGA is a big man in every respect. There is something about his confident demeanor that makes one think he comes from royal blood and his height, like the dominant male elephant, makes everyone notice him. Short of displaying the greasy musth coating on the cheeks that signals rutting season, this man of animals, in many respects, is also an animal of a man.
Dana Welch, a top US travel agent traveling with her equally renowned colleague Katey Hartwell are sharing the safari vehicle with us. “Who will pull over first?” she asks Onx as another vehicle approaches on the same narrow path amid the acacia trees. “I’m the dominant male”, roars Onx in a throaty laugh with the slightest tinge of an American accent acquired after spending time as a guide in Disney’s African Lodge experience. The other car gives way.
At a clearing, with giraffes at one side and a dazzle of zebra at the other, Onx stops the vehicle. There’s an elephant skull, bone white after it has been picked clean by scavengers and baked in the Botswana sun. A barn owl is being harassed by a group of iridescent blue starlings and retreats into its nest inside the tree.
Over morning coffee and biscuits Onx tells us should we be stuck in the veld without water, to squeeze it from fresh elephant poo. He sticks out his tongue to it in a manly show of prowess. “Doesn’t taste bad,” he says, “try it.” We stop ourselves gagging.
“Don’t eat this one. The attractive fruit is a poison apple”, he warns. “In Chobe eat dung before you eat apples”, he laughs. There are two male elephants loping, one missing a right tusk. “He’s a left tusker”, Onx explains that they sacrifice a tusk to allow them to get closer to trees to feed. Elephants are kings in Chobe – a national park in Botswana with one of the highest concentrations of elephants in the world. Favourite elephant cuisine comes from the camel pod of the acacia tree. Elephants are often ill considered because of the devastating damage they do to the surrounds. In Chobe though the elephants need’s are considered above all else. As complex and sentient beings, elephants know not to simply push over the acacia tree like they so frequently do when a tree doesn’t willingly sacrifice its fruit. Onx says the elephant knows the acacia will offer its fruit again next year and thus spares it.
A yellow hornbill is joined by its red billed cousin and soon our clearing resembles the opening scene from The Lion King. Onx says we should pack up our picnic and return to the vehicle before the two elephants get much closer. He can sense pending trouble.
On the way back to the Orient-Express Safari’s Savute camp we have our closest encounter. A giant male, estimated to be about forty years old weighing six tons, is munching ahead. We give him a wide berth but he’s keen to explore us and comes so close we can see his eye lashes. I’m afraid to exhale. His trunk is foraging around the tires of our vehicle. I have never been this close to a wild animal. Onx says there’s no cause for concern explaining that as he approached us, he is not feeling threatened. Later at the water hole beneath Orient-Express Safari’s Savute camp deck, he explains they can drink up to 220 liters of water a day. We have front row seats for the on-going battle for dominance. Elephants, unlike antelope that often fight to the death for the right to mate, take a more dignified approach of trunk growls and posturing and sometimes, only if necessary, push their heads against the other to assert manliness.
Although being on safari is about exploring where the animals may be and watching them in their own habitat, at Savute camp one is guaranteed to see elephants, and in great volume, sitting on the deck or even while in the pool.
The double outdoor showers are ideal for folk who want to pretend they’re elephants and take a (non mud) splash outdoors. From the luxury tent deck, especially as afternoon draws cooler, ele’s come out in abundance for a march, albeit, in silence, through what once was a river.
Although life on safari is rather more regimented than I like it to be, coffee and biscuits at 6am to preempt a 6.30 light breakfast (the miellie map is especially good) before heading out on a four-hour game drive.
Returning for 11am brunch is a highlight and the cuisine here is good and varied – eggs as well as hot dishes, bobotie, pizza etc.
It’s back to our air-conditioned tent for siesta and time to reflect and recount the wonderful sightings. Interior designer Graham Viney’s interior scheme is as elegant as it is comfortable with colours that reflect the sand, soil and trees.
Live well,
Brian Berkman
083 441 8765.
[16-Oct-09]
Brian Berkman
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