Before I came here, I was reassuring everyone that Cape Town wasn’t that dangerous and wasn’t plagued with ebola. This is still true! It is a pain having to be so much more cautious and placing a curfew on myself so that I’m not alone outside after the sun sets, but I’m still having a lot of fun!

I am starting to get a little over high end food though, but because of how spoilt I’ve been, I continue to cringe when I receive badly prepared food – which means I have a very narrow range of places to visit that will satisfy me and not break the bank.

Valentine’s Day was my secret excuse for seeking out once-off treats from cafes – and I wasn’t disappointed! This special cronut was from Jason’s Bakery – a marshmallow cream cronut with chocolate and turkish delight – I liked it so much better than the previous week’s cronut.

I can also confirm that they do in fact make the best pies – I was lucky enough to sample a braised wagyu beef, potato and bean + pea pie, and wow. Wowowowowow. THAT is a pie! I was so used to pies being pastry with half goo, half stuff – but this was pastry stuffed completely full of actual food! All the sauce was absorbed by the meat and vegetables so that the full flavour was there too. I don’t think I could eat any other pie ever again – but I’m always happy to be proved wrong.

I also had a ramen craving, and I only found one noteworthy place according to good old Google. The place is called Downtown Ramen, which was inside a place called Lefty’s Dive Bar. I was incredibly lucky that some other people wanted ramen too, because we walked through some pretty shady looking streets. It turns out my sense of direction was also pretty perfect as well, having lead them correctly and not having to backtrack, which is a common occurrence when I’m left to my own devices.

This pork bun was actually quite large! It did have good flavour, though I was hoping for a better tasting pickle sauce – this one actually had a lemon dressing to it, and the pork belly was cooked very nicely.

Pork belly shoyu ramen with thick noodles. This place only had two ramen choices – shoyu pork belly and a vegetarian ramen. It was actually better tasting than I thought – and that pork belly was actually one of the tastiest I’ve had! However I would have loved a richer, fattier broth and better cooked noodles (I have a strong preference for thin and “harder” noodles). For a lack of Japanese presence though, I’d say this was pretty good experience.

This is where I’ll go on a little bit of a rambling about some observations I’ve made during my time here…

First of all, it’s quite interesting the number of things that we take for granted in the developed, Western world. For example, the humble lemon lime and bitters. They don’t have it here. A few of the restaurants we visited, and the hotel bar, didn’t know what it was, to the point where we had to show them how to make one.

There was also a time when a colleague had ordered a raspberry iced tea – 3 times, and each version arrived with very different sweetness levels, as well as significantly different garnishes – mint versus orange! We were slightly bemused that this kind of inconsistency existed for a single drink.

There’s actually a lot of small inconsistencies in a lot of the average places, I think it might be due to the fact that a lot of the people who work in the hospitality industry don’t experience the lifestyle that their customers do – the socio-economic divide is so large that I can appreciate that they don’t necessarily have the same standards and experiences. I’m just an overly spoilt wannabe hipsterish snob, and I admit to it, so my expectations of waitstaff, service and consistency are insanely high. Luckily, I’m also incredibly nice and patient so while I notice it, I don’t actually mind, since that itself is an experience.

That being said, the top end restaurants are distinctly different. I’ve been to a couple of “expensive” places now – like Chalk and Cork, and the service levels are much higher. The staff and clientele are also vastly different. You get many more international customers – in fact I hear a lot of German conversations between the customers and staff. Since I’m not sure if I will do a revisit for the following restaurant, here are the pictures and experiences of Chef’s Warehouse and Kitchen:

Tempura vegetables

And I thought Japanese restaurants knew how to make and plate tempura! Chef’s Warehouse and Kitchen does a set tapas menu for two, however easily accommodate for single diners by halving the cost, and then reducing the set 8 dishes to a choice of 4 from the list. Research indicated that there is a heavy Asian influence on the dishes, though many other cuisines and techniques are present – in fact, one of the dishes I chose was a mushroom risotto which was so good, but again I experienced the sad confirmation that I simply don’t like risotto.

Salmon togarashi

What I assumed was a twist on nigiri, this was a great dish! The wasabi was amazing, and the crispy skin fragment had great crunch. The rice wasn’t great though, since I’ve had very good sushi rice. The salmon and the seaweed made the whole dish a classic sushi experience for me.

Deep fried squid

Yes, the menu description  said squid, though I’m still convinced it was octopus, with some calamari. It was on sriracha and a bed of finely shredded cabbage dressed in vinegar. This squid was cooked so well! It made me happy and reminded me why I love fine dining so much. The presentation was so good and was so delicious. I am more than likely going to revisit this restaurant because it’s been my favourite so far.

On the topic of pretty and well cooked good, I totally didn’t realised there was a San Pellegrino Top 50 restaurant in Cape Town by the name of The Test Kitchen. I realised too late that it was something I had to cross off on my list, so alas, there were no tables available. I do kind of regret being indecisive as there was a chance for me to have booked a table, but I know I’ll be better off saving money for other adventures.

One thing I’ve been very proud of, while remaining on the topic of food (when do I ever not talk about food!), is that I’ve now had ostrich, zebra, springbok, warthog, and even a mopane worm! I am quite enjoying the different kinds of game here, and what’s even crazier is that I had some of the game as marinated meat at a Korean BBQ! It did make it impossible to tell the different meats apart though. I was actually surprised that zebra meat was lighter than I thought – it was closer to white meat than red, which I wasn’t expecting. Regardless, it was a great experience. I still have kudu and whatever other interesting food I can get my hands on. For example, this sheep’s head, which someone brought to work. I think I shocked a few people by agreeing to eat it, while eagerly asking questions about brains, eyeballs and various parts of sheep head anatomy. It was quite tasty and I was happily getting my hands dirty to claim some amazing cheek meat.

The final bit of my food adventures for this post concludes with what else, but coffee! There’s a great market place called The Old Biscuit Mill that’s especially vibrant on Saturdays, so I had my mini coffee crawl there. There’s a lot food as well as jewellery, clothes and other knick-knacks for sale. Even though I vowed not to spend money, I did end up buying some earrings and a necklace. That’s what I get for listening to my hipster-on-the-inside.

Espresso Lab micro-roasters, which is a hugely popular place that uses two La Marzoccos. They have a really cool espresso menu – which is that periodic table to the right. I tried their Costa Rica Los Lajas as an espresso and it was actually really nice and cherry. I was glad they had that particular one as their single origin because I’ve previously had it as a filter at Switch Coffee in Tokyo.

It’s a very white and clean space, with an awesome roaster at the back as well as a brew bench. Due to how busy the place was, I didn’t ask if they served any filter coffee – but it is a pretty cool setup regardless! They also sold Fool magazine, which was pretty awesome.

I found this little syphon at the Origin Artisan coffee roasters stand, but didn’t actually have it – for me it was an espresso here of their house blend. I enjoyed the shot back at V&A Waterfront a lot more than the one I had here, but I believe it was a different blend.

The final coffee stand I visited was the Rosetta brew bar, where only filter coffee was sold. They had a choice of a Costa Rica or Yirgacheffe if I remember correctly, and I chose the Yirgacheffe upon asking for the barista’s preference. It was also roasted really well and super tasty!

I’ve also finally figured out why the flat white is a predominant drink here – it’s because the biggest roaster/wholesaler, Deluxe coffeeworks, was founded by a New Zealander! It all makes sense now! However I still feel that a lot of the beans are roasted too dark for my liking – I have too much of an Australian palate when it comes to how I prefer my coffee prepared. It’s still great talking to all the baristas to learn how they treat their coffees though!

While I’ve been to Truth Coffee Roasters, the great big steampunk cafe, I haven’t decided to post any pictures yet as I’m yet to take better pictures and form a better opinion – but I wanted to mention it as it turns out I do actually have a “slayer” sense, but I failed to recognise that beautiful machine on my first visit :(. I first spotted their Synesso at their takeaway window and took a picture of that as it’s the first Synesso I’ve seen. I figured that coffee machines are relatively expensive for the average cafe owner, which is why there aren’t many. It could possibly be due to the cost of such a machine, but it might also be due to the repair and support available for the brand. Or it could be as simple as a Visa versus Mastercard/Coke versus Pepsi kind of situation.

I did notice a flashy white coffee machine that I at first thought was a Slayer, however for some reason, even though I checked out the sides to verify, didn’t actually 100% recognise, so I walked away thinking it was a second Synesso. Am I crazy??? It was only later when I related to my surrogate baristas over at Flat Mountain Coffee Roasters that I’d paid Truth a visit, that they indeed confirmed that a Slayer lived there. So now I have to go back and then talk about how the decor and waitstaff are all very steampunky!

Anyway, enough about coffee.

The other day I finally said yes to climbing a mountain – Lion’s Head. I wasn’t sure if I could actually complete the adventure since though I was confident in my walking abilities, if it involved any other physical strain, I knew I’d be in trouble since I’m the most unfit person ever. I often make jokes about not knowing how to breathe and even that I forget to breathe, but this is actually true! Normal breathing is actually quite shallow, and you don’t notice until you take deep breaths.

So the initial uphill walk was a small challenge, but doable and I could keep up with my super fit colleagues. However, it then became quite rocky and steps and climbing were involved. Wow, I haven’t had my lungs hurt like that since cross country in primary school! (which I hated), and they were still sore the next day. I didn’t even know lungs could be sore. It was well worth climbing to the top where I took plenty of photos – though it was too bright up there so I had trouble checking my panoramic shots – so half of them turned out having colour issues halfway through the picture, but they were so breathtaking so that it didn’t actually matter. They way down was actually really fun and confirmed that my muscles could cope with the exercise, it’s just my lungs that can’t. I’m going to stick with the theory that it’s because I smoke candle fumes (i.e. put myself in an enclosed room and start burning masses of candles at least once every winter).

As these three pictures are all panorama shots, they’ve been hyperlinked so that you can actually see them.

EXPLORATION