Tag: Restaurants

Uh, what is the Soup Du Jour?
It’s the Soup of the Day, Sir.
Mmmm. That sounds good. I’ll have that. From the film Dumb and Dumber

When Vincent Vega told his fellow hitman Jules about a “royale with cheese” in the opening scene of Pulp Fiction he probably did as much for the humble burger as the movie did for John Travolta’s ailing career. And so it was that I was enticed by the early-bird offer of a burger and beer for R40 during the slightly awkward 4-6pm time slot.

These burgers are so good that I’ve been back a number of times since at a more sensible dining hour. The 4-6 slot is clearly intended to attract the local students and did, for a brief moment or two, make me feel young again. Although, despite my bargain hunting, I’m sure the waitress could tell by my rapidly receding hairline that my student days are now just a fond memory. The Royale Eatery represents vibey, beatnik Long Street at its best and is a burger lover’s heaven, with more than thirty options to choose from including a far more than token vegetarian section (there are soya, tofu or mushroom burgers), as well as chicken, lamb, fish, ostrich, veal and, of course, beef patties.

The menus themselves are fantastic – bound, stylish and playful. The section that was headed ‘Pizzas’ for example simply says ‘We do not serve pizzas’. Although I understand that they now do. The menus are so fantastic in fact that the staff are slightly paranoid about leaving you alone with them for too long. After ordering, I asked if I could keep hold of one of the menus to look through. I was politely told that they don’t usually leave menus with people once the drinks have been served for fear of sullying. Perhaps I looked more like a skanky student than I thought…

Anyhow, the burgers are huge  and accompanied by fries, sweet potato chips or normal potato wedges. Rather go for the sweet potato chips or the wedges as those have been freshly prepared in the kitchen – the normal chips are frozen and not nice. The Cosa Nostra Burger was excellent, with sundried tomato pesto, roasted veggies and melted mozzarella. Or perhaps you’d prefer the All Day Breakfast Burger with bacon, egg, sausage and relish? For the more generous appetite there’s the Fat Bastard: double patty, double egg, double bacon and double cheese. Needless to say I had this on my second visit with added avocado and mushrooms. If that’s not nutritious and delicious enough, why not wash it all down with a 600ml Bar One or Romany Cream milkshake? The milkshake menu is mind blowing. They come in two sizes – large and bucket sized.  The bucket size goes down well after a Fat Bastard and a bottle of cab sav. If you’re not already one of Cape Town’s thriving bulimics, the Royale Eatery is a great place to get started.

The original downstairs section is for walk ins and has an authentic US diner vibe going on and opens up on to the bustling Long Street, if you want to avoid the street vendors though I suggest you opt for a window table rather than one on the pavement. Upstairs is an equally laid-back dining room, brimful with a salmagundi of bohemian artefacts, but you have to make a reservation for upstairs. Keep a look out for the very cool watering can tap in the loo!

And yes, you can get a “royale with cheese”. Feta, brie, cheddar, blue or Swiss?

Royale Eatery
279 Long Street, Cape Town
Telephone: 021 422 4536

“There are two kinds of music, the good and the bad. I play the good kind.” Louis Armstrong

 

Cast your mind back to the bygone days of the Rat Pack – the team at Brio have created a traditional dining room in this fantastic double volume space, built way back in1893. They have brought back ‘dinner and dance’ with stylish aplomb. We started our evening with an aperitif in the wonderful cigar and cognac lounge. Wood panels, a roaring fire and comfy sofas and arm chairs complete the picture.

The band will entertain you with the likes of Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Eta James and other jazzy classics. If they’re playing. We went on a Monday night and the band was not playing. In fact we were the only diners in the restaurant. In an enormous high-ceilinged ball room of a restaurant, you can imagine that this lent itself to an ambiance more akin to a dentist’s waiting room. A very stylish dentist of course. The space is fantastic – stylish, classical and opulent. There’s a raised area with black leather banquets and black and white Victorian tiles. I’m quite sure the experience would be rather different on a busy night with the band in full swing, but a restaurant should be good every night. As it was however, there was little to distract me from the food.

The menu is classic grillroom. It’s refreshingly brief and includes old classics like Roquefort snails and Crayfish Thermidore. Reading through the glamorously bound menu, I was rather excited – have we finally got a great venue that does classic dishes really well?

The answer is no. A starter of asparagus wrapped in parma ham will set you back R96. For R96 I thought it might be magical asparagus hand reared by elves and nurtured to the soothing sounds of Kenny G in the late afternoons. It wasn’t. It was distinctly unexceptional, blandly presented and served with a gloopy and overly tangy hollandaise. My fellow fatty had the calamari – as chewy as old bra straps drizzled in lemon butter.

Meat is obviously the thing to have in a grill room, so I opted for a fillet steak with a mushroom sauce (costs extra). My steak was undercooked and as ropey as, well, rope, while the mushroom sauce would not have been out of place in a hippo’s nostril. But credit where it’s due – the thick cut chips were fantastic. Vegetable sides (for which you again pay extra) included butternut, creamed spinach and marrow. Dull and unimaginative.

It’s worth mentioning that the service was flawless. The wine selection is good and there are plans to have an enormous basement wine cellar where you’ll be able to venture and select your tipple. Sounds good. I made do with a waitress delivered and rather measly glass of Glen Carlou cabernet for R56.

I was willing to overlook all of this at the prospect of a Lindt chocolate soufflé. Soufflés make me weak at the knees. I see them so rarely on restaurant menus these days because they are a nightmare to prepare and they take time. This particular soufflé was a reminder of that. A soufflop. If I was chef, which I’m not, I would have been ashamed to serve it. Which reminds me of one of my favourite quotes from the food critic AA Gill when he was challenged to open his own restaurant:

“Critics may well be like eunuchs in a harem who know how it’s done, having seen it done every day, they just don’t fancy having it done to them.”

Back to the soufflé. It had not risen a jot. It was a hard, slightly burnt pie crust with a thick chocolate cream filling. It was deliciously chocolatey but more reminiscent of scraping out the cake mix from Mum’s Magimix than a soufflé.

Brio 1893, like communism, is a great idea in theory. But if they’re going to be successful, they’ll need to drop their prices, get a new chef and get some music on the go every night.

Brio 1893
130 ABC Building, Adderly street
City Bowl
Cape Town

021 422 0654

I am very fond of this place. Especially the Snug which is the aptly named pub on the side with Foresters on tap and a real “neighbourhood” vibe. Perfect for a broody winter’s evening.

Societi Bistro serves my kind of food – authentic Italian fare made with really good ingredients. Societi bills itself as a “neighbourhood local” – a sanctuary for Capetonians and visitors looking for a home from home. And really, you’ll be hard pushed to find a better mushroom risotto this side of the Appian Way. The sumptuous depth of flavour is created from an intense mushroom duxelle. We also tried the risotto special – apple and pancetta. Equally delicious with the sweetness of the apple offset by the smoked flavour of the pancetta.

The menu is satisfyingly basic; six starters, six pastas/risottos, ten mains and six puddings, with a handful of specials. But if you’re only going to have a choice of six starters, three of them cannot be so meaty – ox tongue, lamb’s liver and bone marrow. Too much meat and too many cheap ingredients. Hearty for the winter though and of course you could always have a small portion of risotto or pasta as a starter.

In fact, if I go again, I may well have a risotto as a starter and as a main. Carbocide to most Capetonians, but I ain’t scared. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels. Apart from their mushroom risotto! Coming in at R96 though – these are not “neighbourhood local” prices. Unless of course your neighbourhood is Bel Air or Chelsea.

The other peculiar thing about this neighbourhood is that most of the waiting staff are a little odd. Our waiter was in fact intensely irritating, I feel bad because he was trying hard, but he was a right helicopter – awkward and intrusive, topping up or clearing something whenever humanly possible. A service assault. Really not in keeping with the relaxed, familial vibe they’re after…

We splashed out a little on a Waterford Cab Sav to wash down our meal – one of my favourite wines and always a heavy and peppery treat. The wine list is great and very reasonably priced with a commendably marginal mark up. Look out too for the Thelema Sauvignon Blanc.

For my main course, I had the queen prawns with nero pasta, garlic and chilli. Flavour was great, but the prawns were dry and not plump or juicy. At R156 I wanted plump and juicy prawns. The lamb shank was very good – rich and hearty as it should be but not special enough to charge R136.

I rounded things off with a mighty fine baked cheesecake – a classic and this was a very good one.

Societi Bistro nearly achieves the “neighbourhood local “ vibe to which it aspires. They just need to watch the prices because these are not expensive ingredients. It’s good old fashioned Italian cooking and should be priced accordingly. That’s where the appeal lies.

Societi Bistro
50 Orange Street
Cape Town 8001
021 424 2100