3 very quick, perfect for summer, local meals (and a dessert)

I'm not fond of cook­ing. No, let me reph­rase that. I actu­ally enjoy whip­ping up a meal, par­tic­u­larly if I can use ingredi­ents from the garden. I don't like labour­ing over it. It must be fun to make, and it must taste good. And most import­antly, I mustn't have to spend half the pre­par­a­tion time try­ing to trans­late things like deci litres into some­thing more measurable.

I've put together a list of three such recipes — they're quick, they pro­duce a really tasty meal (usu­ally) and they're from local cook books (well, most of them). If they're not local, then at least they include eas­ily sourced local products ... Continued

Dinner at The Duchess of Wisbeach in Sea Point

Duchess of Wisbeach

The Duchess of Wisbeach is a rel­at­ive new­comer to the Sea Point Restaurant Scene and she announces her­self with a London Double Decker Bus bright red front door and an ante­lope head of some kind above the bar (keep­ing a watch­ful eye over the entrance!)

We had a fairly large table with strag­glers arriv­ing way after the time the table was booked for.  Seeing as the group is quite a rowdy bunch and seemed to spend more time chat­ting and hav­ing a cigar­ette on the pave­ment, our wait­ress sug­ges­ted put­ting a few of their side­walk tables together and so we ended up din­ing, Parisian café style, on the pave­ment! Continued

Munching my way through breakfast at Martins

Martins Bakery

Martins in Diepriver is one of those hid­den gems about which only the loc­als know, and vis­it­ors to Cape Town wish they knew, given the recent propensity for artisan breads.

Martins resembles a typ­ical old fash­ioned deli / cof­fee shop, which indeed is exactly what it is. Run by 'Mr Martins' (even his faith­ful staff mem­bers call him thus) together with his son and daughter-in-law, Martins is teem­ing with bread and baked products of just about every descrip­tion, includ­ing an excel­lent range of wheat-free good­ies that fea­ture a wheat free bread (for which you have to place an order, so be warned), a range of bis­cuits, and the bakery's delect­able date balls, for which we make a stop at least once a week ... Continued

Eating out in Cosmopolitan Cape Town

South Africa’s Mother City is home to some truly global gast­ro­nomy — Cape Town’s CBD is a ver­it­able melt­ing pot of dif­fer­ent cul­tures. Not only are its loc­als far from homo­gen­ous them­selves, there’s also the mul­ti­tude of ex-pats from far-flung nations who’ve fallen in love with the city of Cape Town and made it their home. The res­ult­ing mix­ture of dif­fer­ent cus­toms, cloth­ing and cuisine makes for a vibrant and eclectic city — not to men­tion a mouth-watering res­taur­ant scene. On any night of the week you can sample culin­ary arts from around the world, with a side serving of South African hos­pit­al­ity and a sprink­ling of Cape Town flair ... Continued

I thought I soy a sushi bar ...

I remem­ber myself, age four­teen, squidging up my face in revul­sion at what I’d just put in my mouth. Not the actual taste of it, mind you — in hind­sight I’m sure it was deli­cious — but the thought: raw fish wrapped in sea­weed? I wasn’t hav­ing any of it. Until about a year later, when I couldn’t have enough of it.

Sushi def­in­itely grew on me, and you’d be amazed how many Capetonians list this Japanese cuisine as their num­ber one favour­ite food. Luckily for me, Cape Town embraced sushi in a big way a few years ago and I can now get my fix just about any­where in the city. Just in case you don’t know, here’s a run­down of a few of the best places to grab a California roll or ten ... Continued

What’s for dinner tonight?

If you don’t feel like cook­ing din­ner tonight and the credit crunch mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to afford that lux­ury din­ner then I have a few solu­tions for you to dine out for R50.00 or less per per­son. Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it?

Restaurant Specials

Brad’s Grill in Harfield Village Claremont (Southern Suburbs, Cape Town), has an In by 6 Out by 8 spe­cial that runs 7 days a week and the whole night on Sunday. The deal is you need to be in the res­taur­ant by 18h00 (last orders taken at 18h45) and be out by 20h00. This is great for a mid­week din­ner when you have for­got­ten to defrost the chicken! The menu is always the same, which is great because you know what you are in for. For R35.00 you have a choice between a 180g sir­loin steak, chicken schnitzel, deep fried cala­mari, hot and spicy chicken wings or veget­arian spring rolls. This is served with either a baked potato, chips or rice and 2 veget­ables (but­ter­nut and spin­ach) ... Continued