When we travel we often avoid the folkloric tourist shows, not really because they bad, more because they are loaded with a lot of older sad folks just lacking interest. Not so on my first night ever in South Africa at the beginning of a two week business visit to promote travel here.
After a day of scouring the waterfront shops and enjoying a bag full of varied BILTONG for lunch, I was pretty hungry. Oh, what's biltong? It is the South African equivalent of jerky, but less chewy and more flavorful. At JOUBERT & MONTY, only biltong and dried sausage is sold and it is a plethora of local animals that are featured. The beef was simple and tasty, but I also enjoyed eland, ostrich, kudu and springbok (venison) in both the biltong and sausage styles. The ostrrich sausage was my favorite as it was so tender and so lean.
In the evening we four travel agent were joined by our hostess, Jenny, who organized this trip and is the sales rep for Giltedge Tours which is the company that we use for most of our clients coming here (they ARE brilliant). We drove around for a short evening tour and ended at a beautiful 200 year old home which is the home of the GOLD OF AFRICA MUSEUM (www.goldofafrica.com) in downtown Cape Town. We were a bit late for the entire "experience" so we missed the tour where you get a glass of champagne with gold flakes, but we did tour the interesting museum after dinner. Everything is fixed price here (and since we are guests, I don't know the costs), only alcohol is extra, and when in South Africa wine is an important part of every meal! We were greeting by a giant human in puppet dress outside (photo op) and then many of the guests that had arrived before us were taking drumming lessons inside. James, our server, explained that the menu was set and the Cape Malay/African cuisine is served family style. The white was a crispy not too citrusy SAUVIGNON BLANC 2008 Special Cuvee from SPRINGFIELD ESTATES in the Robertson area, a region which I had never heard of before. It was a great pair with the SPICED TOMATO SOUP made with GREEN CHILIES & GINGER and served with a pastry twist on top for crunch. The red was an amazing PINOTAGE (a varietal I discovered years ago, but that we often seem to get lower quality of in the US) 2008 from DIEMERSFONTEIN in Wellington (another new region) with intense chocolate and coffee overtones which was perfect with our stronger meat main courses.
PRAWNS (we were told the South African ones are smaller than what we are used too, but they were about 25 count size) with CUCUMBER which had a nice light BBQ style sauce painted on them. BOBOTI SOMOSA is a phyllo pastry style somosa stuffed with boboti, a local curry dish of meat and potatoes. These were served with a divine APRICOT CHUTNEY. MAIZE NUT FRITTERS were also tasty (if a bit dry) and the sauce made them perfection as it was an APPLE MINT YOGURT which was thick for dipping and alleviated the dryness. These fritters are called MUKHOMO and are apparently a very traditional peanut encrusted tribal snack.
A small bowl of SMOKED FISH called SMOORVIS came next and is largely made with rice, onion and fresh tomato. It was not large and it was a bit on the boring side.
The main course was a plethora of bowls each filled with native dishes that all had wonderful spices and flavors:
The MIXED VEGGIES with GINGER was actually one of my favorites. I could not figure out everything in it, but there was broccoli, cauliflower, a crunchy cabbage and many more, all cooked just right and flavored perfectly.
My second favorite was PAP & SPINACH, a ground maize dish cooked like porrdige and then small bits of spinach mixed in. IT has a thick chinese-rice like consistancy, but is packed with great flavor, as was every dish indeed.
APRICOT studded COUSCOUS was served with a bowl on the side of cooked ROOIBOS (which you may know from the red tea we get in the US). Rooibos is actually a red apricot (they call it nectarine here) and is a sweet blast of fruit also not to be missed when visiting. West African PEANUT CHICKEN was the least novel of the dishes, but tasty and loaded with yummy sauce.
The final big hit dish was a SPRINGBOK ROGHAN JOSH which was simply a thick venison stew which I loved to spoon on the flat fry bread here called ROTI.
Dessert was a MALVA Pudding which is a small slice of sponge cake that has sat and absorbed sugar syrup (with alcohol, yay!) and sits in a small bowl of rich sweet custard (think of the kind used in all those traditional English puddings!).
We swayed through the museum, headed back to our hotel on the harbour and crashed fast!
A big day of touring today, and indeed every day for my stay is ahead!
