Once we got in, the restaurant was great. There are three stories and a series of decorated rooms on each level. Selwyn told us the story of the place -- it had started in a couple's home during apartheid. The husband is white, and the wife is black. They wanted a restaurant that celebrated African food.
First came the ritual hand-washing at the table, where the waitress poured warm water over our hands into a bowl. Then, we enjoyed the 13 course meal of African food. The courses were not brought one at a time (that would take forever) but instead served family style in bowls/on plates that were brought several at a time. There were probably three deliveries of food overall. They serve communal feasts of Ndebele, Xhosa, and Zulu dishes. If you like a particular dish, you can order more of it.
After eating there, I did check out their ratings on Trip Advisor. I have to disagree with the somewhat weak rankings. It was a lot of fun trying the different foods, and Selwyn picked a good Pinotage to go with the meal. We did not reorder anything, but that's because we were full. My favorite was the Sticky Chicken Wings, but it was all pretty good.
Towards the end of the meal, the waiters and waitresses came and sang/danced traditional African songs. It was a good cap to our trip to South Africa. We got to see Julia, Table Mountain, lions, penguins(!), beautiful wine country, four of the big five, the stark beauty of the Cape of Good Hope, and many other sights we never expected to get to. We are quite lucky and happy that Julia did Semester at Sea, and that we got to join her for one of the stop. Just as a reminder, her blog is here.
We would definitely love to go back -- I want to do another safari, actually hike up Table Mountain, and do shark cage diving. Hopefully Selwyn will still be guiding and we can do the Garden Route. And we would love it if Maddy and Torie can come with us!
No comments:
Post a Comment