Attacked by guinea fowl.

On a recent sunny morning we decided to take breakfast outdoors . It went quite well, until our outing was broken up by a flock of helmeted guinea fowl.

We had stopped on the way at the bakery at Jardine, which I'd been wanting to try for months. The bakery is quite brilliantly designed-- just a window and a glass counter facing onto the street, so patrons can order coffee, pastry, or sandwiches, then either enjoy them on the high sidewalk tables (standing only), or take them to go.

We ordered some croissants and lattes, and took them up to Signal Hill. It was a little windy, so we had the picnic grounds entirely to ourselves. We grabbed a table from which we could look onto both the sea below and Lion's Head behind-- private breakfast with a brilliant view. I had chosen an almond croissant, which was fantastic. I was just finishing it up when we were set upon by the guinea fowl, who were eager to gather up our crumbs.

So at least they were guinea fowl with good taste.

By the Sea.

The shoreline of Cape Town’s False Bay is draped with a string of small towns. While each one has its own unique charms and attractions, Kalk Bay in particular is worth a visit.

Just on the other side of Table Mountain, sheltered between rocky crags and a skirt of sapphire water, lies one of my favourite places in the world: Kalk Bay. It’s only a thirty-minute trip from Cape Town city centre, yet it feels worlds away. For though its history and character are distinctly South African, this balmy settlement glimmers with enough resemblances to the Mediterranean or coastal California that a visit always makes me feel as if I were on holiday.

Kalk Bay is known for its fishermen, and you might spot the chefs of some of Cape Town’s best restaurants bargaining with them as they bring in their catch. The town is also something of an enclave for artists; within its short stretch of waterfront blocks you’ll find welcoming cafes, unusual galleries, and shops filled to the beams with antiques. Some of the most rewarding shops lie off of Main Road, hidden in discreet alleys. Weaving up and down these narrow streets, we browsed among the work of local throwers at the Potter’s Shop, and reminisced among vintage biscuit tins at the Cook’s Room.

I usually head straight for Olympia Café when I'm in Kalk Bay. Its interior is always suffused with an inviting golden light, thanks its face of high windows that look onto the sea, making it a warm and comfortable place to relax over a latte and an almond croissant. But I’d heard good things about Boulangerie, a tiny French bakery located up one of Kalk Bay’s steep side streets. We finally found it tucked among some bougainvillea behind the Artvark gallery (ok, the chalkboard at street level helped), and settled into a table on the patio. Their lunch menu features rustic sandwiches with fillings like bacon and brie, or oven roasted chicken, served in crunchy baguettes or between slices of wholesome farm breads. The meals are light and uncomplicated, perfect for the casual, breezy setting.

Boulangerie's desserts almost gave us reason to linger—the dark chocolate brownies with cherries were particularly convincing—but we’d already made up our minds to try out The Ice Cafe. I’d often seen queues in front of this ice cream parlour, and was curious to if it was deserving of the crowds. We squeezed in among the throngs, and placed our orders: we each got a single scoop of rum and raisin. It arrived in an unexpected shade of pink, a massive ball of rose coloured ice cream that made me feel just a little silly as I took it outside. Thankfully, the rich, slightly boozy flavour of the alcohol-soaked-raisins helped keep me from feeling too childish. Though if a trip half-an-hour out of town can evoke the feeling of a childhood holiday to the beach, it might not be worth fighting it.

Piesang.

As Bordeaux and I prepared to leave Southeast Asia, we were faced with the simple fact that we didn’t want to-- couldn’t, really-- leave behind the food, culture, and style that we’d come to love in Southeast Asia. So we decided to take some of it with us. We developed an idea for a Southeast Asian café offering a menu of the dishes we loved. It would have the style of Bangkok, Phnom Penh, and Saigon, with a menu that would showcase the diversity and scope of the region’s cuisines. We wanted to create an intimate space where we could show people that Southeast Asian food is so much more than phat thai, pho, and green curry; that it doesn’t have to be fried in a wok or dipped in peanut sauce to be Asian. The name for our concept? Piesang.

Piesang is the Afrikaans word for a banana, and it seemed a fitting name for our idea. The iconic fruit is not only native to tropical Asia, but it’s also ubiquitous in the region’s cuisines. Sweet bananas are served in coconut milk, or grilled at sidewalk stands. Banana leaves are used to steam curries or wrap grilled meats. And the purple banana flower is made into delicious salads and soups.

But there’s another reason for the name, as well. As you may have guessed from its sound, the word does not derive from Dutch. Instead, its origins are in the Malay word ‘pisang’. In the Seventeeth Century, the Dutch brought over a mixed community of people from Malaysia and Indonesia. Along with a flourishing culture that developed into the community known in South Africa today as the Cape Malay, they left behind many words and fragments (like pisang/piesang) that dot the Afrikaans language, revealing its composite cultural origins, and a distant connection between South Africa and the lands across the Indian Ocean. Three centuries later, we’re riding those trade winds again, bringing a little bit of Southeast Asia with us to South Africa.

The dream of opening a café is still a long way off, but we’ll be getting our start on a smaller scale over this weekend. On Saturday, April 25th, we’ll be opening a stand at the Neighbourgoods Market, (which I detailed in my last post), where we’ll be offering a small limited menu of tangy salads, complexly flavored baguette sandwiches, and delicate salad rolls. We hope to change and expand our menu regularly, giving us the freedom to flow with the seasons, experiment with different dishes, and introduce willing diners to a wide range of Southeast Asian flavors.

So if you’re in Cape Town, stop by—we’d love to see you there! For those of you not in Cape Town, check out our progress on the Piesang Blog.

around town/cape town: Good Neighbours.

Have you been to Cape Town’s Neighbourgoods Market? If you live in South Africa, you’ve got no excuse—it’s unquestionably the hottest spot to be on a Saturday. Held at the Old Biscuit Mill in Salt River, the NG Market is a sprawling complex of local designers, boutique shops, and hand crafted foods.

One half of the market is made of dry goods, and it’s a great place to come to see what South Africa’s local designers are up to. You can buy funky underwear or hip jewelry in the designer’s tent, seek our one-of-a-kind home-wares at Plush Bazaar, and browse among the charming textiles of local marvel Skinny Laminx. It’s a great opportunity to shop beyond the malls, and to meet the designers who actually make the goods on sale.

The other section of the market is a cavernous two-room spread of food sellers; the ideal place to enjoy breakfast, brunch and lunch on Saturday. The first room is composed mainly of food artisans, and contains a dizzying array of vendors. You can buy baguettes, cupcakes, cured meats, fresh fish, ripe avocados, tubs of hummus, either to devour on the spot, or to take home for an impressive weekend dinner. The second room contains vendors making more substantial meals. There’s an impressive range of offerings, including South African, Greek, Mexican, and Indian foods.

Where would I recommend eating? The Kitchen Cowboys make an incredible dry-aged beef sandwich; the more-traditional aging process creates beef that tastes exactly like it should. If it’s a sunny day, a bottle of Jack Black beer is ideal. The coffee at Origins is always worth the line and the wait—though you should really prepare yourself for that wait. And while I haven’t had them, the curries at Cumin always smell rich and tempting.

But if you’re coming by next Saturday, the only stand I can really urge you to visit, if I may be so selfish, is ours…

around town/cape town: Salomies at Victoria Food World.

When someone cares about the food that they’re serving, you can really tell. The people at Victoria Foodworld care. The first time we happened on their shop, we were ignorant about most of what they offered. What is a salomie? What is a gatsby? They answered our questions proudly—curry wrapped in a roti, and a long sandwich filled with meat and salad and fries, respectively-- and in almost poetic terms.

Most importantly, we could tell that they cared by how the food tasted. We had to wait, as this wasn’t simply fast food slopped onto a plate. It was carefully constructed in the secluded kitchen, from which we could just detect the fragrant scent of meat and spices. People wandered in off the street, buying bottles of cold soda, or single cigarettes. Finally, our food was set before us. We had each ordered a salomie; the golden rotis were set before us, filled with fragrant curry.

The salomie is a simple combination of three main parts: roti, curry, and salad (optional). Should any one part be lacking or mediocre—the roti dry, the curry commonplace, the salad wilting-- the whole composition will suffer. But every element was executed with precision. The roti was flaky and buttery, the curry so freshly made that seeds and pods of spice burnt as we bit into them, creating a mild fire that the crisp cucumber salad helped to cool.

“Do you work in Woodstock?” the proprietress asked us we paid the check on our last visit. No, but we’ll definitely come back for the salomies.

Victoria Foodworld, Main Road, Woodstock.

Bo Kaap take-away.

The more one looks around Cape Town, the more striking it is that there’s good food available everywhere. Leaving the train station, an inconspicuous shop selling air-time and hair-gel, with a counter that serves richly spiced curries. Late night, a stand sitting outside of a club, sizzling with the smell of cooking boerewors. A tiny bakery tucked between two larger stores, quietly selling koesisters coated in flakes of coconut. Most often, we glimpse these sightings at the wrong time—we’re not hungry yet, we’ve just finished dinner, or simply aren’t in the mood for a little take-away. Thankfully on Thursday, our sighting came at the perfect time—just as we starting to decide where we should grab lunch.

We were walking through the Bo Kaap, an historic Muslim neighborhood, when we spotted a small crowd gathered around a busy street-corner grill. Stepping through the curtain of charcoal smoke, we looked in at what he was selling: grilled sausages, steak, and chicken. We grabbed a to-go meal of wors and chicken, and took it home. The wors—what can I say about it really?—was fine, a pretty standard grilled sausage. The chicken, however, was fantastic. Its skin was crisp from the heat, and stained a golden red from the marinade of spices. But best of all was the chili sauce that garnished it—not the syrupy sweet ‘chili sauce’ that is so popularly poured out of a bottle here in South Africa, but a bright green sauce that tasted smoky and spicy.

Cape Town; for the birds.

I spent my first stay in Cape Town mainly in idle, quietly in awe of what an amazing city it was. On cool evenings I'd sit with a book on my apartment's balcony; the light would be seeping from between nearby Table Mountain and the apartment towers that hugged its base, and in the distance I could hear the broken-horn call of a flock of hadidas as they flapped down into a neighbor's yard. One of my favorite things about living in Cape Town was the incredible bird life. Though I strongly disagree with the suggestion that Cape Town is a piece of Europe on the African continent, I'm willing to concede that it gives that appearance. Though the city's calmly ordered streets, elegant sidewalk cafes, and charming homes give it a European atmosphere, the unusual birds that roost throughout Cape Town reveal the city's true exotic nature.

To some degree, it even seemed almost as though each neighborhood had it's own bird that reflected its character. Gardens had its hadidas, Sea Point had its seagulls, Rondebosch had its guinea fowl. Further afield, Vals Bay had its indiosyncratic African penguins, and Cape Point its delicately-exotic ostriches. I even hear that Flaminco Vlei actually gets flamingos in certain seasons; I imagine that with their awkward forms and garrish feathers, they'd fit in perfectly with the tasteless ostentation of the suburb.

After a long day of bird-spotting, Love Birds Cafe on Bree Street is the ideal spot to relax. The setting, aside from the prerecorded soundtrack of chirping birds, is serene, and the baked goods and coffee are incredible. The decor is simple yet sharply styled. The stark farm-house furnishings are contrasted with an odd collection of serving-ware that reflect the cafe's theme.

Top Ten Cape Town Coffeeshops.

1. Vida e Caffe, Kloof Street, City Bowl
I'm willing to put up with the pretensions of a coffeeshop that has its own name-dropping magazine for the quality of the coffee at Vida. They do have something to be arrogant about, I guess, as their sleek, stylish interiors of cork and zebrawood got them featured in Wallpaper* as the hippest coffee chain in the world. Unfortunately, Vida has lately made a habit of opening in soulless shopping malls and bland business parks, which is why I name the Kloof Street location specifically. Its crowd is always a good mix of artfully dressed students from the nearby Michaelis art school, stylish Gardens locals, and business men and women in suits.

2. Empire Cafe, Muizenburg
Named for the long derelict Empite Theatre, this two-story cafe sits quietly at the end of a cul-de-sac, just across the train tracks from the crumbling Muizenburg seafront. Mid-morning is the best time to come, to take a long brunch, or just for coffee and one of the baked goods on offer downstairs. Though the food is stellar, and the baked goods are delicious, it's the atmosphere in this coffeeshop that sets it apart. From the second floor, you can look out past Victorian shopfronts to the deep blue water of Vals Baai. Trains rumble past as you enjoy a leisurely meal, while wet-suit clad surfers stop in, dripping saltwater on the floor.

3. Love Birds Cafe, Street, City Bowl
Something about this coffeeshop always intimidated me, and so I left South Africa at the end of 2006 without ever having gone in. Thankfully, I finally made a visit on this trip. The interior was brilliant, spare, with a simple wooden table acting as bakery counter. Unusual elements, like chandeliers shapes like swans and seat covers embroidered with fairytale illustrations of wolves, blend perfectly with more homey touches, like the long communal wooden tables that make you feel like you're eating in a farmhouse. And best of all, my breakfast, which was served in a range of quirky bird themed dishes, was phenomenal. The house mix coffee was rich and flavorful, and the scone I ordered, which was filled with sultanas, nuts, and melting chocolate pieces, was undoubtedly the best I've ever eaten.

4. Afro Cafe, Between Long and Greenmarket Square, City Bowl
As a student of African Studies, I feel it's my duty to indulge in ridiculous Afrocentric style now and then. Afro Cafe is like the spatial realization of a hip Afrocentrism, with wax-cloth tablecloths, chandeliers made from recycled plastic, and a mural of a black mermaid looking out over Table Bay. The menu lives up to the interior, with a range of coffees and teas that reflect the flavors and tastes of the continent.

5. Cafe Neo, Mouille Point
The logo for Cafe Neo is a turquoise blue evil-eye, which hints to the Greek character of this little cafe across from the Mouille Point lighthouse. The interior, a long curving space, is a mix of Mediterranian domesticity and modernist design, with bleached wood tables and black and white family photos. You can sit at one of the small ocean-view tables that spill out onto the deck, or you can sat with your laptop at the long communal worker's tables. The menu, written on the wall-sized blackboard, includes breakfast, large meals, and offerings from the Middle Eastern deli. Though the coffee list is extensive, the best drink is, understandably, the Greek coffee, which comes thick and strong, with a glass of water to cleanse your mouth in order to fully appreciate the coffee's flavor.

6. Portobello, Long Street, City Bowl
One of the best things about Cape Town is that because of places like Portobello, it's a cheap city for vegetarians to eat well. The menu offers all-veggie sandwiches, soups and salads, and the coffee menu is extensive. The interior is bohemian without being grungy, and there's usually a variety of local art on show. The loft upstairs is the perfect setting for a quiet lunch- though waitresses have a habit of forgetting they have customers up there.

7. Olympia Cafe, Kalk Bay
Olympia Cafe may be a sign of Kalk Bay's gentrification, but at least it makes the process livable. Though a few signs around the door proclaim a fondness for "hippies," the interior is thankfully clean and spare, with an elegant design. Instead of looking at the 'art' that hangs on the walls (often local amateur photographers playing with photoshop), turn instead to face the stacks of baked goods; beautifully crafted crossaints, brownies, and breads. The muted color in the faded blue walls balances perfectly with the hazy stretch of ocean that sits opposite Olympia's glass windows.

8. Lazari, Vredehoek, City Bowl
Lazari is less than two blocks away from the apartment where I lived when I first came to South Africa in 2004; I spent many hours there working through homesickness and developing a crippling coffee addiction. Going back is always a comforting experience, as I am welcomed back by the creamy lattes, the non-threateningly handsome manager, and sheltering shade of nearby Table Mountain.

9. Freida's, Bree, City Bowl
Among warehouses and quiet furniture stores at the north end of Bree street hides Freida's, a coffee shop marked only by a thin orange storefront. The tiny exterior is deceptive- Freida's stretches all the way back to the end of the block, a long thin space with a soaring ceiling lit with giant paper lanterns. Diners can either eat at communal dining tables, or in the intimate living room style setup in the back. The decor is mainly 1950s domestic kitsch, lunchboxes and board games on the shelves, and movie posters and yellowed landscape paintings on the walls. Between the extensive daily sandwich menu and the changing offering of specials, there's always something good to try if you feel like having more than coffee.

10. Queen of Tarts, Lower Main Road, Obz
I'm not really a fan of Obz- there are some great old buildings, and the neighborhood has touches of charm, but all of that is marred by the grungy stoner vibe of the area (take a look at the purple wizard shop for evidence). But Queen of Tarts makes a trip to Obz worthwhile. The tiny interior is decorated like a homey 1950s kitchen, with white porcelain dishes lined up on shelves against pale blue walls. Though the menu offers delicious warm soups and open faced sandwiches, it's much better to just come to indulge in the dessert. For a while it seemed as though the owner was becoming something of a local celebrity, and understandably so- for the quality of Queen of Tart's iced cupcakes and two-inch thick brownies alone.


(The above were listed in no particular order.)

Hangover in Cape Town.

On my first morning in Cape Town, I sat down at Vida e Caffe and opened the newspaper. I don't normally read my horoscope, but this one stood out. Cape Times, June 2, 2007, "Leo (July 23-August 22): An auspicious term for resuming contact with special friends and foreign connections, with a view to setting up a reunion. If you already have a journey arranged, this should be an ideal time for successfully settling the details." The coincidence of reading this on my first morning back in South Africa, hours before a scheduled lunch with several old friends, was startling to say the least.

While this horoscope bodes well for my brief return to South Africa, my first day in Cape Town actually had a rather inauspicious start. I spent the morning painfully hungover, consequence of the beer, margaritas, and tequila shots I had taken the night before to celebrate my return. After slowly drinking my long-awaited Vida latte (and forcing myself to finish a bottle of water, which for some reason my body was rejecting despite its dehydration) I walked up Bree Street to Frieda's, where I eventually settled on a bowl of muesli and a bran muffin as being the most curative option on the menu.

Maybe in sympathy for me, the city itself seemed to be suffering a bit of a hangover as well. It drizzled cold rain all day, and the cloud cover in the City Bowl was so thick that Table Mountain remained entirely concealed.