Smart takes on food, coffee & service

Restaurants

KZNSA’S ARTS CAFE, COOL, CASUAL DINING AT ITS BEST

Spinach and feta quiche at at Arts Cafe.

Spinach and feta quiche at the Arts Cafe.

Arts Cafe
NSA Gallery
166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood
Call  031 201 9969
Open Tuesday to Sunday, day time only

The Arts Cafe and I go back a long way, back to when it was run by Ralph Bronzin. It was during one of our chats over coffee that he suggested I run a cappuccino competition. Fifteen years later, the Sunday Tribune’s Cafe Society is still going strong.
But the Arts Cafe, which is part of the KZNSA Gallery, hasn’t fared as well and has had more downs than ups over the past few years. And what a shame. It has a lovely setting, looks over a park, has an art gallery with new exhibitions every few weeks, and a gallery shop which has been presided over by the inimitable Gloria Hoff forever. Now the Arts Cafe is on an up and serving good, reasonably priced food. So, if you’ve given it a miss over the last couple of years, try it again. After all, overseeing the kitchen is hugely talented chef Monique Carvers, who some might remember from the Engine Room days, when it was a popular fine dining restaurant in Durban North.  

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Food News

OTTOLENGHI AND NIGELLA LAWSON WORK THEIR FOOD MAGIC

 

Nigella Lawson looks 16 on the cover of her latest cookbook. The power of photoshop perhaps?

Nigella Lawson looks about 16 on the cover of her latest cookbook. The power of photoshop perhaps?

Ramael Scully (left) and Yotam Ottolenghi and the cover of Nopi, the book on which they collaborated

Ramael Scully (left) and Yotam Ottolenghi and the cover of Nopi, the book on which they collaborated

Two new cookbooks that will make ideal Christmas gifts – for yourself of course. Ingrid Shevlin browses through and salivates. And there’s two recipes to inspire

  • Nopi by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully (Ebury Press), R570 from Adams, Musgrave Centre.
  •  Simply Nigella (Feel Good Food) by Nigella Lawson (Chatto & Windus), R560 from Adams,  Musgrave Centre

No two books could be more different than these two. While Ottolenghi’s NOPI feeds the soul, Simply Nigella feeds the stomach. Happily, both are essential when it comes to food.
Nigella is probably known to you, thanks to her TV shows, recipe books and her much-publicised marriage to, and bitter divorce from, wealthy and reclusive art collector Charles Saatchi.
In turn Ottolenghi has made his name largely through his recipe books and his London restaurants.
Ottolenghi was born in Jerusalem and completed a master’s degree in comparative literature before moving to the UK in 1997 to start a PhD. Instead he signed up at Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in London – and the rest is history.
Ottolenghi’s cooking is rooted in his Middle Eastern upbringing, but also has western and Asian influences, and he has a world-wide following. Now comes his latest cookbook, but it’s one with a difference.

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Restaurants

A TOUCH OF JAPAN AT THE GREEN PARROT

Green Parrot Japanese restaurant and yakitori bar in Durban North

Green Parrot Japanese restaurant and yakitori bar in Durban North

Japanese steamed bun. Delicious

Japanese steamed bun. Delicious

Green Parrot Japanese restaurant and Yakitori Bar
12 Mackeurtan Avenue
Durban North
031 564 2939

There we were one sunny Saturday looking for a place to eat in Mackeurtan Avenue when   we spotted the Green Parrot alongside the Wok Box. It has been open for two months now. It’s always good to know the face behind a new restaurant. It reduces the chance of you wasting your money. Is it an old hand who has a proven track record?  Or is it some youngling who likes to party and thinks it would be fun to open a restaurant.
Food? Oh do I have to provide food, too?
Yes, numskull.
Oh, okay, let’s serve, um burgers and craft beer. Or let’s do Mexican. That’s easy. Refried beans, chopped tomato and tortillas. Anyone can do that.
Happily, the face behind Green Parrot is Sean Beatt, who falls into the first category.
In fact, I can thank Sean and his Thai wife for my very first test of of exotic food. The couple opened a Thai restaurant on the corner of Windermere and Innes road in the 70s, if I remember correctly. What I do remember well, though, is the taste of that whole steamed fish flavoured with lemongrass, ginger, garlic, lime and a hint of chilli. It was ambrosial. Thanks Sean, you helped start me on a food journey I’m still on.

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Food News

SUPERFOOD HERO TO THE RESCUE

Jamie Oliver looks ten years younger, thanks to his new take on food.

Jamie Oliver looks ten years younger, thanks to his new take on food.

Superfood evangelist Jamie Oliver brings a missionary zeal to his campaign to put the world on the path to better health in his latest recipe book, writes Ingrid Shevlin, who puts two of his recipes to the test

Can you bring about world peace through people’s stomachs? I doubt it but Jamie Oliver is so evangelistic about his mission to change the way people eat he may be on the right track. After all people who lead a healthy lifestyle tend to be happier and more productive – and probably have healthier, happier and more productive children. So let’s say it for food and forget political diplomacy.
The secret to all this is to be found in his new book Everyday Super Food (recipes for a healthier, happier you) published by Michael Joseph and now at a bookshop near you.
The book is the result of a personal journey Jamie undertook, travelling the world to talk to, and learn from, communities who boast some of the oldest people in the world. This is thanks to an active lifestyle, a healthy diet, a strong sense of community and a belief system. This included communities in Okinawa in Japan, the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, and lkaria in Greece, which has more 90-year-olds than anywhere else on the planet. He was inspired by this journey to turn to a healthier lifestyle himself, losing two stones in the process. In turn, he hopes to inspire you to do the same. The weight loss is the cherry on the top.

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Restaurants

TEX MEX OR MUSHED MEX?

Fun and funky interior of FOUR15 Mexican restaurant.

Fun and funky interior of FOUR15. The salsa wagon is in the foreground.

FOUR15
41 Mackeurtan Avenue, Durban North,
031 564 0415
info@four15.co.za

I’m baffled. Why spend a shitload of money creating a fun and funky eating space and then serve mediocre faux Mexican food. Okay, so I’m no expert in this Latin American cuisine – and I’m relieved it’s not another chicken  franchise  – but I doubt they sell burritos in Mexico with boerewors as the starring ingredient. Or a Thai version with peanut sauce or one with ratatouille.
But a clue to the thinking behind FOUR15  is found on their menu which declares their food is inspired by the Mission District in San Francisco… which is characterised by its “mixed cultures, global food trends, social awareness and its celebration of Mexican heritage”.
So it’s Mexican food with global influences with some random ingredients like boerewors to make us feel  the love.
But the remark by one of the waitresses that they have been crazy busy since they opened a month ago says it best. It says the average diner is just happy to be eating something different in a viby eatery with their amigos and is not particularly demanding, culinary-wise. And that’s fair enough.
Perhaps more worrying, though, is the other declaration on the menu…… “we don’t pretend to be perfect…”
Yea, but shouldn’t you be at least trying.
But there are some positives at FOUR15, apparently South Africa’s first and only burrito bar. 

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