bunny chow – Latitude Post

South African Culinary Delights

Posted on August 10, 2016August 11, 2016 by Nicholas Peart

As my time in South Africa comes to a close, I take the time to ponder some of the things that gave me great pleasure. One of the first things that come to mind is the unique cuisine from this country. Here are a few of my favourite SA eats…

Bobotie

Image source: http://www.recipehubs.com

This traditional Cape Malay dish is a real winner. I remember my parents used to make it (my dad is in fact from South Africa) whenever they threw dinner parties when I was growing up. I must admit I was never a great fan of this dish as a young boy, however I have grown up to love it and I always get excited whenever I see it on the menu. It is similar to Greek Moussaka but taken to an even more magical and irresistible level.

Potjie

Image source: whatsfordinner.co.za

This is a veritable no nonsense Afrikaner stew served in a black pot; the kind of roadside dish furiously lapped up by ravanously hungry burly long distance lorry drivers and motorcycle gangs. I suppose this is the South African version of the famous Irish stew. I love this dish which comes either with beef, lamb or even oxtail. I know that if Anthony Bourdain ever came over to South Africa to devour this in the right place, he would be singing its praises for the next two weeks.

Bunny Chow

This bad boy needs no introduction. I’ve already mentioned the mighty bunny chow in my Durban posts but it’s such a treat I’ll mention it again. This is a hollowed out half or quarter loaf of bread filled with the curry of your choice. If you are lucky enough to be in Durban, I recommend either My Diners or the legendary Patels on Yusuf Dadoo street. The latter is the king of the veg bunny.

Boerewors

Image source: wikipedia

These tasty and uniquely South African sausages are ubiquitous across the country. They can be found in all supermarkets and food shops of varying quality. I love the way they are packaged like one great coiled up snake (Ron Jeremy, are you reading this?). If you are able to, try looking for the Grabouw type ones. For me they have the fullest and best flavours. Even better go to a local butchers to purchase them rather than the supermarkets.

To achieve the most satisfying taste it is always recommended to braai (barbecue) them. Sadly I have the worst braaiing skills in the world so have often reluctantly had to cook mine in the oven – like akin to drinking warm beer.

Melktert

Image source: lifestyle.co.za

Another Afrikaner gem. If you are ever invited round for dinner in SA, a Melktert or milk tart is a dead cert if you are unsure as to what to offer. This dessert is divine. Sometimes when I’ve had a rough day, I buy a whole one from the supermarket to take home and eat in my room.

Biltong

Image source: beefitbiltong.com

Biltong is the obstacle in any attempts I’ve made in the past to go vegetarian or vegan. Yet how I love this snack. A life without biltong is a very empty one indeed (Morrissey, I hope you are not reading this).

Mrs Balls chutney

Image source: tesco.com

Oh Mrs Balls. Mrs Balls is an institution over here. What HP sauce is to the UK this stuff is to here. Fortunately you can also find this chutney in many supermarkets in the UK. After embracing this delight of a condiment, Sharwoods can quite frankly do one.

OTHER SOUTH AFRICAN CULINARY CURIOSITIES WORTH A MENTION

Pap

Image source: taste.co.za

This stuff is the starch of choice for many. What tortillas are to Mexico, pap is to South Africa (and in fact many other countries in sub Saharan Africa) and prevents a large percentage of the population from going hungry. On its own it is very bland but with lashing of chilli sauce or even better, chakalaka, it becomes heavenly

Sorghum beer

Image source: satravelblog.com

This traditional Zulu beer is worth a mention. I had an enormous gulp of this stuff from a massive wooden spoon in Shakaland. It was…well…interesting and an ‘acquired taste’.

THE ABSOLUTE PITS OF SOUTH AFRICAN CUISINE

Kota

This food is an abomination. Yet it is the most popular snack in the townships of the Gauteng province. This is the type of snack that would anger Jamie Oliver to high heaven and he would most likely spend lots of time, money and energy trying to eradicate it like it was some Ebola virus. There is almost zero nutrition in this snack save perhaps for the few remaining leftover vitamins from the deep fried potato chips. I once had one of these in Soweto and I was so grateful for the raw carrot, apple and beetroot juice drink I purchased from Kauai on my return to Joburg.
On the other hand, there is something incorrigibly rock n roll about this food and I could see myself munching on one of these with Lemmy, GG Allen, Charles Bukowski and Tony Bourdain at some dilapidated joint on the outskirts of Joburg. Somebody else can have the kale salad.

by Nicholas Peart

10th August 2016

Four Great Places For Indian Food In Durban

Posted on June 22, 2016August 29, 2016 by Nicholas Peart

Indian restaurants in Durban are ten a penny, but here are four establishments in this city that serve up wonderful no nonsense Indian food…

MY DINERS

My Diners Indian restaurant chain

At the northern end of the suburb of Overport and in a lively part of town full of Indian supermarkets and grocery stores is the restaurant chain My Diners. There are others in town but the Overport branch is the one I frequented. At first glance this is a very ordinary eating establishment and you may be mistaken for thinking this is some kind of Eastern Steers but you’d be making a big mistake. This place does very brisk business and is often packed with local Indian families. I had a tremendous mutton bunny chow floating in a pool of curry gravy like some edible Tower Of Babel. I ordered a half loaf and just as well since I would have had to summon some locals to assist me if I ordered the full loaf.

A half loaf mutton bunny chow

Half time bunny carnage

HOUSE OF CURRIES

House of Curries on Florida road

This establishment, located on Florida road in the suburb of Windermere, is noted for its rotis, which are very generous. The lamb rotis here are especially good. HOC is also a great place to idle an afternoon or night away with a cold beer or four. I washed my roti down with a cold pint of Windhoek beer.

Vegetable roti

PATELS VEGETARIAN REFRESHMENT ROOM

Patels on Yusuf Dadoo street is one of the oldest restaurants in town

This eatery is perhaps the most special and legendary of my picks and is located slap bang in the heart of little India on Dr Yusuf Dadoo street. Patels was recommended to me by an elderly South African Indian gentleman whom I met at a local corner restaurant also off Dr Yusuf Dadoo street and not too far from this place. This is one of the oldest eateries in the city and has been serving the population for 85 years. Don’t be fooled by the rough hole in the wall exterior. This is the place to go for a quarter vegetable bunny chow. When I ordered mine I got a mixture of sugar beans, dhal, lentils and potato curry. It was delicious and very inexpensive. I followed this up with a R4 cup of chai and a small traditional Indian sweet treat for desert.

Classic original quarter veg bunny chow

Chai and an Indian sweet treat

MALI’S INDIAN RESTAURANT

Mali’s restaurant in Morningside

One night I decided to have dinner here in the suburb of Morningside after reading all the glowing reviews of the place on Trip Adviser. This is a more formal dining experience compared to the other three places (and I’ve got to admit I wasn’t taken by the internal decor which I found a little sterile – not that I came here for that!) but I was not disappointed by the food and the restaurant lives up to the hype.

I began my evening by ordering the infamous paper dosa. That thing is so big you could write the entire Mahabharata on it. I needed three separate plates to accommodate all the broken down fragments of this beast.

The legendary paper dosa

Next I ordered one of the restaurant’s signature Chettinad curries. I went for the lamb one accompanied with a side garlic naan, which was very good.

Chettinad lamb curry

Then for dessert I ordered the restaurant’s homemade kulfi (Indian ice cream). I’ve had kulfi before but I was very impressed with the one I tasted here which was rich and full flavoured. Very nice to savour.

Homemade kulfi

OTHER INDIAN EATERIES IN THE CITY

ORIENTAL inside the Workshop mall in the centre of a town is a good place for cheap Indian food although I prefer My Diners. Nevertheless I had a decent mutton curry served with rice and salad. There are a couple of very cheap hole in the wall Indian food eateries both located on Yusuf Dadoo called AL-BARAKA and ALMASOOM TAKEAWAY & RESTAURANT; absolutely nothing to write home about but if you are watching the Rand they are two good choices. For thrill seekers the former has a rough and tumble Bukowski vibe to it and there is more chance of Jacob Zuma paying back that R250 million of taxpayers money he spent on his Nkandla homestead than bumping into another tourist.

The following places I haven’t sampled. I hear good things about LITTLE GUJERAT close to Victoria Market which does a variety of cheap vegetarian fare. For a more formal dining experience similar to Mali’s, LITTLE INDIA RESTAURANT ON MUSGRAVE gets almost equally dazzling reviews.

by Nicholas Peart

20th June 2016

India In Durban

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Nicholas Peart

Durban

Durban is the city with the largest Indian population outside of India. Originally called Port Natal, the city was renamed Durban by the British after Sir Benjamin D’Urban, the governor of the Cape Colony. Originally a sleepy settlement of less than 1000 people, Durban’s expansion began in 1843 when Britain annexed the Colony of Natal. In the space of ten years, there was a large wave of immigration from the UK.
The city grew phenomenally throughout the latter half the nineteenth century. It was during this time that many indentured Indian labourers were brought over by the British Empire to work on the sugar cane plantations and railroads of the Colony of Natal and this is the source of the enormous Indian population in Durban.

On Yusuf Dadoo Street (or Little India)

Dr Yusuf Dadoo street (or Grey Street as it was formally known) is the heart of the Indian community full of bazaars, Indian shops and cheap hole in the wall eateries selling quarter bunny chows, curries, rotis and birianis at rock bottom prices. Ah yes, the legendary bunny chow which is unique to this neck of the woods. You can get bunny chows in other cities in South Africa but if you want the real thing this is the place to be. There are a few stories regarding the origin of the bunny chow but one goes that it was invented by a group of Indians immigrants known as Banias (an Indian caste) at an eatery called Kapitan’s in the city. The bunny chow is a hollowed out loaf of bread filled with curry. In Durban it comes in three different sizes; full loaf, half loaf or quarter loaf. The quarter loaf, the smallest version, is the classic or qota as its sometimes called.

A quarter veg bunny chow courtesy of Patels restaurant

Dr Yusuf Dadoo street is also home to the largest mosque in the Southern Hemisphere, the Juma Masjid.

Juma Masjid mosque on Yusuf Dadoo street

Right by the mosque is the Madressa Arcade full of traders selling everything from blankets and old radios to secondhand shoes. For a brief moment I feel like I am wondering through a souk in downtown Meknes.

Inside the Madressa Arcade

Adjacent to the Madressa Arcade is the Ajmeri Arcade featuring a very cool record shop, Ajmeri Record King, which has vast piles of battered vinyls which might not be much on the outside but if you persevere you may find the odd ruby in the sludge. I found a couple of rare Stax records. The shop also has a good and comprehensive selection of CDs of music from across Africa.

Ajmeri Record King record shop inside the Ajmeri Arcade

Inside Ajmeri Record King

The nearby Victoria Street Market, first established in 1910, is an important market in the city.

Victoria Street Market

Inside the market there are a few Indian shops selling spices and other products. The first one I enter, RA Moodley has a decent selection of different spices. As well as traditional Indian spices there is a spice pile called Nando’s spice and another entitled KFC spice. RA Moodley is also a hovel of miscellaneous Indian trinkets and products. About four portraits of Sai Baba, the controversial Indian guru, including a photo of him on the weighing scale, adorn the interior of the shop.

RA Moodley spice shop

The next spice place I enter, Delhi Delight, is run by a kind and charismatic South African Indian gentleman who gives me and some Cape Townians a tour of his shop and all the spices on offer. I am intrigued by his own Delhi Delight brand spice concoctions which range from medium to very hot

Delhi Delight spice concoctions

The final spice shop I visit is a more modest affair than the other two yet I will never forget the Mother In Law Hell Fire spice pile. I love the name so much I think I will swing by here before I depart Durbs for a sample.

One spice it would be rude not to try

Durban is also the city where Mohandes Gandhi lived for sometime during his time in South Africa. When he first arrived in Durban he lived on Grey Street. Two important Gandhi related landmarks in the city are a bust of him at Tourist Junction (old Durban railway station) in the city centre and the Old Court House nearby, where he spent much time when he worked as a lawyer. There is also a street in his name close to the southern end of the city beach but watch your back in this part of town, especially around the junction with Anton Lembede street. I was mooching around there one afternoon and some miscellaneous black student with a surf board walked up to me and indignantly told me I was crazy to be walking around this part of town and insisted on hailing down a local mini van taxi to get me out.

Gandhi bust in the city centre

Outside of the city and off the N2 highway is the Phoenix settlement, close to the Inanda squatter camp, which Gandhi founded as a self sustainable community and to build on his philosophy of satyagraha or passive resistance.

In my next post I will be listing my favourite Indian eateries in this marvellous city.

by Nicholas Peart

20th June 2016