South African Restaurants: Jordan, Overture, Makaron and Tokara (part two) by Bruce Palling

It is probably better that I split my reviews up as otherwise, poor readers will develop bloggers scroll disease.

Jordan Restaurant

www.jordanwines.com/restaurant/

Stellenbosch

This place was superb. It was the most low key leading restaurant I ate at in South Africa, with a straightforward menu that oozed style and intensity of flavours. It was such a relief to have a proper meal rather than yet another endless tasting menu. The key reason for the success of Jordan is that the George Jardine has no other agenda, than to express what it should taste like – the flavours were all straightforward and bold.

First up were some wonderful spreads with the bread including an olive paste I completely demolished,plus some sort of mild potato pickle. – the bread too was outrageously good.

The Luddite Shiraz 06 was slightly too alcoholic but went perfectly with the food. I should add that William Sibanda, the Zimbabweanb-born sommelier, was first rate and made useful suggestions about various wines on the list.

The first dish we had was a succulent cured line caught Panga bream with tosazu dressing, sesame, that had a greater depth of flavour than any other fish I had tasted so far.

Even better was the seared peppered ostrich heart, which was virtually raw – my first ever experience of ostrich – something I will need a constant fix of on any future visits.

The pan roasted Impala was also magnificent – perhaps this was the first gutsy food I had eaten on my trip but I recall thinking that if only all the restaurants had this straightforward honest approach, things would be a lot better on the culinary scene.

The aged chalmar sirloin was also perfectly cooked and presented – things couldn’t get better than this.

It was also the best cheese plate I had on the entire trip – nothing screwed up with decoration either – just perfectly ripe cheese on a wooden platter. I had brought along my Leica binoculars, so was also able to indulge in a spot of bird-watching on the nearby dam.

Overture

Hidden Valley

www.dineatoverture.co.za/index.html

This was an excellent restaurant with friendly enthusiastic staff. Like the way it is slightly tucked away and the terrace would obviously be superb on a warm day.

The first thing served was bread with wonderfully intense pipped olives and an assortment of other spreads. However they ruined the olive oil that accompanied it by pouring in a huge puddle of balsamic see top right hand corner of pix), but were happy to take it away and change it when I asked.

The next dish was wonderfully fresh asparagus spears with cured ham,

then what seemed to be a tartar of local fish (Smoked Barbel, avocado, radish, salasa) with a Lebanese style salad on top,

followed by an exquisitely prepared fresh baby green salad.

Then there was a game sausage (Spiced Buffalo Ridge sausage, parsnip, tender stem broccoli, crisp sweetbreads)

with wonderful greens on the side (but also went brilliantly with the duck).

And a succulent tagliatelle, sauteed mushrooms, parmesan cream, garlic, thyme

Gunard, carrot emulsion, Asian flavours, coconut fried rice

Confit Magallies Duck, pomme purée, gremolata, savoy cabbage, kale

This meal was first-rate – nothing over worked, just exquisite fresh ingredients with the best service in any of the places I visited.

The sorbets were equally delightful as was the

Apricot soufflé,

And salted almond ice cream, almond biscotti.

Want to go back. Should also add that while we were dining there, I recognised some of the staff from nearby Terroir (which is also an excellent place). Apparently there is an informal arrangement for each others staff to experience each others cooking, which is a good thing. And don't forget to take a look at the first-rate large format book published a while back by Overture on simple cooking lessons for beginner chefs - v good.

Restaurant Makaron

Stellenbosch

www.makaronrestaurant.co.za

This was a rather difficult place to find, as it is perched in the middle of a housing development. I imagine it would be better to dine inside as that looked quite attractive, but outside it was relentlessly Post War New World Suburban, with a white brick wall as the main feature plus boring looking houses on the hill behind. The other maddening thing was that there is absolutely no sign outside saying Makaron – instead it says Majeka House, which didn’t mean anything at all to me. Later I discovered there were issues with the council about signage, but surely this didn’t include not mentioning the name of the actual restaurant.

Couldn’t see anything particularly seasonal about this menu, which only had two or three items per category plus a steak at the end. The food presentation was a bit clumsy and over-dressed for what it was – the appearance of the dishes suggested “fine dining” but unfortunately this was a bit of a misnomer.

The only thing here I really liked, was the anchovy-flavoured mayo on the bread plate, plus the actual bread itself, which was pretty good. Olives were OK too - other than that, it was inept.

The amuse bouche was a soft-boiled egg with maple syrup and equally sweet brittle bacon – they were disgustingly sweet and uninteresting.

Next the rabbit done three-ways, but was raw in the middle of the saddle portion and completely under-seasoned – fortunately there was some good salt and pepper on the table, which I could put on it. To top it off, the pieces of rabbit were resting on a base of sweet corn, which I consider to be good to feed to livestock, but little else.

The main course was Kingklip, which was also overcooked and once again, underseasoned. The chips were OK on the outside and piping hot, but tasteless and slightly dry inside. The salad was a mess and again, slightly sweet.

The tarte tatin was huge, so I asked for a small portion, which was duly delivered. However, the portions of apple were tasteless, far too big and fell off the pastry base. As for the accompanying vanilla ice cream, it also had zero taste. I was puzzled at the ordinariness of the food, given that chef Tanja Kruger has a high reputation and did a stage or two at L’Arpege in Paris, one of my absolute favourite places. Perhaps she was off service for lunch that day, but still not an excuse.

I bought my own wine (a brilliant Vriesenhof Pinot 05 from up the hill), which the waitress apparently thought was it good form to shake up!!! I was too shocked to ask her what she thought she was doing in case she did it again. (Josephine Gutentoft, Makaron's sommelier, just got in touch and complained that in fact it was a WHITE Vriesenhof which was warm when it arrived, so she put it in a bucket to cool and was merely turning it upside down top get the colder wine from the bottom to the top. My apologies - for once, too little information rather than too much! In fact, I went on to the Vriesenhof vineyard immediately after lunch, where I purchased a number of their Pinots).

The service was excellent, thanks to a very friendly Afrikaans lady who was fine, although again managed to give far too much information, especially when the dish is in front of you and getting cold.

Tokara Restaurant

Stellenbosch

www.tokara.co.za/restaurant/

An interesting word tree

A truly spectacular place, along with the requisite winery. A certain amount of decent taste here, unlike the overblown Delaire estate somewhat higher up on the opposite hillside. Each dish on the menu was crammed with ingredients, many of Asian origin with a heavy use of wasabi, though it seems that chef Richard Carstens is actually South African in origin.

Smoked Snoek ravioli, almond crème, butternut veloute, apple and brussel sprouts – a beautifully crafted dish. There were between five and nine ingredients in every dish, which is an absurd amount of conflicting flavours to deal with. I am not aware of any seasonality except perhaps the carrots and some other vegetables.

All dishes were exceptionally well presented, especially the artisanal cheeses, which were each interspersed with fruit compotes and berries.

There was an extremely heavy use of sugar and sweet flavours throughout the meal which I found deeply unattractive and even unpleasant, starting with a sickly tapioca amuse bouche with salmon and a honeyed pineapple base sauce.

Even the Springbok, (Peppered Springbok, parsnip puree, beetroot, croquettes and hibiscus jus), which was exceptionally well cooked, suffered from an overt sweet note.

The beef teriaki (Teriyake beef fillet, lemon glazed shimeji, carrot ginger puree, confit potato and deluxe miso sauce), was likewise exquisitely cooked, although the tiny dollops of puree and stray beans were incredibly messy and confusing.

There was very little harmony in any of the dishes, even the pear pudding (Weiss beer poached pears, almond parfait, honey ice cream, honeycomb, streusel and lemongrass) was attractive to the eye, but alas, quite tasteless.

The cheeses too were not very exciting (but beautifully presented) and the cheddar actually had a band of blue mould along the end of it.

Prices were quite reasonable and the wine waiter was first-rate and well-informed, though he should have warned us that the Hamilton Russell Pinot 10 was infanticide to drink right now.

Service was superb from everyone – polite, informative and not in any way pushy. Couldn’t fault the ambience either - was even able to do a bit of surreptitious bird watching from our seat on the balcony!

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