Quo Restaurant, Gillitts

'You simply have to try this baked potato, Brandon! Whether you like it or not. It's out of this world!'

The obnoxiously loud woman at the table alongside ours was haranguing her friend to take a taste of her main course. Having recently poured the dregs of her table mates' wine glasses into her own while they were on a smoke break outside, her tone was increasingly belligerent and higher pitched.

'I've never tasted potato like this!' she enthused - waving a crisp skinned roast potato with a soft and moist interior in Brandon's face. Her generosity I imagine was wine fuelled - at Quo, the food is almost too good to share, and more easily inspires jealous protection than such open handed largesse. Luckily for me, I have a standing sharing arrangement with my dining partner, which doubles the number of dishes that I can enjoy, and allows me to drop my guard against the kind of opportunistic fork that approaches unbidden from across the table.

We had found our way to Quo up a rather dark and winding road to the imaginatively named Gillitts Shopping Centre at the intersection of York and Clifton roads. It's a nondescript mini-mall that houses a pizza joint; a shop selling sexy (tacky) dress up items; a pleasant courtyard, and Quo Restaurant, the creation of chef Jonathan Jones.

The decor is different from most Durban restaurants, with a simple, modern interior. The lighting is quite bright, but softened by the addition of candles on wall sconces. There is a broad stripe of duck egg blue on the walls, and tables have either simple plastic chairs or deep leather wingbacks. The focal point of the room is an impressive collection of about 20 flowering orchids in white, pinks and yellows that line one of the walls. Either someone has quite the green fingers, or they must be spending a lot of money on bringing in fresh plants every other week. The photo below was taken at the end of the evening - every table was full while we were there, although we managed to get a booking that morning for the same night.

The service was brisk, and we soon had a bottle at the table from the brief but reasonable wine list. Quo's menu doesn't really do the food justice, being a single laminated page, with dishes presented a little haphazardly. Starters are described as 'light meals or starters to share', which I wouldn't really agree with - I easily managed one on my own, and they are reasonably priced in any case. The style of the food could be described as modern fusion with an Asian influence, but there is no real cohesiveness to the offerings, with salads, sea food and Italian inspired dishes rubbing shoulders.

No matter - the food, which arrives promptly is great. We started with an Asian fillet bruschetta which combined fresh French loaf with tender strips of rare fillet cooked in a fantastic sauce that might have been oyster sauce based - dark, rich and sweet/salty. Deciding we had space for another starter, we then shared the calamari pan fried in a pad Thai sauce and were very glad that we had - the calamari tubes were tender and simply cooked, but the sauce was even better than the last, with hints of sweet and sour tamarind and lemon, salty shrimpy flavours and fresh coriander.

The main courses, like the starters, are a bit of an eclectic bunch, featuring sections for baguettes, linguini, and beef fillet as well as a handful of others. The special of the day was pork belly, but we opted for the lamb cutlets, and a beef fillet and prawns combination. 

Both dishes were excellent - the lamb cutlets were moist and pink and served with an Asian style basting. The fillet was sliced into quite thin medallions and topped with juicy deshelled prawns. Both main courses were served with the aforementioned baked potatoes - which really were out of this world. Again, there was plenty of fresh coriander garnishing the meals, which I love, but may not be to everybody's taste.

During the meal it was great to have the chef visit our table on more than one occasion to see that we were enjoying ourselves. While some restaurants skip this nicety completely, and others overdo it with intrusive commentary on every course, Quo struck a good balance, and I felt like I could have brought up any issues, had there been any. As it was I merely enthused as to the quality of the food and the sauces (mostly in gestures, as my mouth was generally full).

The dessert menu was fairly short, and we opted for the 'bread and butter' pudding (made with croissants - which sold it for me) and the Turkish nougat served with dark and white Belgian chocolate. The bread and butter pudding is something of a signature dish there it seems, and was pretty good, and not something that I have ever ordered before. The croissants are baked (with butter, one imagines - as well as chocolate and cranberries) in an individual portion, and were crisp on the outside and soft and warm on the inside. The dish went well with the vanilla icecream, which I suspect was homemade.

The nougat was probably the weak point of the meal, simply pieces of nougat served with bowls of melted milk (not dark) and white chocolate, and too sweet to really enjoy. It would probably be better with a dark chocolate, but might be one to share if you just want a little something with your coffee at the end of the meal.

Quo has recently moved to the top spot on Tripadvisor's recommendations for Durban Restaurants (on the strength of relatively few, but very positive reviews) and you can see what people like about it. The decor is attractive, service efficient and friendly, food tasty and imaginative and prices reasonable.

The Greedy Buddha

Buddha, or Siddhartha Gautama as he was also known, was born in the Himalayan foothills around 2500 years ago, and found enlightenment through a 'middle way' which avoided both sensual indulgence and severe self-restraint. So he would possibly be a little bit peeved at being called greedy. Having said that, if he were to eat a meal at this fresh and cheerful Durban North restaurant he would probably be forgiven for throwing caution to the wind and getting really stuck in - after all you only live once (a little Buddhist joke there for you).

Describing their approach as 'Asian fusion tapas', The Greedy Buddha delights with playful morsels, tastefully presented and served by a knowledgeable and friendly staff. When we visited, we were seated at a round table for eight and found that conversation (and tasters) flowed much more freely than in most venues, where a couple of small square tables get stuck together for larger groups. The food and the menu here are structured around sharing (not greedy at all really) and this is an ideal venue to visit with a group of friends.

The decor is simple - white plastic tables and chairs with green cushions, and all of the seating is outdoors on a covered veranda, which works well in Durban and adds to the easy going ambiance. The tables are bare, except for a central lazy Susan which makes it easy to shoot your dim sum from one side of the table to the other in a kind of delicious Asian roulette.

As it was our first visit, we were happy to try the '11 Tastes' option which offers eleven selections from each portion of the menu, excepting desert (at a reasonable R185 a head). At this point our waiter came in very useful, assisting us with choices and pointing out the various possible combinations and permutations. 

We began our trip through South East Asia with a Japanese miso soup. The soups are all served in espresso cups, and this one was mildly flavoured, salty and slightly sweet, with mushrooms, sweetcorn and spring onions - a good opening act for the dim sum that followed.

Dim Sum are available in three variants: 'potstickers', which are pan fried on one side, then steamed;  'shumai' with translucent wonton wrappers holding together steamed fillings, and steamed buns, with soft, fluffy dough that breaks open to reveal lamb, duck or roast pork.

Each kind of dim sum has a choice of three fillings, and the beauty of the tasting menu is that you don't have to think too hard about it, because you can try a lamb, chilli and coriander filling in the potsticker (there are two per portion) then move on to duck, spring onion and hoisin for the steamed buns, and finish off with pork and ginger shumai. This kind of approach avoids a lot of menu envy, and each combination that we tried was delicious. The sides were also excellent, with the sweet and sour pickled cabbage that came with the potstickers so good, it could have almost stood proudly as its own dish. 

Next on the menu was a miniature Yorkshire pudding with roast beef and horseradish wasabi mayo - I guess this is the 'fusion' aspect of the restaurant's offering. It was a tasty morsel, that at another establishment would have been well received as an upmarket bar snack, but here I felt that it didn't really add anything to the overall experience, with the introduction of a British classic a step too far from the main thrust of the meal. Perhaps if the wasabi had given a real kick, rather than just a subtle poke.

The next group of courses from the 'Classics' section of the menu headed back in the right direction with the aptly named 'ducking fantastic', crisp slices of pork belly on braised red cabbage, sweet and hot glazed halloumi, and an unusual dish of crispy spinach - a deep fried treat with a dusting of five spice sugar that made it moreish in a way spinach shouldn't really be.

Our final course before dessert was from the wok - calamari in a Kung Pao sauce, served with steamed rice. I was won over by the mention of Thai Sriracha chilli in the sauce, but found this dish slightly wanting. The calamari was tender and enjoyable, but the sauce was a little thin and sweet for my taste, with not enough fire, and too little rice to soak everything up. 

Some people have mentioned about this restaurant that the portions are too small, and that they left hungry. I felt overall that the portion sizes were well balanced, although I easily managed 11 tastes, and still had room for desert, so keep in mind that one or two courses will not fill you up - this is tapas after all.

Desserts are changed regularly, and when we visited there were two interesting options to choose from, a chocolate brownie with candied orange rind and rice crispies in white chocolate, or a lemongrass panna cotta with green tea sherbet. Both options were dinky - the chocolate brownie is about half the size of a box of matches, but are a great sweet mouthful to end on. The brownie was more like a square of dark chocolate mousse, resting in an intense orange sauce - slightly too much for me, but I'm not a huge fan of orange and chocolate. The panna cotta was lovely, a lightly flavoured, smooth shot of panna cotta, with a refreshing jolt of sherbet dusted on top. Very close to Nirvana...