9th Avenue Bistro

A lot has been written about 9th Avenue bistro (almost all of it good), now open for almost thirteen years, and consistently considered one of Durban's best restaurants.

Like many excellent restaurants, it is more concerned with the food than with the exterior view, and is found in the Avonmore Centre in Morningside, an unremarkable location with an inadequate parking lot and a view of... well, just the parking lot really. Having said that, the place has undergone a revamp sometime in the last year or so since we last visited, and the interior is no longer entirely minimalist. A small, enclosed terrace is lined with accents of raw wood, and the interior is painted in cool grey tones. A feature wall carries a collection of paintings and photographs of aloes while the opposite wall holds some of their excellent wine collection. Simple hanging bulbs create a welcoming light, and my only quibble with the interior was the use of plastic flowers (fake protea pincushions) on a high shelf.

The wine list is short enough to read through, but long enough to mean business, and includes offerings from several boutique Cape wineries. We ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc No 7 from Hermanuspietersfontein, a winery we were lucky to visit earlier this year. Platter's gives it four stars - I give it a delicious.

The menu itself is tight and focused, with around ten starters and ten main courses over two pages. We didn't get to dessert on this visit (birthday cake!) so no comments on that front. Prices are on the steep side, but in line with the level of service.

To begin, we selected the pork and chorizo stuffed squid and the crispy fried calamari, which seemed a good combination. The calamari was tender, well battered, hot and delicious and came with two dipping sauces, a Vietnamese and a roasted jalapeno aioli. Both sauces were tasty, but didn't do full justice to their names - they could equally well have been described as a soy sauce and a chili mayo - it would have been good to taste some real smoky flavours from the roasted jalapenos. Presentation was on a wooden board, which I liked, sitting on a paper serviette, which I didn't (soggy serviette, bad).

The squid was artfully presented, the plate painted with squid ink and piled with a rustic couscous, the stuffed tubes, a scattering of Cajun prawns and a dusting of some kind of powder in one corner, which looked good, but was almost flavourless. The pairing of pork and squid was great - although I think that can be said of all pork pairings (bacon chocolate anyone?).

We were well satisfied with our starters, as were the majority of the table, with the exception of the soup of the day (field mushroom) which was rather weak - blandly presented and thin.

Main course was a tough choice, with the pork belly and duck options vying for attention. In the end I went off menu for one of the nights specials: suckling pig (under three months old - I asked, and then felt guilty), roasted whole, pulled off the bone and packed into a slab, topped with crackling and served with a warm salad of potato, apple and basil and a roasted carrot.

The picture doesn't do it justice - it was one of the most wonderful things I have ever eaten. The shredded pork meat was amazingly soft, with just the right proportion of fat, enough to carry the wonderful flavours, but not enough to overpower the senses. The highlight, however, was the crackling, which was thin, crisp and yielding, unlike some crackling, which can be hard enough to break a tooth on. The side salad nicely balanced the pork, with just a hint of apple with the potato. By the time I was done, nothing was left on the plate, and I was sorely tempted to pick it up and lick off any remaining sauce.

I have mentioned before my misgivings about ordering risotto (too often underdone). Happily, 9th Avenue's effort was spot on, with tender, gooey rice, subtly flavoured with leek, mushroom and soft cheese. The risotto was served with 'spring vegetables', which turned out to be asparagus, grilled courgette and peas - simple, tasty, and a welcome improvement on what normally passes for vegetables at most restaurants.

As we were visiting to celebrate a friend's birthday, we ended the meal with a delicious birthday cake, along with coffees (small and strong). We will have to visit again soon to review the desserts...

Hole in the Wall: Kebabish

Nothing says 'Durban' quite like a really authentic Indian curry. I don't mean those dull stews that masquerade as curry in most restaurants - anything that's been toned down for Western tastes, or is offered to you in 'mild'. Definitely not one of those meals for one from Woolies. I'm talking about a genuine, ghee-drenched, spice-studded, handed-down-for-generations, whole-chillies-floating-in-the-sauce kind of curry. This kind of no-nonsense curry tends to avoid fancy restaurants in the best parts of town, but can generally be discovered in places like Phoenix, Chatsworth or Overport, invariably out of dodgy looking takeaways down hard to find streets. This is the kind of curry found in places like Kebabish.

Kebabish is a small sit-down restaurant and bustling takeaway on the corner of Sparks and Felix Dlamini (Brickfield) Road in Overport. It sits alongside what appears to be a junkyard, complete with cars on bricks and a mean looking junkyard dog that barks at you as you walk past the chain-link fence. It isn't pretty, but the smells which carry across the street tell you that you've come to the right place.

On the forecourt of the building which houses Kebabish there is a hot, open charcoal grill that was manned on the Saturday afternoon we visited by two hard working staff. One man, sweating profusely, was bending over the hot fire and alternating between fanning the coals with a paper plate and turning enormous sizzling skewers of chicken and mutton. The other walked back and forth between the kitchen and the grill, arriving with buckets piled high with spicy, raw meat and leaving soon after, weighed down under platters of smoky, charred and dripping delights.

At the counter, which faces the street, six or seven people were passing orders to a large man with an even larger beard who shouted into a hidden kitchen and glowered at people who dithered over their choices. Driven into a mild panic by my failed first attempt at ordering ('no chicken seekh kebab curry!') and his generally soup-nazi behavior I settled on chicken tikka masala and a chicken korma with garlic naan, and was told to 'give me half an hour, ok?'

After the promised half an hour, a large plastic bag was pushed into my greedy hands with a smile (he smiles!) and we carried our treasure home, the car's interior filling with wonderful smells on the way. Impatiently unwrapping the parcel, we pulled out the fragrant naan, thick and misshapen, touched with spots of dark scorched bread, and the two curries. The tikka, dark red, and topped with vermilion oil (I tipped off the excess), and the korma, creamy and sultry in its thick sauce. Two small ziploc bags filled with cool, green raita, and a side salad were thrown in too.

Of the two dishes, the chicken tikka was the better - filled with chunks of chicken taken off the grill and fiery hot. The korma was calmer and richer, the sauce delicious, although the chicken pieces on the bone were not what I would have chosen. The naan was as good as it looked, bready and garlicky, alternatively soft and crunchy by turn.

I'm told by a friend who swears by the quarter chicken tikka that that dish is the best thing on the menu - but I'm not going to take his word for it, I'm definitely going back for more!

Kebabish gets a fourish out of five - for the flavour, and the experience.

Taste of Durban 2013

Surely the best part about settling into a new city is all of the novel restaurants to explore! No more will Friday evenings be spent mentally reviewing which restaurants you are currently boycotting. No time soon will you be offered your 'usual' the moment that you sit down (I defy anyone to find a better dish on Saki, PMB's menu than the honey, soy and chilli pork noodles). What better opportunity then, than the Taste of Durban festival to sink one's teeth into no fewer than nine of the city's best?

This is the second year that Durban has hosted a Taste Festival, and the organisation could still use a little fine tuning. There was an awkward payment system whereby patrons had to purchase booklets of R5 coupons (or 'Crowns') for all transactions. While this is a sensible enough way to eliminate small change and other tedious money issues, being greeted by a queue at the entrance to the show was a bit of a downer. At times I did also feel a bit as though I was converting from Imperial to Metric, and struggled to determine whether a 4 Crown glass of wine was a bargain or a rip off. Particularly after a couple of glasses.

That aside, the venue was pleasant enough, in an outdoor area adjacent to the Suncoast Casino complex, and the throngs of people, live music, and sounds and smells of competing restaurants made for the perfect atmosphere.

All of the restaurants represented were serving starter sized portions of some of their signature dishes, which meant that it was possible for us to taste at least one dish from every stand, and feel full but not stuffed by the end of the evening.

Showing great endurance and fortitude we visited each of the nine venues to sample their wares. Deep fried olives from Café 1999 were the perfect starter-starter - I need to try making these at home! BAR-BA-COA from Umhlanga was next, and served up some excellent mini burgers and avo dijon fillet rolls. I wonder if the actual restaurant will not fall into the same 'steak on a plate' category as Little Havana, but these mouthfuls were delicious. Alongside the burgers we tasted an aubergine carpaccio from the Beverly Hills' Elements Café which had the grilled aubergine perfectly creamy and silky smooth.

A brief stop for a glass of Hermanuspieterfontein Bloos Rosé 2011, apparently the first South African Rosé to be made from the five Bordeaux varieties. Beautiful to look at and to drink. Pretty.

Next we hit Freedom Café for 'corndog style' beef apricot and pistachio sausage rolls and mini Vietnamese pulled pork buns - good enough to warrant another visit to this restaurant. Caring nothing for logical order we followed that up with sushi and champagne from Beluga (good), Simply Asia chicken satay and noodles (so-so) and paused briefly to sample an odd assortment of flavoured tequila shooters. Bubblegum tequila is blue, I learned, and tastes of Wicks.

Entering the final stretch now we popped in to Palki Indian Restaurant (fantastic, spicy butter chicken) and paused a while to enjoy oxtail risotto from Hartford House, probably the first properly cooked restaurant risotto I've eaten anywhere (and full of hearty, robust flavours - my choice for best dish of the festival).

Just to finish off the Crowns (annoyingly only available in bundles of 20) we ended with nachos from Little Havana, which were served in perfect single bite servings, and another glass of the HPF Bloos.

Sitting and enjoying the cover band while we waited for our lift home from Good Fellas we soaked in the balmy Durban winter night and considered our options for future outings. Lots of blog posts to follow!

Friday Nights: Little Havana, Umhlanga

A crisp, white tablecloth raises certain expectations of a venue. More formal. More sophisticated. More expensive... At Little Havana in Umhlanga's popular Chartwell Drive, white was the first impression that I felt as I stepped through the doors into this fairly large restaurant of about forty tables. We were seated (on white chairs) at a table close to an open window which allowed in a cool breeze that smelled of rain and the ocean.

Our waiter presented us with the wine list, which met with my expectation of high prices. The list did appear carefully curated and offered some less commonly seen bottles, but sparkling wine choices were limited, so I settled on a bottle of Krone Rosé which I had brought along as a backup. Corkage was R45.

Little Havana has to be commended on their starter options which, unlike their main courses, were varied and interesting. We settled on an oven roasted camembert and pancetta and an intriguingly titled 'deconstructed prawn samoosa'. The camembert was delicious, although the streaky bacon which it was wrapped in, while salty, crisp, and smoky against the smooth cheese, was certainly not pancetta.

The deconstructed prawn samoosa was the best part of my meal. A generous portion, it consisted of a Mauritian-style prawn curry, which was sweet and hot, piled high on a plate and interleaved with sheets of samoosa wrapper pastry that were crunchy on the edges and soft where they were soaked with the sauce of the curry.

Feeling confident that we had found a restaurant of above average quality, we turned to the main courses, and examined the steak options which are essentially a mix and match of cut, sides, and sauce. All steaks are seasoned alike, with salt, pepper, mustard seeds and thyme, and come with the obligatory choices of chips ('shoestring fries'), rice or baked potato. Side options included those horribly uninspired stalwarts, creamed spinach and cinnamon butternut. Feeling good after our starters, we decided that the minimalist menu was indicative of superior, no-nonsense meat, and not simply a lack of imagination on the part of the chef.

I ordered a free-range, grass fed rib eye steak, medium rare, with a side order of onion rings, chips and 'Cuban rum barbecue sauce', which was the most interesting sounding sauce on offer. Service was brisk, with my steak arriving less than ten minutes after ordering, despite the full restaurant.

To be honest, I don't know who is still impressed by the presentation of a steak that sits looking lonely on the middle of a large white plate, with one of those cheap ramekins of sauce as its only company. Yes, the steak was good, but no - it was not able to carry the whole course all on its own. The sauce tasted like catering grade 'BBQ' sauce with a splash of alcohol, and the chips were underdone. The onion rings, which were fluffy, hot and moreish, struggled manfully to rescue the overall impression but didn't quite manage, and the toothpick flag stuck into the meat didn't help to raise the tone of the dish either.

Our second order was a rare rump steak where the quality of the meat was unfortunately not good enough to match the short cooking time and which remained tough and chewy.

The pudding menu continued in the traditional vein introduced by the main courses, and not feeling like another crème brûlée, I settled for a cappuccino and a ten year old Laphroaig, which never disappoints.

Overall, we left the restaurant feeling disappointed. They would do well to infuse some Cuban elements into the cuisine beyond the name of the place and the Che Guevara shirts on the support staff. Where were the citrus flavours, the capers, olives or black beans? Where was the rum? The steaks for which little Havana is known are overrated, and sorely deficient in interest. The promise of the white table cloths was not met, and the commercial nature of the meal denied the revolutionary potential of the name.

More 1990s than 1950s Havana.

Chinese Egg 'n Bacon Muffins: Shongweni Market

Egg McMuffins from McDonald's are pretty good - in fact they're about the only thing on the menu that I can bring myself to eat. The soft muffin, salty sausage patty, the melting cheese... I always throw a hashbrown into mine, which makes them even better.

The McMuffin, however, is no match for the Chinese egg 'n bacon muffins which I have taken to eating regularly at the Shongweni Market on a Saturday morning. These muffins alone are basically worth the trip to the market (the dog watching is a plus).

Head up to the food stalls near the top of the market and you'll see the family of three working hard at their stall. Dad covers muffin duties, Mom deep fries spring rolls (also very tasty) and their son takes orders and handles change, slowly summing totals in his head in a not at all stereotypically Asian fashion.

Watching the muffins being made is instructive, and helps enhance the appetite. First, the muffin batter is poured into a cooker with a series of  circular, muffin-sized holes. Next, bacon and a freshly cracked egg are added and partially cooked. Finally, a second layer of muffin batter is poured in, the whole delicious mix is flipped and cooked on both sides before being served hot with a drizzle of soy sauce, a sprinkle of sesame seeds and a little peppadew salsa on the side.

Biting in, the bacon and egg are revealed, safely tucked inside the muffin. No egg falling out, each mouthful perfectly composed, and it all goes down really well with a fresh cafe latte.