Secret Eats Rebooted

Secret Eats, the 'Underground Dining Experience' is back in Durban, having taken a leave of absence for most of the last year. My first taste of Secret Eats was back in June 2014, when it burst onto the Durban dining scene with a bang, pairing the edgy, urban hangout of the Factory Café by night with the renowned cooking of Marcelle Roberts of Café 1999.

The concept of pairing an unexpected, out of the ordinary space with a talented chef is a winning one, and pairing it with a heavy emphasis on social media buzz ensured that Durbanites were lining up for elusive tickets to the next event.

The first event in Durban in many months was announced online with much fanfare, and I was happy to grab two tickets, to see if the kind of magic that had been conjured up in the past could be created again. Secret Eats events are a bit of a lucky-packet leap of faith, as you have to pay upfront without knowing where the event will be hosted, or who the chef will be. Parting with my R1190 (R595 a head) I crossed my fingers, and hoped that the outlay would be worth it.

On the morning of the event, I received an email revealing the secret location for the event - The Green Door in Glenwood, a flexible events / shared office space converted for the night into our venue (it's next door to the Coffee Tree café).

Normally at these events, there's a bit of a fuss made about knowing a secret password to gain access. Silly, but sort of fun. This evening fell more on the silly side, as we delivered our line, and then rather than being ushered into a hidden venue, we were instructed to stand awkwardly on the pavement, where a gentle drizzle was drifting down.

A welcome drink of white wine sangria (peach, strawberries, Ernst & Gouws Sav Blanc, refreshing) was served, and gradually the guests for the night accumulated, up to the final total of around 35 or 40. While we stood on the pavement, sipping sangria and making an effort to feel sophisticated, we nibbled on mouth-sized bites of curry served on a kind of tortilla chip - lamb, cauliflower and chicken versions were served on mirrored trays, all very tasty.

Moving indoors, two rather sparsely decorated long tables were squeezed into the limited space, and the usual seating dance ensued, as everyone tried to sit next to either the people they came with, or having come on their own (as we did) opposite somebody who looked like they would make good conversation. This is actually one of the highlights of these events, as the chance meetings are almost always interesting and a fun way to meet people you wouldn't normally.

A card on the table informed us that the theme for the evening was South African flavours, in an unfortunately timed nod to the rugby world cup (minutes earlier, New Zealand had booted us out of the semi-finals). The chef was chef Ros (no surname given) of Olive Twist, a 'Bespoke Catering Company' according to their website.

The 'Coastal Consommé' starter was a winning effort, served in a tall glass bowl, and looking for all the world like a rock pool on a summer afternoon, complete with plump prawns, slivers of fish, rice-balls and salty broth. Fun to look at and to eat. The paired wine was a rather decent Chardonnay.

Lacking from the evening, sadly, was any real introduction to the chef, discussion of the food we were about to eat, or information about the paired wines being poured. This kind of fanfare at previous Secret Eats was part of what gave one the impression of being privileged insiders, rather than regular restaurant patrons.

Too soon after the starters were cleared, mains began to arrive, in fits and starts, with one end of a table being served, while the other waited. Service was not a high point of the evening, and waiters were generally only good for shuttling food from kitchen to table, and had none of the repartee and energy of the more student-y waiters from previous efforts.

The main course was described as 'a delicious black salt crackling of slow cooked pork, served with a true homage to our wonderful rainbow nation'. The true homage to our wonderful rainbow nation turned out to be steamed tenderstem broccoli, potato bake (the chef would have probably said 'potato gratin' and a lonely asparagus spear). Crackling was sadly noticeable by its absence (there was none on my or my wife's plates) and the dish was only just warm. Sure, the pork belly was soft and tender, but spice was lacking, and the whole dish brought to mind upper middle class weddings, which presumably is where it was first delivered. Buyer's remorse was starting to set in at this point.

Happily, dessert was more inspired, being a Durban inspired curried pineapple, served on a kind of cocoa/biscuit ground, and served with chocolate truffles and a dollop of ice cream. The tall glass bowls were back out, and we had another round of scooping food out from the bottom, which was quite enjoyable.

And that, sadly was that - having begun starters at 8, dishes were cleared by 9.30. No coffee was on offer, nor were any drinks available other than the paired Shiraz and Merlot. Not being a big red wine drinker, I returned to the welcoming sangria. An earlier promised charity raffle either failed to materialise, or took place after we hailed our Uber home at around 10.30.

My unsolicited advice for the continued success of this enterprise? First of all, pick venues with a little more of a wow factor. The Green Door seems like a lovely space, but doesn't exactly take your breath away. Try to work with chefs that enjoy greater name recognition - good food is not all we are looking for, we want a chance to see what our favourite chefs can do outside of their usual kitchen and regular menu. Make sure you employ waiters with a bit of personality. Have drinks other than the paired wines available. Generate a little anticipation for each course, and impress us with detailed descriptions of what we're about to eat. Put on some music, preferably live. Ramp up the number of courses. Keep your plates warm. Make this a secret too good not to share.

Lazy Sundays: Cape Town Fish Market, North Beach

Suncoast Casino and Entertainment World on Durban's North Beach, with its faux art deco styling does well to stand out as particularly tacky in a city that is known more for its riotous colour and laid back surfer vibes than for its restrained class and elegance.

Having said that, the position of the complex makes it a great place to use as a base for taking long walks on the promenade, and its beach frontage is particularly pleasant. It also hosts a lot of good events, like the Mercury Wine Week and the Taste of Durban, so I find myself drawn there more often than I would have expected (I have yet to hit the slot machines...)

We headed out recently on Spring Day to take in the atmosphere on the beach front and enjoyed a couple of hours walking up to Country Club Beach and back. The promenade is one of my favourite places in Durban, and its wide, flat walkway attracts people employing every mode of locomotion imaginable, with roller bladers, skate boarders and bmx-ers vying for space with tandem bikers, pedal cars, joggers and dog walkers.

The warm spring sun, salty air and sea breeze were making us hungry and thirsty so we decided to stop in at the Cape Town Fish Market which is located on the beach side of Suncoast and has a pretty good view over the promenade and onto the sea.

Now obviously CTFM is not what you would consider an upper end establishment, but as chain restaurants go it is generally pretty good, so a certain standard was expected. This standard was not met. On arrival we stood in the entrance and waited to be seated. Eventually a manager of some description wandered over to us and proceeded to shout like a fish wife (appropriately) for a waiter to show us to a table. Our waiter then gestured outside and suggested we help ourselves. The only table available had recently been vacated, so we stood and waited for it to be cleared. After a few minutes the same manager reappeared, and when I explained that we were waiting for our table to be cleared proceeded to shout at the waiters again, instead of simply picking up the plates herself.

Having sat down, we ordered beers which arrived together with dripping wet glasses, which we declined. I like it straight out the bottle anyway - cuts out the middleman. We chose the 'seafood plank' as a starter, and found it reasonably priced and rather good. Hot fishcakes, tempura prawns (which appeared to have been crumbed with Panko) and calamari strips. The 'tartare' sauce turned out to be mayonnaise, but otherwise it was just the thing to enjoy next to the beach with a beer.

Having overcome our initial poor service and enjoyed out starter, we decided to order a main course of calamari. Sadly, after waiting with increasing annoyance for about forty minutes we realised that the calamari was clearly still on its way from Cape Town. Twenty minutes after the waiter had assured us that the dish was almost ready, I issued an ultimatum to the manager - food on the table in five minutes or we're leaving.

As I write this, I wonder if the waiter found our abandoned table with the cash tucked under an empty beer bottle before or after the calamari was finally placed on the grill.

So long, and no thanks for all the fish.

Lazy Sundays: Café Fish

If you're in Durban and you want to eat out on the water, you can't find a much better location than Café Fish. Situated on a pier that juts from the city into the ocean at the Durban Yacht Basin, one can easily take in the pleasure boats of the Point Yacht Club to one side and the tall red cranes and multi-hued container boats of the Harbour to the other. The venue makes the most of its position, with high floor to ceiling windows that spill light across the widely spaced tables, simply decorated in nautical blue and white.

Apparently if you are there at the right time you can watch the seafood being offloaded from a boat right at the kitchen door. I was happy to settle for watching it being offloaded from the arms of the waitress onto the table. Lunch had arrived, in the form of a traditional beer battered fish and chips and grilled peri-peri prawns.

Given the name of Café Fish, the eponymous dish needed to be good - and it was. The beer battered fish and chips were good value, with two large fillets of moist and flaky fish surrounded by a batter that managed to be simultaneously pillowy-soft and deep-fried crisp. The tartar sauce was generously spiked with roughly chopped pickles, the chips were hot and fresh and the whole dish went down very well drenched in lemon juice.

The grilled peri-peri prawns lived up to their simple name and arrived with the benefit of a large wire basket to gather the shells, which were picked completely clean before being discarded. The peri-peri sauce could have been a little hotter, but it was well balanced with garlic and lemon.

The menu looks as though it would benefit from a thorough exploration, with the Vietnamese style calamari  (chilli, mint, garlic, pineapple and peanuts) and the cajun linefish in particular catching my eye. Sadly, the pudding menu looked rather dull in comparison (unless you enjoy Banoffie Pie), so we opted to finish with coffee, which was good enough, but took a while to arrive.

Café Olé!