Burnside

My food buddy and I discovered a new favourite. [recommended to us by a friend] It's a really gorgeous restaurant nestled in the leafy green suburb of Craighall Park.

We had a six o'clock dinner reservation and were seated outside on the patio overlooking the garden. The driveway leading up to the restaurant had a beautiful willow tree that gave it so much character and appeal. [love willow trees] Anyway, I ordered their chicken pot pie served with a warm aubergine, beetroot, onion and lettuce salad. It was the creamiest, tastiest chicken pie I've had in a while.

My food buddy had their fillet steak served with rustic potato chips served with a homemade mayonnaise [I had some of the chips and mayo and that was amazing - I even drizzled some of it on my salad]. The steak looked a little dry to me but he was very happy with it.




Dessert time came and my heart broke. The selection looked amazing but I sadly couldn't have any [I'm  off cake and everything that resembles dessert for 40 days. This explains why I haven't baked anything in so long]. Anyway, my buddy ordered the cheesecake and gave me a blow by blow account of his experience. Apparently the base was made of ginger biscuits and the berry sauce was amazing. It looked pretty amazing too [sigh]

After dinner we visited the gallery situated in the same vicinity as the restaurant. We also met the very interesting and inspiring photographer, Norman Hanna, who was show casing his work - the perfect way to end a perfect evening and reason 1,000,001 why I love Joburg. :-)

6 Burnside avenue

Craighall

011 326 3970

Dream kitchen

One day when I'm big...I'd like a kitchen that encompasses all of these...

Source: pinterest

Sooo pwetty...

Addis

Some friends of mine who live in London visited Addis, an Ethopian restaurant, recently and this was their experience

Late on a blustery Saturday afternoon, we wandered into Addis seeking shelter from the cold and impending rain; food at this point was a luxurious extra. As we started to thaw out through a mixture of good heating and the brightly decorated restaurant, the menu became more interesting. After a brief inspection, and recommendation from the waitress, we settled on hummus and Selata Asward (deep fried aubergine salad with tahini dressing) for starters. The hummus was superbly spiced and it wasn’t long before the plate was empty. The aubergine salad on the other hand was sadly disappointing; both in terms of presentation and taste. Our chirpy waitress soon bought us some delicious injera with two steaming bowls: Quanta firfir (dried with cooked in a spicy sauce and mixed with injera) and tibs firfir (cubes of lamb with onion and 7 spices). Both dishes packed a punch on the spice scale, but nothing a mere non-chilli desensitised mortal couldn’t handle. The quanta firfir provided a strange new sensation of stewed dried meat, (new at least to the author), chewy yet strangely moreish. The lamb on the other hand was delightfully soft and tender with a flamboyant mix of spices. Despite both parties claiming to be well fed halfway through the main, somehow both dishes were soon polished off (or very nearly so). The service was attentive and the waitress knew the menu well. The restaurant was never empty and there was a steady stream of people who were clearly regulars throughout the afternoon. The prices offered excellent value for money with the total at £15pp, including coffee and tea

Addis - 40-42 Caledonian Road London N1 9DT

Tel : 020 7278 0679

Nearest tube: King Cross (about 3 mins away)

Text by Claire Loxly and images by John Carl

Spiga d'Oro

This restaurant is quite popular amongst Durbanites and I soon discovered why. It's set in a very trendy part of town on Florida road with minimalistic and unpretentious decor - much like their food.


I think I may possibly have had the most amazing Italian food there :-) I had the gnocchi with capers, anchovies and olives in a yummy tomato sauce. The gnocchi was soft and cooked to perfection. The sauce was seasoned beautifully, cooked beautifully and tasted beautiful. I polished my plate and could've quite happily had another serving [if I was alone without anyone to judge me] :-)

I'll be sure to visit them the next time I'm in Durbs

Fusion

My food buddy and I spent the past weekend in sunny and humid Durban. We were lucky enough to have spent our nights at a really posh hotel out in Ballito. We arrived there quite late and got the shock of our lives, while trying to check in. There was an extra zero added to the price tag. Shock. Horror. That would've made our stay 10 times more expensive than what we had budgeted. After a few sweaty palms and near-asthma attacks, the hotel staff soon realised that they made the mistake and World War III was soon averted.

Anyway, I made dinner reservations for us at an interesting restaurant in Musgrave called Fusion. The menu has Heston Blumenthal [and all his crazy scientific culinary wizardry] written all over it which got me really excited.

My buddy had the Thai Style Seared "Dishwasher" Beef Fillet that was slow-cooked for 4 hours at 48ºC in a dishwasher, served sliced on crushed potato and seasonal greens with a red wine sauce.

He claimed it was average and had nothing pleasant to say about it besides the well prepared veggies - what a shame.

I had the Fragrant Asian Duck which was a duck breast served on some really amazing red cabbage cooked in red wine vinegar and a duo of 4 hour slow-cooked thigh and leg on a crushed potato, with a plum reduction and a star anise, ginger, honey, orange, soy and sechwan jus - mouthful huh?
The jus, crushed potato, leg and thigh were heavenly. I really really enjoyed them. The breast was a little chunky and too chewy for my liking but edible nonetheless.

Dessert was just as interesting [sadly, I couldn't have any and had to rely on the buddy]. I made him order the Afrox liquid Nitrogen boiled ice cream. :-) What an interesting experience. They brought a metal base filled with liquid Nitrogen and covered it with a glass cup which they filled with liquid ice cream. The ice cream solidified as it hit the cup and bubbled with steam at the table. Fascinating stuff. My buddy says it was sweet tasting but too hard which made it difficult to consume. Perhaps best as an idea rather than an item on the menu. I was impressed regardless of this minor detail.

All in all, our experience was positive, The setting is beautiful, the restaurant was cosy and the staff really friendly. I think I'd go back there again if I was in the neighbourhood...

A novel idea

Source: People of Walmart

I do apologise for the picture quality (not my pic and not my idea). And if you can't figure out what's going on in the pic, some genius is trying to bake chocolate chip cookies in his car.

Best idea ever. It would also work very well in the scorching South African heat. Definitely must try it out. NOT! :-)

Happy's

I was asked to bake for my cousin's baby shower and decided to make vanilla cupcakes with a creamed cottage cheese topping. They really spread a lot of happiness so from here on, they shall be called Happy's :-)


Ingredients

• 2 cups self raising flour
• 1 cup canola oil
• 1 cup milk (I used fat free milk)
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup creamed cottage cheese
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon of red food colouring

Method

• Sift the flour in a bowl. Add to this the sugar and salt
• Add the canola and milk and mix (an electric beater makes life easy)
• Break the eggs into a cup, add vanilla essence to them, mix them and add to the above mix and beat for approximately minutes until batter is smooth
• Fill cupcake cases with the mix and bake for approximately 25 minutes in a preheated oven at 180C (this should yield about 24 cupcakes)
• Once baked, allow to cool for approximately 30 minutes
• In a separate bowl, mix the cottage cheese, icing sugar and cream until smooth (don't beat too hard as the mixture should be slightly runny)
• Add the food colouring and mix until blended and a light pink colour
• Pour a tablespoon of the cream mix onto the top of each cupcake. The mixture may run down the cupcake which is ok
• Top with garnish of your choice