Food and Drink

[Pheroze]

I was at a local Ethiopian restaurant the other day ( This particular place is a family favorite!) and it got me thinking: when you are travelling in Africa, especially if you have been more than once, is there a particular restaurant or unique meal or drink that you look for? When you think back on your journey is there some type of cooking that gets your mouth watering? I plan on enjoying the local cuisine while there and would love to hear about it!

While you folks think it over I am going to raid the refrigerator lol.

 

[enysse]

I guess from a soda stand point. Africa has the best tasting Coke!!! I'm an addict to that stuff. It does not even remotely taste the same in the US.

 

[BRICKBURN]

The first food I had in Africa was a "Tomato Toasty" in OR Tambo.
Grilled cheese with Tomato.
Great when you are exhausted and can barely speak.


Part of the Gateway Mall in Umhlanga
Indian food (Tikka Masala) from the largest Indian community outside India proper.

I was introduced to this celebratory drink by Moosa, a most excellent Zulu tracker at the Pongola Game Reserve.
It has a taste all it's own.

Biltong. Every day, all day.

Fresh Guinea Fowl Friccasse

Combined with Eland Liver.. Makes me want to run out and hunt some up right now.

Farm fresh Butter. Just churned and made into hand formed bricks.

Never worked up the courage to eat more than one.
Think weird BBQ flavour.

Oh yeah, Ox tail stew. Mmmmm.


Lot's to enjoy for sure.

 

[Velo Dog]

I was at a local Ethiopian restaurant the other day ( This particular place is a family favorite!) and it got me thinking: when you are travelling in Africa, especially if you have been more than once, is there a particular restaurant or unique meal or drink that you look for? When you think back on your journey is there some type of cooking that gets your mouth watering? I plan on enjoying the local cuisine while there and would love to hear about it!

While you folks think it over I am going to raid the refrigerator lol.

Pheroze,

As restaurants in South Africa go, I really enjoy one called "Harrie's Pancakes" AKA "Harrie's Pannekoekhaus" or however you spell Pancake House in Afrikaans.
It is located in, I believe Mpumalanga Province.
I always go there with a PH, enroute from the Lowveld of Limpopo District (Gravelotte area) up to the Highveld (on top of The Draakensberg Mts) to both hunt antelopes and to fish for trout up there.

At any rate, Harrie's is in the town of Graskop and they have the most interesting (and delicious) selection of foods I ever saw in a pancake joint.
Sounds odd perhaps but, I always enjoy one kind of meat or another and sauce AKA gravy (well... sort of) over a pancake, and I like to wash it down with one of their perfectly prepared capuccinos.
Everything is always excellent at Harrie's.

As for other / non-restaurant grub in Africa, I have really enjoyed the local biltong in both Namibia and in South Africa.
It seems that veryone outside the big cities makes it at home.
It's difficult for me to stop eating it when I'm over there.

Likewise for their home-made meat pies, from springbok or impala to pretty much any game they have made said pies with, at least that I have tried ... simply delicious.
Schnitzel is also mighty fine (what we'd call "chicken fried steak" in the USA but made, of course, from various variety of African game meat).

In the USA I almost never eat "chicken fried steak" but in Africa, there is something different about how they make it, or else it is the intoxicating experience of just being in Africa that makes everything taste better.
Actually all of the game I have eaten in Africa is delicious, pretty much any way they have set it before me.

I could go on all night about food, sampled in places I have visited and or have lived in but just like yourself, I will instead stop here and go raid my refrigerator.

Regards,
Velo Dog.

 

[Patrick R]

Veldo Dog,

nearly right...corectly spell - Pannekoek Huis...there is one in Sabie oslo

 

[Pheroze]

Simba chips with monkey gland sauce???

I think the coke is different because they use cane sugar rather than beet sugar. I found the same thing in some other countries.

I am hoping to do some sort of wine tour or tasting. The bottles we get here are really good (Two Oceans is one that pops to mind) but quite inexpensive. The best deal on the shelves for sure.

 

[BRICKBURN]

Have Andries de Klerk send you a case of Morgenhoff Estate 2005 to your Outfitter.
Or mix it up and try a variety.
I enjoyed the 2005.

http://www.morgenhof.com/cellardirect.aspx?CLIENTID=1152

 

[blackdog001blackdog001]

I returned a month or so from safari in Namibia. While I was there, I got a craving one night for bacon cheeseburgers. I mentioned it to the cook (also PH's wife) and we had them for lunch the next day. I had to give her a brief tutorial on what makes an excellent bacon cheeseburger and her cooking did not disappoint.

 

[Red Leg]

Joe's Beerhouse in Windhoek is something of an national institution. You can get anything from Oryx to a steak. I would guess they ere more along the lines of quantity and really good beer than epicurean exceptionalism - but it is a really fun place to eat before or after the hunt.

 

[gillettehunter]

One of my wife's favorite is Kudu steak with mushroom sauce. It was served in camp and then she also ordered it from a menu in Windhoek. Bruce

 

[Velo Dog]

Veldo Dog,

nearly right...corectly spell - Pannekoek Huis...there is one in Sabie oslo

Thanks Bushwhack,

Likely I could not win a simple Spelling Bee in English, much less any other language.
My Grandmother (Father's Mom) spoke Dutch first and English second.
If I had my life to live over again, I would've sat still a little while each day that she was around, and eagerly learned her first language.
But, the folly of my youth is that I was too busy playing to be bothered with that and she died when I was 16.

I realize that Afrikaans is actually much closer to Flemish than to Dutch actually but, close enough for a traveling tourist like me to put it to use now.
Oh well, if the mystics are correct after all, and reincarnation is actually a reality, my luck will have me returning as a go-away bird or a baboon, (most likely a shithuis fly) and then I will hear enough Afrikaans to eventually understand what the Boers are saying.

Cheers,
Velo Dog.

PS: I made buckwheat pannekoeks this morey, (or however you spell "morning" in Afrikaans, LOL).

 

[Nyati]

Eland, tastiest meat I ever ate.

Well cooked Bushbuck is also a treat.

They also have some excellent red wines, and Castle beer is quite good, specially the stout.

 

[Velo Dog]

Simba chips with monkey gland sauce???

I think the coke is different because they use cane sugar rather than beet sugar. I found the same thing in some other countries.

I am hoping to do some sort of wine tour or tasting. The bottles we get here are really good (Two Oceans is one that pops to mind) but quite inexpensive. The best deal on the shelves for sure.

Hi again Pheroze,

Did someone say wine tasting?
Old Velo is very partial to California / Napa Valley red wines however, they are expensive enough nowadays so, I do not indulge in them very often any more for that reason.
And as if anyone actually gave a rat's red bum ... my very favorite red that I can ACTUALLY AFFORD to enjoy regularly is Malbec from Argentina where they developed that specific grape ... much to my delight.
Various vineyards/labels of Malbec wine are produced in Argentina and sent clear up here to the uncharted tundra still affordable, where my wife and I defrock a bottle of same quite often.

Back on thread: The best Capetown red I have tried is "Rubicon" and it is quite good indeed but here in Alaska it is both difficult to get and expensive.
When over there and if you get the chance to try Rubicon, let me know what you think.
I highly recommend it and would enjoy it here more often if I could afford it and it was not so hard to get in my area.

Sort of on this subject, for a sundowner, many folks I know from here in The States enjoy Amarula on the rocks (I suspect it is essentially rula berries, cream and whiskey plus certain botanicals for flavor).
I keep a bottle or two here in the Safari Bar (my basement / man cave) for emergencies and I like it blended into a milk shake with frozen cream (not ice cream as it is too sweet combined with the rula berry juice in the Amarula already).

Around Christmas when others are here and sipping eggnog which, I do not really care for much, I instead cut Amarula by half with milk and have it over ice (not so sweet that way and also, I can have a couple of 'em cut like that at Christmas parties and such without getting too much alcohol).

Almost on this thread, my favorite beer in Southern Africa is Winhoek Lager but, none from that area are bad, they all taste pretty good after a day of lugging one's rifle over hill and dale.
My favorite PH has gotten into the habit of calling ahead on the radio to have the Kitchen Staff pop a couple of Winhoek Lagers and beer glasses into the freezer, a half hour or so before we return for the evening .... excellent.

Blah, blah, blah,
Velo Dog.

 

[ArmyGrunt]

View attachment 29426

Farm fresh Butter. Just churned and made into hand formed bricks.

That whole building is made of butter bricks!??! Is is earthquake proof?

 

[ArmyGrunt]

Sorry...I'm a sucker for corny jokes!

 

[Royal27]

OK, that eland liver looks quite tasty!!!

And I liked the butter joke! ^^^

 

[accipiter]

Biltong!

 

[Rob404]

I guess from a soda stand point. Africa has the best tasting Coke!!! I'm an addict to that stuff. It does not even remotely taste the same in the US.

I liked the Coke but I'm a Pepsi fan,,I wonder why you can't get any in SA

 

[enysse]

It think there is an agreement not to do business with them

I liked the Coke but I'm a Pepsi fan,,I wonder why you can't get any in SA

 

[sandyridge1123]

I agree with Velo Dog Harrie's in Grafkop is great. I also like Snookie's in Hout Bay, and Carnivores in JoBerg is a fantastic experience.