The Olive Station

The Olive Station trading post-style shop and restaurant are right between the Muizenberg Mountain and the railway line on False Bay.



... with another scenic if windbitten parking lot. Today the southeaster was roaring.

It roars so much the trees grow sideways.

This is the shop part where one can buy local poetry anthologies, honey on tap, the Familiar Bread, a few things with Lebanese and Middle Eastern overtones (one of the owners is Lebanese), local-ish cheeses and...olives. The oil cured ones are the best. The others are so-so.

But we had come for the lamb, not the olives. The henbag made an appearance.:

As my mom said later, We are all going to hell in a henbag. Which seemed a good reason to open some wine: Joostenberg Chenin blanc/Viognier (5% Viognier, which hardly counts). Very good.

The lamb pita. Go there, eat it. The courtyard is usually charming and warm but today with galeforce winds the umbrellas became dangerous and conversation impossible, so we sat inside.

...and then have a little nap, as our neighbour in the ah, interesting, pants did (in the henbag photo he is still upright).

Atlas Trading Company

I sometimes fantasize about living in one of these houses in the Bo Kaap. Mine would be white - I'm old school. And on a smaller street. With a grapevine in the back, and cats on the roof.



We stopped in at The Atlas Trading Company with half an hour to kill before lunch: our mission, crushed chile peppers, preferably in the peri-peri style. I've been harbouring thoughts about Angolan stews with a Portuguese flavour: at the construction site across the way from my parents' house, where neighbours are building an addition, a young Angolan is employed as the security guard. He stays there nights, sans electricity, and asks us or the neighbours to charge his cellphone for him. He also borrowed a ballpoint pen which he says he still using. I can only hope he is writing a novel to pass the time. He looks all of 16 and what exactly he would do if there was a serious threat to the property, I haven't a clue. We are sorry for him and my mom and I thought to research what Angolans might like to eat, and carry a bowlful over. His name is Edouardo, but he says the owners of the house call him John. I kid you not.

I found a box of fresh curry leaves and bought some because I hardly ever see them. My choice of a few branches didn't tip the scale so I have far more than I can use.

There is a spice shop on 1st Avenue and 6th Street in the Village which smells similar to Atlas. So much so that both your clothes and hair become fragrant and stay so after you have left. At Atlas your purchases are weighed in one spot, tallied in another, and payment is received in yet a third. Books on the shelves advise pilgrims on how to make the most of Mecca, and brides on how to prepare for marriage. Boxes of henna share space with coconut oil and spices whose use I can only guess at. Pulses, rice and many flours are sold from bins in bulk. An imam bought a large bag of raw cashews while we shopped and a West African man dashed in and then out again with a bag of red chile powder.

Wolf Street

Yesterday afternoon my mom and I stopped in at Wolf Street, in the Chelsea part of Wynberg, to see if there might be anything of interest at L'Orangerie and at The French Connection. Side by side and sharing a courtyard these are very good shops for making you buy what you didn't know you wanted.

The garden in the courtyard is lovely - overgrown but with good bones, and in it was some very nice furniture which made me think of an erstwhile friend with whom I've lost touch, Adrian Hope. Where is his furniture sold, I asked my mom. Not sure she said. Then we noticed a large sign on one side of the courtyard: Hope Garden Furniture. Found! Really beautiful stuff, and very well made.

Sinn's

In Wembley Square. Nothing to do with soccer.

Thomas Sinn, whom I first knew as a spotty youth fresh from Austria aus, when he was appointed chef de cuisine (and I, spotty youth, too, was appointed waitress) at Buitenverwachting, post its Bonthuys era [its heyday, which neither the restaurant nor that chef managed to recapture; he, essentially, having rested on his oversauced laurels ever since], owns Sinn's along with his wife....er...name,name,...Britte!, who then was another spotty youth, appointed pastry chef when the tubby Frans quit that post in a huff and hoofed it back to the fatherland, she fresh from the Draairestaurant in Bloemfontein...

Wembley Square is an odd place, and eating there in its atrium is rather like waiting in an airport in a blizzard for one's plane to arrive from parts unknown and to leave for parts desired once the its wings have been de-iced...: there's muzak. Seriously. And small palms, and marble.

Our server was new, we decided. 'Nuff said. We both ordered the mussel and shrimp pot au feu, a starter on the menu (preceeded by duck parfait, a warhorse from Buitenverwachting days). I won't go into the definition of pot au feu here, but the term is a misnomer for this dish. That didn't matter, though. What we were hoping, me mum and me, was that it might resemble the Rhine Riesling and mussel soup that Thomas made at his first restaurant after B'verwachting, The Blue Danube, which was something transporting - the soup, I mean. One of the nicest, most simple and most sophisticated things I have eaten anywhere, ever. A sort of sabayon of a soup, pale gold, frothy, with a huddle of plump, naked mussels beneath it's airy surface. And here at Sinn's, in the airport foyer, yes! This time with a bisque base, but the same richness to the stock, though definitely not Rieslinged, and very shrimped in essence, and still fluffy and light, but deep in flavour...I had often thought that as a chef he was conservative and not essentially creative, but that he had excellent technique...I've not changed my mind in essence, having read the menu and cast my eye around some plates served at lunch, but this one is a winner. I could eat it again and again. And again. A lovely thing.

What is salvageable

Snapped this from the Kombi on its way over Ou Kaapse Weg to Cafe Roux in Noordhoek, taking some upcountry friends to lunch. These are not typical Cape clouds.


I might return on a hungry day after a horseride on the beach to consume this All Day Breakfast, but the hordes of squealing children, well-meaning but clueless service with starters and mains landing at once on the table and Arctic blizzard whipping throught the tented area (our reserved indoor table evaporated) did not a happy lunch make.

'n Stil Aand

Not a breath of wind on Saturday night.

Neighbourhood Goods Market

If you like a combination of a bunfight* and creative parking this one is for you.

Be prepared to be bodyslammed several times during your circular creep in the human current that moves supersluggishly around the main hall. The slamming is usually from a woman who thinks she is still in the Constantia Village parking lot with hubby's platinum card in her purse and her foot on the floor of her Porsche 4 x 4. Inform her that she is not. I find her toes are especially vulnerable, and messing up a brand new pedicure scores big on one's personal retribution-satisfaction scale.

Ommmmmmmmmmmm.

..are you talkin to me?

That said. Some products are seriously good and worth the moshpit:

This pastry stall is beautiful and if I had a really sweet tooth I would get very stuck here. I know someone who might, soon.

Origin Coffee's espresso is Proper. In fact, perhaps I might start a blog list of Proper and Not Proper. Below, Honey, Bread, Espresso: proper.

Mark Farah's honey is exceptional. The only other honey I have tasted that comes close is the Italian organic chestnut honey purchased (in bulk after I tasted it) from the Deathstar on East Houston Street.

Mark had four honeys and I fell head over heels for the Mountain Fynbos: deep, dark colour with a hint of bitterness in the finish. Very special. He says that his favourite is the Cecilia, made from the nectar of trees and flowers that grow in and around Cecilia Gorge, but I found it sweeter and still prefered the Mountain Fynbos. Tasting the honeys back-to-back was very interesting and really showed instantly how unique each can be. Amanda, a friend of Marijke's, recently told me how some bees in China are fed sugar water and then produce...sugar honey.

...and the bread (no pictures, sorry) from the Worcester guy is very good. Sold from a trailer parked in the main hall, his ciabatta has a firm crust and completely inviting interior, at once soft and resistant, with decent holes. At home I had some of the rye ciabatta with butter and the Fynbos honey...Mmmmamma.

Then there is a pizza guy who is on his way to the best pizza I've seen in this country until he goes too far: put away the squeeze bottle with balsamic goo. It's over. Enough. Too much. The tomato sauce, very little, and spread on a wafer thin crust, followed by prosciutto, Parmesan and rocket leaves. Is proper. STOP there. No avocado. No squeeze bottle. No creamy stuff. Genius is knowing when to stop.

The little stall at the entrance that houses what is left of the old Salt River Market is lovely and sells seasonal fresh produce and then some interesting homemade chutneys and hot relishes with a Cape Malay flavour. And fresh curry leaves. And the lady next door, misleadingly blonde and Anglo, whose name I should have asked, who makes samosas...very proper and delicious and spicy enough. The samosas, I mean.

More pictures next time. I'll sharpen my flip flops and redden my nails for battle with the Porsche lady. Also to do next time: rent a glass and go wine tasting at various stalls. Prosecco for breakfast is my idea of a good start to a day.

* Bunfight. Online dictionaries are unsatisfactory. South Africans do not use it, to my knowledge, to refer to a grand occasion. We use it to refer to a chaotic occasion; an occasion for which fortitude is required. A free-for-all. Feel free to contribute better definitions...

Neighbourhood Goods Market
Old Biscuit Mill
373 - 375 Albert Road
Woodstock, Cape Town
South Africa