Tag Archives: South Africa

Martinis, Marathons and Getting Gingered Up

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"The Most Beautiful Marathon in the World"

“The World’s Most Beautiful Marathon”

“To believe this story you must believe that the human race be one joyous family, working together, laughing together, achieving the impossible. Last Sunday, in one of the most trouble-stricken cities in the world, 11,532 men and women from 40 countries in the world, assisted by over a million black, white and yellow people, laughed, cheered and suffered during the greatest folk festival the world has seen”

Olympic champion Chris Brasher wrote these words after running the New York City marathon in 1979.  He went on to found the London Marathon, the biggest marathon in the world.

Endurance runners are a bunch of weirdos who volunteer to undergo serious pain for hours.  I’m one of them.  I figure it’s a sort of karmic suffering, to offset the martinis I drink every evening. Once an oddity, marathons are now a cause for city-wide celebrations wherever they are held.  The outrage caused by the attack on the Boston marathon was felt not just by Bostonians and Americans but by runners around the world.

Thoughts of outrage were far from my mind as I lined up with 10,000 other pain junkies on a chilly morning in Cape Town.  We were running the Two Ocean’s Ultra Marathon – a gorgeous 35 mile (56k) trot from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. The race covers a hilly coastal route which snakes around the Cape of Good Hope. It is arguably one of the most beautiful races in the world and has long been on my bucket list.  My support team included mum, sis, brother in law, 5 year old nephew and a group of friends including an African Queen, a party hostess with a van (great for lying down in after the race) and Voldemort, the German masseuse.

Marathoners in Africa face unique challenges.  Last year a runner was hurt by rock throwing baboons.  The South Africans are a tough lot.  While most of them run in takkies (South African slang for sneakers or trainers), I came across a bunch of barefoot runners.  They weren’t some hunter gatherer types from the bush either, but slightly overweight middle class white people…

Runners greet pain like an old friend.  We wait for him to cross the road, meeting him halfway.  He runs alongside us, sometimes in the background, but always there.  He mocks us as our legs start cramping.  Six hours later I beat him and went out for a martini.

Il Leone Mastrantonio

Il Leone Mastrantonio

Pre race I focused on carb loading. After the race, my mind was on martinis.  For carb loading I visited two stand-out Italian restaurants in Cape Town –  Societi Bistro and Il Leone Mastrantonio.  Of the two Societi is a lighter, more modern interpretation of Italian cuisine, while Il Leone is more traditional. Off Orange Street in the Gardens district the Societi Bistro has a simple yet modern Italian menu with an emphasis on fresh ingredients.  The homemade spaghetti with truffle oil was delicious as was a simple salad of roasted figs and fior di latte (fresh buffalo mozzarella).

Il Leone Mastrantonio is in the district known as De Waterkant (say it with a straight face).  Il Leone is the grande dame of Italian restaurants in Cape Town.  It is pretty straightforward Italian fare served in a traditional, smartish, yet family friendly atmosphere.  The home made ravioli and rib of beef was the perfect pre race dinner.

Gorgeous red lacquered bar at Tjing Tjing

Gorgeous red lacquered bar at Tjing Tjing

The Cape Town Jazz festival kicked off after the ultra marathon and I hung out for some cool tunes and cocktails at the rooftop bar at Tjing Tjing on Longmarket Street.  Longmarket is a street favoured by students; lined with bars, backpacker hotels and massage parlours.  Three floors above street level, Tjing Tjing is an Asian inspired rooftop oasis, with inventive cocktails made from behind a shiny red lacquered bar.

Ginger is the new sexy ingredient in cocktails.  The term “gingering up” (or sexing up) came from the old gypsy habit of inserting ginger up a horse’s arse to make it appear frisky and alert while being inspected for sale.  The Ginger Ninja at the Tjing Tjing bar had vodka, grenadine, pineapple juice, bitters, ginger and lime.  The pineapple added sweetness, but the kick came from the ginger, offset by orangey grenadine flavours. There was no horsing about here – this is a nicely made drink.

The Jelly Baby was made with vanilla vodka, Cointreau, pomegranate juice, lemon juice and yes, jelly babies.  There was a candy like sweetness to the drink, offset by the tartness of the lemon juice.  It is an improbable sounding drink, but it grows on you.  If you are a girl.

Stunning Presentation of a Ginseng and Ginger Martini at the Pot Luck Club

Stunning Presentation of a Ginger & Ginseng Martini at the Pot Luck Club

The highlight of my culinary and cocktail tour of Cape Town was the Pot Luck Club at the Old Biscuit Mill in the Woodstock district.  Built at the top of a grain silo that serviced the former biscuit mill, the Pot Luck Club is a superb Asian fusion restaurant with stunning views.  There was more ginger in the cocktails here.  I had a Sake Cocktail with ginger, lemon grass and passion fruit.  This was a very successful blending of flavours, with the lemon grass and passion fruit combining to add a hint of bitterness, while the ginger left a nice after burn in the throat.

The Ginger & Ginseng martini is a stunning looking cocktail, the liquid made cloudy with ginger, served in an antique goblet with a  garnish of preserved ginger.  The ginger overwhelmed the ginseng however, making for a spicy cocktail lacking in complexity.

Sake, Campari, Watermelon.

Sake Compressed Watermelon with Blood Orange Sorbet and Bitter Campari Jellies at the Pot Luck Club

The big hit of the night was an alcoholic dessert.  Watermelon is infused with sake and then compressed until it turns jelly-like in consistency.  It is accompanied by blood orange sorbet and bitter Campari jellies.  This is a bitter dessert that looks a bit like a living thing and tastes divine.

South Africa is home to several great road races.  Apart from the Two Ocean’s there is the Comrade’s 56 mile (90k) race between Durban and Pietermaritzburg.  This is the world’s oldest and largest ultramarathon race.  I politely declined the offer to run in place of a friend in this year’s race.  Perhaps next year…

Other

A big thank you to Kensington Place, my favourite boutique hotel in Cape Town.  Austen Johnson and his team took care of all my marathon prep including a cooked breakfast delivered to my room at 3am, plus carb snacks for the race.  Meeting points for my support crew were carefully mapped out and taxis arranged.  It is a hotel I go back to often!

Escaping the Winter

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The temperature is barely above freezing in London and New York. In Cape Town the sky is a brilliant blue and the temperature is a balmy 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit). The Cape Town Jazz Festival is kicking off and post jazz cocktails at the rooftop Tjing Tjing bar are delectable. I had to run a marathon last weekend to justify coming here, but it’s been worth it. Come!

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Warm nights, cool jazz.

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Rooftop bartenders at work behind the red lacquer bar at Tjing Tjing.

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Ginger Ninja (vodka, grenadine, pineapple juice, ginger and lime) and an Old Fashioned cocktail at the Tjing Tjing Bar.

Sunshine in a glass

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I found this lovely young woman selling gin and tonics off the back of an old bicycle. I took this picture at the old biscuit mill market in the Woodstock part of Cape Town, South Africa. I’m sure she doesn’t have a license to sell booze, but it is Africa and she’s cute so who cares!

The old biscuit mill is open all week selling clothing, food and drink, but the Saturday market is special, hosting a wide array of local food and drink vendors. If you visit, do eat at the Test Kitchen restaurant where I had one of the best meals in recent memory. You must also try the coffee at Origins and a cupcake from Helen Melon. Oh, and don’t forget a gin and tonic from the bicycle girl!

An African Odyssey: Dog’s Bollocks and Bitch’s Tits

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I had recently arrived from America and was tasked with interviewing some UK customers by my employer.  One such customer accused the company of being arrogant.  Leaning forward, he angrily stuck a finger in my face and asked, “why do you guys think that you are the dog’s bollocks”? I had no idea.  In fact I had no idea what “dog’s bollocks” meant.  I remember carefully writing down the words “dog’s bollocks” in my notebook and promising the customer that I will get back to him on the bollocks issue…

Dog’s bollocks means dog’s testicles, but in British slang usage it means very good, or the top of the pile.  Really.  Think bee’s knees or cat’s pyjamas. On the other hand when the word bollocks is used by itself, it means rubbish.  Or nuts.

A Lotus Eclat guards the entrance to Dog’s Bollocks

Dog’s can famously lick their own testicles.  Through the ages men have been fascinated and/or jealous of this canine capability.  I never did get around to getting Nigel Wood’s personal perspective on testicles as we chatted inside his restaurant, The Dog’s Bollocks in Cape Town, South Africa.  This is currently the hottest ticket in Cape Town, a burger restaurant in a garage/drive way.  The October 2012 UK edition of Esquire magazine lists it as one of the top ten attractions in Cape Town. They take no reservations and open from “5 to 50″.  Nigel starts serving at 5PM and stops when he’s served 50 burgers. After that he pushes the tables back to make room in the garage for his one-eyed 1970′s Lotus Eclat.  (The Eclat has a vacuum seal that keeps the pop-up headlamps shut.  If the car is left parked for a while, the vacuum leaks and one headlight pops open. Cute.)

The entrance to the restaurant is literally the garage door.  The tin roof has a few translucent plastic panels to let in light.  The long narrow space is broken up by a grill where the famous burgers are cooked.  Tucked away to a side is a branch of Deluxe Coffee Works, the artisanal coffee roasters in Cape Town.  A tiny motorbike repair shop also shares the space.  Customers of the coffee shop regularly ride their scooters and motorbikes into the store.  Its all uber trendy and slightly nuts.

Bikes and coffee next door at Deluxe Coffee Works

The garage roof leaks when it rains.  It was raining hard when I visited with Capetonian friends including the Cupcake (she’s sweet and she bakes well) and the Princess Monkey (she’s titled and she’s nuts).  The sloping garage floor was soon awash with rain water.  Nigel kindly showed us to a “good table” where we’d get less wet.  A waitress hurriedly unplugged a floor lamp.  Eventually someone donned galoshes and splashed across to fire up the grill.  The restaurant is BYOB except for wine.  Nigel bottles his own red and white in tubes and sells them under the U-Tube label (by Ukuva iAfrica).  It’s big in Poland, apparently. At Dog’s Bollocks the wine is served in conventional bottles at R55 (GB£4 or US$6 ).  I ordered a bottle of red.  Nigel gave me a bottle and said “here’s the wine, there are some glasses, here’s a corkscrew.”   The service is delightfully quirky, as is everything else about the place.   The restaurant serves different menus through the day – and is called different names at different times.  At breakfast the restaurant is called Mucky Mary’s Hubcap.  At lunch time it’s called The Bitch’s Tits.  Hubcaps, tits and testicles –  only in Africa!

Nigel preps his burgers

The burgers are amazing.  They are served on enormous, light as air rolls with what must be half a head of lettuce, onions, tomato and pickle.  The secret is in the home made sauces.  Mexican chocolate mole, pepperberry and blue cheese, and prego (a spicy Portuguese sauce) are standouts.  The table went quiet as we greedily tucked in.  I had the prego sauce and felt the spice gradually build up on my taste buds as beads of sweat broke out on my forehead.  The burgers are so large that once you man-handle them into your mouth you don’t want the hassle of putting them back down and figuring out how to pick them up again.  We inhaled our food.

Dog’s Bollocks is a symbol of how South Africa would like to see itself; multicultural, irreverent and re-inventing itself as it goes along.  Yet roofs and more leak all over the country.  I can’t tell whether we are seeing the birthing pains of a great African state or witnessing the last days of empire.  Either way it’s a fascinating place to visit.  Go! It’s the dog’s bollocks.

Further Reading and Drinking

The hot cocktail bar of the moment in Cape Town is The Orphanage.  An unfortunate choice of name perhaps but it is on Orphan Street and a share of profits do go to the orphanage up the road.  My favourite place for a post prandial drink however, is the bar at the Mount Nelson hotel where old world colonial glamour meets some of the most hospitable bar staff I’ve met.  The Old Fashioned’s and the Hendrick’s Cucumber Martinis they make are particularly good.

Blogger My Love Affair with Cape Town wishes to keep Dog’s Bollocks a secret so it wouldn’t get too crowded.  A common lament.  Sheila Allen talks about her love affair with burgers in Cape Town Alive.