11/12 – Cape Town Food Tour

Another beautiful day today – which is nice because we are leaving the Urban Elephant and walking over to check into the Southern Sun Cullinan for the beginning of our Swan Hellenic experience. Since this is only an included hotel night – not like a land tour where there are activities the first day – we’ve booked a Food Tour for later in the morning that should take up the better part of our day. After breakfast and cleaning up, we hit the street for the quick 5-minute walk down hill (yay) to the Cullinan where we are really lucky and able to get a room at 9:30 in the morning. Sweet.

After checking in with the representative from Swan Hellenic and getting our information packet – we head up to our room, dump our bags and hang out for a bit until our walk over to the City Hall where we will meet Bulelani, our tour guide for the afternoon. Following Google maps, we end up walking through the bus terminal, which we’ve done before, but it’s Google maps, and there is a tunnel that isn’t designated on the map. We’re a little leery of going down into the tunnel and end up on the street, walking amongst all the taxi-vans to get to the sidewalk. And it is here we get targeted. Man – first time ever in all our travels we’ve been seriously pickpocketed – or at least attempted pickpocketed. One guy starts following us, then another, and then I feel something on my backpack – which was one of the guys trying to unzip it. Oh no you don’t – that just pissed us off, I grabbed the pack and sort of slung it at the guy while Ed was yelling at him, then another dude came over and tried to grab my little gold chain necklace off my neck. I had the steel water bottle from the Noordam, and almost managed to hit him with it while punching him too – and finally they ran away. That was something, let us tell you. Weirdly, the emotion we both felt was anger – which probably saved us from getting robbed. They didn’t expect us to fight back like that, but no way were we going to let 3 punks do that to us in broad daylight on a crowded street. Not happening. Needless to say, we won’t be walking back that way!

The rest of our walk was uneventful, thankfully, and we arrived at city hall pretty much unscathed. We were early and a tourist info guy, David, took us under his wing and ushered us into the tourist info office to sit and wait for Bulelani. Nice place for us to relax and calm our nerves! David brings Bulelani into us a little bit later and we are off on our locals food tour around the city. Bulelani is a sweetheart, full of information and history, which he imparts to us. We start off on the steps of City Hall for a photo with all of us and the statue of Nelson Mandela, put there in honor of his release from prison and then his presidency. We hand off our camera to David (after just being almost mugged, I’m still in awe that I just blithely handed my phone over to some guy – tourist guide or not) to take our photo, then start out jaunt out into the CBD.

Our first stop is George’s for Rooibus tea. This is too funny! This is the exact George’s we visited a few years ago when we were here – they had just opened here and we met the owner and had a great long conversation with him. What a coincidence! We have our sweet tea – which was surprisingly good – along with some really good rusks as we sit and chat with Bulelani about food and Cape Town and history and just shoot the breeze.

Next up we wander over to Parliament, which burned down a few years ago when a homeless guy accidently set fire to the place, then back track to a little corner fried fish place for some great Hake and fries. Bulelani has also been toting around this plastic bag filled with something that turns out to be more food for us! He has brought a platter from the township called uMleqwa in Xhosa, which means running chicken, or hardbody chicken. It is made with an old free range chicken whose meat is harder than a regular chicken and served with samp and beans, along with Chakalaka and some spinach here. Talk about a meal! The fish is fantastic, and the chicken, while a different texture than what we are used to, is equally delicious. All the accompaniments are great too – but oh so much food! We eat as much as possible, as well as Bulelani, but still have some left over which he wraps up and takes along with us.

Meandering back toward city hall, we pass through a pedestrian street and the S. African market – which turns out to be right behind the HoHo bus office where we’ve been the last 2 days. But we never walked one block over to see the market! Such dummies! Ah well, we really don’t need anything – so no real loss. Our next stop is a little corner stall of a restaurant that sells Gatsby’s – a Cape Town specialty. Think Primanti brothers meets Boerewors! A huge, monstrous sandwich filled with French fries, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cheese, some sort of really good spicy dressing in between a really fresh soft sub roll type thing. Ay yi yi! Massive, and massively good, and we only got a ¼ size portion! How you could eat a whole one, I’ll never know! Even on an empty stomach, no way could we do it. Not to mention we were also treated to a Koeksister, which is a yummy donut type pastry that is a specialty of S. Africa. Yummy.

The owner of the shop sets up 2 chairs for us to use while we eat – otherwise we’d have to eat standing up or sitting on a wall around a tree that was already occupied with a bunch of homeless guys. He was really sweet and told us that they used to have tables and chairs out, but had to take them away during COVID and the authorities haven’t let him put them back out yet. But he’ll do it for Bulelani and his customers. We also met a sweet woman who was waiting for food too – she chatted with us, reminding me to put my backpack in front and not in the back (yep – no worries, got real life experience with that now!). So many people are so nice and protective here – for obvious reasons, it is just sad there is so much poverty and crime in certain areas. To that, as we are waiting for our food, a couple of guys come up begging. Bulelani gives the one guy the left overs of our uMleqwa, then when we can’t finish our Gatsby, he tries to find the other guy to give it to him. Very kind.

Our final stop of the day will be in Woodstock – a renovated area of town I had wanted to visit for the street murals. But it seemed too far away and we really didn’t have any time to fit it in – but here we are. Or at least here we go! I thought we’d need a taxi, but Bulelani says its only a 15 or 20 minute walk. Great – we can get our exercise in too. Winding our way through the CBD, we wander through the flower market with all different types of Protea flowers – they are so gorgeous. And lo and behold, who should be here? The sweet lady we met at the Gatsby place! She is a flower seller there! Small city.

Our trek to “the best Braai place in town” according to Bulelani is more like a 30 to 40 minute walk! Along the way, Bulelani keeps us informed about all sorts of S. African history as well general information about the area and how it has been transformed from an industrial area to a residential and business area now. There are certain sections that are definitely revitalized, nice looking buildings, a mall area with upscale shops, restaurants, etc. And then 2 blocks behind all this are the tenement buildings where the original residents now live. This country is such a dichotomy, it’s nuts.

We finally arrive at Papa Ron’s “Best Braai in Town.” It is a little teeny restaurant with maybe 6 seats at a window bar height shelf – and the Braai right there. Bulelani orders us a mixed platter of lamb chops, chicken and a Boerewors, plus pap and chakalaka. Oh – so good – and so filling! And talk about local experience – we even get the bowl of water to wash our hands in before and while we are eating!

A totally great experience, every single solitary local joint we would never have thought about going to on our own – but with Bulelani, we had a real taste of local life and local delicacies. Completely fun and completely filling!

Needless to say – we aren’t walking back to the hotel. It might have been a 30 minute walk over here – but that was from City hall, which is a 30 minute walk from the hotel. Bolt taxi time! We order our taxi, say goodbye to Bulelani and head back to our side of town – going directly to Spar for more beer and wine for the ship, then walking back to the hotel to hang out and digest for the rest of the afternoon!

Later on, we head downstairs to Stella’s, the hotel bar and pub. We’re still stuffed and they have a very good tapas menu, and we figured, what the heck? They also have very good pours, and a really sweet waiter who brings me my sauvignon blanc, but then decides he really gave me chardonnay and brings another correct glass for me! It did taste a little suspect! We start outside by the pool, but as the sun goes down and the wind picks up, our waiter comes to get us and take us inside to a table where we will be more comfortable. So nice!

Here we dive into a blue cheese and biltong soup (Ed, not me!) along with mac and cheese and bacon balls and a tapas portion of braised octopus that is the most tender and tasty thing. A really excellent small dinner for us after our food-topia day!