On The Road: Bar Bar Black Sheep.

There are more restaurants in Riebeek Kasteel that serve lamb shank than anywhere else in the world. It’s as if nicely fattened sheep stroll into town, knock on each restaurant’s door, let out a final bleat and like cheap prostitutes they collapse, offering their legs to the chefs. Which isn’t a bad thing – lamb shank is delicious. But the town has more to offer, culinary-wise.

Go to Bar Bar Black Sheep. Like we did yesterday. Sit in the courtyard under the pergola. Order as many of the starters as you can consume comfortably without losing enough space to eat a main. The tapas platter with red pepper humus, chourizo in red wine and the mussels is awesome. Baked lemons are great too. That strawberry & Parma ham salad, genius. Rapidly consume bottles of  Santa Cecilia Chenin Blanc 2010 (hopa!) and Sequillo White 2010. Drink them out of the thrift store tumblers. Order mains like the Zamalek-battered fish & chips, huge lamb burger or tractor-tyre sized fishcakes with pineapple salsa. Drink the Lammershoek Roulette Blanc 2009 (bang!) and the best of all, the Mullineux Syrah 2009.

Skip the sub-par espresso. Rather go to the Royal Hotel next door, say, “Fuck you, Louis Gossett Jr.” and drink pink gin & tonics with cucumber. Admire the view over the Swartland while the 35′C heat plays games with your mind. Or is that the gin. Or the effects of blood draining from your head to your stomach to deal with the overindulgences of the earlier lunch you sure won’t forget in a long time, not just for the food or the wine, but for the fact that skipping town and getting on the road into the oven of a countryside with a bunch of mates is always going to be the best thing you do all weekend.

www.bbbs.co.za

The Paardeberg = The Partyberg.

Friday last week saw me at the Oesaf Party (harvest after-party) at the Badenhorst Family Wines farm in the Swartland. It was also the fourth bender night on the trot. Consecutive benders are something I’ve tried to avoid as part of my Turning 30 Program For Being Healthy & Mildly Responsible, which so far has been as successful as The Cape Party’s hilarious attempt to annex the Cape from South Africa. Whatever the previous weeknights delivered, Friday was always going to be massive.

The people: a group of about 50 farm owners, winemakers, assistant winemakers, local cellar hands and cute foreign cellar hands from nearby farms together with the odd journo and a few other randoms (the last group includes me). A fun collection of people with plenty of characters. Some special shorts too, not least of all Jasper from Badenhorst wines (pictured below).

The venue: a circular clearing with generator-powered fairy lights and sound system up in the bluegum forrest on a hill at Adi Badenhorst’s farm in the Paardeberg Partyberg. The clearing was accessed via a dirt road that would destroy your average sedan, something I think was a natural door-policy of sorts. No bakkie, no entry.
The vibe: a huge fire and supersize braai, hay bales for seats (nobody sat), some vibey music and everyone just mingling, braaiing and drinking with abandon.
The wines: As you can imagine there was plenty of wine. Not just ordinary wine, fucking amazing wine. At one point I grabbed a random bottle from the centre table and poured a taste. It was one of Eben Sadie’s Old Vine Series wines (the one Kentridge sketched up a few labels for) just chilling amongst the other bottles. There was no shortage of great wine, no.

Things were very tame on arrival: cordial greetings, welcome introductions, talk about the year’s harvest and other general civilized behaviour. Wines were opened and emptied in rapid succession and the braaimasters exercised their tong skills. Over time, the music got louder as did the guests’ laughter. I heard some great stories, including one from the previous harvest party of a woman going to the aid of another throwing up in the darkness amongst the bushes. Amusingly she found the other woman a) wasn’t alone, b) was on her knees and c) was actually preoccupied with something that definitely wasn’t throwing up.

The generator on Friday decided to fail every so often, creating silence and darkness. Initially, this resulted in continued discussion, huddling towards the light of the fire and appreciation of the starry sky. By the end it resulted in wolf howls and other mad behaviour. Things got very blurry, but I distinctly remember eating three of the best braaibroodjies I’ve had in my life, hiding Champagne in the ice bath, tackling a dog, downing wines that deserved better appreciation and meeting some great people.

I also vaguely remember something about throwing hay bales into the bushes and tossing a bit of wine around. Some of it onto others. I definitely don’t remember almost knocking myself out on the door of a bakkie, but the (still painful) bump on the back of my head and scratch on my neck must surely mean the story is true. Just the fact that I tackled a dog while I was relatively sober makes me nervous of what I don’t remember. Pics like the below don’t help either, where I seem to be hugging Kingsley Holgate.

What a great night through. While I do enjoy the luxury of Franschhoek, aka the Hollywood of the local industry, and the diversity of Stellenvegas, getting out to the Swartland and being privilege to a gathering like this is further reminder of how much I really love the area and its open and characterful residents.

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Oh, special thanks to Adi, Cornelia & Jasper for a brilliant party, Craig (winemaker at Lammershoek) for being my chaperone and the Kretzel’s of Lammershoek for their hospitality, especially Anna, who made those heavenly braaibroodjies.

Bar Bar Black Sheep. (Riebeek Kasteel)

Situated at the end of Short Street, that short er, street across from The Royal Hotel in Riebeek Kasteel that has a few cute shops, a wine store and hosts a market every few Saturdays, Bar Bar Black Sheep is a rather ridiculous restaurant. Firstly, it’s ridiculously quaint. Assorted wooden tables and chairs. A leafy courtyard. Quirky old Scope magazine covers in the bathroom. Kitch wall art. A rather cosmopolitan crowd that seems to frequent it. The odd neighbourhood dog that wanders in. And an old railroad board on the wall with food quotes scribbled in chalk. The top one yesterday read: “I love you like a fat kid loves cake.” Perhaps the first restaurant to quote rapper 50 Cent on food?

Secondly, it’s got some ridiculously good wines on the list, almost entirely regionally loyal to the Swartland. Aprilskloof Red Red 2006 at R80 per bottle may just be the best ‘house wine’ I’ve had in recent memory. House wine? This stuff puts the big-talking, Ferrari-driving Stellenbosch set to shame. Local is lekker here, and though there are some bargains, the list also includes the big hitters: Chris Mullineux’s wine is there, as is Eben Sadie’s and Adi Badenhorst’s. Tempting options all round really, so why bother buying anything from outside the area? Makes sense to me. We also smashed a bottle of the Lammershoek Roulette Blanc 2008, a firm, steely white blend of Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay and Viognier that has great acidity.

Then of course, the food. It’s ridiculous. Ridiculously tasty, well-cooked and cleverly put together. Creative yet not overly constructed, it is cuisine that belies the casual nature of the place. How about vine-leaf wrapped sardines stuffed with garlic, olive and chili. Or a nice cold gazpacho, served as a terrine. Or chorizo sauteed with red wine and onion. Or marinated octopus tentacles. Or how about cacciatore made from rabbit, lamb loin and pork belly. It was hard to choose so we had it all. You can’t really go wrong here, which is hmmm, how shall we say… yes, rather ridiculous.

I’ve had some pretty creative food here over the years. And the chef is not shy to use offal, something I think is applaudable. True, this isn’t light food that you could eat often, but this isn’t the kind of place most people get to often. So it works. The service is also keen and efficient, with some small glitches that are easily forgivable. Like yesterday, when our waiter’s cellphone rang while he opened our wine. But with a rather cool West-African sounding song as a ring tone, it didn’t spoil the vibe at all.

Overall though, perhaps most ridiculous is that Bar Bar Black Sheep isn’t better recognized as a top restaurant. Maybe because it is so casual. Or because it’s tucked away in Riebeek Kasteel, though the town is certainly not the sleepy country spot it once was. Either way, you’d think word would be out about this place as a top winelands restaurant. You’d think they’d be booked every day through summer. You’d think pictures of the chef would be on magazine covers. But it isn’t, they aren’t and the chef hasn’t graced any cover. Though if you’ve sat in the courtyard after a terrific Sunday lunch and enjoyed a good espresso with a grappa, it’s not really anything to complain about. At least you already know about it.

www.bbbs.co.za

Jardine (lunch).

I used to be able to say that I preferred Jardine Bakery to the actual upstairs restaurant itself. On previous experience, the upstairs restaurant serves excellent food, but too dainty and fancy a fine-dining experience for me to go back regularly. It actually reminded me of the opening scene for American Psycho where the robot-looking waiters recite long complicated specials that involve squid ink and Patagonian Toothfish. The kind of place where Patrick Bateman would dine with his slick-haired Wall Street buddies. What? Exactly. Anyways, I do enjoy fine-dining, but to be honest, I enjoy fine-dining the most when it’s rather a casual affair. Pulling into Constantia Uitsig spontaneously in shorts and Havianas for a lazy outside lunch is more my vibe than pulling on a jacket and some leather shoes and rushing to get somewhere in time for your reservation. There’s something great about approaching the finest eating experiences in a casual way that I do enjoy.

I had also heard some horror stories about the owner at Jardine that left a sour taste in my mouth, but then I guess one should never pay too much attention to the tales of others. And there’s always two sides to a story. So when I heard this week that Jardine would be open for lunch Wednesdays and Fridays I thought I’d give it a bash. I have actually eaten lunch there before – a friend had arranged his bachelor party meal there – and the food was excellent, but I remember poking my head out the window at some point and thinking all I really felt like was a pork belly & apple pie from downstairs. That and the fact that I spend R750 at a bachelor party without seeing any naked women left me marginally dissatisfied.

The world of fine-dining is tough. Restaurants in it effectively aim for perfection and when it isn’t met, they are slated by guests and reviewers. Having a look on the restaurant forums online shows that pretty much everyone is a critic these days. Jardine has been open almost four years now and has pretty much won most of the awards a South African restaurant could hope for. And after having lunch there I feel they deserve more. The food was quite sublime. Seriously, I had some pretty high expectations going in but they blew them out the window!

Firstly, the menu is not what you’d probably expect. They’re offering simple, honest dishes that are put together perfectly. Four starters, three mains, four desserts. Don’t mess around. The West Coast Mussels cooked with lemongrass, ginger, garlic and coconut milk were outstanding. Each single mussel was fresh, clean and tasty. And it was served in a charming little wax paper parcel with a giant bread stick. The Caesar salad had two perfectly crisp pieces of streaky bacon to go along with two perfectly poached quail eggs to go along with the perfectly crispy cos lettuce and some very tasty anchovies, delicious croutons, etc… The mains were equally impressive, a cut of Chalmar Ribeye beef and some Red Steenbras, neither breaking any new ground in food but both suggested the chef had mastered his craft, well… perfectly. I hate to use that word so much, but it is appropriate here. Even Patrick Batemen would be impressed.

Service? Efficient, courteous and knowledgeable on the food. Overly polite, if anything. Wines? Several interesting options by the glass (try the Lammershoek Roulette Blanc, further proof that the Swartland region is awesome) which is handy at lunch. And at fair prices – plenty from R25 – R45. In fact, I was impressed by the pricing overall. You could pull in for a light lunch of just some mussels and a glass of wine for under R100 if you felt like it. But why the hell would you?! You’d be better off being tempted into mains, several glasses of wine and maybe dessert. And coffee and grappa. Maybe then finishing it all with a good bottle of red wine. Just to cap a good lunch off and put you into a good afternoon coma. Nobody’s watching. Do it.

Jardine restaurant at lunch. Good advice is to go there when you have no work to do afterwards. Better advice is to go there when you can go home and take a nap afterwards.

www.jardineonbree.co.za