Cape Town - Food

When people think of good food they don't tend to think of South Africa. But Cape Town is really a culinary capital and we had some delicious meals.  We didn't take any pictures but perhaps this information will be helpful to other visitors.

The first night we arrived was Christmas Day. We'd been travelling for 40 hours and hadn't eaten anything but airplane lounge food dinner two days before. I knew a lot of restaurants would be closed on Christmas Day and the ones open would likely have specialty meals. I emailed our guesthouse, de Tafelberg, in advance for a recommendation and a reservation. I knew after our travelling we wouldn't want a 3 hour meal. We also didn't want fast food after all the nasty stuff we ate for two days. They recommended Societi Bistro, a neighborhood Italian restaurant. It did not disappoint. We were really happy with our casual sit down meal with good, cheap wine.

Day two in Cape Town was a Sunday. A lot of restaurants are also closed on Sundays in Cape Town. We chose to eat at the Asian restaurant Wakame in Mouille Point for the view of the beach and ocean and for the seafood. Unfortunately it was too windy to sit outside. We had some really good food like the deep fried soft shell crab and the tuna tartare. I ordered the special Mozambique prawns which are huge. Except our waiter suggested that I order 6 of them. I couldn't eat more than 3 and I was stuffed. When you hear Mozambique prawns think more like the size of a small lobster, not a shrimp.

The next day we ate a very light lunch/snack at Den Anker at the Waterfront after our Robben Island tour. Den Anker is a Belgian restaurant. It's a little pricey but good. The only downside was due to the crazy snow in Europe that had shut down a lot of the airports, the restaurant hadn't been able to get their shipments of Belgian beer and were out of a lot of them. Obviously, not the restaurant's fault.

Our final Cape Town meal was at Fork, a tapas restaurant. If you know me, you know I love small plates and tapas more than any other food. I like being able to try a lot of different things and I love appetizers way more than a main dish. Fork did not disappoint. They have a really innovative menu of small plates. Besides some traditional choices, they had more exotic choices like kudu and ostrich. We didn't try the ostrich but the kudu was quite good!