>> List Of Popular Restaurants ( Cape Town)

South African cuisine is fantastic contrary to popular belief. So make it a point to visit at least one restaurant that specializes in ethnic dishes. It will turn out to be a delicious experience.

The staple African foodstuff is corn, most popularly eaten as pap, a ground maize porridge, or the rougher wholegrain samp, and served with a vegetable or meat-based sauce. Traditionally, cows were kept as a sign of wealth and slaughtered only for special occasions; but now cheap cuts like liver, heart, and brisket are popular, as well as chicken. Pumpkin, cabbage, carrots, wild spinach, and potatoes are the popular vegetables.

For those not initiated to the local cuisine, the easiest on the palate are the Cape Malay dishes. Their main characteristic is sweet aromatic curries. These include bobotie, a delicious baked meatloaf, mildly curried and served with chutney, and bredie, a tomato-based stew. Another not to be missed Cape delicacy is water lily stew or waterblommetjie bredie, as it is named. It is usually cooked with lamb.

Many South African menus also feature Karoo lamb, favored because the sweet and aromatic herbs and grasses of this arid region flavor the animals as they graze, and ostrich, a delicious red meat with no cholesterol. The usual desserts are  melktert, a cinnamon-flavored custard tart of Dutch origin; malvapudding, a brandy-soaked sponge cake; or koeksisters, plaited doughnuts, deep-fried and dipped in syrup.

Durban, on the East Coast is famous for its Indian curries. The burning potential of these curries are indicated by their ingenuous and exotic names such as Honeymooners' Delight and Mother-in-Law Exterminator. The former is ‘hot’ and the latter is ‘damn hot’! Sea food is abundant on the coast line: fish, abalone, mussels, oysters, crabs, squid, langoustines, and the Cape's famous rock lobster (crayfish). Snoek fish is traditionally served with konfyt (fruits preserved in sugar syrup, from the French confit, a legacy of the French Huguenots).

You are bound to see spiraling smoke trailing over suburban fences and township yards during weekends. It is nothing but the smoke from the fresh- meat- over- coals barbecues. Barbecues or braaivleis is a favorite of the South Africans. There is another name to it, tshisanyamas. It literally, means, "burn the meat".

Snacks to Go--The first pilgrims who crossed the mountains dividing the Cape from the hinterland created the perfect road food in biltong (bill-tong). It is  strips of meat cured with spices and salt. Droëwors is the sausage version of biltong.