House of Curries aka Sunrise, Florida Road, Durban

This place is a staple on boyfriend and my weekly eating schedule. Previously a chilled out, low-key stalwart on the Durban eatery scene, it is now a super vibey, place-to-be-seen. In fact, nothing has changed other than a fully licensced bar opening up next door. Now you can have a few drinks with your meal, which clearly makes all the difference.

A recent new addition is a dedicated outside seating area which is simple but comfortable. Decor is minimal, uncluttered and functional. It's obvious that the owner is making a consistent effort to improve the place. Famous for ridiculously good Indian food at ridiculously reasonable prices and served as the most ridiculously large portions.

These days you have to book for a friday night's dinner and word on the street is that they don't even accept bookings for saturday nights anymore because they are just too busy. The vibe is great, its like a pre-party for your friday night. But beware, if you have hipster tendencies you might be offended at the amount of trucker caps and popped collars and psuedo mohawks and hi5's and "hey boet's" flying around the place these days - if that's your problem just get takeaway - it is soooo worth it.

The best advice that I can impart is to order a roti, they are between 26 - 40 rand (depending on the filling you choose) and the best value for money you can imagine. Boyfriend and I usually share one, stuff our faces until we can't sit up straight and STILL have left overs for midnight snacking.

On a recent occasion I tried something other than a roti for the first time (gasp). I tried the 'chip chow' which I'd never heard of before. I'm pretty sure it changed my life. Chips with spiced salt covered in mutton curry and topped with melted cheese. It's like my favourite roti deconstructed. I only got through half of the meal. The portion was just too big but it was delicious and I will defintiely be having it the next time we sit down for a meal.

Boyfriend had a mutton bunny chow on the same night and although I'm not the biggest bunny fan around it was really enjoyable.

Every roti, samoosa, bunny and briyani I have tasted at Sunrise have been great superb and excellent value for money. However, if I had to recommend my absolute favourite it would be the beans, chips, cheese and mutton gravy roti or the mushroom and potato roti (this roti is not spicy but full to the brim with flavour). These are my 'go to' guys and they hit the mark everytime.

Completely Cooked Rating: 7.5/10

Things that are Awesome - Festival Time

Woo hoo! 

The Easter long weekend is in T minus 2 days which means... Splashy Fen is here baby!

Splashy Fen is a stalwart on the South African Music Festival scene and although some folks have expressed dismay at the absence of big hitters on this year's lineup, I couldn't be more excited! 

Here's my pick of the Festival:

Thursday:

Wrestlerish

Isochronous

Friday:

THOTS

The La Els

City Bowl Mizers

Saturday:

Newtown

The Rudimentals

Sunday:
The Wilderness Act
Thomas Krane

Make sure you remember your gumboots and thermal undies... there's snow on the mountains.... EEEK!

Ice Tea

My friend Lisa taught me how to make my own ice tea. It is a cheat method which means it is super duper easy.

I actually did a bit of research before deciding to use Lisa's method but the 'sun tea' and 'cold-brewed' seemed like waaay too much admin for my liking. On a hot day, when I am craving ice tea I don't want to have to wait hours for it to be ready - by that time the sun has probably gone down and tomorrow might be rainy.

The cheat's recipe is for instant gratification. Ready in approximately 15 minutes!

Ingredients:

Water

Ice

Tea - I use green tea or rooibos (red bush) depending on my mood

Fruit juice concentrate - I used Halls Apple Concentrate in the above photograph.

Method

Now this is a tough one to describe because people like ice tea in various strengths and sweetnesses. But the following is generally how I roll:

Boil about 3 cups of water.

Let between 4 and 6 teabags steep in the boiled water for a good 5 minutes or until you are satisfied with the strength of the tea.

Chuck in a big handful or two of ice and then place in the fridge

Mix up the juice concentrate as per the instructions on the bottle. I usually use about three cups.

Add juice to tea and chuck in a bit more ice (or, if you're patient, place back in the fridge until cool).

Adjust to your taste (more juice or cold water may be necessary).

Drink and enjoy your super quick, super easy ice tea!

Chocolate Chunk Biscuits

I found this recipe here and just added chocolate chunks. It's a really plain biscuit so it's a good starting point for biscuit experiments. Just add whatever you like, nuts, dried fruit, smarties, colourings.

I wasn't actually sure if I liked this recipe after the first biscuit I ate but then I tried another one (just to make sure) and after that there was no stopping me. I took more than half the batch to the office the next day to avoid over-dosing and it's pretty safe to say that these biscuits are a win.

I later realised that they taste very similar to the biscuits my gran used to make when I was a child, minus the chocolate though. It made me feel very nostalgic. That's probably why I ate so many of them. Not because I'm a pig. Definitely not.

 Ingredients

125g Butter

2 cups Flour

1/2 cup Caster Sugar

1 tblsp Milk

1/2 tsp Vanilla essence

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1 Egg

Half a slab of whatever chocolate you like

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius

Cream butter and caster sugar together

Add egg and vanilla and mix well

Add sifted flour, baking powder and milk and mix carefully until just incorporated.

Break up chocolate (I used swiss milk chocolate with hazelnuts) and mix in.

Roll the mixture into balls about the size of a large marble and place the balls on a greased/lined baking tray, flatten the balls with your thumb or with the back of a fork.

Bake for about 25 minutes or until biscuits are golden brown.

Things that are awesome

These bands:

Black Kids

 

Sea Wolf

 

Of Montreal

 

Two Door Cinema Club 

 

Cooking is always most fun for me when accompanied by loud music and a glass of wine.

 

Why not try one of these the next time you're bored of your usual playlist.

After hearing each of these bands for the first time I was so excited to have found such gems that each album stayed on repeat in my car for at least a month. I am seriously you guys.

9th Avenue Bistro, 9th Avenue, Durban

 I have been to 9th Avenue once before but it was years ago and the chefs have since changed. I thoroughly enjoyed my initial experience so expectations were very high on this visit.

It was a dark and stormy night (seriously) and two friends, Matty and Shayno, were down in Durban from Joburg for a few days and invited us to dinner with them at 9th Avenue. I have wanted to visit the restaurant again since hearing the chefs had changed but hadn't yet had a reason to fork out such a substantial (by Durban standards) amount of cash for a meal.

Anyway, my friends gave me this reason, and they advised that they intended spoiling themselves with the tasting menu, which excited me even more.

The courses were as follows:

Potato and garlic soup with smoked salmon, creme fraiche and caviar;

Fresh tomato and mozzarrella slices served with a basil granola;

Butternut ravioli with a madeira cream mushroom sauce and candied pecans;

Swordfish served on a bed on leek and smoked salmon risotto;

Fillet of beef, served rare on a bed on baby spinach with a butternut and sweet potato gratinee;

Chocolate torte.

We also drank mojitos and maragartia's which were sublime, and surprisingly well priced for such an establishment.

Now for the food opinions:

First course was great, I am not the biggest fan of dishes where garlic is the dominant taste but I thoroughly enjoyed the soup, the garlic was perfectly balanced with the flavour of the salmon. A seriously tasty soup.

The second course was very interesting. Shayno didn't enjoy the granola as he found it too sweet but the rest of us enjoyed the interesting textures and tastes of the soft, salty cheese combined with the juicy tomato and the slightly sweet, very basil-y crunchy granola. It took a while to get my head around what I was tasting but it grew on me with every bite I took and by the end of the dish I had decided that it was sufficiently scrumptious.

The third course was also sweet. And here again, the sweetness of the madeira mushroom cream sauce and the candied pecans was just perfect. It really added something that I never could have imagined to the butternut ravioli. I'm pretty sure I would have licked my plate clean if I thought those around me wouldn't have found it offensive.

The next course was swordfish and risotto. The fish was cooked to perfection and extremely tasty on its own and with the outstanding risotto. The piece of fish was rather large considering that swordfish is such a meaty fish so I ended up leaving about a third of it. It was a tasting menu, I had to pace myself.

The fifth course was steak, which was served rare.The meat itself was perfectly tender and someone commented that it felt as though we were chewing on clouds. The spinach was fine and the gratinee was average but the steak was truly so good that it didn't really matter what was on the plate with it, it shone like a bright shining star of mouth-watering awesomness.

The final course was the chocolate torte which was amazingly dense and chocolatey. To be honest I think I would've preferred something lighter at the end of all those courses but it was definitely delicious and decidedly decadent. I would recommend it, just not as part of the tasting menu.

The food was wonderful. The presentation was exquisite and the tastes and combinations were interesting but not too interesting as to put off conservative eaters, which I think is a great idea, especially in Durban. I had very high expectations and I am pleased to report that these were met.

 

I would definitely recommend this restaurant and the tasting menu. Although, one disappointment I encountered was that wine was not included in the menu. I was under the impression that tasting menus always include wine pairings but apparently this is not the case. I think that it would finish off the meal perfectly if the chef were to choose the perfect wine for each course. I don't know a lot about wine other than that sometimes it compliments my meal and other times it doesn't so I would appreciate a professional's guidance when I am eating a set menu of their food.

Completely Cooked Rating: 8.5/10

Things that are awesome

The weekly "CAKE OR DEATH" event at Unit 11 hosted by Hruki

Every Thursday between about 7pm and 9pm Unit 11 hosts Cake or Death. No, it has nothing to do with Eddie Izzard. But it has a lot to do with cake. YES!

So here's the skinny:

Free entrance to Unit 11. The event is hosted by Hruki so they have a little shop open for peeps to purchase their lovely wares. Every week a different live act serves as the entertainment. I went the week before last and they had a bunch of different musicians doing Johnny Cash covers. It was pretty rad indeed. Even radder was the 8 bit video game set-up they had going on. Projected onto a big screen were the likes of Mappy, Mario Bros, Contra, and that circus game where the first stage is a clown jumping from ball to ball. Nostalgia to the max!

However, the tv games are not the most important thing. The show stopper at Cake or Death is, without a shadow of a doubt, THE CAKE. Each week there is a different type of cake for sale, at just R15 a slice.

The cake on the night that I attended was cheesecake I didn't know what type of cheesecake it was and neither did anyone else but to me it tasted like cheesecake topped with a melted top-deck-type sauce. So, in short, it was the best cheesecake I have EVER eaten... Please cast your eyes to the right to see a picture of the perfect cake. This cake is the stuff that dreams are made of. Admittedly the picture is the opposite of perfect and kinda looks like something out of the Nevermind the Buzzcocks game "What have we pixelated?". But the cake inspired such awe in me that I couldn't not share a picture of it.

The moral of the story is two-fold.

1. You should attend cake or death because it is great for a chilled thursday night out.

2. You should definitely try the cake (and keep your fingers crossed for the top-deck-type cheesecake).