Restaurant Week in Cape Town (this time it is about 5 weeks, ended on November 5th)
It always draws us to try a new restaurant
We had good reports from Clare, our daughter, and others, so made our booking
The concept is modern Mexican food from the Baja California coastal area of Mexico
The lunch hours finished at 6 pm and they do have a Happy Hour from 4.30 to 5.30
when Margaritas are half price, so we booked for an early supper at 5
Lynne hadn't had a good Margarita for years and it's one of the few cocktails she enjoys, along with a really dry Martini
It is on Loop Street and is part of the Heritage Square block
A large bar shows that they do a lot of bar work
We were shown through to one of the two restaurant rooms
and a table with good window light
This is their current special menu, almost identical to the Restaurant Week Menu, with Totopos added
Place setting
That Margarita, with the rim half dusted with salt and chilli and a good, long, cold Heineken draught for John
The Totopos consists of three small crisp nachos,
in startling colours of carbon black, flaming red and verdant green and three sauces to dip into
The red adobo sauce,
the green Salsa Verde which is herbal and creamy and, thank heavens, not tasting too much of fresh coriander,
the brown is a Pasta de Frijol - spicy black bean sauce, familiar and the most enjoyable for us
We kept them on the table throughout the meal to see how they went with the various dishes that followed
Then came their Mother sauce, a Mole which, on that night, was 464 days old
Pronounced molay, it is "a sauce which is alive" like bread made by the sourdough method
We know and have cooked Mole as a central Mexican sauce
which often contains dark chocolate and Ancho chillies and is served with chicken
This is different and served with a vegetarian version made with carrot and cumin in the centre
It comes with soft tortillas in those rainbow colours
The next course was Kabeljou (a local fish, aka rock cod) Ceviche
with Leche de Tigre, Avocado Crema, Salmon roe spheres, and Pico de Gallo
served raw in an acidic sauce to 'cook' it
Sadly, it was not quite as fresh as we prefer and we don't risk old raw fish
They were very apologetic and replaced it immediately with another dish
They brought us two more of their sauces to taste as they saw we were interested
The Strawberry and Chipotle chilli was fruity, nice and hot with lime
The green was apple and Pablano chillies; good and sweet
We kept these on the table to try with other dishes
Our replacement dish was Quesadilla de Pollo with tender barbecue chicken between two red tortillas,
mustard seed gel, avocado crema, queso fresco (fresh cream cheese) and seared corn
Very enjoyable with flavours of good pepper and caramel and no heat,
so we added the mother sauce, Adobo Oaxaca red sauce, to spice it up..
The dish Lynne was looking forward to the most; she is crazy for crayfish
These were in a tempura batter served on a black tortilla with a strawberry and pomegranate aioli and lime
The batter was a little oily, but inside was tender, sweet local crayfish
Next was the tender, long slow-cooked Brisket
cooked in the Mole Hacienda, with pineapple salsa, sesame seeds, sliced raw apple and a roasted peanut sauce
Summer Thomas was our friendly and very helpful server
A charred corn Tamale (the outer leaves) containing Tiger prawn and salty fish
with lichi Arbol mole, pickled poblano chilli and edamame beans crudo
It was messy but very flavourful
The final dish was almost dessert
Guajillo dusted charred sweetcorn, with Ancho honey, sweet Queso Fresco and, thankfully, very little fresh coriander
The chilli burn was similar to that we get from our Cayenne chillies
We have to admit that, with all the tortillas, nachos and sauces, we were now rather replete. It is a big meal
Edamame beans served crudo
Finally, a gift from the chef, a huge beehive of Candy Floss,
which we returned with thanks because we do not eat sugar, and donated it to someone else
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