{"id":8600,"date":"2010-05-24T11:57:18","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T09:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=8600"},"modified":"2010-05-24T11:57:18","modified_gmt":"2010-05-24T09:57:18","slug":"restaurant-review-dutch-east-not-dutch-nor-eastern-nor-a-culinary-jewel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/franschhoek\/restaurant-review-dutch-east-not-dutch-nor-eastern-nor-a-culinary-jewel\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant Review: Dutch East not Dutch, nor Eastern, nor a ‘culinary jewel’!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Of all the restaurants that I have visited and reviewed, newly opened Dutch East in Franschhoek has been one of the\u00a0most difficult to come to grips with,\u00a0to categorise and to review.\u00a0\u00a0 It appears to not have a focus, and to be all over the place\u00a0in terms of what it wants to achieve.<\/p>\n

When we spoke to co-owner Sainkie du Toit, the front-of-house manager, she immediately emphasised the South African nature of the restaurant, but with an\u00a0Eastern touch.\u00a0 We could not see the “Eastern” touch at all, and in fact there was little South African about it, except for a BBQ one can order, as well as offal.\u00a0\u00a0 Sainkie tried to correct herself, and referred us to the menu, in which the restaurant describes itself as “contemporary, with a South African influence and an Asian touch”, and “Fresh local ingredients infused with eastern\u00a0flavour combinations”.\u00a0 Our party of three could not see the Asian, South African nor contemporary descriptions in the menu items\u00a0at all.\u00a0 However, the menu had some French names, and a “chimichurri relish”, which is South American, is\u00a0served with the squid starter.\u00a0 Sainkie could not explain how they had got to the name, or why they chose the name out of about 40 options.<\/p>\n

The problem is the menu.\u00a0 I’m all for creativity and doing things differently, but when a new restaurant sets itself up in a space of a restaurant that was frowned upon by many of the locals (Burgundy), one cannot move too quickly or too radically until one has a following.\u00a0 It was the grouping of the menu items that caused the biggest challenge, with headings for “raw” (e.g. steak tartar, seared tuna, shaved salmon, springbok tataki), “small” (curried eggs, meat balls, “black lip abalone” and grilled scallops), “breads” (tortilla with duck, pizza, baguette – served at lunch only), “cured” (biltong sirloin, kudu carpaccio, coppa, smoked trout and more), “offal” (veal tongue, lamb’s head “tourchon”, oxtail, and pork trotter), “meat” (hangar steak, lamb shoulder, pork belly, quail and rib eye), and “fish and shellfish” (kingklip, crayfish with Cafe de Paris, tiger prawns).\u00a0\u00a0 One can even order a “BBQ”, serving a whole sheep’s rib, game sausage, and the unmissable toasted cheese, tomato and onion sandwich, and a salad.\u00a0 A minimum of 6 guests must order this South African “braai” dish for it to be prepared, it costs R130 per head, and it must be\u00a0booked in advance.\u00a0 “Sweets” are the apple crepe, fried milk tart, brulee, and Swiss chocolate fondant.<\/p>\n

We could not get to choose what we liked, so we looked at the Winter Special menu, which is charged at R150 for three courses\u00a0and a glass of Protea shiraz or sauvignon blanc (made by Anthonij Rupert Wines).\u00a0\u00a0 We made sure that we all chose a different combination of dishes, to give us nine opportunities to try them.\u00a0\u00a0 What is confusing is that the Winter special menu has prices for each individual dish, even though one can only order from it for the three\u00a0courses, at the total price of R150.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our waitress Nolundi had a lovely smile, and also could not explain the essence of the menu to us before Sainkie came to the table, stating that the restaurant serves, “afval, raw meat and game meat”.\u00a0\u00a0 This was a bad start for us.\u00a0\u00a0 She said the wine came from “Reuben”, but not the restaurant Reuben, she said, meaning Rupert.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The wine list is very ‘proudly Franschhoek’, almost every wine estate being represented, probably making it one of the most comprehensive Franschhoek wine lists: Graham Beck, Rickety Bridge, L’Omarins, Glenwood, Rupert & Rothschild, Porcupine Ridge, Stonybrook, Boekenhoutskloof,\u00a0Grand Provence, Landau du Val, Solms Delta, Lynx, Haut Espoir, Haute Cabriere, Chamonix, Klein Dauphine, La Bri, Vrede & Lust, Klein Genot, Bellingham, Eikehof, and Pierre Jourdan.\u00a0\u00a0The list contains a few typing errors.\u00a0\u00a0 What was unusual was to lable the sparkling wines as “bubblies” and the Rose’s as “blushes”.<\/p>\n

We were served three tiny slices of garlic and herb pizza while we decided on our order.\u00a0\u00a0The pizza slices were over-salted, and contained onion, and spoilt the palette for what was to come.\u00a0\u00a0 The water took a long time to come to the table as they had run out of jugs (the restaurant was half full).\u00a0\u00a0 Our starters arrived almost immediately:\u00a0 the spinach soup arrived lukewarm and was terribly bland, but the parmesan-topped bread was very tasty.\u00a0\u00a0 The squid came in a\u00a0soup plate with a lot of liquid, but was not described as a soup.\u00a0 The idea of ‘pairing’ this with red pepper and yellow pepper was probably meant to be\u00a0a good one, in that it would have added colour to the dish – the problem was that the red pepper was\u00a0hidden by the 6 tiny tubes of calamari, and the yellow pepper was so overcooked that it became a brown ‘something’ on top of the calamari, and was initially unidentifiable until one tasted it.\u00a0\u00a0 The calamari dish had a distinct taste of nutmeg, not a good match in my opinion.\u00a0 The “spring rolls” were served as three samoosas, and were not served with the advertised salsa, but with bits of paw paw, cucumber, onion and tomato and lots of rocket.\u00a0\u00a0When we asked Sainkie about the spring rolls, she apologised, saying that the kitchen staff had rolled the spring rolls into the wrong shape.<\/p>\n

None of us was happy with the starters, and we asked our waitress to relay this to the kitchen.\u00a0 There was no response from Sainkie about the feedback, and she seemed to steer clear of our table thereafter.\u00a0 We were nervous about our mains, but we fared far better.\u00a0\u00a0 The gemsbok steak was cut into slices, and was tender.\u00a0 It was such a large portion that I had to ask to take half of it home.\u00a0\u00a0 The spinach was perfect, and the “potato mash” was served as if it was a\u00a0whole potato.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0Venison pot au feu was very tender, and came with dumplings,\u00a0underneath a pastry layer.\u00a0\u00a0 The lamb’s tail was bravely chosen by my colleague, and served\u00a0 “barbequed”, making it quite black, too burnt for the taste of our Brazilian trainee.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The lamb was served with more rocket,\u00a0polenta\u00a0mixed with\u00a0sweetcorn, and “Sauce Gebriche”, an odd mayonnaise sauce with boiled egg and pickled cucumber.\u00a0 When we checked with Sainkie, she went to the kitchen to find out for us for sure – she returned with the news that there was anchovy in it too, but my sharp-tasting colleague could not detect this at all.<\/p>\n

The desserts had mixed reactions.\u00a0 The rhubarb, strawberry and custard dessert,\u00a0on a bread base, was a compressed stack served with plum sherbet, which needed some extra cream or custard, as it is very dry.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Poached pears\u00a0were served\u00a0in a soup plate with rooibos sultanas,\u00a0in a ginger cinnamon broth, far too weak to allow one to get a clear taste of the ingredients.\u00a0\u00a0Once again, we felt that the fruit should have come with custard or cream.\u00a0 \u00a0As the Winter specials menu only had two options for desserts, I requested an apple crepe dessert from the main menu, and offered to pay in the difference of R10.\u00a0\u00a0 It was very tasty and a generous portion, with caramelised apple and raisin, and vanilla ice cream.\u00a0\u00a0 The first cappuccino was not frothy and had spilled over the side,\u00a0but was quickly replaced with a great frothy one in a clean cup, when requested.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sainkie admitted that co-owner and chef Pasch du Plooy (previously at Reubens, L’ermitage and Bouillabaisse)\u00a0was not on duty, and this appeared to explain the poor quality of many aspects of our meal, and the kitchen mistakes.\u00a0\u00a0 We pointed out to her the chipped candleholder on our table.\u00a0\u00a0 She said that she knew about it, but that she had not been able to find a replacement.\u00a0\u00a0 We advised her to have none at all rather than one with\u00a0two chips in it.\u00a0\u00a0 We also advised Sainkie to reflect the restaurants dishes in the Winter special menu, so that one can get\u00a0a taste for them, especially as it is such a complex menu, and she admitted that it had been a mistake in their May special menu to not have done so.\u00a0 Sainkie and Pasch are both graduates of the highly regarded Institute of Culinary Arts Chef’s School \u00a0in Stellenbosch, and met each other there.\u00a0 The raw facebrick interior and\u00a0exterior of the restaurant\u00a0are the same as the previous restaurant, with only a name change.<\/p>\n

Without being asked, Sainkie discounted the meal by R 72,45 on our total bill of what should have been R488 in total, for 3 meals,\u00a0one tea, the cappuccino and the dessert surcharge, a reduction of 15%.\u00a0\u00a0 Sainkie invited me to come back to try the\u00a0standard menu as the guest of the restaurant when I return to Franschhoek.\u00a0\u00a0 The bill is confusing, in that each of the items of the Winter Special menu is charged individually, and almost every item, even the mains, were charged at R 50 a dish, even though one pays R 150 for the meal and the glass of wine in total.<\/p>\n

The website states boldly :”Authentic and inspiring, DUTCH EAST is a culinary jewel in the heart of Franschhoek’s iconic main street”.\u00a0 We believe that Dutch East has a long way to go before it can make this claim!<\/p>\n

Dutch East<\/strong>,\u00a0 42 Huguenot Street, Franschhoek.\u00a0 Tel 021 876-3547. www.dutcheast.co.za<\/a>\u00a0(The website has irritating photographs flashing, if one does not click onto a specific website page, when one first opens it.\u00a0 It commendably does carry a lot of information, unusual for restaurant websites in general, but irritatingly does not list prices for its dishes and wine list).\u00a0 Open 7 days a week, lunch and dinner.\u00a0 Corkage R30.<\/p>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of all the restaurants that I have visited and reviewed, newly opened Dutch East in Franschhoek has been one of the\u00a0most difficult to come to grips with,\u00a0to categorise and to review.\u00a0\u00a0 It appears to not have a focus, and to be all over the place\u00a0in terms of what it wants to achieve. When we spoke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[124,14,20,21],"tags":[4730,4719,4716,4714,4725,389,315,1285,1386,2881,32378,4715,4731,4712,4710,4713,4726,32369,2317,226,550,4678,581,4729,4724,66,1291,653,2316,4723,2128,4289,4728,228,4721,4718,1543,252,3625,4720,41,583,882,4711,4727,65,1483,4722,578,32373,49,4717],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t