You all have THAT dish don’t you? The one. You crave it fortnightly. You know where it lives on the menu. The one you’re ordering in your mind before you’ve parked the car. The holy grail of eating out. The love of your tummy’s life.
We asked our foodie friends and here’s what they said:
# 514 at Simply Asia, tomato-based mussels at Sandbar or butter chicken at Bukhara?
Ever gotten physical over the Harbour House West Coast mussels steamed in white wine, garlic, thyme and cream? The crispy duck noodle soup at Oh La La Satay Bar on Kloof Street? Pig’s trotter at Bizerca?
We’ve been offered hard cash for the mint lamb chops recipe from Haiku and The Hussar Grill’s Chateaubriand got a DOUBLE mention.
Anatoli’s cheese cigars with their tomato salsa, the oxtail risotto at Terroir, eggs Benedict at Jonkershuis and the prawn special pasta at Il Leone are all the business.
If you fancy Mexican our food editor Aletta would down a bottle of tequila for the beef short rib taco recipe from El Burro… with their roasted tomato salsa. And she’d die for the polenta cupcakes from Miss K.
The prawn & calamari combo at the Chapmans Peak Hotel always makes my weekend a much happier one.
Durbanites, does the glazed pork belly at 9th Avenue Bistro make you weep for joy, or the slow roasted duck from Spice? Do you prefer the gamberi alla padella (prawns pan seared with garlic, white wine, Italian tomato, cream and chilli) – from Bel Punto in Umdloti or that prawn curry from Impulse by the Sea?
Are you also having a love affair with the grilled calamari with secret veg mix from the Codfather in Rivonia or the Tagliatelle Bosco’s (with grilled strips of beef in a mushroom, port, cream and garlic sauce) at Bosco’s restaurant in Sunninghill?
Now what if I told you we could get our hands THAT recipe? Well, we are going to try. We’ll get in touch with all the restaurants you tell us about and ask them for the recipe for your favourite dish.
If you can make it half as well as they do then kudos to you, otherwise you’re gonna have to keep on going back. And if you’re ever thinking of cheating on “the one” then try out some of our foodie’s top choices above.
Get it? Got it? Good. Now email us your top dish and the name of the restaurant and we’ll try and wangle the sacred recipe from them.
Yours in prawns and calamari,