Okay readers, fans and haters, time for me to take you peeps on. You are not going to like it, but you are going to read it.
Why
I hate the Spur
It seems that dissing the Spur is a
sensitive topic. It is part of many South African’s psyches and akin to being
rude about Nelson Mandela.
A ‘no go’
area if you will… well I am going there, and taking no prisoners.
The
Food
The food at the Spur is revolting. There I
said it. Shoot me.
Unfortunately I am forced to go there a few times a year for
kids parties and I have resolved to never eating anything in their restaurants ever again.
I
will drink a beer because the only interaction they have had with it is to make
it cold, which sadly sometimes they still do not get right.
I can honestly
say that I have never eaten anything vaguely edible at the Spur. Everything is
made with the cheapest of ingredients and cooked so badly it makes me
physically ill.
The humble Spur burger
Let
me dissect the most popular meal they serve – the humble burger. The last few
burgers that I had in the Spur all had the exact same shameful characteristics.
The patty was cold, dry, tasted of gas and murdered (I always ask for it medium
but they don’t listen). The burger patty was clearly pre-cooked as it arrived
in 2 minutes in a packed restaurant.
Once
I watched them just cook burgers ‘willy-nilly’ and allocate them to tables as
the orders came in, i.e. – not cooked to
order; hence the fact that they are often tepid or just darn right freezing
cold.
Spur burger sauce
Okay so now we have 1 x cold, dry burger
smothered in pepper sauce that has been made with flour and water.
You can tell
that because the sauce is translucent, tastes like raw cake flour and has the
consistency of wood glue.
Spur chips
Can the chips
save the day? Nope… they are undercooked and cold too!
I like
slap chips and I like crispy chips, unfortunately Spur chips are neither. They
taste like wood shavings, hence the reason that you need to drown them in that
mysterious white sauce just to get them down.
Gas flavour on the meat
For those of you that are going to accuse
me of ignorance please note that I worked behind a grill for 3 years and know how
food at a steak house should be cooked.
The gas flavour in their meat is
owing to the fact that they do not use enough stones in the grill and simply
allow the raw blue flames from the gas to cook the meat.
Even their ribs,
something which they punt as one of their signature dishes, are inedible. They
are too sweet, too tough and not cooked for long enough.
If you want to taste what real ribs should
taste like, follow my recipe here.
The
Wine List
Seriously, who put their wine list
together, SpongeBob Square Pants? It does not even have one nice bottle on it.
Not One. Unless you BYO do not drink wine at the Spur, it is all rubbish.
I find it incomprehensible that people who
claim to love food, defend the Spur. If you think that Spur food is nice then
take it from me, you are a bad cook.
Comments
like “It is one of the most popular restaurants in South Africa, so you
don’t know what you are talking about” are at best, naive.
The Spur is popular because it caters for
kids and is cheap. Not for any other reason.
– The Food Bitch – Follow on Twitter @FoodBeeach
We know that loads of you love the Spur, please comment below and tell us why.