The Backyard Café

29 September 2019

THE BACKYARD CAFÉ

4 Sol Green Street, Diep River, Cape Town

Let’s just say that the chef at Backyard Café had a bad day in the kitchen and hope it was a once off, but overcooked poached eggs and splinters of olive pits in two dishes won’t get you good word of mouth.

We were at Backyard Café to celebrate a friend’s birthday, and we were five adults and two kids, out and about on a cold, wet day and we were hungry.

First off, the coffee was good and served quite quickly, except, paradoxically, for my single shot espresso, which must require the least effort of all.

The service was also good.

It’s a literal backyard joint, outside a furniture store that seems to sell a mixture of old wooden things and newly manufactured wooden things, and fortunately, on a day like today, there’s an extensive covered section, where we sat, as well as the open air section for warmer days.

The furniture and style echoed my suspicion of what a place called the “backyard café“ would look like, in that it was slightly shabby (perhaps artfully distressed?) and faded. Nothing slickly modern here.  The wife thought of it as cosy and rustic.

The breakfast menu is as middle-of-the-road as they come with all the standard options. However, if so inclined, you can ask for vegan flapjacks and the flower power tower comprises of rösti and vegetables to which you can add poached eggs (if you like ‘em firm, I guess) or bacon.

Two of the group ordered dishes with olives (the Flower Power Tower) and it was immediately apparent that somehow  tiny, gritty splinters of olive pit spoiled the dishes, which were sent back and replaced.

The wife ordered eggs benedict and I ordered the shakshuka, both of us specified, when asked, that we wanted respectively soft and medium poached eggs. Both of us received hard poached eggs. I guess we should’ve sent our food back too, but I don’t mind the overcooked egg so much and the wife was hungry enough to just eat.

The eggs Benedict was good, apart from the overcooked eggs but the portion was really small. A light breakfast to put it mildly.

My shakshuka had rather more tomato than I‘m used to in the dish, which tends to have a balance of onion and tomato. It was tasty though and had a lovely little zing. The slight twist on the classic version of the dish is the addition of a rösti underneath the tomato. This is not a well-thought out idea. The mass of hot tomato just creates an odd, soggy texture. A better idea, in my humble opinion, is that the Turkish twist of adding yoghurt would have been just the ticket to lift the dish.

The kids liked their flapjacks fine but, then, they’re kids and if it’s doughy and sweet, it’s good.

It wasn’t a disastrous brunch but it wasn’t a great brunch and even if the chef jacks up the timing  of his or her egg poaching,  there’s no reason for us to want to drive out three again. File under: For Locals Only.