Eats 11 restaurant at Villa Exner Boutique Hotel

14 February 2020

EATS 11 RESTAURANT

Villa Exner Boutique Hotel, Grabouw

The expression on the wife’s face was something to behold when the waiter presented the plat du jour menu on the blackboard. It was not an expression of unbridled bliss and joy in anticipation of culinary ecstasy. Far from it.

The wife did not like what she saw and this what she saw: starters of carrot soup or a roulade of kingklip; kudu as meat main course; the other main courses were fresh salmon on pasta or a vegetable curry.  The wife likes options; these were not options she likes.

Not everyone can be a winner now, can they?

We were at Villa Exner for a Valentine’s Day weekend escape and, given the general paucity of eateries, never mind quality ones, open for dinner in the Grabouw area, the plan was for Valentine’s dinner at our abode, which has a well-regarded restaurant. It also seemed to be a better idea than dining at some overpriced Cape Town joint, cashing in on the special day.

The chef designed a special fixed menu for the occasion, which  is always a risk in these days of interesting food allergies and divergent culinary preferences and, as mentioned, it didn’t work for the wife.

The restaurant has indoor seating but on a warm, calm, beautiful night like tonight, the diners were seated on the broad stoep overlooking the lush garden at the back of the hotel.  Quite romantic.

When the owner / manager took note of the unhappiness, he came to the table to offer to ask the chef whether something more suitable couldn’t be rustled up but the wife declined and indicated that she would accept the menu as is and do her best to work with what there was.

She started with the carrot and apple soup (R70) and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was, with (happily) a very subtle carrot taste. 

I had the kingklip roulade, with smoked salmon trout on greens, (R110) and quite enjoyed it. The fish was perfectly cooked and was well flavoured if a tad under seasoned.

The kudu fillet with exotic mushrooms and chestnuts (R220), were the wife’s best-of-a-bad-job choice as main course. She likes meat but not venison and would have preferred a good piece of beef fillet. Kudu is the wild meat I’m least keen on but for me this was not too bad at all.

The filet was cooked perfectly medium rare and was juicy and tender but lacked seasoning and the creamy mushroom sauce was bland.

This dish begged for a zesty sauce and some vegetables either as part of the dish or on the side, but none were offered. For the price it was very expensive and not value for money.

The wife gave me the lightly crunchy chestnuts and half of the meat.

I tried the summer curry (R150) with Basmati rice and was underwhelmed because, nicely as the vegetables were cooked, the curry flavour was so subtle it only pitched up on the back of the palate at almost the last bite.

Somewhere between courses we were each given the tiniest samosa ever. Lovely morsel but it seemed a shame to eat it; I wanted to send it back to the kitchen to mature into adulthood.

This was one meal were the desserts didn’t redeem the unsatisfactory nature of the dining experience.

The wife’s weird, small (allegedly) baked lemon cheesecake didn’t taste much of cheese; in fact, the first taste impression was that it was a lemon poppy seed muffin, with the texture of a soufflé gone disastrously wrong.

My choice, seeing as how I believe that you can’t go wrong with an apple-based dessert, was the alleged Apfelstrudel and this was, hands down, the supreme disappointment of the meal. If you’re going to attempt an ill-conceived approximation of an Apfelstrudel, don’t call it that. The expectant diner’s fury will simply increase.

What I received was two small phyllo pastry “parcels” with mostly apple, perhaps one raisin, and very little Apfelstrudel flavour or taste.

The lovely creamy vanilla ice cream was the best element of both our dessert plates.

We dulled our pain with bubbly and finished with excellent cappuccinos. As the wife commented, the liquid elements of her dinner were superb.

The bill came to R1202 with tip.

The seating was lovely, and the service was excellent and friendly. It was the menu and the execution of the dishes that let the side down. If you want to design a special menu for a special occasion, you should make sure that it will cover more bases than tonight’s offerings and, most importantly, if you force diners to choose from so few options, each dish should be so spectacular that it’s easy to forgive the chef for forcing you to eat something you wouldn’t have chosen in different circumstances.

There would be a different menu for the Saturday night dinner but after this experience we chose to eat a baguette, coppa and cheese on the stoep in front of our room rather than risk another disappointment.