Looking for your mojo at the Mojo Market.

 21 October 2021

 

MOJO MARKET

30 Regent Road, Sea Point, Cape Town

 

The Mojo Market consists primarily of a conglomerate of food stalls, three bars and a stage for live music, in the heart of Sea Point, and seems to be as much a watering hole and Tinder date venue, as a food destination.  It isn’t necessarily cheap and the food isn’t necessarily foodie fodder or “Instagram worthy.”  (Hence the lack of pictorial content.)

 

The wife and I met the goddaughters and their respective love interests for an informal, budget friendly get-together, for a bit of fun and a laugh and a night out in the heart of what used to be Cape Town’s restaurant central before the Waterfront almost destroyed the scene there. Sea Point seems to have recovered nicely over the last 20 years though. They built the Mojo Market and the people come.

 

We shared a table for six, too close to the stage, which came back to bite us when a young gentleman  took up station there to favour us with his piquant renditions of popular songs of the previous 6 or 7 decades, accompanied only by his acoustic guitar. Somehow, he managed to encourage a small group of superfans to dance to his beat free music for a few glorious moments. With the music and the general ambient noise, it was challenging to have a decent conversation.  Mojo Market is the ideal place to hang out if shouty conversations float your boat.

 

The wife, the elder goddaughter and I were keen on wetting our whistles with something from the cocktail menu card on our table, so I ventured forth to hunt and gather same. Being as dumb as a bag of hammers and not wise in the ways of the market, I optimistically ambled over to the nearest bar where the slightly mystified bar personnel indicated that they did not purvey cocktails and said I should go to a different bar, “straight ahead.” Okay, so I also don’t see very well, but saw a bar “ straight-ahead” and repeated my cocktail order to the bar people there. They pointed out that they sold only beer, duh, and pointed to yet another bar “straight-ahead” in the distance. A light bulb moment. There was a pink neon sign above that bar, identifying it as a cocktail bar. Simple, really, if one  were a tad more alert in the library of life.

 

At the cocktail bar I repeated, for a third time, my order for  two passion fruit and mango mojitos and a standard mojito.  Despite the promise of the cocktail menu, there was no availability on the   passion fruit and mango mojito front. The alternative was two pina coladas; to my mild astonishment, the mix was on tap. The standard mojito was no problem.

 

Apparently the pina coladas were overly sweet and not cold enough. My mojito had plenty ice and plenty kick; a delayed kick, as I discovered later queueing for food.

 

The number of food stalls and the variety on offer is at once a blessing and a curse, if one is part of a group of six people, all of whom want something different, which means that various members of the party must wander around separately to source supplies at various counters,  and return to the table at various times, so that no-one really eats at the same time.

 

The elder goddaughter was so hyped up and proactive, she returned to the table with two orders of burgers and fries (R70) before the rest of us had even made up our respective minds regarding what the ballpark of our food interests were. 

 

Two weeks ago, I bought a lamb shwarma in a wrap as takeaway lunch for the wife and me, and she wanted more of the same. I decided I’d ask for a pita this time, with the same filling, given that it was just for her.  One gets a couple of sauces, such as tahini or tzatziki, a mixture of vegetables, including carrot, beetroot, eggplant and lettuce, plus a generous portion of lamb for R110,00.

 

You have to be patient. The joint was popular and my nails grew half a millimetre before it was my turn. Once I’d delivered the wife’s meal to the table, I bounded off to a Japanese stall for beef ramen for my supper.

 

The wait here was even longer and while I was standing there, swaying in the breeze (the mojito was speaking to me), the younger goddaughter came to tell me she would be returning the wife’s meal to the shwarma stall because the meat was inedibly burnt and obviously the end bits of a skewer of lamb that should not have been served.  After a very lengthy wait for my ramen, during which my impatient irritation grew exponentially into a moderate rage,  while I tried to mollify myself by repeating the mantra that the length of preparation of my meal must be directly proportionate to the quality of a freshly made meal,  I hastened back to the table to leave my meal there while I returned to the shwarma stall, where the replacement pita had not yet been built, and tried to replicate the elements of the previous one, to the best of my recollection, and then rushed back to the table again.

 

To their credit, the shwarma people were gracious  about replacing the less than wonderful first meal.

 

By the time the wife received her second pita, she  wasn’t hungry anymore and hardly ate her food, taking it home for lunch the following day. 

 

My ramen dish (R130) with slivers of beef, lots of vegetables, half a hardboiled egg and excellent noodles in a flavourful broth, was still hot enough by the time I got to eat it and it was tasty enough.

 

The younger goddaughter also ate “a decidedly average” burger and her friend had a decent portion of hake and fries presented in a skillet. He was happy with his meal.

 

Markets have become big business over the last 10 years and Mojo Market is not a bad, all-weather and 7-days a week (until as late as can currently go out) alternative to, say, the Oranjezicht Famer’s Market in Grainger Bay though it’s not as funky or organic, so to speak.  

 

The wife and I had been at Mojo Market previously, earlier on a weekend day, where the atmosphere seemed less frenetic than on this evening, and that suits us better. The food is, at best serviceable, and, frankly, intended for a less critical crowd and it’s not great negotiating the spaces between tables on a very busy day (social distancing here is not at a premium), especially when you’re a tad tipsy, but if you like people watching while sipping sparkling wine, it’s not the worst place to be.