Tryn at Steenberg Estate

 26 January 2022

 

TRYN

Steenberg Estate, Steenberg Road, Tokai, Cape Town

 

The last time the wife and I set foot on these premises was for my 50^th birthday dinner many years ago when it was Catherina’s, and we’d been wanting to try Tryn for a while. Tonight, we were here to celebrate the younger goddaughter’s crown birthday and, frankly, the food was kind of hit and miss and once again left me questioning why one pays top dollar to eat out when you don’t leave the restaurant basking in culinary afterglow. 

 

The venue, in a Cape Dutch building amidst the splendour of the extensive grounds of Steenberg Estate, is a marvellous vision of grandeur, with three distinct dining spaces: one is a large, open function room; the second is a more private space with enclosed booths for secluded privacy; the main dining room, where we sat, has stack doors opening up on a patio and affording a grand view of the opulent gardens and mountains beyond. There’s a long bar at the one end of the room, plenty individual tables in the middle of the floor and a series of semi-circular banquette booths against the rear wall, where we were seated. I’d requested this seating when I booked.

 

One can’t fault Tryn for the beauty of its dining spaces. They feel and look indulgently luxurious.

 

We chose the three-course summer special (starter, main and dessert), for R435,00 a head.  This is deceptively reasonable, as some dishes require a supplementary charge if selected as one of the three courses, sides like truffle fries or vegetables are an additional cost and, of course, drinks are excluded.

 

The meal included some complimentary items: a bread course of small slices of extremely moreish, fluffy mosbolletjie bread and sesame seed crackers, a delicious roasted aubergine and corn amuse bouche

 and chocolate truffles to round off the meal.

 

The menu is quite extensive and broad in range and anyone except the fussiest of eaters should be able to find something that would interest them. On paper, everything looks worth trying.

 

The wife and the goddaughter’s significant other shared a bottle of Steenberg Sauvignon Blanc at R220 which was excellent and good value for money. The goddaughter drank one raspberry gin & tonic (R110) and I had two drams of Laphroaig at R130.  

 

Three of us chose the salt & pepper calamari starter

and the wife ate the Caesar salad. She was very happy with an exquisite salad, though it was considerably more generous than the starter size she’d expected.

The rest of us were not blown away by the calamari which came with, amongst other things,  a wasabi mayo that, as the goddaughter said, eliminated the advertised pepper element of the dish and overwhelmed the natural flavour of the well-cooked calamari. It was okay, no more than that.

 

There was greater diversity when we chose main courses. I ordered the pork belly, which the significant other was also aiming for until the waitress persuaded him to try the ethically sourced yellowtail. The goddaughter’s choice was the broccoli risotto and the wife, after eliminating the dishes she didn’t want, kind of settled for the rack of lamb (with a R40 supplement.)

Nobody, except for the goddaughter,, was super impressed with their main course. 

The pork belly was well cooked, soft and succulent, with a star anise and orange jus that had the zesty depth of flavour a pork belly dish usually must have to elevate it, and a couple of sweet baby carrots, pak choi, a green apple and red cabbage salsa and crackling. I think there was also a plate covering veneer of pomme purée underneath it all. The crackling looked good but was that unfortunate combination of crisp and chewy at the same time, and with not much flavour, a failed element that suggests that this is what it wo uld be like to eat cardboard.  Not a bad belly but nowhere near the top 10 of pork bellies I’ve enjoyed.

 

I also ordered a side of sautéed, al dente vegetables (R58), which I thoroughly enjoyed and was an excellent balance against the rich pork belly dish, and there were two sides of truffle fries for the table (R116), in respect of which the consensus was that there was no discernible truffle flavour, though the fries were well cooked and had a satisfying crispness.

 

The fish, of which I had a forkful, seemed perfectly cooked  and the accompaniments of pomme Anna, braised fennel, dine beans and tomato salsa and prawn bisque served the dish well, especially the rich bisque, but our friend, who’s at heart a meat guy, wasn’t sure he’d made the right choice.  I’d say that it was much of a muchness whether one ate the yellowtail or the pork belly. Neither was outstanding.

 

The risotto was perfectly cooked and creamy but a tad, shall we say, too subtle and monotone, flavourwise for me but the younger goddaughter loves risotto, and really enjoyed the dish and acclaimed it as the highlight of her meal.

 

The wife’s starter salad had been so large she was no longer that hungry by the time her main of herb and Dijon crusted rack of lamb was served and this might have influenced her view on her meal, but, from my taste of it, it was somewhat bland, even with all the additional stuff like toast onions, pumpkin purée, spinach, shimeji,  and lemon and rosemary jus.  The wife could manage only one chop of the three in the rack, I ate one and the friend ate the third. The meat was exquisitely tender and hardly required chewing (possibly the best lamb cooking I’ve ever encountered), but I felt it lacked seasoning and the accompanying flavours  were neither robust enough in their own right nor enhanced the dish.

 

For the friend, his baked cheesecake with compressed pineapple, whipped vanilla, raspberry ice cream and lime crumble was the highlight of the evening. I had a slice too.

It was indeed an excellent, creamy and delicate delight perfectly complemented by the tang of the ice cream. To paraphrase the goddaughter’s comments, her crème brûlée was a flat, one note (rhythmically challenged) samba of sweetness.

 The wife’s chocolate marquise, with a lovely latté ice cream, was very dense and intensely chocolatey and a bit much at the end of a meal where one already felt you’d eaten too  much. Even so, one must love chocolate a hell of a lot to eat this overdose of sweetened cacao.

 

The total bill (food, water and drinks) came to R2441,00 before tip.

 

Tryn doesn’t offer the optimal level of fine dining but it’s still not a cheap night out, and though the portions are generous and the plating generally satisfactory without being picturesque, the food just isn’t at that level where the cost isn’t a factor. There’s nothing much wrong with the food; it’s just not at the proverbial next level. That, to me, makes it dubious value for money. All of the rooms at the restaurant were full, so Tryn must appeal to a lot of people, but I doubt that we’ll return. It’s a long drive from home. 

 

Tryn was on the list; we’ve ticked off the experience and there’s no reason to repeat it.