Bluebird Café of happiness

 11 June 2022

 

Bluebird Café 

Broadway Boulevard (R44), Stellenbosch

 

I don’t know whether a hidden gem can hide in plain sight but I guess we’d often driven past Bluebird Café over the past months without paying particular notice until today, when we popped in and were pleasantly surprised.

 

Once again, we’d been in Stellenbosch, done what we’d been there to do, were famished, couldn’t find a decent spot in the town with parking and were heading out  towards Somerset West on the R44 and noticed this new building, on the site of what I always knew as a farm stall, that appeared to be a restaurant. There was ample parking and hopefully grub.

 

No brainer.

 

The old farmstall building is still next door but the Bluebird Café nestles in a lovely modern construction, with a nod to the Cape Vernacular style, with a central entrance lobby and dining rooms on either side of the lobby. To the left, there are a few large tables and the barista and service counter. To the right, there are smaller tables and the pizza oven. On that side, stack doors open onto a side stoep with tables under umbrellas and a lovely vista of splendidly autumnal vineyards. On the far side of the building, there is undercover outside seating and at the back there is a patio with yet more tables under umbrellas.

 

The vaulted ceilings and floor to ceiling glass on all sides provide volume and natural light. 

 

The tables inside are mostly from-fashioned yellowwood  style wood, with some riempie chairs and a variety of other styles of chair.  The design contrast, therefore, is between contemporary elegance and old Cape Dutch farmhouse.

 

The menu is extensive and enticing but is printed in such small script that both the wife and I could read it only by using our phones to magnify. 

 

The wife chose a steak sandwich (R128)

but somehow didn’t internalise that the description referred to a chimichurri dressing, and she was a tad put out by the fiery chilli in her mouthsful of tender, succulent steak on home-made rustic bread. She ordered a side of fries for an additional R28,00  and wasn’t  impressed with them. They weren’t bad, they weren’t good either and could’ve done with at least one more dip in the deep fryer to crisp up the exterior and for some colour.

 

My choice was the so-called Lebanese wrap (R99),

with bacon, scrambled egg, haloumi and greens. It was a good  dish with creamy eggs and crisp bacon, and perhaps less haloumi than I would’ve liked. The only let down was that the one half of the wrap had a piquant hit of chilli, which was somehow not repeated in the other half, which suffered accordingly because it was bland and seemed under seasoned.

 

For afters, the wife had the baked lemon meringue cheesecake (R80)

, which was a ray of sunshine in her day after the relative disappointment of the chilli steak and the underwhelming fries. For me, when I had a taste, the texture of the cheesecake was too similar to a fridge cheesecake and not the dry texture I appreciate in a good baked cheesecake but I will concede that it was scrumptious.

 

My dessert was the apple crumble tart (R65) and clotted cream (the alternatives were ice cream or simple cream) and it was okay. The crumble formed too much of a hard shell, and was proportionally  too much for the apple filling, of which I’d have liked more, but the tart was tasty and I adored the clotted cream.

 

The bill was R555,00 (including two cappuccinos, two Americanos and a bottle of sparking water) before tip.

 

The service was friendly and efficient, and one of our waiters laughed at one of my jokes, so that was a win.

 

We liked the Bluebird Café. The atmosphere is great, the food seems to be good (though one should read the menu carefully) and it would be lovely to sit outside on  a balmy day (today was too windy) to gaze upon the vineyards. The  caveat here, though, is that there is quite a lot of traffic on the R44 and there was a thudding dancing music from another place across the way. According to the waiter, they party down over there every Saturday. For these reasons it might not be blissfully peaceful sititing outside at Bluebird Café.   Sometimes, birdsong just can’t compete.