The fam celebrates at Homespun

 18 August 2023

 

HOMESPUN

Andros Boutique Hotel, Phyllis & Newlands Roads, Claremont, Cape Town.

 

The fam gathered at Homespun for the younger goddaughter’s significant other’s fourth annual 28^thbirthday celebration. The wife and I had eaten here for an anniversary last year, the younger goddaughter and her guy had been to the Tableview branch once before and the elder goddaughter was a newbie to the Homespun thang.

 

I still find the room very elegant, though some comments unkindly, I thought, referenced Biggie Best. The décor is sedate but it’s not twee. The sound baffles on the ceiling took care of the ambient noise from a full house.

 

We took advantage of the winter special of a three-course  meal, with add-ons, for R595,00 a head. A R2000,00 deposit was required to secure the booking.

 

Three of the party shared respectively a bottle of Gabriëlskloof Sauvignon Blanc and their Shiraz, there was an alcohol-free cocktail and I had two tots of the Homespun gin. 

 

When I ordered, I forgot to specify a mixer, nor did our server suggest one, and when the others at the table pointed out my faux pas with some mirth at my expense, I was too stubborn, after the fact, to ask for tonic or similar, and stuck to my gin on the rocks, and, damn, I realised  that a good, citrus-infused gin undiluted by foreign substances is quite appealing. Never again will I pollute my Aviation gin with Dry Lemon.

 

The amuse bouche, in an elaborate setting, is called “ostrich origin story,” one-crunch morsels served in metal petri dishes filled with  uncooked popcorn kernels, perching on a small log. A bit dramatic, innit. 

 

Our server, Brie (well, she did say we could remember her by thinking of our other favourite French cheese that’s not Camembert; wait, what? Comté?), who took a dramatic actor’s delight in describing the dishes to us in minute, mouth watering detail, did tell us what the origin story was but the mouthful was too subtle for me to recall.

 

We’ve had the “boerewors roll” bread course before and it’s still ingenious: onion relish in a hollow red onion combined with liquid fat (surreptitiously brought to the table as an innocuous candle) to produce that characteristic aroma and taste of a South African street food staple. 

All of us chose the pork belly pancake (instead of the prawn dumpling or daikon dishes) and all of us were  quite satisfied with the supremely tender pork enhanced by a rich glaze on a small, soft pancake, that one could fold up and eat as a small taco. The crackling has the texture of a prawn crisp and has no flavour.

 

The “love potion” palate cleanser is another bit of table theatre with a small crystal-glass phial nestling amidst dry ice cubes, mysteriously emerging from an obscuring cloud of dry ice.  The potion itself was sweet and pleasant but the presentation overgilded an anodyne product.

 

Nobody wanted the “earth tones” vegetarian main course. Four of five ordered the slow cooked short rib with parsnip, pomme Anna and a ponzu jus.

Ever the ferociously idiosyncratic contrarian, my choice was the hake with squid dukkah, yuzu and leek creamies.

 

The carnivores raved about the short rib and I will admit that its flavour profile was probably far more robust and visceral than my well-cooked chunk of fish and tasty bits and bobs but I was well happy with my choice too. Hake doesn’t get respect in Cape Town and that’s a shame.  Kingklip isn’t the be all and end all of linefish.

 

The next bit of theatre was the house speciality, the “electric daisy,” which underwhelmed me last time.

 

Today, I chewed the flower, allowed it to linger on my lips and took small sips of the MCC before I ate the sorbet. Firstly, my lips tingled sharply from just the flower but the  electric charge came when I sipped the sparkling wine. As one of the goddaughters said, it was like licking a battery.  How she would know that, is a mystery to me, but the simile seemed spot on. It is a supremely weird taste that is partly almost uncomfortable, partly hugely exciting and, dare I say it, intoxicating and bordering on addictive.

 

This is a palate cleaner if I ever had one.

 

The quite pleasant sorbet is made from repurposed fruit cut up for breakfast  but not consumed, and it kind of kills the electric vibe.

 

My dessert, as had been the case last time around, was  “not banana,” the frozen granadilla in the shape of a banana and sprayed with white chocolate. This time the presentation was in an elaborate ceramic setting of a leaf held by a monkey.  The lightness and subtly sharp freshness  was the perfect way to end the meal and, in its way, another palate cleanser.

 

Some of the others chose the olive chocolate garden dessert with coffee, tonka and toffee, and it was also very good.

The finale was a collection of three scrumptious petit fours: macaron, chocolate truffle and chocolate tubelet. 

When Matt was circulating through the room the elder goddaughter called him over to thank him for the meal and he guided us through the “electric daisy” happening and gave us the backstory, which was a nice touch. 

 

The bill, with coffees, came to R4 245,00 before tip and before deduction of the deposit.

 

It was a good evening with life, laughter and love, and splendid food.