Winter set menu at Mantra Café

 20 June 2024

 

MANTRA CAFÉ

43 Victoria Road, Camp’s Bay, Cape Town

 

Winter in Cape Town officially starts when “winter warmer specials” become a thing. Each year the wife receives an email with a list of all the specials in Cape Town and surrounding areas and it’s always cause for high excitement, given how many really good eateries participate.  The Cape winter must be really tough on local restaurants.  

 

The fam (the wife, assorted goddaughters with their  significant others and I) gathered at Mantra Café for the three-courses-for-R350,00-a-person” winter set menu (R200 a head deposit payable upfront when booking) and it was indeed special, a few niggles excepted.

 

I didn’t peruse the  a la carte menu because I was eating the set menu but those who did, commented on the high prices of the dishes and the wines on offer, which means that this special is really good value for money.

 

We sat in the front area of the restaurant, at the one side wall, with a view over the street and beach, dwarfed by a huge black and white photograph mural of naked Chippendale lookalikes jogging along a beach, with their manly thighs and buttocks to the viewer. I don’t know whether it’s intended as a conversation starter or a conversation killer but it sure is eye-catching. 

Other than the set menu, we ordered many drinks to fuel the festive feel of the occasion. I raised a glass to healthy young manhood. 

 

My selection was the lentil fritters, the beef ribs and the burnt honey apple dessert.  

 

The fritters were substantial,  crunchy on the outside and creamy inside, sublimely enhanced by the delicately teasing heat from the curried yoghurt.

The beef had big flavour, the mash was creamy and the vegetables, though a tad chewy instead of being crisply al dente, were tasty. Just the kind of hearty, belly filling dish you’d want on a cold winter’s night. The only minor criticism here was that the beef could perhaps have spent a few more minutes cooking, as it didn’t quite fall off the bone and there were stringy, fibrous bits. 

 

The apple dessert (generally my default choice) was quite substantial. The crumb was moist, just sweet enough and absolutely marvellous; probably the hight point of a very good meal, if I must rate the courses.  

The wife’s starter was the seafood soup, which she thoroughly enjoyed though she, and the elder goddaughter who also stared with it, felt that it was a corn soup with seafood flavour and was  a tad under seasoned.

The younger goddaughter ordered the gnocchi as her main and was disappointed  because she felt that there was more pumpkin than gnocchi, which should have been the star of the dish, and the gnocchi didn’t quite have that melt-in-the-mouth lightness they ought to have.  

 

The elder goddaughter’s SO had the fishcake with langoustine as his main and absolutely loved the dish. 

 

There were two takers for the chocolate tart which was  rich but not too sweet; an excellent chocolate dessert option. 

(Certain people simply failed to photograph their food, hence the lack of visuals.)

 

The wife paid the full deposit of R1200. The other five shared the nett bill of the night, of which I took no note, so have no idea what the total bill came to.

 

All-in-all it was a solid night out with great food and interesting wall art for feasting with the eyes.