A return to the Silk road.

 8 April 2025

 

SILK ASIAN FUSION

108 Shortmarket Street, Cape Town

 

Being the credulous, trusting kind of person I am, I wasn’t suspicious that skullduggery was afoot when Von-Mari suggested I take the night off from cooking dinner and that we should take advantage of Restaurant Week (a month, in truth) and go for a bite to eat at a surprise location where  she’d booked and where small plates were the norm. Well, let’s at it then.

 

When we stepped into the dining room at Silk, Von-Mari greeted other, as yet unseen (by me), patrons with an utterly convincing exclamation of astonishment at meeting them there. 

 

When I came within visual recognition range, they were the younger goddaughter and her fiancé. I marvelled at the coincidence that they’d chosen this night of all nights to eat at Silk too. Then I saw that they were seated at a table for six where Von-Mari was about to make herself comfortable and the Kruger Rand dropped.

 

I’d been conned into attending a surprise, belated celebratory dinner for my birthday, with the fam who hadn’t been with us on the weekend.

 

The Restaurant Week deal was R285,00 for three tapas plates though I understood from Von-Mari, and the menu, that this is the general deal anyway. A bit of gaslighting, then.

 

Anyhow, it’s a good deal but you’d better choose  your three small plates wisely to get a good bellyful, as the elder goddaughter found to her moderate distress. I could see a McDonalds drive thru in her future when she expressed dismay at not quite having consumed an elegant sufficiency.

 

I drank bubbly, Von-Mari drank white wine and the rest exulted in a variety of enticing and fun cocktails, the kind where there is much reciprocal sipping of the others’ drinks accompanied by complimentary oohs and aahs and mild envy.

 

The tapas choices fill one and half pages of the menu and the variety is quite pleasing and there should be something for anyone who fancies Asian food that’s a little off the beaten track although not totally unfamiliar. 

 

My choices were the seared squid, karaage cauliflower and tender stem broccoli, a good combination, I thought, of protein and plant based, with varied tastes and flavours and that was quite filling.

 

The squid was perfectly cooked, still succulent, and the Japanese tartare sauce was exhilarating.

The delicately al dente cauliflower  was presented in a crisp shell and the tahini dipping sauce was sublime.

I chose the broccoli because, amongst the garlic, ginger, chilli and toasted cashew nuts, there was mention of peanut sauce, and was slightly miffed that any presence of peanut was overwhelmed by the other flavours.

 

Von-Mari had the bao buns with crispy fish with Jalapeño mayo and Asian slaw (a good, filling dish in need of a bit more mayo or sauce for optimal unctuousness)

, the  KFC wings tossed in gochujang sauce and with sesame (so finger-licken-good she forgot to take a pic) and for her main, the beef sirloin with mushroom sauce (she is a carnivore at heart) and she was well happy with the succulent tenderness and deep flavour.

 

The rest chose a representative variety of dishes I can’t possibly recall and, other than the goddaughter’s issue with not choosing more filling dishes, my impression was that everyone ate very well  and satisfactorily.

I also have no photographs of any dishes other than the few displayed here.

 

My only niggle is that the server apparently didn’t take note of my request, amidst taking other drinks orders, for a second glass of bubbly, which meant that I went home rather more sober than I’d expected to be.

 

Von-Mari took care of most of the bill while the others paid for their drinks, so I can’t divulge any details.

 

It was a splendid evening, filled with celebration and love and made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.