Courgette carpaccio with feta and parmesan.
Image: Frank Chemaly
Where: Durban Country Club, 101 Isaiah Ntshangase Road, Stamford Hill
Open: Monday to Saturday noon to 10pm, Sunday noon to 5pm.
Call: 031 015 5895
The Glass Guy felt like his grandmother’s cooking and so this week we went Italian.
Grimaldi’s at Durban’s Country Club had always been a reliable local. It’s a smart modern restaurant, the service is very good and you can sit outside on a balmy winter’s evening - which we did. Plus it offers good value for a mid-week pop out and covers most Italian bases well.
Starters might include anything from a simple bowl of mixed marinated olives to chicken livers in a piquant peri-peri sauce with fresh chilli and cream, or halloumi served with homemade onion chutney. Calamari is done a variety of ways — tentacles or tubes — and there are fresh black mussels in a creamy wine sauce. Other options include salmon carpaccio, prawns gratinated under the grill, fresh oysters and a mezze platter.
One of the highlights here is the snails Gorgonzola, which I’ve enjoyed previously. The other standout is the rolled pork belly with wholegrain mustard, topped with an orange and honey jus, and garnished with baked apple. This really was an exceptionally good dish.
I opted for an intriguing dish of baby marrow carpaccio (R89) which was delicate slices of baby marrow drizzled with chilli olive oil and dusted with Danish feta and Parmesan cheese and gratinated until golden. Sadly, this dish was on the bland side. There was little evidence of the chilli oil and not enough Parmesan to get the gratination going. Danish feta is never going to do the trick - it just melts into creamy blobs. It tasted a lot better with a heavy cracking of black pepper and a good glug of olive oil.
Crab soup.
Image: Frank Chemaly
The Glass Guy tried the crab soup (R135), to take him back to his Sicilian roots. This had a much deeper flavour with a good hint of chilli in the tomato base. The only thing was it was stacked with a very heavy dollop of minced raw onion, which somehow worked against the sweetness of the crab. But he enjoyed it.
There is also a substantial four-page sushi menu we didn’t even really look at.
Mains include all the usual steak suspects — fillet and rump — plus the classic Florentine steak, which is basically a T-bone. Lamb shank, lamb chops, and oxtail appeared on the specials menu, alongside the usual sides and sauces.
A chourizo, creamy leek and parsley pizza.
Image: Frank Chemaly
The fish menu is substantial, with everything from a very simple, good beer-battered fish and chips with tartar sauce, to a very fancy line fish topped with prawns in Thermidor sauce and gratinated under the grill. It made me think of my mum’s late friend Judy, who passed away this month. Whenever we met here for birthdays, this was always her special treat. Queen prawns, king prawns, crayfish, and Norwegian salmon all complete the picture.
There’s also a substantial selection of pastas. I’ve had the carbonara in the past — a rich, smoky bacon and Parmesan creation done in the traditional way. Mama’s meatballs feature, as do butternut ravioli, frutti di mare, and of course your traditional Bolognese.
The Glass Guy now decided he felt like something different and went for the half chicken (R165), which was deboned and flame grilled with a really good peri-peri sauce and decent chips. He really enjoyed it. And he attacked it before I got the camera out.
I decided I’d try a pizza, something I don’t normally do. They have conventional pizzas, and I generally don’t move away from conventional pizzas for a reason, but today the idea of chourico and leeks in a creamy sauce with parsley sounded like it would make a wonderful combination (R169). The spice from the chorizo would cut through the rich, creamy leeks and the parsley give it an appealing freshness. It tasted good, but unfortunately it didn’t work on a pizza. The creamy base gave the rest of the toppings nothing to stick to. When you picked up a slice of the super thin base pizza, everything slid off onto the plate. So you had to eat it with a knife and fork which is certainly not the “traditional” way of eating a pizza.
Tiramisu
Image: Frank Chemaly
Desserts include crème brûlée and panna cotta — today’s flavour was rose or hibiscus or something floral if I remember. There’s also chocolate lava cake. I was tempted by another favourite, the Affogato, served with Amarula and a shot of espresso.
But we decided to share the tiramisu (R79). Now this is the Glass Guy’s favourite dessert, and he makes an exceptionally good one himself. Unfortunately, I have a potted history with tiramisu. On my first attempt I split the mascarpone, and on my second I scrambled the eggs. A promised tiramisu then morphed into pavlova as it was the only thing I could think of doing with the egg whites. I finally came to a recipe that I can get right, but it’s not a patch on the Glass Guy’s.
Here the tiramisu had very little booze and very little espresso as well. It was pleasant, not too sweet and enjoyable, but suffered from being a plain Jane instead of the great “pick-me-up” dessert it is meant to be.
Food: 3
Service: 4
Ambience: 3 ½
The Bill: R745 for two