Red Cappuccino

I've turned into a red cappuccino fan and have been ordering cup after cup with reckless abandon. I imagine Mma Ramotswe would fancy a cup herself, after a long day! Here is an excellent post about the drink along with a simple recipe.

NeighbourGoods Market

Located in Braamfontein, in the heart of the inner city, the NeighbourGoods Market is open every Saturday from 9AM to 3PM. The market covers 2 floors of an airy building and has multiple stalls setup by various food vendors including  local farmers, fine-food purveyors, organic merchants, bakers and distributors, grocers, mongers, butchers, artisan producers, celebrated local chefs, and micro enterprises. There were plenty of options to choose from: Pizza, Thai, Mexican, Paella and many more. The market was buzzing with activity and reminded us of Madrid's Mercado San Miguel.

We tried some interesting African vegetarian food, sampled all sorts of sauces, cheeses, and chocolate and ended up buying some delicious hummus and olives. The dessert stalls looked wonderful - crepes, cupcakes, Belgian waffles and more. There were also several options for drinks, wine, beer and among others, spiked tender coconut water (two shots of rum went straight into the coconut!). The open rooftop area was a great place to hang out.

An excellent local experience. There are also some nice art galleries and cafés in the area, in case you want to go on a leisurely post-prandial stroll.

Official Website.  Pictures. More pictures.

Madécasse

Malagasy chocolate maker Madécasse is transforming the chocolate business and improving communities in Madagascar. The historical practices of the global chocolate industry have negatively impacted developing countries. Currently, 85% of the world’s cocoa is grown in Africa, but less than 1% of the chocolate is made there. Madécasse is shifting chocolate production to the source in order to bridge the gap between poverty and potential in Madagascar.

Learn more about the story and watch the cool 2 min video at the bottom of the homepage.

Dholl Puri, Gateau Piment and Alouda

I loved Mauritiuas for its blend of influences, the strongest of which are French and Indian. The fresh baguettes tasted wonderful. One of our frequent meals in Mauritius was a baguette with a stuffing of our choice; the one you see here has chicken curry cooked in a chinese style. Another treat was the rare flavors of ice-cream, my favourite being Coconut and Tamarind!

One afternoon, we took the bus from Cybercity to Rose Hill at noon (cost us Rs.6). Rose Hill is one of the nearby areas (the other being Quatre Bornes where I was staying). Rose Hill reminds me of Jayanagar 4th block in Bangalore - it has a main market and is always busy and bustling with life. It's also noisy and there is plenty of traffic.

We got off at the bus station and walked through little streets to make our way into the market. Here there are little stalls (much like the Gola/Pav Bhaji stalls you can see on Juhu beach in Bombay) lined up one next to the other, with customers patiently waiting for what they ordered. I was really eager to try some local cuisine - things I've been hearing about for months now from my Mauritian colleagues. A lot of these specialties have an Indian influence and you will soon see what I mean. (Read more about Indo-Mauritians here).

The first thing we tried was "Dholl Puri". Dholl Puri is basically a kind of bread (Poori) which is stuffed with crushed pulses (dal) before it is cooked. The result is a sort of double-layered-non-sweet-Obbattu-Poori which is soft and filled with sprinklings of dal inside. When you order it and specify how spicy you want it, it is filled with this amazing red sauce which is spicy and tangy and the Dholl Puri is given to you folded in half. The right way to eat it, is to fold it further in one more half and hold it with your finger tips on one corner and eat it from the other end, so that none of the sauce spills out. Now, my dholl puri was steaming hot(which is how it should be eaten, I was told) and I had a hard time holding it like that and eating it. So I dug into it in full masala-dosa style and had a ball getting my fingers all dirty while the locals "tsk-tsk"ed at me. :)

I also tried a "Gateau Piment" which literally translates to "Chilli Cake". What is it? Ever tried a "Paruppu Vada"? I was most amused to eat a little Vada with SUCH an exotic name. It was deep fried and tasted extremely good!

After a nice round of Dholl Puri (which cost all of Rs.5 by the way) and Gateau Piment (Rs.1 each), it was time for some "Alouda". What is Alouda? Well, Alouda, is more or less, Falooda! So for Rs.10 you can get a tall glass of Alouda - which is made with cold milk, jelly, some other ingredients that I could not recognise and the glass is topped with a few delicious spoonfuls of ice cream (which was the same colour as the Alouda). Now this Alouda, is really very, very tasty. After his first sip, my colleague Debjoy's eyes opened really wide and a big smile covered his face! To wash the spicy Dholl Puri down with a giant glass of cold Alouda is a total treat - and such a delicious meal - all for Rs.16!! Fantastic lunch, I thought.

After this, we walked around in Rose Hill for quite a while trying to find something vegetarian to take back for our boss. This is no easy task, I tell you. If you are non-vegetarian, you are bound to have a good time here and if not, you are bound to be hunting for your meals (no pun intended!! :P).

Finally, we managed to find a place that would stuff a baguette with Potato and Long Beans curry and we walked back to the Bus Station. On the way, I saw two Dholl Puri vendors who were in an argument and I stopped to take a picture of the huge pile of Dholl Puri. They stopped arguing, looked at me like I was from outer space and said "errr....mademoiselle???".... I grinned and ran off to catch up with the others. I dozed through most of the afternoon.

Moroccan Harira

Picture from www.spicelines.com

Over the weekend we dined at Jules Bistro, which has some wonderful Live Jazz (they even played my favourite Herbie Hancock number Chameleon from the album Headhunters). The soup du jour was a North African Soup called “Harira” which is the traditional soup of Morocco. Apparently, it is found on almost every Moroccan menu (mental note to add this to my to-do list for Morocco, whenever I finally get to go). I enjoyed the soup very much especially since lamb is among my favorite meats. Here are some recipes from SoupSong, BBC Good Food and Spice Lines. The soup can be prepared without the meat (you can just eliminate it from the recipe!).

I am eager to share this with my French teacher, who is originally from Morocco. She spoke to us with great fondness about the beauty and culture of Morocco while we were covering a chapter about travel. I hope to go soon and cannot wait to ride on the Marrakesh Express. All on board that train!