South African FOOD adventure

(Questionable picture included in this post - viewer discretion is advised - try not to read this if you've just eaten or are about to eat!)

For lunch today, my coworkers took me out to a place called sophiatown with the intention of having South African cuisine.  Apparently Sophiatown has a bit of history associated with it.  It used to be a secret hangout place for the black people. (Please forgive my politically incorrectness - they seem to not have this problem down here in South Africa).  Here's an excerpt on the history from their page...

"During the 1940’s and 1950’s Sophiatown became the symbolic centre of black culture in Johannesburg, South Africa focussing on the arts, politics, religion and entertainment. Life in Sophiatown after World War 1 was characterised by a sense of community, dance, music, and beer that was home-brewed. "

Sophiatown in newtown

They weren't too happy that I was taking pictures - but it's the coolest bar area ever

alcohol barrel turned upside town and turned into cushioned seats

The government has recently invested money in redeveloping the area and this restaurant was rebuilt.  There were about two very South African dishes, one being the Boerewors sausage that was served with some porridge type starch thing (it was not described to me in the most appetizing way), and the other was the tripe (apparently there was no distinction between cow tripes nor sheep tripes).  I personally do eat tripe (at dim sum places and at pho) but they are mainly cow tripes.  I was worried that I won't like the gaminess if it was sheep so decided to not take the risk.

In the end, I went for curry chicken and it was very delicious.  I did try some of my coworker's tripe.. and it was not too gamy, but I liked my curry better.  The surroundings of the restaurant was beautiful and it looks out onto the Museum Africa (which none of my lunch company has been to - and traveladvisor has them quite low on the list of things to do - hence, it's off my list).

passion fruit and soda

Chloe's chicken burger

Tripe stew

Maize and beans, spinach and butternut squash

My curry chicken

By the time we returned to the office, the rest of the gang were very interested in what we had eaten.  When we said curry, they started teasing us that it was not very south african and that we were not in india.  Then, one of my coworkers was heating up her favourite South African snack from the North - mopani worms!)  So, we felt like we should be adventurous and try it (Sarah, the other VolCon) so we split one up and tasted it.

Mopani worms

When Sarah was trying to split it, it was actually quite difficult.  And by the time I had it in my mouth I realized why that was the case.  The mopani worms are quite chewy even though they started out dried, and you had to pour hot water on it, heat it up and then drain it .  It tasted a bit smoky and it has the texture of very chewy dried seaweed.  The taste was not what was scary though, it's just not very GOOD to look at ... I couldn't really look at it again afterwards either.  I would strongly advise you NOT to try to google them, because some of those google images are just disgusting... *shudders*

Anywho, that was the story of how I ate a worm today...

Oh p.s. I've decided to start an asian spotting count, and by asian i mean oriental in our definition (Apparenlty Oriental means islamic/people from India here in South Africa, which I thought was quite interesting.)  So far, if we exclude the one lady that was on the plane to Joburg with me (who was clearly from Canada because she was using Mountain co-op gears), I have spotted 1 other Asian in the past week.

Let's see what how the asian count evolves!

Other sophiatown pictures

i bought low fat milk and banana bread

it has a lot of south african musicians