Lots of meat! - the Grillhouse & Carnivore

 Catch up post 2 of 2 (pre-bush) aka South African Food Adventure Part IV (if you've missed the previous parts  - you can access them here: Part I, Part II, Part III)

** Gotta get this post out of the way in order to get to my magical bush experience.. i'm just sorting out over 14Gb of pictures right now. Once pictures are sorted and uploaded then the posts will come, promise**

As mentioned in my previous post, I will elaborate on my food experience at Carnivore.  But before I get right into it. I want to talk about my Grillhouse experience.  My future INSEAD classmates who are in Joburg right now decided that it would be good to have our second get together at a steakhouse.  South African prides themselves on meat, and steak at steakhouses are supposedly wonderful.  They decided to introduce me to this heavenly beef-goodness at the Grillhouse at Rosebank.

beautiful purple jacaranda trees

me attempting to take pictures while driving...

The Grillhouse was located in the fancier area of Rosebank (Rosebank is a giant complex with a few malls connected to each other).  And people at the restaurants were quite dressed up.  Apparently during the world cup, people would book the private rooms to have steak and to watch the games together - the fancy way.

After some deliberation (and consulting with the others), I went for the Rump steak.  A cut that has a little bit of fat, but is not too fatty.    I had to take into consideration that I eat my steak quite cooked (medium well at the rarest) but I do know when things are overcooked (then it just tastes like a bad burger).   We also ordered some sides to share - cream spinach and mushrooms. (Creamed spinach is also a very popular side in South African restaurants).  The server was a bit confused and thanks to my new buddies, he finally got my order (the meal itself comes with no sauce or regular bbq bastings, or you can add money and get other sauce). I was recommended that the bastings would be enough so I went with that.. but just had trouble ordering.

Delicious bread

My rump steak!

steak with a bone in it

The sides

chicken

chicken livers (peri-peri) - south african loves their chicken livers

My rump steak was delicious and I think it was my new favourite cut of a cow to eat ;)

Mouth watering, isn't it?  It doesn't end here.  So to pick up where we left off in my last catch up post.  Derrick and I went to the Carnivore restaurant.  Carnivore is an African restaurant that started in Kenya. The idea, as its name suggest, is to serve/eat a lot of meat, it's almost like a Brazilian buffet.  Before I left Canada, my good friend Jasper said that if there's one thing I need to do in Africa, it is to go to a Carnivore.  There is only one location of Carnivore in Johannesburg (and possibly only one in South Africa) and it is very close to the cradle.  I knew that I had to go there for dinner if I end up driving out to the cradle.

Lucky for me, Derrick grew up on a farm and loves meat.  When I suggested the idea, he was super excited to go.  (later on, he claimed that he had found heaven with one hand rubbing his full tummy).

Because we were so speedy in our exploration of Maropeng and Sterkfontein, we ended up showing up at around 5pm at Carnivore (when our reservation was at 6pm).  We were actually quite unsure of how it works (I just knew there would be a lot of meat, but I was unaware of how it works), so we explored the area a bit (it was in a hotel complex) and then went to the bar to have a few drinks.  There, Derrick showed me the wonders of Schwepps Dry lemon (they do not sell this in Canada), and it was a good bitter lemonade (I now have a 6 pack in my fridge even though I don't usually drink carbonated stuff since my default liquid is always water).

ooh the grill area

be aware of our FIRES and CARVERS carrying SHARP knives and swords.. sounds scary

the area still setting up

We drank and chatted and Derrick shared his crazy Africa trip stories (including seeing pirates, and ppl threatening to kidnap him, etc) - *fingers crossed* Derrick's mom is not reading this.  Meanwhile, the restaurant was still setting up its tables (like literally moving tables and chairs around as well as setting the places).   In addition, the grill started and we can see meat on swords being hung over the fire and we got quite excited I must say. At around 6pm, we got taken to our table and the menu was explained to us.

This was a buffet experience.  For R195 a person (~ $28 CAD), you get soup, salad, an assorted array of unlimited meat and dessert!  Everything is brought right to you, including the meat! Here's how it's done:

Meat on the grill!

zebra print

Check out the selection meat !!!

If the flag is up, the food will come, if you need a break, it needs to go sideways, if  you're done eating, you have to take the flag off

Spinach soup, it was delicious

Duwa (?) it's like a caprinha (can't spell)

sauce plate at the top and they are specific for which meat: cranberry for pork, horseradish for beef, garlic sauce for croc, rosemary for lamb, mustard for game

this was vegetable stew

first meat that came on our super hot plates - periperi chicken liver!

Sword with chicken breasts

counter -clockwise starting from the chicken livers, then chicken breast, potato, spare ribs, eland sausage (i do not like that one)

Sword pork

Yes these servers walk around with swords and sharp knives!

zebra - which is actually quite delicious and not gamy at all

The new meats are Gembok (pronounced "Ham"), springbok and pork sausage. Top corner is kudu meatball (forgot if it was gamy)  I really like the springbok!

I was so full afterwards that I didn't feel like I could eat for the week (didn't help that i fly out the next day and ended up getting spoiled and pampered for 2 weeks - 3 courses per meal, 3 meals a day!)

Anywho, the next set of food adventures will be from the bush kitchen!  stay tuned!