Strolla
Look, it was a hot day, and work was rubbish, and lunch with a view sounded like a much better idea. So we did what others have probably done before us: abandoned home, and headed into the breach.
There are a whole bunch of supposedly “must-try” rooftop bars in the city which promise great vistas, but none really seemed to tick that day’s box, so we ended up at Strolla, because the view there is at least as good as La Perla‘s, and given what a complete rip-off La Perla has become, surely lunch would be better here.
And so it was. Kinda. At least in the sense of being mostly comical, rather than the kind of meal you walk away from seething with irritation at having wasted time, money and precious calories.
It started with the wine, which was a little on the warm side, so we asked our friendly server to pour just small glasses to start, after which he proceeded to pour the grumpy man I had dragged along a glass that was virtually two-thirds full. Oh well. Ice.
Then we began to peruse the menu, which turned into a longer conversation about what it says about a place when the menus look rubbish — as these do — because the printing is skew (or the laminator was drunk). Fortunately I’m always in tip top control freak mode of steering people back to the food, so we tried to focus instead on what the menus offered.
Quite a lot, as it turns out (focus people!), including a “Paté de jour”, which sounded interesting enough, until that open another rabbit-hole of whether the correct term is de jour or du jour for such a menu application.
Sometimes Googling stuff at a table is the only way to settle a dispute. This wasn’t one of those times.
Oh well. The second description is at least short and sweet, and seemed to work passably in combination with the word paté on this menu. We then enquired as to what exactly was de jour (at the risk of redundancy) on this day. The answer was “parma ham”, which seemed to definitely not work well in combination with the word paté, so we didn’t order that.
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We did order a trio of sausages with chimichurri (good stuff, you should make it), lamb croquettes (also with, uhm, chimichurri), and nachos with pulled pork for good measure.
Good lord.
Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t terrible, though we did agree that “croquettes” is perhaps too dainty a word to describe these hulking balls of shredded lamb (which was tasty, but whatever that black dipping stuff was — I suspect the answer may be “jus” — was just a salty mess), and there wasn’t anything very appetising about what looked like a bag of tomato Doritos had been emptied onto a slate and topped with a glob of cheddar. And then some feta cubes as a dainty afterthought?
One of the trio of sausages was very tasty, while another tasted suspiciously like boerewors parading as bratwurst. I hate it when they do that.
I must also report that when combined in the right way, tomato Doritos with a bit of pulled pork, cold melted cheddar, some avo, salsa and sour cream can be rather satisfying in a slightly shameful kind of way. So no, there wasn’t much left on that piece of repurposed tile when the meal was over.
But you know how people eat at different rates, and some are still busy while others linger with a post-prandial glass of wine after the collective nom is over? And how it’s really rude when servers start clearing away plates while someone is still eating? That almost didn’t happen! Because when the server tried to clear away a plate with a “can I clear that?”, the grumpy one offered a polite but firm version of “Don’t”, after which the plate was summarily whisked away.
Maybe things just aren’t what they seem at Strolla, or mean what normal people think they mean. Or maybe it was just another hot day in the city with dodgy service. Cape Town du jour.
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Originally published at 2ladieswholunchblog.wordpress.com on October 21, 2016.
