Southern Africa does not have a hugely developed cuisine that it can call its own, but there are a few dishes worth looking out for. Easiest on the newly initiated palate are the Cape Malay dishes, characterized by sweet aromatic curries. These include bobotie, a delicious baked meatloaf, mildly curried and served with chutney; and bredie, a tomato-based stew, usually with lamb. Another Cape delicacy not to be missed is waterblommetjie bredie, or waterlily stew, usually cooked with lamb. Many South African menus also feature Karoo lamb, favored because the sweet and aromatic herbs and grasses of this arid region flavor the animals as they graze, and ostrich, a delicious red meat that tastes more like beef than anything else and is extremely healthy. Your dessert may be melktert, a cinnamon-flavored custard tart of Dutch origin; malva pudding, served with hot custard; or koeksisters, plaited doughnuts, deep-fried and dipped in syrup.
On the East Coast, Durban is famed for its Indian curries, whose burn potential is indicated by such ingenious names as Honeymooners' Delight (hot) and Mother-in-Law Exterminator (damn hot!). The coastline supplies seafood in abundance: fish, abalone, mussels, oysters, crabs, squid, langoustines, and the Cape's famous rock lobster (crayfish), but for a uniquely South African-flavored seafood feast, you'll need to head for one of the West Coast beach restaurants. Here, snoek, a firm white fish, is traditionally served with konfyt (fruits preserved in sugar syrup, from the French confit, a legacy of the French Huguenots).
Look for the spiraling smoke trailing over suburban fences and township yards each weekend, when throughout the country South Africans barbecue fresh meat over coals. The ubiquitous braaivleis (barbecues) or tshisanyamas (literally "burn the meat") feature anything from ostrich to boerewors; the latter, a coriander-spiced beef-and-pork sausage, is arguably South Africa's staple meat. The most basic African foodstuff is corn, most popularly eaten as pap, a ground maize porridge, and not unlike polenta, or the rougher wholegrain samp, and served with a vegetable- or meat-based sauce.
If you're a serious gourmand or are going to be here for a while, there are three restaurant guides worth purchasing: Eat Out (www.eatout.co.za), an annual overview of restaurants throughout the country with an annual top 10, is very thorough, but its size may make it a little unwieldy; dine, published by wine magazine, also covers the country, with an annual top 100, but is a slim, pocket-size booklet. Equally so is Rossouw's Restaurants (www.rossouwsrestaurants.com), an annual guide to restaurants in Cape Town, the Winelands, and the Garden Route. The latter divides top picks according to budget, as well as useful selections under categories like "Family" and "Romantic"; best of all, reviews are sent in by Cape diners, so you're not being influenced by one food critic's palate.
