I’d been back a week; very unusually for me, fancied beefsteak; I was in the area and…it was open!
Chef/proprietor Nick Mandeya said they’d opened for lunch and supper throughout the Christmas and New Year holidays but I gather (from several complaints e-mailed by readers), that was hardly the case at many neighbouring outlets.
This is a hardy annual chestnut. I wear two hats on the vexed question of eateries shutting for extended holiday period.
As a family man, I sympathise with restaurateurs and staff wanting to be with their nearest and dearest; but as a regular customer, I get rather miffed having no luck trying to get a meal: finding eatery after eatery locked and dark at holiday time.
After all, if you choose to enter the service sector — it seems to me — you should be there to serve the public when they most need it. And, arguably, demand is highest when punters have the leisure and disposable income to enjoy it…at holiday time, especially the year-end break with annual bonus, hopefully, paid!
Adrienne’s was almost dead when I arrived, possibly a wee bit earlier than I would normally eat supper, but soon filled to a pleasantly busy buzz. It was the night before most Zimbabwean schools re-opened, but I spotted no families giving little treasures a last minute, 11th hour eve-of-term treat. (Thank goodness!)
Soup of the day was a tasty, workmanlike home-made cream of tomato, dense, herby and very sensibly priced at just US$2 with croutons and toast.I’m a self-confessed soupaholic, but some restaurants — and this is by no means confined to Zimbabwe — are really OTT with pricing. You can make a vat of most soups for a tenner, so two bucks is usually plenty.
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Other starters (if I hadn’t craved steak, I may well have simply ordered two or three items from the start of the compact menu) included chicken giblets, or creamy huku liver pancake at US$4, same price as kofte (meat balls), African butternut and peanut butter crepes or calypso fish cakes.For US$5 there’s grilled Haloumi cheese or honey-braised chicken wings. Smoked Scottish salmon is competitively priced at US$6. Salads are from US$1 (small French) to US$5 for large salad a la Sophia Loren.
For US$3,50, a “small” Greek salad, authentically — but very unusually outside the Hellenic peninsula — had no lettuce. Plump, purplish un-pitted olives were unctuously luscious; there were tasty bean-sprouts I can’t recall before in Greek salad. More-ish, they’re also very good for you.
On the down side, feta cheese had obviously been kept a day or two longer than its best by date and was disappointingly dry.
I’m not the world’s greatest fan of grilled dead beef, but it had been at least two months since any steak crossed my lips. Fillet isn’t a favourite cut; I ordered it as I wasn’t starving and the portion was 350g uncooked (US$15.) T-bone, sirloin and rump were all 500g presentations at US$17.
The well-hung nyama was cooked with precision, exactly as ordered: juicily, pink inside, slightly seared outside; no fat or gristle; anointed in a gratis crispy garlic sauce, accompanied by two medium-sized jacket baked potatoes with sour cream and a stack of young stir-fried vegetables, plus about half the Greek salad I’d held back for that purpose.
Service, on head waiter Paul’s night off, was prompt, pleasant and polite.
Adrienne’s mains are all reasonably priced, some popular dishes being half a Beira (piri-piri) chicken, chicken schnitzel, Kandahar chicken curry, or spicy garlic pork at US$10. Fish and chips, calamari, or Kariba bream are US$12, as are chicken Kiev, kebabs or stir-fried chicken with peppers.
At US$13, there’s Madras beef curry or stir-fried Chinese pepper steak; grilled whole baby spicy chicken or braised oxtail costs US$14 and, at US$15, it’s poached cod Hollandaise, grilled Mozambique prawns, fillet of kingklip or lamb curry.
Grilled rosemary lamb chops and pan-fried fillet of Scotch salmon top the bill, cost wise, at US$18 and US$20, respectively.
For the not-so-hungry (or more skint!) member of the party there is a choice of light meals, pastas and vegetarian at US$5-US$6.
My main New Year’s resolution lasted exactly 10 days! I had decided not to, routinely, eat puddings on restaurant reviews. (Unless the sweet was something really special, new, innovative or world-stopping.)
Well I know Adrienne’s dessert list backwards and have done for the last dozen years! Probably that was the reason I couldn’t resist warm home-made, dinky, fruit-filled apple crumble with a dollop of ice-cream melting through the crust at US$3.
I had a couple of Pilseners with the savoury dishes, a cup of tea (yep!) with sweet and on my way out was inveigled into joining friends at their table for a nightcap glass of Merlot.
A splendid evening’s end to a hectic, but enjoyable day with first-rate food and drink served pleasingly professionally at an agreeable bottom line. Soup, salad, steak, sweet US$23,50.
