On Monday I was back for the eatery’s first anniversary party (what a lovely idea: inviting 100 or so of your very best customers and — pass the sickbag, I hate the word, “stakeholders” — who helped make a success of a venture to eat, drink, party and “network” on the house), and we almost froze!
I wore a T-shirt, polo shirt, light v-necked jumper and fairly heavy “fleece” but my extremities felt like they were somewhere else. (Probably in Lapland with Santa Clause!) At work, next day, a security guard sported woolly hand-knitted mittens, which made him look even more of a prize Wally than usual.
I was bollocked roundly by Da Eros management for not patronising the delightful place enough and could only defend myself by stating how often I’d been out of the country (and indeed Africa) in the past 12 months; coupled with a pressing professional need to visit as wide a cross-section of restaurants, coffee shops, clubs, pubs and bars as possible, to satisfy the avaricious demands of at least two weekly restaurant review columns.
In any case, I clearly recalled going there for Sunday lunch immediately after a February Persian Gulf cruise. The heavens opened and a young crooner, warbling standards popular in the 40s, 50s and 1960s, (probably before his parents were pupped) had a mad scramble to sweep laptop, microphone, amplifier and other expensive electronic gizmos to dry safety.
Drinks flowed like water once did in the Sunshine City of Harare at the anniversary party. Nice snacks circulated early and there was a scrumptious buffet supper comprising four different pasta dishes served in two tranches.
The same young warbler, Josh Ainslie, belted out numbers Frank Sinatra and Major Glenn Miller made popular and a talented local saxophonist also entertained with timeless tunes.
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Next day I went to Da Eros for lunch. The fleece was left on an office door hook and (a different) v-neck was soon whipped off and hung on a chair back as powerful — fierce even — sun poured through a clear plastic window in a marquee/tent in the garden.
The restaurant was as usual full; there was not a single seat on the shady stoep or under majestic trees to enjoy dappled, filtered, sunlight. Again I broiled!
Stunning Nassy Prandini, of Italian-Ethiopian descent, a partner, called at the table with the latest Prandini, young Daniel, not quite one-year-old; “Ginger” Olivier, an old face on the Harare catering scene, was meeting, greeting and seating.
He tells me he’s been in Zambia for yonks, running a luxury safari lodge for the permanent secretary to the President of our northern neighbour. So Zambian civil servants also do themselves rather well? When I was a snivel serpent in Zimbabwe (before it was called that!) permanent secretaries (then just “secretaries”) were as poor as chapel mice. (Poorer relatives of church mice!)
Due to a snafu, the trademark vegetable-rich minestrone soup (US$5) I thought I’d ordered didn’t arrive, but when I saw the size of the portion of my fish mixed grill (grigliati mista di pesce: US$16) that was no train smash.
There was hake: a big fillet of moist, tasty pearly-white flakey fish in a crispy deep-fried golden batter; prawns: plenty of them, probably queen-size and cooked to perfection; calamari, which is so easy to make a muck of overcooking. This was timed perfectly, not a hint of the dreaded rubbery-iness so often encountered, especially in land-locked countries.
Of offered starches: baked potato, rice and chips, I chose the latter, mainly because I haven’t had them for weeks. (Not since I left the UK on what now seems to have been the last AZ flight south?)
Vegetables were again cooked splendidly: fresh peas, cauliflower and julienned carrots with more than a smidgen of a good side salad.I’ve suggested to owner Nevio Prendini before, maybe they should consider serving half-portions. I didn’t clear my piled plate as it was. If I’d had a starter, I wouldn’t have managed half of it.
It was school holidays and Italian-Ethiopians don’t just love kids, they worship them. The place was full of ankle-biters eating pasta, pizza and pudding and scrambling in and out of the tree house and jungle gym.
Of course most of these likeable lighties are accompanied by yummy mummies with trim tummies and tight bummies who, I am sure, would really welcome a nice healthy, slimming fresh fruit salad on the pudding list. I thought panna-cotta sounded the least gargantuan sweet on the list and enjoyed it tremendously (US$5).
The car-park was as full of late model 4WDs as the Birmingham Motor Show, many of them with CD (can’t drive) or TCE (they can’t either!) plates. As often is the case some of them had WFP (World Food Programme) registrations. A born-again cynic, I always find it amusing that these international civil servant, in ZIMBABWE — a “hardship allowance posting — tasked with avoiding global famine, usually manage to pleasantly stave-off their own personal hunger pangs most lunch-times!
Da Eros is a rambling former Colonial-style dwelling with eating areas inside/outside and on a verandah. Table cloths are the traditional red-and-white gingham. In the days when numbers from Mr Ainslie’s play list were contemporaneously top of the pops, these would each have had an antique wicker-wrapped Chianti bottle, crowned with the stub of a candle and with three years’ worth of candle-grease smearing the sides.Personally, I love the place, which opens Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 10pm.Da Eros, East Road, Avondale.
Dusty Miller- [email protected]
