Best and Worst of RTW Eats: South Africa edition
Dining in South Africa was a bit boring. The food for the most part is quite like what you can find in the US (Asian, Mediterranean...), with only a few exceptions being the kwota, Cape Malay (too sweet and not spicy enough for me), the minced beef curry called bobotie (see Cape Malay), and a few other foods. Even in Cape Town which a lot of people say is a foodie's city, I was rather underwhelmed.
The Best
I already wrote about Nando's Portuguese-inspired chicken here, having had it my last day in Australia (Nando's operates on five continents now, but not in Portugal not surprisingly, and unfortunately can only be found in DC in the US). The signature dish, peri-peri chicken, is just addictively spicy, sour, and juicy...my mouth is watering as I type this. Served with fries topped with peri-peri sprinkles, on nice china, with an ocean front table in the upscale Cape Town beach suburb of Camp's Bay, foodies will riot but Nando's was by far my best meal in South Africa.
The Worst
This meal is a reminder of all of what I didn't like about Pretoria/Johannesburg: few signs of life in walking distance to each other, and a depressing guesthouse. Oh yeah, and (at least the perception of) widespread crime. You're not supposed walk around after dark (and actually most people just don't walk outside, period), so I had to buy my dinner at a supermarket in the daytime since I didn't have a car. Result: soggy ham and cheese sandwich in a box.
