Cape Malay and Jen's Birthday

Last night the Cape Town Rotary Scholar crew celebrated Jen Mackay's birthday with some fine dining at a Cape Malay restaurant in the Bo-Kaap district of Cape Town.

For a little background, Bo-Kaap is the historically Muslim neighborhood in Cape Town. In fact, it is one of the oldest communities in the city. Its earliest members were brought from the Malaysian archipelago as slaves for the Dutch East India Company back in the 1600s. They have since become known as the Cape Malays. There are about 166,000 Cape Malays in Cape Town. They no longer speak Malaysian languages, but English or Afrikaans or both. Their cuisine is unique to South Africa and is a mixture of Southeast Asian and Dutch cooking. To me, it tasted a lot like Indian food.

Bo-Kaap is situated on Signal Hill, which overlooks the entire city bowl and Table

Mountain and Lion's Head. In my opinion, it makes for the best views of the city that I have seen yet. All the homes are packed tightly together, and are painted in all sorts of bright colors. Some of the roads are still cobblestone, and all of the roads are incredibly steep (especially when riding in the back seat of a mini-bus taxi).

So last night we went to the Cape Malay restaurant called the Noon Gun Tea Room. It is situated right below the noon gun, a cannon that (supposedly) goes off every day at noon (I have yet to hear it). We went early so that we could dine as the sun set. I'm at work right now, so I can't upload my pictures, but the views were incredible. We were the only ones in the restaurant, which was perfect for being obnoxious Americans/Canadians. The food was absolutely amazing. I had some sort of spicy curry chicken, the name of which now escapes me(but if you ever do go the Noon Gun Tea Room, it was the only chicken option on the menu...). You also can't beat drinking an Appletiser or Grapetiser with your dinner. This is the South African equivalent of Lift, which for you non-Europeans is a mixture of fruit juice and sparkling water. A kind of apple juice soda, I suppose. Cape Malays, the good Muslims that they are, don't drink - or serve - alcohol. I tried a milktart for dessert, which was enjoyable, but I would only recommend it if you like really thick, eggy custardy things. I think that's how I would describe it. The ice cream with fruit salad was a more popular option among the other scholars. Our kind waitress also allowed us to enjoy one of the restaurant's finer decorations, a hookah pipe.

We finished off the night downtown on Long Street, a strip full of bars and clubs. It wasn't too crowded on a Thursday night, so we had a table to ourselves on the second floor porch of a bar called Cool Runnings. We had another great view onto the street below,perfect for people watching.