Before a vocal part of the Cape Town geek community point it out, let me admit that this photo is a week old. It was taken at the last GeekDinner, codename Majestic Mandarin, which Kerry-Anne and I attended on 31 March.
Tao Yuan, is (kinda obviously) a Chinese restaurant, and they provided our group of roughly 60 people with a set menu consisting of sushi, chicken, sweet-and-sour fish, calamari, peppered beef, and many more delicacies (for a phenomenally good price of R100). Now the reason for bringing up sushi in the title of this post is because I normally don't enjoy this apparently addictive treat. The strange thing however was that I found the few pieces of sushi that I did try pretty darn good, actually... and in fact not as distasteful as I had expected them to be.
To be fair, I avoided any treats containing seaweed and stuck to the ones with mainly fish and rice. What I think made the difference with Tao Yuan's sushi is that the rice was the best I'd had yet. Normally I find that sushi rice contains far too much vinegar to make it appetising. Yet, that night's sushi was just perfect - even for a self-confessed sushi-shrugger like myself. :)
Oh, by the way, thanks to Perdeberg Winery for sponsoring enough wine to make us happy and yet keep us safe on the road. Thanks, guys!
Andrew Owen
I don’t understand, is it a Chinese restaurant or a Japanese one? You said Sushi but that it was Chinese?
Firefly
I was in Cape Town a couple of months back with a group of Chinese travel agents and journalists and we also had dinner at Tao Yuan. I really enjoyed their food. Great spot.
Guinivea
HMMMMM, Sushi…I could eat it everyday!!! My absolute favourite is the California roll with crab stick inside (please tell me you tried this).
Just a question (from Andrew Owen’s comment). When you go to Tong Lok it is advertised as a Chinese take away yet you can purchase Sushi there….or if you go to Fruit and Veg City you can purchase Sushi there….I don’t think it is only Japanese restaurant’s that sell/make sushi??? I may be wrong though Paul so please correct me if I am.
BTW…I will have to have Sushi now…thanks for the post hehehe
mjw
You have reminded me that I haven’t done my post about the GeekDinner yet so I would like to add here that the vegetarian set menu that was prepared at Tao Yuan (which included non-fish sushi) was very good and quite enjoyable.
To answer people’s questions above, sushi has become trendy in Cape Town over the past two years so you will find that all sorts of restaurants (and supermarkets) offer it.
Kerry-Anne
Andrew, I think Guinivea and mjw have pretty much answered your question – sushi is INCREDIBLY popular in Cape Town, and you’ll find that most Chinese restaurants offer it on the menu (as well as Thai, Vietnamese and seafood restaurants). I guess this can be a bit confusing for visitors, though!