The Africa Cafe Experience is the name of our recipe and lifestyle book published in 2004. It has to the dismay of many already sold out. Portia has been promising a new one sometime soon. However, I thought for those who have not had a chance to read it yet, it would be a nice idea to publish some recipes right here on the blog. Here is the recipe for our world famous Malawi Mbatata, Cheese and Sim Sim Balls.



Makes 40 balls

3 large sweet potatoes, peeled 1/2 cup water
5 teaspoons sugar 1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon 2 teaspoons mixed spice
6 tablespoons corn flour 200 grams grated cheese
3/4 cup white sesame seeds vegetable oil for deep-frying

Roughly cut the sweet potato into chunks. Simmer the sweet potato and water in a covered pot over a low heat. When cooked, the sweet potato should be soft and dry. Remove from the heat, open the pot and leave to cool. Mash the sweet potato with the sugar, salt and spices. Add the corn flour if the mixture is too soft – some sweet potato varieties retain more water than others. Lastly add the grated cheese.

To shape the balls, roll the mbatata mixture into walnut-size balls and coat with sesame seeds. Continue rolling the sesame seeds onto the outside of the ball so that they stick. Repeat the rolling until all the mixture has been used. Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Gently deep-fry the mbatata until golden brown all over. Drain on paper towel.

Happy Africa Cafe cooking!

Our bookkeeper said the other day that just being able to say hello in Xhosa is not going to get her very far. I told her the point is that she must keep reading the blog and eventually she will have a few more words! So for Siobhan we have today’s post – how are you? Simply translated is “unjani?”. Happy chatting!

We recently filmed a short 2 minute movie so that people could get an idea of a typical night at our famous restaurant – have a look and please leave your comments!

Good Day Blog buddies.  I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend.  Cape Town is being blessed with some sunshine again after a few days of heavy rain and it was great to get out yesterday and drive the peninsula.  The sky and the air were so clear with a light breeze making sure that is was a smog free day even over the city bowl.  As I may have mentioned part of this blog will be to introduce our extended family and I thought perhaps a good place to start would be with me.  So here goes:

Name:  Remo Belluco

Age:  33

Job title:  This gets confusing but lets stick with marketing manager

I have worked for The Africa Cafe since August 2000 – yes nine years this month!  These days I spend my morning helping with the marketing and admin of our ceramic business – Africa Cafe Ceramics and my afternoons in the city at the restaurant doing bookings and dreaming up new ways of keeping the world in the loop about what we do.  If there is anything else you would like to know please drop me a comment.

Have a great week!

Remo



Winter me

Just like the food that we serve at The Africa Cafe our staff also come from all over Africa.  However, as we are based in Cape Town a good number of our kitchen staff and waitresses hail from this part of the country and as such are Xhosa speakers.  Xhosa is one of South Africa’s 11 official languages and is well know for the many descriptive clicks that are used when it is spoken.  I thought it might be fun for some of our foreign readers to begin learning some key words before arriving in Cape Town.  Remember though that you might not get the same response if you greet people in Xhosa when in Johannesburg or the Kruger Park!

Today’s word is “Molo” simply meaning “Hello”.

Wishing you all a warm, wonderful weekend!
Remo

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace” Jimi Hendrix

We are always trying to bring more of the energy of unconditional love into our restaurant home in the hope that our valued guests leave with a little more than a satisfied belly.  Peace

Walking in the forest or mountains is one of my favourite pass times. I have decided to add some photos from these walks to showcase some of the incredible beauty our beloved mother city has to offer.

In the spirit of celebrating all that is good and worth getting up for in the morning we have decided to create a blog that will be updated on a frequent basis. It will be an open space for our family to express what is positive and uplifting in their lives. And so we welcome you with open arms and joyful hearts to The Africa Cafe Family and hope that you find reading these posts pleasurable and sometimes perhaps even inspirational. Look out for recipes, photos and video and please leave comments. We look forward to evolving this blog together with our readers. The main contributor will probably be me – Remo and much as I usually prefer to fly under the radar, I will also at some point post some profile info as I gradually introduce all our staff through posts.

If you would like to receive email notification of new blog posts please submit your email address in the facility to the right of this page. Looking forward to networking and sharing with you all!

Remo