SEASON 2 of In Die Sop premieres on kykNET on Wednesday, April 27 at 8pm. Once again, host Bertus Basson will share his restaurant expertise – he has seven in his empire now so he knows a thing or two – to advise places across the Western Cape, from Doringbaai to Montagu, Gordon’s Bay to Swellendam, on how to improve their offerings. To complement new menus and ideas, interior consultant Misi Overturf brings her skill to the table to create fresh new looks. All this in 72 hours.
My most recent road trip, undertaken in a dreamy Ford Everest, took me from Cape Town to Cape Agulhas and back, via the road through Napier. Thanks to a heads up from Errieda du Toit – whose job it is to find all the potential restaurants for the series – I was alerted to the existence of Moerse Padstal in Napier, which will be in the first episode. I’d missed it the first time around because it’s not highly visible as you come into town from Caledon side. Returning in the opposite direction, Google Maps indicated the location more or less accurately: “your destination is on the right” being true, but across an open plot. At least there wasn’t a fence and a forest between me and where I wanted to be, which has happened before; the technology struggles a bit in the countryside, and can make a grown woman cry.
The farm stall and nursery – there’s a beautiful jungle out back where you can sit, and plants to buy as well as gardening accoutrements – is family owned. Etienne Kriel’s parents ran it for 22 years; now he and his wife Annelene are doing so, with one of their daughters handling front of house. The other daughter is called Bianca, which I agreed is a fine name. Etienne’s mother still helps out, and the shelves are laden with her golden marmalade crammed with orange slices, and jams. She makes “frog” jam, which was out of stock but look out for it when you pop in…fig, orange, ginger and I can’t remember what the “R” is for.
As I was thinking about this story today (it’s a process), I was recalling everything Etienne, who does the plants, and Annalene, who does the food – truly lovely people by the way – said and then I thought maybe I shouldn’t give away any spoilers about their episode, so I’ll sit on that for now and update this later in the week. What I can say, is that Errieda told me the pies are wonderful. So I ordered a chicken one, with chips and salad to make myself feel better about eating greens and such. Well, just look at the pic. It’s not so much a pie but a massive serving of chicken with a thin golden pastry shell. It costs R40 on its own, R75 with the sides. Value for money, or what?
It was such an enjoyable little interlude, and I got to try out a bit of my Afrikaans, until I struggled to find the word for “in the area” (jammer Yolandi, ek vra verskoning) and Etienne was too polite to correct me. It came to me about 45 minutes too late, as most good things do. I went on my way laden down with goodies like melktert and granadilla beer (like ginger beer but not). For more information (and to see what it looked like before), click here.
PHOTO CREDIT: BIANCA COLEMAN ©
