Restaurant week gets better every time

OUT AND ABOUT

Another ZOL restaurant week is over.  Kicked off with a glossy cocktail party mid September and ran for 10 days — September 18 to 28. With more restaurants participating there are some good deals around — but not a lot of public awareness for the event and I don’t think all restaurants get the idea.
With the exception this year of one Bulawayo restaurant, mostly the more established Harare outlets are participating — in my experience a good thing allowing the chance for punters to sample food at a discounted rate. I was interested however, to try a different cuisine and opted for one of the newbies — the Bavarian on Third Street corner of Baines. Freshly decorated in blue and white it has been open for four months now.
Staff were charming — and rushed to sweep the freshly fallen purple jacaranda blossoms off the picnic bench in the courtyard. Restaurant was deserted at lunch time on a very hot day.

The menu comes in an impressive leather binder with several laminated pages, rather excessive when there are so few dishes — so each page is devoted to a single dish! One page features chicken and pork schnitzels at US$12, served with a choice of german fried potatoes, potato salad or chips. Tempting for a winter’s day might be the pork shank served with sauerkraut and fried potatoes.  US$25 seems to get you a 1,5kg shank — which I assume serves several people. But the menu is frankly puzzling and far too elaborate for what could be covered in a single page. There is a handwritten insert on the inside cover which mentions a couple of desserts (no prices) otherwise no sweets appear.

As far as restaurant week is concerned — Bavarian didn’t really get the point. Their US$15 menu cost more than the sum of its parts. Starters included Italian salami (why — at a German restaurant?) or tuna salad, (US$5 on the normal menu) followed by cold meats served with rye bread, chicken or the strammer sandwich (US$6). Even going with the most expensive main — the chicken (US$8) — the total for two courses would only be US$13 — so why would anyone choose the US$15 special?! The US$20 menu included as starters mushroom soup and prawn salad (not on the main menu at all) plus a chicken schnitzel or kariba bream plus dessert.
We gave up on the restaurant week menu and tried to find something Bavarian even though it seemed rather substantial and heavy for a hot day. My friend opted for the chicken schnitzel (US$12) and I chose the strammer sandwich advertised as a hearty german sandwich on rye bread with cured ham, fried eggs and selected fresh garden veg. I was really looking forward to some special German style ham and good rye bread — but actually it was awful. The ham was cheapest Colcom pressed picnic, the rye bread was doughy and tasteless and the eggs were fried with hard yolks and whites not quite set. Yuk!

Chicken schnitzel was much better — a large portion of flattened chicken breast in a nice crispy coating  served with the German fried potatoes — well seasoned with paprika, but too oily for me. Definitely not a restaurant for the calorie counters.
Blackforest cake might have tempted me — but it remained elusive in actuality though I caught a glimpse online after the event.
This time round, restaurant week was asking clients to rate the restaurants for a chance to win a Vic Falls weekend. This would be better with a box provided as I really didn’t want to hand in a visibly scathing comment to the sweet waitress.
– g.jeke@yahoo.com