Treat yourself to food fit for kings

OUT AND ABOUT

An old friend — an Oxford historian who has been researching and writing small cameos about historical Zimbabwean figures for decades, visits every year and this time wanted to take us out to dinner — preferably to a place which would accept a credit card as payment.We settled on Emmanuel’s — fine dining at the Bronte Garden Hotel — which brought back many memories for her as it was the hotel of choice for visiting development workers and academics on a budget for years. 
The restaurant is prettily designed to resemble a garden gazebo with a low border of white wrought iron work and aluminium sliding glass windows.
A hot October evening with Jacarandas dripping their blossoms into the Avenues made us grateful to be seated next to the wide open window. Tables are beautifully laid with layers of cool white linen, white plates and glittering glass and we received a warm welcome from highly professional staff.

Menu is imaginative and expansive and dishes quite complicated with wonderful sounding flavour combinations. How tempting is tea smoked ostrich served with honey vinegar dressed micro salad, lardons of bacon and quails eggs? Or Venison carpaccio — marinated with juniper and vanilla? Both  quite pricey for a starter at US$11/$12 so I opted this time for butternut   tortellini (US$7) — a  delicious dish — filling melting with goats cheese, garlic, basil and sage — and served with piquant, juicy sundried tomatoes.
My husband chose supreme of Nyanga trout (US$10) — an airy concoction of boned trout filled with fish and prawn mousseline and served with a minty hollandaise and crushed peas. Displayed like an artwork, it also tasted very good.

Everything was beautifully presented on different shaped white plates with appropriate cutlery. A pleasant little surprise was the complimentary amuse bouche — soft balls of avocado with micro salad — a real treat featuring different tiny leaves and fresh shoots. Also loved the giant pepper grinder, brought to the table for each course.
Main courses were not as impressive in taste though all still looked beautiful. Mine was panfried tilapia (US$19) served on gnocchi piedmontaise with shrimps and wilted rocket topped with sauce vierge.  The gnocchi was sumptuous and I enjoyed the slightly bitter wilted greens. Fish was a bit overcooked and rather spongy.

Lamb shank (US$24) braised in red wine with carrots and onions and served on colcannon — an Irish mix of kale, onion and potato — was gorgeous looking, but deemed a bit ordinary in the actual eating.
Mains were accompanied by a lovely selection of vegetables, served at the table from a platter  — on this night, carrots, red cabbage, roast potatoes, mushroom and peppers and broccoli.
We all managed to clean our plates except for our friend who had also been out to lunch earlier and couldn’t quite finish her vegetarian special — a stack of eggplant and tomato on herbed polenta with puff pastry. (US$14)
Desserts sounded and looked delectable (at the next table!) but we were all sated and decided to leave that for a future visit. We brought our own bottle of wine (corkage US$6) and I was very pleased to have cool water — presumably from the hotel borehole — poured from a jug at the table by the attentive waiter.  So much nicer than having to order plastic bottles, I thought.
In the end we couldn’t pay by credit card — but Emmanuels (www.brontehotel.com/emmanuels) is well worth a visit when you can afford to indulge yourself with good service and extremely inviting and delicious food.
– g.jeke@yahoo.com