With its sweeping views of the sun-kissed Atlantic this restaurant is in a prime spot. It’s also located alongside Cape Town’s version of Ground Zero – the crater next door where a structure once stood. Though that it remains a vacant lot is more likely due to the financial crisis than an indiscriminate terrorist attack. Thankfully for the ‘cultivated’ casual diners
| Wakame +27 (0)21 433 2377 www.wakame.co.za 1st floor Cnr Beach & Surrey Rd Mouille Point Cape Town |
the view of the rubble and algae-filled pool is obscured as the western wall of this light and airy restaurant is windowless. On arriving from Beach Road the lot is also hidden by advertising boards. Unless there is no space and you have to park at the back, which borders Green Point Stadium.
A closer inspection of what appears to be a cesspool in fact reveals it to be a thriving eco-system. LBJ’s* do the original ornithological twitter around the water’s edge and drink merrily from its cup. Evidence that even in the ugly there is beauty. On the pavement alongside a garden streetscape of a dirty-orange-blossom hedge is bubbling with Cape White Eyes. Flags advertise the global irrigation systems maker Rain Bird.
Today the sea is indeed sun-kissed and businesspeople, couples and ladies who lunch are filling up Wakame to take advantage of the weather. Tempting starter options include deep-fried soft-shell crab with wasabi mayonnaise (around R80); and lemon grass steamed Alaskan Crab with yuzu (a citrus fruit) soy sauce (around R150).
And if you really want to work on your Japanese culinary vocab you could order sake and miso cured salmon served with snow flake fungi, daikon, nori and a chilli lime mayonnaise. I settle on rock shrimp** (that’s prawn to us) tempura with wasabi pea seasoning and Japanese mayonnaise, which may or may not be the condiment you want to serve your mother-in-law on a chicken and mayo sarmie.
The prawns are as firm and juicy as any copywriter will tell you and the batter a perfect crunchy seal ensuring that no oil permeates it. This grease-free achievement after deep-frying food in oil is truly a miracle of Japanese cooking (and also occasionally achieved by the English with battered fish). Sprinkles of wasabi pea have no discernable taste but what appears to be the fire of the same root is all in the mayo. Of course the heat could simply come from its cousins: horseradish or mustard. At R35 the shrimp dish is an excellent deal on a menu where not all options are.
Main courses include tamarind coated crispy fried tofu; and sesame crusted tuna served on ponzu (citrus based sauce with rice wine). But if Far Eastern dishes and seafood are not your thing you can order Western dishes as conventional as grilled baby chicken and braised lamb shank, though most have an Asian twist.
I order a deluxe sushi combo which consists of six pieces of nigiri (a strip of fish on short-grained rice), four California Rolls and three maki rolls. To me salmon is creamy like no other fish. Today’s super fresh offering is up with the best. (The only other milky seafood I have eaten is the braaied white roe (semen) of the male trout.
A prawn is crisp but the tuna – to my mind (and many others) the best species eaten raw – is lacklustre. Even the Cape Salmon works better and certainly tastes fresher. The nori (seaweed) around the maki is just too much of the sea (around the Californian Roll it is muted by the avo and cucumber). Kelp may be good for you but as far as I am concerned it belongs in a pill.
The deluxe combo is R81.75 after a 25 percent discount on sushi that runs until further notice.
Service efficient and understated. Good sea views from most of the tables and even better on the Wafu patio bar upstairs.
I have eaten sushi many times at Willoughby & Co and always found it better than my single Wakame experience. But Willoughby is in a mall with artificial light. A sunny Japanese meal in the courtyard at Genki in Stellenbosch earlier this week was superb.
Wakame has a fairly extensive wine list with plenty of expensive options to impress. A wine industry friend who knows more about these things than most says they charge too much by the glass. They should have a couple of options under R30 and those under R40 should be better, says the mate. Personally I don’t mind paying a couple of bob extra for the view.
Comfortably 3/5 stars over lunch.
* Little Brown Job, generic name for unidentified small brown bird
** Though there are small differences between shrimps and prawns, usually in the kitchen they are different names for the same thing. Shrimp in the US and prawn in Britain and the colonies.
Tom Robbins
Posted July 23, 2010
Tags: East Asian cuisine, East Asian food, Green Point restaurants, Japanese cuisine, Japanese food, Mouille Point restaurants, Sea Point restaurants, sushi restaurants
