YUMCIOUS
* * * *
Gourmet menus with luxury ingredients
Unit 26, level O, Cape Quarter Square, 27 Somerset Road,
Green Point
021 418 800
Open 7am-4pm Mon-Sat, and Saturday breakfast
Booking advisable
e-mail [email protected]
Jenny Morris’ new restaurant, Yumcious, offers a wide variety of delicious dishes from a weigh-and-pay buffet. One of the highlights was the Waldorf salad, writes JOS BAKER.
IT’S not only yumcious, it’s zingingly fresh, flavourful, and a texture-rich riot of nature’s palette. That’s the bountiful weigh-and-pay buffet at the Giggling Gourmet’s recently opened restaurant. And come lunch, the crowds converge – as they have done since day one.
Ask her why she’s added a restaurant to her multiple responsibilities (she’s bringing out a new book shortly), and earth mother Jenny Morris doesn’t hesitate. “Because I’m a feeder by inclination!” is her instant reply. “I eat, sleep and dream food and new recipes; wake my poor husband by switching on my cellphone in the middle of the night to note down new ideas, and I want to try them out instantly. My family’s just six, and that’s not enough. I want to feed a lot of people every day.” She adds as an aside, indicating the buffet display, “I like my food fresh simple and uncomplicated. That’s the sort of food we eat at home.” Lucky family.
The décor is open and streamlined with soft colours that suggest Jenny’s garden, the one place in which she feels at peace. She had envisaged that all vegetables and herbs would come from her garden, but even initial numbers put paid to her plans. However, suppliers have learned that she’s not to be trifled with as regards quality.
While you wait for the buffet display, read your placemat. It contains pithy sayings like the old New York proverb “A nickel will get you on the subway, but garlic will get you a seat” and the sound advice “Never work before breakfast: if you have to work before breakfast, eat your breakfast first.”
Tables spill into a busy courtyard. And if you want to hold a conversation, that’s the place to sit. The interior is relaxed, casual – and noisy. Except for the crowd round the buffet table, silent in contemplation of the spread.
The selection that flows from the kitchen is taste-blowing in its diversity. What to sample and which to ignore? There are customers who eat at Yumcious six days a week: there’s enough variety to keep them happy. I tallied some 28 dishes – I may have missed a few – all freshly made. What you see is what you get: when a salad is sold out, that’s it. And no leftovers are re-used the next day. (The staff love their jobs).
There hard-boiled eggs with yoghurt dressing and chives for health nuts in the nearby gym; egg white omelettes on request (the yokes are used for mayonnaise) and allergies are accommodated – just alert the kitchen in advance. And should you want a take-away, containers are available.
While most of the salads take vegetarian dishes to a new and tantalising taste level, there are cornerstones like quiches, and carnivorous options include flavoursome rare roast beef sliced sliver-thin; super-crunchy roast pork belly, and the luxury of smoked salmon.
My stand-out favourites were the freshly baked olive twists to mop up the dressings; a crunchy combo of apples, celery and sultana; beetroot and carrot salsa topped with feta and imaginatively dressed in pomegranate, molasses and honey; a moreish chickpea salad mix, and one of the best Waldorf salads I’ve eaten.
A worthwhile tip is to use parsley on a salad of tomatoes and mozzarella balls: it’s delightfully different from the normal basil. And my London Cordon Bleu friend intends stunning her guests at her next dinner party with the addictive Thai butternut and pineapple salad of raw butternut and pineapple, given extra zing with lime and coriander.
As for dessert, crunch through a delicately rosewater-flavoured meringue, or indulge in a scrumptious, happily non-sweet carrot cake.
Jenny’s waiting impatiently for her liquor licence, when she will launch her own wine collection, made by Perdeberg Winery. Meanwhile there are freshly squeezed juices and smoothies.