EATING ON THE RUN
DETAILS: The Kimberley Club, 72 Du Toitspan Road, 053 832 4224 • Kimberley Anne Small Luxury Hotel, 60 MacDougall Street, 053 492 0004 • Protea Hotel By Marriott Kimberley, West Circular Road, 053 802 8200 • Protea Hotel By Marriott Upington, 24 Schröder Street, 054 337 8400 • Die Werf Lodge, 1 Upington Road, Keimoes, 054 461 1635 • Augrabies National Park, 012 428 9111 FAST, greasy, garage food may be the stuff of legends on movie road trips, but there is no excuse to ever eat that badly, even in the Kalahari.
My food journey begins in Kimberley with lunch at the boutique Kimberley Anne Hotel, where I was wowed by a stuffed aubergine chickpea curry and what may be the best blue cheese, walnut and sweet pear salad I have ever tasted. Vast too, which is gratifying when so many places think a forkful of food is one course.
Dinner was in the Rhodes Dining Room at the Kimberley Club with its wood panels and London club décor, pictured below. I ate oxtail spring rolls and a perfectly grilled steak, chased with a single glass of velvety red. In the midst of all the dramatic history, the simplicity hit the right note, just as it was for one Philip Jourdan, who ate here often on his journeys: “One always fared well at the Kimberley Club,” he said. “Everyone was kind and everything was well done.”
Then on to lunch at the Protea By Marriott Kimberley at the edge of the Big Hole. It’s hard to better the hotel’s location — lunch was crumbed chicken schnitzels on the terrace overlooking the Big Hole itself, a moment enlivened by the tale of the dog that fell in the hole and lived to tell the tale.
Then it was across the red sands to Upington, where I based myself at the Protea Hotel By Marriott Upington (see Where We Stayed) and — because I believe if you find a good thing, you should stick to it — devoured the butter chicken and perfectly done popadums three nights in a row.
During a day trip on a freezing afternoon in the Green Kalahari, I ate calamari in front of a blazing log fire at Die Werf Lodge in Keimoes — who says you can’t eat seafood in the desert? — and the following day found myself having lunch at the camp restaurant at Augrabies National Park. The wrap was good enough — I don’t see the point of sweet chilli sauce — but gazing from my table at the horizon and seeing the spray of the cataract a few hundred feet away, it was, in fact, a spectacular lunch.