This is not a story about wors.

Though it sort of starts out that way. Hungry for lunch and nothing on our schedule, Bordeaux and I hopped on a train to Claremont, following a tip from the Rough Guide that advised that women often set up grills to sell boerewors around the station. Of course when we got there, there were no ladies, no grills, and no boerewors for sale. Thankfully, we found Maheera's.

Maheera's is the kind of shop that sprouts up near railway stations, selling cold cream soda, tubes of chapstick, and airtime vouchers. And in Cape Town, they're one of the best places to sample local fast food, which is an offbeat mix of British, Afrikaner, and Malay flavors. We ordered two wors rolls with chips, a small dessert to share, and took them back to the train station, where we ate them on the steps. The roll was not accompanied with chips, as I had assumed, but filled with them-- even better. And the whole thing was doused with a tasty soaking of vinegar, and a drizzle of salt.

But the unexpected star of the meal, the focus of this entry, was the dessert. A golden ball of fried dough called a koesister. The Malay cousin of the Afrikaaner koeksister, it's smaller, rounder, less syrupy, and infinitely more flavorful. The glazed exterior is flaked with coconut, and gives way to a doughy interior studded with spices, sharp with cinnamon and clove. Had we not already eaten the wors and chips, we easily could have returned inside to buy a few more-- as it is, the koesister provides more than ample reason to make a return trip to Claremont.