Last day at the Biscuit Mill.

Tomorrow is the last day that we will be trading at the Biscuit Mill's Neighbourgoods Market with our Southeast Asian stand, Piesang. This is certainly a bittersweet moment for us-- we've been so lucky to be able to be at the Biscuit Mill, which has provided us with an incredible way to interact with the city of Cape Town, helped us to meet some fun people, and directed some catering jobs our way (and of course, paid our rent)-- all the same, I will be 100% happy not to be rolling 200+ salad rolls every Saturday from now on! It's been great, Biscuit Mill. We'll miss you, and we certainly hope you'll miss us.

And this is kind of late notice, but if any of my dedicated readers (yes, either one of you) would like to jump on a plane to Cape Town and join us for a celebration after the market, I'll pick up the tab for some sparkling wine!

Report from the Field: September 2009

Location: Cape Town
Date: September 7, 2009

Doing: Coming up with a plan
This September I hope to making a serious plan. We spent most of last month searching for a space, and almost thought we’d found one—it had a lot of character, and an unbelievable rent. But at the last minute we backed out, as we realized that the grungy and unpleasant neighbourhood wouldn’t make the most of our potential. We realized that we might be able to just get by in that space, but we wouldn’t be able to achieve our goals of actually building up something spectacular. So we need to start working out our exact goals, and come up with a solid plan to get us there. Hopefully we’ll find the right place soon—tomorrow we’re going to look at another spot with a much better location and vibe, and of course, a much higher rental price to match.

Eating: Asian All Stars
In hopeful anticipation of us actually finding a rental space for a Piesang Café, we’re working on developing a menu. With the limited space at the market, we were somewhat inhibited in the range of what we could sell. But with a café, we’d be able to offer a wider range of dishes. So we’ve been busy in the kitchen, perfecting some of our favourite foods from Southeast Asia. We’ve almost got a decent binh my worked out, Bordeaux has perfected a fantastic khao soi, and I’ve almost got the skills down to make a thin, lacy banh xeo. Now if only we could find a decent space with a good rent…

Missing: Asian Style.

At the start of this month, without my even noticing it, we hit the six-month mark of being back in South Africa. And though I was unaware of the date itself, I have become aware of the growing length of our stay here, as I’ve increasingly been thinking back to my previous home, and what I miss about it. And what I’m missing most from Asia is its ‘style’-- a word and a concept with countless failings, but the best I can come up with. By style, I do not the stodgy images of ‘Asian Style’ that generally fill decorator’s hardcover tomes on the subject: pristine teak wood houses, oversized ceramic vases, gilt encrusted Naga heads. Rather, I’m missing the unique substance of everyday living in Southeast Asia: hip ironic graphics on the wares of a Chatuchak t-shirt vendor; Fanta bottles gathered at the feet of a hallowed shrine; gleaming labels in a modern department store, paralleled in the bags for sale on the sidewalk outside; green plastic chopsticks gathered next to a stack of matching green bowls at a street-side noodle shop. I miss the incongruous mix of ancient, contemporary, high-end and low budget that made my life in Asia vibrant, colourful, and always a little unexpected (and, as readers of Primitive Culture, it’s ok to admit that you miss seeing that here too).

I’m mostly very content with living in South Africa now, but I certainly don’t want to be done with Asia forever. With Piesang, we’re hoping to bring some elements of Asian style to South Africa. And the long-term goal is that eventually we’ll be able to start making return trips to Asia, to seek out new flavours, do some shopping, and re-hone our senses of taste. And along with that, there will be new bursts of Asian style on the pages of Primitive Culture.

Illustrated: Asian Style Cities, from top: Bangkok, Saigon, Taipei.

Report from the Field, August 2009.

Doing: August is for getting things done.
August is my birthday month, and my first month as a married man—as such, it seems like a good month for getting things accomplished. I haven’t been giving too many updates about Piesang here, but I will gratefully report that things have gradually been going better and better—we’re gathering more repeat clients, getting some word of mouth, and we even had a small mention in a South African magazine—our first press! Most importantly, we’re growing into our roles, and figuring out what we’re doing. But now we’d like to expand Piesang beyond the Saturdays only market. So this month our primary goal is finding a space for a full time Piesang Café. We’ve started looking around and noticed that finding a rental space isn’t easy—so this may take some work. Let us know if you spot any attractive 30-70 sqm properties around Cape Town!

Eating: Pork Belly.
I may be about a year and a half behind world food trends, as I’m only now opening up to the wonders of pork belly. Admittedly, I had previously developed a taste for fatty porcine meat in Bangkok, where five-spice pork knuckle was one of my favourite street foods. But its only recently that I’ve gained an appreciation for the cholesterol-rich deliciousness that is pork belly. I made a delicious braised pork belly on rice, and have been finding excuses to add streaky bacon to salads, stir-fries and pastas. Have any good recipes using pork belly or bacon? I’m listening… I’ve also been experimenting with dim sum lately (along with the new found appreciation of pork, maybe there’s a general Chinese food fascination happening?), so I’ve got a plan for a Thai pork belly steamed bun in the works…

Enjoying: Signal Hill.
A recent bout of warm weather in the middle of what should be winter gave us the chance to enjoy some of Cape Town’s natural charms. After the depressing grey of winter (and I used to think I liked rain…) it was fantastic to be outdoors again and feeling the sun. A quick visit up to Signal Hill just before my family departed reminded me of what might be the most beautiful spot in Cape Town: surrounded by ocean below, a perfect view of the City Bowl to one side, and watched over by Lion’s Head. So a few days later, Bordeaux and I returned for a picnic on the hillside, with boerewors and chutney rolls, jars of ginger lemonade, and lemon meringue cupcakes to complement the stellar surrounds. It was the kind of afternoon that reminded me why, despite all, I am lucky to be living in Cape Town.

What’s on your mind and on your plate this August?

Piesang.

As Bordeaux and I prepared to leave Southeast Asia, we were faced with the simple fact that we didn’t want to-- couldn’t, really-- leave behind the food, culture, and style that we’d come to love in Southeast Asia. So we decided to take some of it with us. We developed an idea for a Southeast Asian café offering a menu of the dishes we loved. It would have the style of Bangkok, Phnom Penh, and Saigon, with a menu that would showcase the diversity and scope of the region’s cuisines. We wanted to create an intimate space where we could show people that Southeast Asian food is so much more than phat thai, pho, and green curry; that it doesn’t have to be fried in a wok or dipped in peanut sauce to be Asian. The name for our concept? Piesang.

Piesang is the Afrikaans word for a banana, and it seemed a fitting name for our idea. The iconic fruit is not only native to tropical Asia, but it’s also ubiquitous in the region’s cuisines. Sweet bananas are served in coconut milk, or grilled at sidewalk stands. Banana leaves are used to steam curries or wrap grilled meats. And the purple banana flower is made into delicious salads and soups.

But there’s another reason for the name, as well. As you may have guessed from its sound, the word does not derive from Dutch. Instead, its origins are in the Malay word ‘pisang’. In the Seventeeth Century, the Dutch brought over a mixed community of people from Malaysia and Indonesia. Along with a flourishing culture that developed into the community known in South Africa today as the Cape Malay, they left behind many words and fragments (like pisang/piesang) that dot the Afrikaans language, revealing its composite cultural origins, and a distant connection between South Africa and the lands across the Indian Ocean. Three centuries later, we’re riding those trade winds again, bringing a little bit of Southeast Asia with us to South Africa.

The dream of opening a café is still a long way off, but we’ll be getting our start on a smaller scale over this weekend. On Saturday, April 25th, we’ll be opening a stand at the Neighbourgoods Market, (which I detailed in my last post), where we’ll be offering a small limited menu of tangy salads, complexly flavored baguette sandwiches, and delicate salad rolls. We hope to change and expand our menu regularly, giving us the freedom to flow with the seasons, experiment with different dishes, and introduce willing diners to a wide range of Southeast Asian flavors.

So if you’re in Cape Town, stop by—we’d love to see you there! For those of you not in Cape Town, check out our progress on the Piesang Blog.