Best 'Dirty' Chinese in Cape Town

Visiting family in Cape Town, you are offered an abundance of glorious food – fresh fish, fruit and vegetables not to mention delicious local wine.  But occasionally on holiday, you just want dirty food!  No, not an English breakfast in 40 degree heat but that retro naughty food that brings with it echoes of all the fun you have had before when eating it – along with a shiver of guilt as you imagine just how bad it was for you.  So when we asked mother what she fancied for dinner and she suggested Chinese, I jumped at the chance.     

Now this posed a problem as Cape Town while being the most awesome place in the known universe (eer, I might be a little biased) does not do Chinese well!   You can find rocking Vietnamese and really rather good if westernised sushi but good old fashioned Chinese or Japanese food is almost impossible to find. 

Secondly, Mom doesn’t want high end authentic Chinese, she wanted ‘dirty’ Chinese – you know the cuisine which is roughly labelled Cantonese where they cheerfully serve sweet and sour sauce as well as chop suey without complaint.

After a bit of research (thanks Aunty Google), we settled on Tai Ping in Newlands!  Arriving at about 8 o clock, we buzzed to be let in and entered the 90s.   Woks on the walls, the faint smell of soy sauce in the air and wipe clean menus with red linen table clothes – inside I was doing the dance of happiness and dirty dirty joy.

The menu was excellent – covering all the important bases including springrolls, chop suey, sweet and sour pork, noodles and hot & sour soup.  A touch of South Africa (curried kingklip and apricot lamb spring rolls) vied with dim sum and a couple of surprisingly adventurous more traditionally Chinese dishes (Ma Po Tofu and Ants Climbing a tree) to create a well-rounded dining experience

The wine list isn’t extensive but they do allow you to bring your own wine and charge a relatively reasonable R28 per bottle.  Still, we didn’t know this so found a perfectly well priced and reasonable bottle of Sauvignon Blanc

We ordered spring rolls, pork buns followed by Ma Po Tofu, Shanghai Steak and Crispy Shredded Beef with rice.   The dishes arrived as they were cooked and the owner – committed to being both the cook and the host – nipped out to check all the tables were happy which took us further back in time to an era when being recognised as a regular meant something.  

The food was excellent – the spring rolls crispy without being greasy and the tofu, steak and beef shining examples of Cantonese food done well.  Admittedly, the pork buns were not quite fluffy or sweet enough for me but then again, I am a Dim Sum fiend who will fight a friend for a well-cooked turnip cake.

We finished the meal with bowties (which apparently are really called butterfly cookies according to one of the blogs I like called Burnt Out Baker).  These are essentially deep fried pastry drenched in sugar syrup which are an essential end to a South African Chinese meal – naturally served with Jasmin tea.

Waddling into the night, we agreed that we would be returning.  It isn’t Nobu, it isn’t posh – but sometimes all you want is food that tastes good because it is just excellent but also because you remember it from your childhood.