DEN
Moveable Feast Humphrey Tyler
LOGAN wasn’t there, so Sonny took the call. He said Logan was in Swaziland. “He’s buying prawns.” Good man. Prawn curry is special at the Seabelle Restaurant at La Mercy on the Natal North Coast, about 30 minutes from Durban.
You enter past the bar. It is busy all the time. Usually Logan Govender presides. The other nerve centre is a few doors away, past the dance floor (only used at night) and the disco-blaster speakers: it’s the kitchen. Sometimes you hear the clatter of big saucepans and raised voices. Brooding women wearing saris come and go occasionally. They must be the cooks.
The Seabelle has been going a long time and there has been a sea-change in the complexion of its customers. It used to be surprising to see a white face. The waiters moved around like somnambulists. Now the service is quicker and most of the faces during the day are white.
But who is that white businessman with two young black women in dreadlocks? There are Mercs parked outside but also some bakkies. The true aficionados of curry come from far and wide.
Sad to say the prices have gone up since the good old days. Prawn curry is now R35 for a serving. Mutton curry is R25. Chicken curry is R22,50 and vegetable curry is R16. But you can get curried beans for R7,50.
It is difficult to eat all that you are served. Your waiter will give you a plastic container so you can take home what you can’t manage. Frequently it is enough for supper.
Your cultivated curry eater doesn’t eat curry unless it’s served with dhal. Amazingly, the Seabelle does not serve dhal with its excellent curries unless you order it the day before. Logan says his customers these days don’t know what dhal is. He had it on the menu and nobody ordered it. This is sacrilege. He rolls his eyeballs. Sometimes, even if you ask Logan the day before to make you dhal, he forgets. Better to ask Sonny. Or ask Logan to ask Sonny. No problem.
A little danger lurks sometimes in the green salad that comes with a dish of curry. It looks so cool to take the heat off your tongue, but wow — there are chillis among the leaves of lettuce.
Because of the changed face of its customers, the Seabelle seems now not to secrete chillis in the salad. Sadly, there were no lime pickles available, just mixed veg. “Here is your atchar,” said the waiter.
A proper curry is made by frying first your onions until they are golden, then adding marsala, and frying that, too.
Then there is crushed garlic and ginger. More frying. Your nose twitches. You are on the right track. Add meat and salt. Cook slowly for about an hour.
There are different marsalas for meat and seafoods.
Somehow the prawns at the Seabelle remain succulent to the end. There are mysterious additional flavours. Those brooding women are culinary geniuses.
* Tel: (0322) 91-5551.