Marion Edmunds
‘This is a walk-out menu,” said Senator Mohamed Bhabha, “I come into the dining room, I look at the menu, and I walk out.”
But Bhabha stayed put in the parliamentary dining room this week when he hosted the Mail & Guardian’s food critic, Robert Mulders, manager of Cape Town’s popular Rozenhof restuarant, who sampled the food that ANC parliamentarians are complaining about.
Mulders ate from the normal menu and tasted all three dishes on offer. These were his comments:
The Fish (kabeljou in batter): It was dry, too much batter in relation to the fish, and you could not imagine that it had ever been a fresh piece of cob. It was cooked too far in advance.
Steak and kidney pie: The pieces of steak had been cooked for so long they were like hard little pebbles. The sauce actually was not too bad, but one taste of the meat put me off the whole dish.
Chicken: The chicken was quite tender, but I did not find the brown gravy interesting.
Vegetables: Verging on mushy.
Coffee: The coffee had lost all taste because it had been brewed too long in advance.
The service: It could not have been more pleasant, but was it neccessary to have silver service when the waitresses could have stood behind the salad bar making sure that the salads looked presentable?
Mulders said that in his opinion the food was edible, just not very nice, and that he would find it difficult to eat it on a regular basis.
“Generally, the food is cooked too early and for too long … It’s a bit like being at university or in the army.”
Bhabha said it was embarrassing taking guests to the parliamentary dining rooms because the food was so poor. He said nobody would mind paying more than the current subsidised price — R7,50 — for better food. Parliament subsidises every meal by R1; the total parliamentary food bill this year is a R1-million.
Bhabha claims to survive on toasted chicken and mayonnaise sandwiches.
Parliament has four dining rooms on the premises for parliamentarians only, others for staff and a separate one for the press gallery. On top of that, the kitchens have to cater for parliamentary dinner and lunch parties, of which there are many.
A representative of the catering staff, who did not wish to be named said: “This is one of the most pressurised catering jobs in the country. We have only 206 catering staff and, with the number of delegations coming here for meals and the almost 500 parliamentarians, it’s a huge job. The staff is extremely hard-working and at the moment terribly demotivated. We have been working round the clock.”
Parliament’s Catering Committee planned to discuss the menus this weekend, and possibly come up with proposals for a new catering order.
Already there have been calls for more African dishes by the African National Congress, and for less rice and potatoes from weight-conscious Inkatha Freedom Party and Democratic Party members.
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