David Shapshak
LIFESTYLE
Even if it wasn’t painted bright pink, you’d notice Superbonbon between a garage and a bottle store. It’s in Richmond, that dead-end part of Jo’burg between Melville, Auckland Park and Milpark where international media share office space with a blood lab. Up the road is the Johannesburg Country Club.
Superbonbon probably doesn’t intend to be, but it is a quintessentially South African place.
Decorated inside with a blend of Afrikaner and Chinese – stout wooden chairs and table, la any number of “tearooms”, and cheap reprints of decorative paintings – it’s an ode to the kitsch that has lived in our particular brand of restaurants for years.
Like the playful decor, which adds an extra dimension to the ambience, Superbonbon’s hip young owners are lighthearted about their sublime food.
Chef Andrea Brgener is nothing short of brilliant, as the scope and inventiveness of her dishes demonstrate.
The menu starts with the desserts, “so you know how much space to leave”, before offering you a tantalising variety of starters and main dishes.
No restaurant review should be done with only one visit, and after several months of sampling the spectacular cooking, I can safely say that Superbonbon is not only the coolest restaurant in Jo’burg, but the yummiest.
So what’s good? If it’s on, the airline special-special: a rip-off of those all-on- one-tray-in-little-dishes meals you get on any flight. And it’s even served by a waiter dressed as an SAA air hostess circa 1950, complete with hatpin and hair in a bun. The business-class version comes with a glass of wine.
The food has a variety of influences and, like the decor, much is Orientally inspired – light steamed fish dishes with lemon grass sauce, Vietnamese rice wrappers and steamed Chinese pork buns for starters.
One Japanese-inspired quail dish is served with macadamia-shitake rice stuffing, teriyaki maple glaze and grilled asparagus. Very yummy.
A standard item is the “real, real, real” Caesar salad: “Still no mayo, no bacon, and no, no, no iceberg lettuce, thanks.” Try it.
The menu changes frequently, but the quality never does. The food has been consistently great.
Superbonbon’s trademark drink is the very spicy and very nice saketini Diablo: a martini made with Japanese rice wine and flavoured with green chillis.
For dessert, it’s compulsory to have the coco pops and milk at least once – who hasn’t secretly wanted them after a meal anyway? And you get a special prize, generally of the variety that comes in a cereal box.
It’s appropriate that Brgener and co- owner Nicholas Gordon call their off-beat bistro the “mighty restaurant of wondrousness”. One visit and you’ll agree.
Superbonbon is at 11 Menton Road, Richmond; call to book at (011) 482-6904