Cafe Cape

Café Cape is at the end of the road where A lives, so one night, we made a short trip down for dinner. The owner of Café Cape actually imports and distributes oysters and South African meats, among other things, to other hotels and restaurants in Hong Kong. So the menu is filled with surprisingly fine-​dine cuisine for such a small space in the residential area of Tai Wai. It’s also a little more expensive than other places in Tai Wai, with a meal for two with two glasses of wine, coming to around $ 800. We never really expect to pay that much in Tai Wai, and probably won’t again for the foreseeable future.
We went for a half dozen South African oysters to start — a meatier, slightly creamy, variety. They also have French and US varieties, the French types being the creamiest apparently. If I came back to Café Cape, I’d probably just go for an oyster rampage, to be honest. Excellent selection.
The spongy escargot with mushrooms and a cheese sauce arrived in a rather small bowl, which we devoured in seconds. Our only upset here was that we didn’t have any bread to mop up all that delicious white sauce.
We ordered two mains: the South African lamb rack, matured for 28 days, and fettuccine with assorted seafood in a lobster sauce. The lamb rack wasn’t much — smothered in spices, I think oregano was the predominant flavour instead of the allegedly matured meat. Another problem arose when we cut the rack of three open and noticed the meat was very much still rare, instead of the medium we requested. We had to send it back to get a second slap on the grill.
But… I loved the accompanied mash, which was smooth and buttery, and the vegetables were a nice garlicky addition to the plate.
The fettuccine was only a few minutes under al dente, meaning there was still a bit of chalkiness to the pasta. Although, with a thick, velvety lobster sauce, we didn’t mind too much. Also, they were generous with the seafood — mussels, squid, salmon, clams… unfortunately, a tad overcooked.
To sum: go for the oysters, definitely. If you’re hitting a main, don’t expect to share, and don’t expect the greatest execution, but they definitely have some quality ingredients.