pappas on the square sandton

7 May 2013

Nothing can hold a handyness candle next to ductape, but next in line in the most handy thing in the world category is a respectable length of string.  Its level of usefulness is quite astonishing, assuming you are easily astonished by such things. Failing which it would just be mildly impressive or would occupy some other degree of stale mediocrity, but it is impossible to deny that it is handy.

The monthly gathering of our Steak Club was held at Pappas on the Square in Sandton on Tuesday.  It was a chilly night as people shuffled through the doors in coats and jackets and jerseys.  There was another guy who was wearing a tshirt at another table. Maybe he didn’t have a smart phone with a weather app to tell him it was cold.

I had been looking forward to Pappas in great anticipation of their “Famous Steaks” section in the otherwise comprehensive menu coupled with the “Home-Made” theme that’s clearly a focus point in their marketing effort.

I was the first to arrive and I was greeted by all of the staff on my way through to find someone who could point me in the direction of our reserved table.  The points were racking up nicely, because I like friendly service.  A bearded and then a non-bearded man, both seemingly the managing types, greeted and welcomed me too.  A great introduction by Solly, our waiter-to-be, led to a quick, cold, well headed Peroni being served up in front of me.  Solly’s beer and general beverage management skills were top class.  No-one was ever left thirsty.

Overlooking Sandton Square while peering past the bronzed shoulder of the great Madiba statue, I noticed quietly that this was slap bang in the middle of tourist Joburg.  I played spot-the-local until the rest of the club arrived.  I didn’t see any, so decided that I was rubbish at that game.

I suppose the worst case would be to find an actual piece of string in your meal while eating, but a near second place would be to eat stringy meat.  Like someone forgot to tell the fibres of meat to let go of each other.  Strangely enough, most of us ordered a rump version of steak.  Pete picked the peach of a meal and Woody got the lemon. – the sheer struggle that I noticed his face going through while hacking away at a chunk of meat and chewing it for what seemed like an age was indication enough that the sirloin side of his T-Bone was a great disappointment.  Because there is still some good left in the world, the moment he threatened the fillet side with cutlery it separated itself from itself and each chunk lined up and waited patiently to be devoured.  Weird how the Dunst rating features again this month.

My rump was okay.  It could never feature on the spectacular end of the spectrum, but it wasn’t terrible either.  I smothered it in monkeygland sauce and happily chomped away.  Flavour was wholesome and defined, grill lines were impressively symmetrical (more points) and the whole thing was dripping in a basting sauce, which confused the specific flavour profile of my chosen sauce, but not to the point of ruin.

There was a bit of inconsistency in the temperature of the plates, some kept on cooking the steaks after arrival and well into the meal (like the timeless classic Spur hotrock) and others sucked the heat straight out of the meat leaving a cold insipid lump.  Everybody, it seemed, had issues with the uniformity of the cookedness of their steak.  It’s a tricky thing to get right, but because it’s possible then it should be done.  I suffered through the three-phases of meat.  The edges were charred and cooked through, the middle part was so undercooked it would have tried to eat Dr Gavin’s salad (if he had come to steak club) and the in-between bits were the medium-rare that I had ordered.  Inflated tourist prices on the menu mean that our culinary skill should be exhibited for the better of the country, not to emulate the otherwise inconsistent perception we, as a country, provide to the world.

Apart from Pete, who sat looking very pleased with himself for choosing the camembert fillet, everybody else appeared to enjoy their meal with long teeth and wouldn’t rush back to sit through more distinctive averageness on a plate.

Post-meal discussions in general revolved around how many coffees a day is too many coffees in that day, the fairly disturbing squishyness of the thing that had plugged the bottom end of the salt cellar, the political landscape of the country and the solution to all its current problems, the apparent resurrection of our neighbouring Zimbabwe, and the questionable ingredients of “Greek Love” and “A blessing from Mr Pappas” that could be found in the yoghurt concoction and the crème brule respectively.

Mercifully, everybody avoided the temptation to order any salads and the only green things that made it onto our plates were a sprig or two of coriander for decoration.

Until next month, when we meat again.