Karibu - Cape Town, South Africa

Our first meal in Cape Town was at Karibu on the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. We took Uber to and from our hotel. I'd scoped out restaurants before-hand and knew that Karibu offered a variety of game meats. 

The V&A Waterfront at night. Karibu is in the building to the left on the ground floor. 

The rainbow platter was three types of carpaccio, in thin round slices, with a variety of sauces streaked down the side of the plate and with a mango wedge. Carpaccio is raw meat, sliced thinly or pounded thin. Crocodile, white, transparent and in the center, was by far the best. Surprisingly flavorful.  Ostrich, left, and springbok, right, had more powerful, but unusual flavors. Ostrich was better than springbok. 

Ostrich, crocodile and springbok carpaccio. 

The safari platter was a whole smorgasboard of meats. At left were kudu, impala and springbok steaks. At right was an ostrich steak, and in the middle, underneath the pile, was a beef rump steak, with venison cheese sausage and venison boerewors sausage on top. 

At left: kudu, springbok and impala. At right, ostrich. 

When the platter came out we asked our waiter, Emmerson, which was which on the left side. He said he didn't know, but the chef told him, the kudu will be toughest, the sprinbok will be grainy and the impala will be most tender. He was right. I think the kudu could have been more rare and would have been better (I had it more rare later on our trip and liked it a lot). The impala, which was most rare, was the best. Cut like butter. The springbok was also very good. 

The kudu, impala and springbok cut in half to reveal the inner cooking. I learned from eating game meat on the trip that it needs to be cooked like seared ahi - seared on the outside and virtually raw in the middle. 

The ostrich was very rare and very wonderful. It was almost like eating flaky fish. 

Note how rare the ostrich is. 

Boerworse is a type of sausage that originated in South Africa. It is made from at least 90% coarsely minced meat, in this case venison, and up to 10% spices. No more than 30% of the meat can be fat. Spices can include coriander seed, black pepper, nutmeg, cloves and allspice.  

The boerwors is to the left and the cheese sausage to the right. I like fattier sausage. 

Very secondary to all of the above was garlic mashed potatoes, salad, beets,etc. 

This was one of my favorite meals of the trip. The ostrich and impala were really outstanding, the springbok was close and the kudu lagging behind.