Bucket Scene: Republik

When it comes to guys, there's just two B's you need to keep them happy, Beer and Burgers, well there is one other B but for the sake of keeping things clean I won't mention it. Now you take those two things and enhance it, you get Craft Beer and Gourmet Burgers, open up a place that serves just that and you're onto something special. I'm not sure if that was the thinking behind opening the place but I'd like to think Matt Richardson and Tayne Draper had something similar in mind when they decided to create Republik. 

Their motto is "For The People", their aim is to encourage everyone around to eat responsibly and act responsibly by going back to our roots through means of handcrafted, great tasting, high-quality, natural and free-range produce, while striving to act in a a socially responsible and environmentally sustainable manner. It's a mouthful, I know but so is their burgers! Seriously though, we live in an age where people accept the most unnatural, over processed, food as suitable for consumption and by eating these things on a daily basis, we're only doing more harm to ourselves so it's great to see a place that doesn't stand for that ish. 

I've visited the guys down at Durban North a few times since they opened and never once left disappointed, the staff are friendly and ever willing to help with your choice of burger and they add that family type value to the place, a quick example would be Matt remembering myself and my friends after visiting them for the first time 3 weeks prior, knowing what we ordered and what we preferred. You don't find that genuine client service in a hurry and that was one of the things that blew me away with Republik. 

Enough jibba jabba and onto the main part, the food and drink! They have a wide selection of Craft Beer, mostly local and they have a number of them on tap. In fact they have so many, they even have a separate menu for it! All the local favourites can be found including Darling Brew, Union Brewers and Jack Black. The nice thing about the menu is that it gives you a brief description of each beer so you know exactly what you're ordering as many other places that serve craft just have in the fridge for you to choose. 

The food, I love my meat and since I do not eat beef do to religious purposes, I more than often find myself eating chicken most of the time but I was glad to see Republik do offer a lamb patty option that comes in at an extra price but for me, if its good quality lamb, no price is too much. They also have an ostrich option, if you prefer the big lean bird. The menu is pretty straight forward, you choose your base, you choose your patty and then your toppings. If you're on Tim Noakes, your base can be a no bun base, if you don't want a roll but still don't want just a patty you could go for the hipster option which has portobello mushrooms substituted for the buns. Sides include, shoe string fries, zucchini fries or sweet potato crisps. All of which are served with a honey mustard dipping sauce which is the bomb. 

If you want something different, you could always try their specials of the week which includes a choice of 3, their beef burger, lamb burger or chicken burger. I found myself going for these on all 3 occasions that I have visited for dinner and every time I have been pleasantly surprised. They keep to their word with only the best and freshest produce and no matter what their chef concocts in his kitchen, it always tastes damn good but by far my favourite has to be their "Chips, Cheese and Mutton gravy Lamb Burger Special". Inspired by a Durban favourite, Johnnies Roti, this burger had everything in it that made it local and true to Durban. I have no idea where they got the mutton gravy from but it was authentic curry and work so well with the cheddar cheese and thin, crisp potato fries. Whats also great is that you can pick this burger up with two hands and eat it, many of these other gourmet burger place tend to put so much on the burger, that it becomes a mission just to eat it.

If you're looking for something other than burgers, they do sell salads and rolls, with your choice of toppings. Also other than beer, they also make some damn fine coffees, yes they have a menu for that too! Explaining the various variants. The other day I found myself there to meet a friend for coffee. I ordered the Cotardo which is fairly new on the Durban coffee scene but a great inbetweener from your espresso or cappuccino, now you're going to want something sweet to go with your coffee, thankfully they stock a selection of donut delightness from Wicked Donuts. 

Over the place is another winner in my books and a must visit. While their food range might not be extensive, they concentrate well on the ones they have and make your experience worth while every time. I don't have to say I'll be visiting them often because I already have!

Address: Unit 8 Broadway

               Durban North

               Corner of Adelaide Tambo and Broadway

Twitter: @republikdbn

Instagram: RepublikDBN

Facebook: Republik

Website: www.republik.co.za

Burger King opens in KZN

The King has arrived to KwaZulu Natal, well we already have a King but I'm not talking about the monarch, I'm talking about Burger King. Yes, the famed American franchise has finally hit our shores! The first outlet was opened in Cape Town last year and the response was incredible with people queueing for hours to get their hands on the variety of burgers on offer. 

I was lucky enough to be invited to their media launch on the 11th of April at the first store in KZN situated in the newly revamped Food Court of the Pavilion Shopping Centre. Speaking to members of the franchise, they said this would be the first of many for the province. They anticipated a big response for the new store, similar to that of Cape Town and Johannesburg, one of the reasons for that was a slight communication error from one of the local newspapers which saw the wrong opening date published which caused a huge crowd to gather at the store during their training day. 

The overall store set up is decent with a small eating area inside the store, reason being the spill of the crowd will flow into the food court area. The menu is quite extensive and what I liked is that each burger on the menu can be changed to suit your taste. You can chop and change to your taste buds desire, with extras such as cheese, different dressings and types of buns. The meals are offered in medium or large and your cool drinks are bottomless with a fountain situated in the eating area for refills. They also have a lot of side items on the menu ask snacks, such as chicken nuggets, cheese and chili nuggets and chicken wings to name a few. The dessert menu is sure to have the sugar lovers in a buzz with a wide variety to satisfy your sweet cravings. 

I ordered the Chicken Tendercrisp burger meal with a side of chili cheese nuggets and for desert I ordered the Hot Blondie brownie. The burger was a decent size and it had a full fillet of chicken and not processed junk, I ordered the curry cheese mayo and normal mayo with it. The combination was a good one and probably one that I'd stick to for the next time I order. The staff seem well trained and ready for the challenge ahead and they seem to be coping well with the demand as I've heard people are queueing for a maximum of 45 minutes at the recently opened store. 

Its a nice alternative to what we're used to and a major plus for is the fact that you can customised your meal, the bottomless refreshments and the extensive dessert menu is always a winner. I'll be sure to call again. Trading times are 10am till 10pm. 

website: www.burgerking.co.za

Recipe: Creamed Spinach Pizza

With my fasting month around the corner, I'd thought I share with you one of my favourite vegetarian creations. Well I cant really take credit for it as there are some restaurants that make the very same dish. We'll start of with the ingredients, I wont give the recipe for the pizza dough since many prefer different ways on making theirs.

Ingredients.

• tomato sauce
• spinach
• butter
• cream
• milk
• mushrooms
• black olives
• feta
• cheddar cheese
• mozzarella cheese
• salt
• ground black pepper
• garlic flakes
• italian herbs
• dried basil

Chop your spinach and cook it with 1 tablespoon of butter, add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 tea spoon of ground black pepper. Once the leaves have wilted, add your chopped mushrooms. Allow for them to turn dark grey/ black. Add 100ml of cream and 100ml of milk. Allow to cook on low heat. Whilst adding your garlic flakes and italian herbs. If the mixture doesnt thicken, add a teaspoon of cake flour. Once the creamed spinach is ready, take off the stove and allow to cool.

On your pizza dough, spread your tomato sauce making sure its covered equally. Sprinkle the dried basil over and if you want to you can also drizzle some olive oil over it. Then add your creamed spinach mixture to the top, again spreading it evenly. 

Then proceed to add the olives, and the cheeses, being feta, cheddar and mozzarella. You can add more garlic flakes and ground black pepper to the top if wanted. Put it in a preheated oven at 180 and cook until the cheese has melted. Slice and enjoy! 

Recipe: The fried Chicken

Haven't done a recipe blog in a while and in the interim I have been messing up the kitchen, i.e cooking. So as the name of the blog is synonymous with the fried chicken, today's recipe is exactly for that! I tried many methods and recipes but after watching that Texan heavy weight Paula on the food network I figured out why mine kept getting messed up.

Fried Chicken burger with onion rings, crumbed mushrooms and chips

NB: This recipe I just used skinless chicken fillets as I was making them for burgers but you can used chicken pieces, with or without skin. 

Ingredients:

400g Chicken Fillets
1 tbsp oil
Crushed garlic
Minced green chilli
Worcestershire sauce
2/3 cups bread flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp mustard powder
2 tsp chill powder
2 eggs

There is quite a bit of prep needed for this so make sure you have adequite time.

Prep

After washing and draining your chicken, add it to a bowl with the oil, chilli, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and 1 tsp  each of the salt, black pepper, mustard powder and chilli powder. Mix all the ingredients well into the chicken. Allow it to marinate for 15-20 minutes in the fridge.

Chicken left for marination

While the chicken is marinating, crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk them till they are a smooth texture. In another bowl add your flour and the rest of the salt, black pepper, mustard powder and chilli powder. Use a spoon to mix the flour. Have a tray handy to place the coated pieces as well, lightly sprinkle flour onto the tray to avoid sticking.

egg wash

Once the chicken is done marinating, we can start the coating process. First take the chicken, dip it into the egg. Make sure it get soaked all round since we want the flour to coat it evenly. There after allow it to drain the excess egg then roll it in the flour mixture.

After coating all your chicken pieces with the flour, comes the part I learnt from Paula. "We gonna dip it and coat it a second time yall!" Yes you read right, take the already coated chicken and repeat the process of dipping it in the egg and flour. This gives the chicken a nice thick coating and prevents it from braking while frying.

Once you've coated all your chicken, its time to fry these suckers. Make sure you have a small belly pot with a lid. Not alot of oil is needed as we will be frying one piece at a time but make sure there is enough to cover the chicken. I say use a pot with a lid as the chicken does tend to splatter the oil when frying so this would help minimize the mess also it helps steam the chicken and not make it chewy.

Fry until golden brown and then place on a sheet of grease proof paper as this helps drain out the excess oil. As I said, I made burgers so it was served in a bun with mayo, lettuce, cheese and a slice of tomato. If you chose to use pieces, you can have them with sauce, gravy or what ever you desire. There maybe left over egg and flour from the coating, I normally slice up some onion rings and mushrooms to use it up as shown in the first picture.

Enjoy!