Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

On the border of Miramar and South Africa

Other-worldly sports bar a worthy bet

That's not sausage and grits, it's Boerewors with Pap & Gravy. Cape Town Pub.
That's not sausage and grits, it's Boerewors with Pap & Gravy. Cape Town Pub.
Place

Cape Town Pub

7580 Miramar Road, San Diego

Another entrant in the creepy mascot category.

When you discuss getting dinner or lunch with friends, a litany of cultural choices are bound to come up: Thai? Mexican? Sushi? Nobody ever says, "South African?" Until recently, I barely knew it was an option. Last year, Cape Town Pub opened in Miramar — a slightly less onerous trip than flying to the other side of the planet to taste this stuff — so I took a chance.

Authenticity wasn't really going to be an issue for me, but walking into a spacious bar and restaurant decked out with typically African geometric patterns did feel like a departure. Never mind the fact you must walk by a weird zebra-headed mannequin standing sentry out front.

The sports bar features several large screens that show alien sports like cricket and rugby, as well as plenty of soccer, golf, and surfing competitions. Granted, this place does sit across the street from a US military base, so baseball, football and basketball aren't going to be out of the question.

Sponsored
Sponsored

This place is trying to put Stoney ginger beer on the map.

Most of the plentiful space is given over to a large dining room with casual table service. I helped myself to a seat and started trying to understand the menu. The words peri peri were vaguely familiar, and there was actually a bottle of the hot sauce included in my table's condiment basket. Judging by the ingredients, it's not too different than Cholula or Tabasco — a mix of peppers, garlic and vinegar — skewing maybe a little less bitter than Tabasco.

There were a couple of sandwiches featuring the flavor and also a couple of curry-styled dishes and a variety of savory pies. I'd honestly like to give them all a shot at some point. But what kept drawing my eye was the boerewors pap and gravy. The boerewors (say it with a V sound) might as well translate as Boer wurst — in other words a sausage hailing from the Dutch and German forbearers of white Afrikaners.

An African paint job, and cricket on the telly.

My waiter described pap as being similar to polenta, though I found it to be more like dry grits (not that there's much difference between the two). The gravy in question does beg the polenta comparison, as it's the sort of gravy Tony Soprano might like, really more of an onion-heavy tomato sauce. The heap of pap smothered in sauce dominated my plate, and since I'm quite fond of ground corn, tomatoes and onions, it suited me. I did enjoy it a little better with heavy dousing of that peri peri (I'm not sure if that's proper, but nobody tried to stop me).

The house made boerewors sausage certainly held my interest. A little research tells me the coarseness of the pork and beef blend was intentional, as were the holiday spices I detected. It reminded me a bit of beef bratwurst, though seemed to derive more from a Northern European profile than German. Tasty, again, with peri peri (a reasonable mustard substitute).

I can't say the food was outrageously good — more along the lines of good pub fare. But considering the de facto exoticism of South African flavors, I'd say it's a worthy alternative to American or even British sports bar menus, which certainly seem boring by comparison.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Angry Pete’s goes from pop-up to drive-thru

Detroit Pizza sidles into the husk of a shuttered Taco Bell
Next Article

Reader Music Issue short takes

Obervatory's mosh pit, frenetic Rafael Payare, Lemonhead chaos, bleedforthescene, Coronado Tasting Room
That's not sausage and grits, it's Boerewors with Pap & Gravy. Cape Town Pub.
That's not sausage and grits, it's Boerewors with Pap & Gravy. Cape Town Pub.
Place

Cape Town Pub

7580 Miramar Road, San Diego

Another entrant in the creepy mascot category.

When you discuss getting dinner or lunch with friends, a litany of cultural choices are bound to come up: Thai? Mexican? Sushi? Nobody ever says, "South African?" Until recently, I barely knew it was an option. Last year, Cape Town Pub opened in Miramar — a slightly less onerous trip than flying to the other side of the planet to taste this stuff — so I took a chance.

Authenticity wasn't really going to be an issue for me, but walking into a spacious bar and restaurant decked out with typically African geometric patterns did feel like a departure. Never mind the fact you must walk by a weird zebra-headed mannequin standing sentry out front.

The sports bar features several large screens that show alien sports like cricket and rugby, as well as plenty of soccer, golf, and surfing competitions. Granted, this place does sit across the street from a US military base, so baseball, football and basketball aren't going to be out of the question.

Sponsored
Sponsored

This place is trying to put Stoney ginger beer on the map.

Most of the plentiful space is given over to a large dining room with casual table service. I helped myself to a seat and started trying to understand the menu. The words peri peri were vaguely familiar, and there was actually a bottle of the hot sauce included in my table's condiment basket. Judging by the ingredients, it's not too different than Cholula or Tabasco — a mix of peppers, garlic and vinegar — skewing maybe a little less bitter than Tabasco.

There were a couple of sandwiches featuring the flavor and also a couple of curry-styled dishes and a variety of savory pies. I'd honestly like to give them all a shot at some point. But what kept drawing my eye was the boerewors pap and gravy. The boerewors (say it with a V sound) might as well translate as Boer wurst — in other words a sausage hailing from the Dutch and German forbearers of white Afrikaners.

An African paint job, and cricket on the telly.

My waiter described pap as being similar to polenta, though I found it to be more like dry grits (not that there's much difference between the two). The gravy in question does beg the polenta comparison, as it's the sort of gravy Tony Soprano might like, really more of an onion-heavy tomato sauce. The heap of pap smothered in sauce dominated my plate, and since I'm quite fond of ground corn, tomatoes and onions, it suited me. I did enjoy it a little better with heavy dousing of that peri peri (I'm not sure if that's proper, but nobody tried to stop me).

The house made boerewors sausage certainly held my interest. A little research tells me the coarseness of the pork and beef blend was intentional, as were the holiday spices I detected. It reminded me a bit of beef bratwurst, though seemed to derive more from a Northern European profile than German. Tasty, again, with peri peri (a reasonable mustard substitute).

I can't say the food was outrageously good — more along the lines of good pub fare. But considering the de facto exoticism of South African flavors, I'd say it's a worthy alternative to American or even British sports bar menus, which certainly seem boring by comparison.

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Making Love to Goats, Rachmaninoff, and Elgar

Next Article

2024’s Best Bitcoin & Crypto Casinos – Play BTC Casino Games Online

Best Bitcoin Casinos (2024): Top 10 Crypto Casino Sites for BIG Payouts
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.