Thursday, February 11, 2010

SINN'S

4.5 out of 5 stars

Sinn’s is named after the proprietor of the restaurant, Tomas Sinn, who is also the owner of another award-winning restaurant, Blue Danube. This restaurant is located at the new trendy Wembley Square Centre, where it takes the elegance of fine dining and makes it more approachable by offering affordable prices and professional, friendly service. It actually reminds me of Serendra or Bonifacio High Street Area, where it is newer, smaller and a little more edgy as compared to the VA Waterfront of Cape Town that could be likened to Greenbelt. The concept behind this restaurant is to have it capture the ambience of an upmarket inner city hotspot. It was very successful because of its location, where Wembley Square is located within an industrial site, sort of like NY’s meatpacking district, as well as its interiors with its geometric light fixtures, metal columns and walls layered with wood, mirror and slate.
Interiors

When at Sinn’s, one should also try the Sbar (adjoining the restaurant), where this cocktail lounge offers tapas style snacks and a wide range of classic cocktails and boutique style wines. After your delicious meal, one can go to Sinn’s Deli beside the Sbar, where you can get fresh bread or tapenades to bring home to your loved ones. They also do they do free wine tastings here every Friday from 5-8pm.
Sbar

We started with a Rocket Salad with Crispy Bacon and Pecorino (R 65 / 387.89 PhP). The salad was really tasty, tossed with a light vinaigrette dressing, as well as generous amounts of bacon, pecorino shavings, herbed croutons, cherry tomato halves and alfalfa sprouts. Their alfalfa sprouts look different from ours since the seeded ends are dark, but the taste is very much the same. Rocket leaves are basically arugula, so it is very spicy and nutty and are great raw as salad leaves. Overall though, I think what made this dish delicious was the addition of bacon and cheese. You can’t really go wrong with that, and adding these to a nutritious salad makes the salad more than just tolerable, but enjoyable.
Rocket Salad with Crispy Bacon and Pecorino (R 65 / 387.89 PhP)

For main, we had two Grilled Prawns (R 99 / 590.78 PhP), Fillet of Salmon (R 119 / 710.13 PhP) and Prime Aged Karan Beef Sirloin (R 99 / 590.78 PhP). All were beautifully decorated, but the Grilled Prawns were the least attractive, even if it did have an interesting flavor. Taking from Indian influence, it was basically eight prawns served with a light curry sauce and curried basmati rice. It tasted better than it looked, though, and was very light and healthy, where the shrimps did not drown in the rich yellow curry sauce.
Grilled Prawns (R 99 / 590.78 PhP)

The Fillet of Salmon was grilled to perfection and served on a whole grain mustard mash and Hollandaise sauce. It was decorated with the same black sesame lavash as in the prawns, forest mushrooms, beet chips and a protea flower, Africa’s national flower. This dish may be even more luscious and fatty than the prawns, as the hollandaise was poured all over the base of the plate.
Fillet of Salmon (R 119 / 710.13 PhP)

I liked my Prime Aged Karan Beef Sirloin the best. You had a choice of rösti (German/Austrian potato patties) or French fries and a selection of these sauces: wild porcini mushroom, Dijon mustard, garlic butter or red wine. I chose the rösti with red wine sauce. Karan beef is basically an integrated beef production organisation in Africa, much like America’s USDA. The steak was juicy medium well, and sopped up the red wine sauce beautifully. It came with a side of porcini mushrooms, 3 rösti patties and a whole grilled onion. The meaty taste of the steak, with the creamy mushroom side order, piquant flavor of the red wine and the sweetness of the onion woke up all the taste sensations in my mouth. Not only was there a good flavor explosion but also a combination of texture, with a thoughtful touch of crispy string sweet potatoes on top as garnish.
Prime Aged Karan Beef Sirloin (R 99 / 590.78 PhP)

Sinn’s is not only a great dive to eat in, but is also cool to be seen in. I would head back to this restaurant in a heartbeat next time I’d take a trip to Cape Town!

Menu. Click below to magnify.


















Wembley Square
McKenzie Street
Gardens
8001
Cape Town, South Africa
Open from 9 am to 11 pm

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