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Zim on a Plate Zim in a Glass
Restaurant Reviews
Sponsored by the Cheeseman
with Press Partner The Standard
©All Zimbabwe On A Plate Reviews and Ratings are
copyright to The Cheeseman and may not be
reproduced without permission.Rainbow Towers Hotel
Pennefather Avenue
Harare
704501
Oh la la-La patisserie 2011
As a fitting end to a gruelling week, we chose to lunch at La Patisserie in the Rainbow Towers Hotel. We strolled in to an amazing sight, an entrance festooned with Christmas trees, tinsel, lights and a staircase lined with Christmas stockings under a huge chandelier. What's more, there was a grand piano on a pedestal at which sat a gentleman playing Christmas carols. It was an attack on all the senses! His style of play was exuberant, running through a repertoire of carols, church hymns and a medley of Andrew Lloyd Weber show tunes.Outside it was a sweltering hot November afternoon and the immediate cooling of temperatures upon entrance was welcome. La Patisserie is immediately to the left of the main entrance. It is a collection of small wrought iron tables with elegant chairs reminiscent of sidewalk cafés in the squares of Europe. My partner remarked that it was like being outside but inside - if you know what she means. There is a counter at the front of the restaurant and this houses the gâteaux and pastries on offer. What a mouth-watering sight!
There was a delay in which we tried to come to terms with the music and the colourful decorations. Suddenly about five waiters and waitresses appeared as if conjured by magic and the little café became busy. We were given a menu which offered all day breakfast, a variety of salads, a selection of sandwiches, pies as well as spring rolls and chicken wings. It was light fare and appropriate fare for extremely hot weather. I eventually chose a strawberry milkshake to drink and a Towers club sandwich and my partner chose chicken wings and spring rolls accompanied by iced tea. We were informed our orders would be ready in fifteen minutes. There were few customers initially but because the restaurant is by the entrance, we were able to people-watch as hotel guests as well as other restaurants' clientèle passed by.
My partner's dishes appeared a long time before mine and she was happy to share as I was famished. When she had nearly finished eating, a waiter appeared to inform me that my order had been taken to one of the hotel guests as room service and I would have to wait more!
My partner ordered grilled chicken wings served with tomato chilli sauce, chips and chef's salad of the day for $5. She drank iced tea. The chicken wings were tasty and crispy and they brought a bottle of Tabasco sauce to the table for those of us that like flavour that's kicked up a notch. The chips were well made, with the right amount of crunch. The salad was more of a garnish but still enjoyable. She also ordered the Chinese Spring Rolls and sweet soya sauce. These were chicken and veg enclosed in very crispy wrapping. They were served on a bed of stir-fried vegetables that included onions, red and green peppers and celery. The sweet soya sauce was delicious. She thoroughly enjoyed the spring rolls.
When my food was eventually presented, I was fairly full from shared food. Unlike my partner's chips, mine were not as well cooked and not as crisp, due to the rush to produce them after the untimely delay. The sandwich towers were enjoyable with the varying layers of bacon, chicken and mayonnaise. I asked for the meal to be packed away so I could take it home for supper.
After a suitable interval we ventured into the sweet spot and were at a loss as to which delectable gâteaux to focus on. After much debate we settled on a slice of black forest and a fruit slice. Those both looked amazing and tasted deliciously decadent. My fruit gâteau comprised a trifle containing banana, topped with strawberries and red jelly, surrounded by large pieces of chocolate. The combination was truly delicious. We ordered espresso and cappuccino, which proved perfect accompaniments. After one bite, my partner was not surprised that the back forest gâteau is their bestseller. It was soft, decadent and moist, with a tantalising array of flavours. Given half a chance we would return just for that cake - absolutely worth all the extra calories and love handles! We staggered out, fully sated. La Patisserie's fare hit all the right spots and with such reasonable pricing we will go back for more.
Coffee Shop
Rainbow Towers Hotel, Harare
3 Plates
Expect to spend $10 - $15 per head
La Patisserie at Rainbow Towers – great coffee, interesting buzz 2010
Not being a frequent flyer down-town I found it quite a trek negotiating the ever-worsening antics of the cities drivers. However on arrival at the capital’s “chateau d’or” the Rainbow Towers, I was immediately calmed by the ease and proximity with which I was able to park, receiving a nonchalant bonjour as I did so from the security guard who was keeping his highly trained and eagle eye on the bays’ inhabitants. A regal and sophisticated S-type Jaguar posed proudly at the entrance, as if to say to the establishment’s clientele “good taste and class welcome here”.Akin to many hotel bistro-esque coffee shops, The Patisserie finds itself in the main lobby area, looking out onto the lawns and gardens. Consequently it is a hive of activity, and an apt place to consume some much needed coffee and fill a gap with their all-day breakfast. My waitress was Suspicious, not by nature, but by name…… she smiled brightly and catered to my frequent whims.
The neatly dispersed tables are pretty banal in appearance, yet practical at the same time. Numerous meetings took place at them, as well as several, like me, entertaining a solo patron, who was busying himself with business of grand importance and urgency. The interior of the hotel itself is very neat, tidy and trim. The Patisserie just lacks a touch of (my) preconceived French atmosphere, the potential is there; but apart from the aroma of the coffee and a few pastries on display, lagging in realisation. Although this did not at all detract from a very pleasant hour of consuming some of the town’s finest coffee whilst attending to my day’s affairs.
Sadly the long-awaited breakfast was quite disappointing. It appeared to have been prepared for the buffet at a much earlier sitting of “petit-dejeuner”. The poached eggs were hard, the bacon over-cooked as was the sausage, shouldered by some tired looking baked beans. However it was all presented with such pride and indeed very hot, that my hunger got the better of me. Had it all been fresh, and not at an astronomical $14 (twice the price of a cooked breakfast in most coffee shops) it would have been somewhere that I would want to visit again. I would, though, just for the coffee, the service and the intrigue of the bustling venue. So I will go back, in the near future, when my caffeine levels run low. But I will opt for a croissant as my repast, though the other pastries, too, did indeed look very appetising!
Coffee Shop
3 Plates
Expect to spend $10-$25 per head
La Patisserie at Rainbow Towers 2009
Hotel lobbies can be interesting places, a place where you can be a spectator, isolated in a nook or a chair on the sidelines, or one of the players, parading for others whether you want to or not. But it is where the action is, where the life of a hotel and its cultural mix is on display; there, or in the more public bars or restaurants or sitting rooms that might lead off from it. And there are so many types of lobbies, so many types of hotels, so what makes a great hotel something special? More often than not the tasteful elegance and welcoming comfort of a really good hotel is defined in its architecture and that seems mostly lost to modern banality. Bigger is often not better but simply vulgar, ostentatious and cold; a glitzy lobby that you just want to pass through as quickly as possible, like a railway station concourse, simply functional and impersonal.But the allure of Villa d’Este, overlooking Lake Como or the restored St. Regis Grand in Rome bespeaks timeless elegance and style on a grander scale, with cuisine to match. Or the lobby restaurant of The Peninsula in Hong Kong, which I have only passed through, was a place to see and be seen by the business sect ‘doing’ their power lunches. And that, incidentally, is where the term lobbying is derived, as President Ulysses Grant used to retreat to the lobby of the Willard Inter-Continental in Washington D.C. only to be approached by those soliciting special favours!
I am doing no lobbying today, though it wouldn’t be a bad idea, as I sit in the lobby of the Rainbow Towers waiting for my steak to walk through the doors; its taking rather longer than it should! There’s no one else in La Patisserie at half past two in the afternoon so I can study the promenade of patrons – sombre colours mostly, meld with the cubiform gold gilt of the lobby, their obscure reflections barely puddling in the marble floors. A large troupe of young ladies pours up the stairs to my right, testament to a Miss Tourism event. A man patiently waits for two pies from the coffee shop display as the waiter laboriously assembles take-away boxes. This is where my chocolate cake comes from later – one amongst half a dozen varieties – a chiffon with the cream just starting to turn… too late, as I wait for my change, a fresh and tempting cake emerges from the kitchen. The counter displays a few muffins, scones, croissants, and one or two pastries, but not really the selection I would have expected from a 5-star hotel. A waitress offered me coffee, ‘would I like a strong cappuccino?’, ‘ah, most definitely’, and it was very nice, though the froth was a bit weak. But here again, there are only the basics – filter, cappuccino, latte or espresso. Without going really fancy this could be expanded with macchiato, long black, ristretto… and in even the simplest shopping mall coffee shop in South Africa you can opt for cream topping and presentation is livened up with a dusting of cocoa.
La Patisserie also offers some meals. There is an all-day breakfast, 3-egg omelette, beef burger, Towers club sandwich or toasted sandwiches. The grilled chicken wings with tomato chilli sauce, game chips and chef’s salad sounded the most exciting. They also have three salads – chicken Caesar, Niçoise and Athenian Greek and the description of the first two had me considering one of them for lunch. What I actually chose, though, was a T bone steak. Which, when it came, albeit very slowly, was nonetheless cooked as requested and perfectly acceptable.
The service could be better. I arrived and seated myself and spent some time wondering if I should go in search of a waiter and menu. Other customers occasionally plonked themselves down and waited… and waited – no one ate, and the proximity of the coffee shop to the entrance means it tends to be treated as a waiting area, but nevertheless it took quite a while for their intent to be established.
The bill was however presented very smartly. But getting the change from the bowels of the hotel, or wherever your cash disappears to, was a protracted matter! Still, it gave me 15-20 minutes to observe the promenade or count the spotlights over the coffee shop; 16 of them and 7 working!
Coffee Shop
3 Plates
Expect to spend $7 to $32
La Patisserie - Gold at the end of the Rainbow
2008 Review
Old habits die hard, so when I told my partner that we were off to review La Patisserie, the coffee shop on the ground floor of the Sheraton, he gently corrected me that the name had changed to Rainbow Towers quite some time ago.Coffee shops in major hotels around the world are not renowned for the ambience and buzz that the dedicated “boutique” coffee shops can offer. So you tend to love them or hate them. It’s not their fault. An hotel has so many functions, and by their nature they are usually large stark buildings – from the outside at least - in which the coffee shop is simply one small cog in their business machine.
Having said that, leading hotels can offer many surprises and therefore should not be overlooked by walk-in customers like you and me. Many offer extraordinary value for money for us, and other advantages, because they are in such a highly competitive industry. Whenever we are in the Far East, for example, we make a beeline for certain international hotels, especially for lunch, because their economies of scale, and cross-subsidies, often result in you dining like a king or queen for a fraction of what you would pay in a normal restaurant.
But I’m digressing, so back to Rainbow Towers which we visited in the late morning. Parking is secure and free. Our last few visits have been after dark, so the first things that struck us were the beautiful lush gardens. Luxuriant green lawns, graceful palms and pretty flowers in white gravel Zen beds. As our house has been a water free zone for many months - in common with most of Harare - my eyes were green with envy if you will excuse the pun. But my partner muttered something about what a waste of water when most of our town is dry.
The entrance was further enhanced by gleaming marble, interesting sculptures and a friendly shoe-shine man offering a complementary polish for our shoes. The huge lobby area is very attractive, with many nice pictures and other touches, and has such a wonderful feeling of space and coolness which was particularly welcome as the day was hot and humid with not a rain cloud in sight.
The staff of La Patisserie were well-dressed, friendly, attentive and efficient. And management was present and interested, which is often lacking in Zimbabwe these days. Should your day and stress levels require it, you may smoke and also order something of a stronger nature than coffee !!
Whilst deciding on what to eat, we relaxed with a chilled mango juice and a hot frothy cappuccino. My personal cappuccino quality test is how long the sugar takes to slip through the foam – childish I know, but actually quite scientific !! La Patisserie passed with flying colours and the coffee was of the right strength and temperature.
We played “spot the tourist”, but that seemed to be a rare species although there was plenty of business activity as the Towers was hosting no less than four conferences/ seminars that day. Everywhere was immaculate, with not a dead leaf in any of the pot plants, or a speck of dust on the sculptures. A very high standard of maintenance and décor.
There was an extensive variety of food available. My partner chose a Club Sandwich, and I had a simple hamburger and chips. Both were good. There is also a dedicated area offering a wide selection of treats for those with a sweet tooth. So we rounded off our light lunch with a shared vanilla cream cake. Tasty and delicate, it was unusual as it looked like a cheesecake, but was actually more of a pannacotta on a thin sponge base. There was a good range of cakes, scones and croissants to choose from and they all looked fresh and appetising.
Returning to what I said earlier about some hotels being extremely good value for money, the prices at Rainbow were so reasonable compared to the exorbitant sums that you can be charged in many places around Harare these days.
So if you are having a stressful day trying to accomplish the impossible in the CBD, take a little time out to enjoy the cool, spacious, coffee shop, and gaze out over the verdant gardens, feed the inner man and then go back into the fray !!
Coffee Shop
4 Plates