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.

 

 

5 Harrow Road
Msasa
Harare
498408

Flat Dog Diner Impressive 2012
My week was busy with the weekend promising to be worse, so we decided on a weeknight outing to Flat Dog Diner in Msasa. I had never been to this pub but my friends were quite familiar with it from years gone by. We arrived just after seven, on a Thursday night. There were several cars in the guarded parking lot but upon entry we realised that only a few of these belonged to patrons. There were a couple of people at the outdoor bar and one couple in the dining area. Our table was set and waiting for us but the other tables were not, so I assume they were expecting a slow night.

The menus were already on the table so we sat down and immediately started perusing the choice of starters, main courses, salads and desserts. I was quite tempted by the different prawn dishes on offer. Our waiter came and offered us drinks. I ordered white wine and my friends opted for Amstel lager and orange juice and soda. I asked the waiter if everything on the menu was available and I was vexed to learn that they had no fish or seafood. This cut down our options drastically but we still managed to dither over our decisions.

Eventually we settled on starters; croc sub, cheese and bacon balls and gypsy spits. The waiter took this order and left us to ponder on our main courses. We happily drank and chatted and finally decided what we would eat. I noticed that it was taking a while for our food to come.  However, when it arrived, I was not disappointed.

The gypsy spits, served with garlic and toast were very tasty.  The cheese and bacon balls were exquisite with cheese wrapped in bacon and dipped in batter then deep fried and the croc sub was a meal on its own; Portuguese bread with mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, green pepper and bacon with melted cheese. It was easily shared between the three of us and was delicious.

We had sent in our main course order with the arrival of our starters. As soon as he had cleared our table, our waiter asked if he could bring out our main dishes. We were eager to continue with our meal and gave our permission with gusto. We had ordered fillet steak with mushroom sauce, Flatdog specialty peri-peri chicken and pork chops.

The fillet steak arrived first. It was served with chips and emitted a tantalising aroma. This meal also came with a bowl of fresh salad made with lettuce, cucumber, onions and tomatoes. My friend really enjoyed the meal describing the steak as perfectly cooked with the meat soft and tender. The pork chops were served with mashed potatoes and butternut. This was a well cooked and tasty dish. The chicken portion was huge; half a chicken served with chips and side helpings of peri-peri sauce and garlic; another well made and delicious dish . We were impressed by the quality of food. The chef did a great job of making good food that was affordable.

A power cut meant that we couldn’t have desserts and with work the next morning we chose to cut our night short.  It had been a slow night for the establishment and we are curious to experience this venue on a busier occasion. It is an ideal venue for after work drinks and relaxation. What we saw of the garden was beautiful and very inviting, the interior is in need of some TLC and the “ladies” would benefit from some nice hand soap and hand towels.

Flat Dogs is a convenient venue for Msasa business people and we really enjoyed the food.  We decided that we would return for a lunchtime, outdoor dining experience to enjoy the gardens fully.
Pub Restaurant
3 Plates
Expect to Spend $15 - $20
Harrow Road, Msasa

 

Flat Dog Diner – New Owner, New Menu! 2011
Followers of this column will know that this year a new category, “pub restaurant”, has been introduced.  I bet “The Keg” (now being renovated), “O’Hagan’s”, “Paddy’s” and other such establishments spring to mind, but not many shout out “Flat Dog”!!  Those of us who have been around the Harare restaurant scene long enough to remember “Kaya Nyama” and “Clova Galix” might just mumble, in our geriatric way, “Flat Dog”!  “Flat Dog” has long been a Msasa landmark, my fondest memory being of their “prawn special” nights in the days when prawns were usually something for which you had to travel past the Nyamapanda Border Post!

Last July I paid a long overdue Friday lunchtime visit to Flat Dog and as far as I could see nothing had changed since my previous visit about two years previously; that included the shabby dimly lit décor inside and the stale smell of the previous evening’s business.  Last week’s visit was also a Friday lunchtime, but what a difference, though the inside was still dimly lit it, was now well ventilated.  Although the tables were not set, they were covered with clean cloths, giving the whole area a fresh appearance.  The Menu, a laminated pub style card, was new, and offered a sufficient range of meats and fish, though I didn’t enquire if the prawns and mussels were, in fact, available.  The waiting staff were also new and young, I was sorry not to see my old mate Noah who did such a good job in past times.

We headed out to the sun and joined several other tables of drinkers and diners in the well kept back garden which also boasts a gazebo bar (and monkeys gamboling and climbing trees!).  There were two specials on the board, Crumbed Chicken Fingers, Chips and Salad ($3) and Fish and Chips with Tarta (sic.) Sauce ($8).  As on previous visits we ordered cold Savannah’s to drink, Gipsy Spit Mushrooms ($4) and Cheese and Bacon Balls ($4) for starters.  These were faultlessly cooked, the Gypsy Spit being served with toast to dunk in the accompanying Garlic Butter and dishes of both Garlic and Piri Piri Sauce provided on the side.  The Wine selection was the same as on our previous visit, viz Robertson “Chateau Box”, so we decided to have another Savannah instead.  I am not fazed by the lack of a selection of wines, I suspect that demand for them is minimal and this is after all a pub restaurant.  To prove my point they were advertising Glenfiddich 12 Year old Whiskey at $3 a shot and I suspect this reflects the taste of the clientèle!

Our Main courses were Fillet Mignon in a Creamy Whiskey Sauce, probably not Glenfiddich Whiskey but very tasty and Fish and Chips.  Both were served with a notably fresh green salad.  I was pleased that my Fish, which was the special of the day, was Pan Fried without butter and our waiter told us that the Fish and Chips on the menu (which was more expensive) came with, for me, the dreaded butter!  The Fillet was as tender as fillet should be and charmingly served in a cast iron pan, both dishes came with golden chips very obviously fried in fresh oil.

The Sweet selection was limited but of course there was ice-cream ($3) and cinnamon flavoured “Mandela Pancakes” ($3) so we happily ordered these.  Both very acceptable in the context of a pub restaurant though the vanilla ice cream was not available as it had melted due to the power cut.  I am not sure why the chocolate variety had not met the same liquefying fate!!

And so to my one disappointment – only Instant Coffee, I hope the new management will get round to buying some Filter Pots and serving a fresh cup of coffee to complete the otherwise faultless makeover.

My last task was to inspect the toilets and what a joy to find them clean and adequately equipped!  Most important in a pub restaurant where the clientèle are encouraged to linger (Friday is Disco night) and consume much liquid.

If you fancy escaping from the noisy flat screen TV focused pubs to a little oasis next to Doon Estate where you can explore the Art and Craft shops to aid digestion then I can recommend Flat Dog at lunch time.  Not having experienced it I cannot comment on the evening ambience but for my taste the monkeys playing in the garden are much preferable to the Friday Disco!!  
Pub Restaurant
4 Plates
Expect to spend $14 to $25 per head
5 Harrow Road, Msasa, Harare

     

Friendly atmosphere at Flat Dog Diner (2010)
Unlike flat chests and flat Coke which are unglamorous and boring, the Flat Dog Diner, an edgy restaurant and bar in Msasa, is both popular and well patronised, and the favourite meeting place of a diverse clientèle.   If you have spent time in the great outdoors or ventured onto the banks of the Zambezi River, you will know that flat dog is urban slang for crocodile, a fearsome reptile with a broad head, tapering snout and massive jaws. With this image in mind, Felix and I visited Flat Dog Diner for the first time last week, expecting to encounter posses of khaki-clad hunters, rifles propped against the wall.  Tales would abound of night time sorties in canoes, and shots fired between two red eyes in the dark river, aglow in the torchlight.  Nothing could have been farther from the truth.
 
We arrived just after 1 o’clock and went straight to the bar, which is located in an adjacent thatched gazebo, equipped with comfortable bar stools and a solid wooden bar counter.  Well-dressed guests looked relaxed as they quaffed pre-lunch beers and G & Ts: other patrons, seated at the bar, were eating tasty looking T-bone steaks and chips, while sipping drinks.  A group of colleagues in business attire chatted amiably, drinks in hand, as they waited for their table inside the restaurant to be ready.
 
As it was a chilly day, Felix requested a room temperature Castle.  My Ginger Square, elegantly served in a long glass, was skilfully mixed and delicious.  The atmosphere at the Flat Dog is friendly, and although it was our first visit, we were soon deep in conversation with a couple on a road trip from Mutare to Victoria Falls, and a resident of the Mazowe Valley who is contemplating going into gold mining.
 
Although there were tables and chairs on the verandah and picnic benches and umbrellas in a pleasant garden, we chose to sit inside, and to eat our meal by lamplight.  Our waiter was efficiently pleasant, and before long Felix was served with a sizzling cast iron pan, filled with Queen size prawns, mussels and calamari.  Rice was served on the side.  I was mildly disappointed with my spicy grilled chicken, which was slightly overcooked and rather dry.  Neither were the French fries up to scratch, although Felix helped me finish them off.  Flat Dog’s version of Greek salad was served flat on a plate rather than layered in a bowl, with a sweetish but pleasant salad dressing.
 
There is no specific décor at the Flat Dog Diner and the dark interior with its curious chip tile and mirror feature along the wall of the inside bar, and the synthetic fabric table cloths with kitchen curtain designs, are due for a makeover.  One small wooden crocodile fixed to the wall looks down shyly upon the dining area, looking as though it had wandered in from the Mukuvisi and found itself at the wrong address.
 
No meal is complete without a dessert, so when the sun came out again we abandoned the busy dining room and sat at a picnic table and bench in the pretty, well-treed garden.  A well-groomed black cat sat politely on the bench opposite, watching us eat banana fritters.  The bananas were ripe and sweet, but the dipping batter had no sugar and had a slightly savoury taste.  Coffee, served in a teapot, was of dubious provenance, and not to be recommended.
 
This may not have been a great gastronomic experience, but our welcome was warm and management and staff friendly and attentive.  Children are always welcome, and at weekends, Flat Dogs often lay on live music with the Two Tonys and provide popcorn and candy floss for the kids. There is plenty of room for youngsters to romp in the garden, while the over eighteens can enjoy a wide variety of alcoholic drinks in the gazebo.
Family Restaurant
3 Plates
Expect to spend $10 to $20 per head

Flatdog Diner – Down but not Out! 2009
When thinking of dining, Msasa does not spring readily to mind, yet there is a wide selection of eateries there ranging from take-aways at one end of the spectrum to “The Shop” Café at the other.  Somewhere in the middle, we find Flatdog Diner.  I admit to a liking for the “cheap and cheerful” - honest food without pretension - and there are many such places in the Industrial Areas frequented largely in daylight hours and by male beer drinkers!  The most quirky that I remember is the now long closed Yahoo Country Club housed in a garage, without a sign and with the only entrance being through its very primitive kitchen.  The walls were exotically decorated with brightly coloured painted fish with human heads (at least one I remember smoking a pipe!) and a selection of fishing nets hung from the ceiling.  Seating was at benches, the limited menu was written on a board and the cooking excellent 

I first got to know “Flat Dog” through their “prawn special” which was such good value that it was worth the journey from the Northern suburbs even in the dark.  Having tried unsuccessfully to phone to check if they were open, we decided anyhow to risk the journey during one of the first downpours of the season.

Friday lunchtime should be one of the busiest for any restaurant, but we were the only diners.  Four other people were enjoying a beer in the gazebo bar.  The welcome by the staff was genuinely warm and being a cold day we chose to sit inside, which was rather dimly lit and reminiscent of the previous night’s nicotine!  The old familiar menu was offered, an attractive layout of handwritten items and a board by the bar summarising the main courses.

Seeing no mention of the fondly remembered prawns, I enquired and was assured that these were available ($12 for 12 King Size) but that there was no longer a designated day for “prawn special”. On enquiring about the level of business our waiter told us that it would be busy in the evening as they had a “one man band”!

Going with the theme of diner food, for starters we chose the ever popular Gipsy Spit Mushrooms and Cheese and Bacon Balls (both $3).  These lived up to their description on the menu, the cheese balls were particularly tasty and light and the gipsy spit came with enough garlic to ward off the most persistent evil spirit and many of one’s friends!  Deciding against the prawns, not least because of the lack of diners and therefore the presumed length of time produce spends in the freezer, my companion ordered a half piri-piri chicken ($7) and being a traditional “Friday” girl (NOT, please note, “girl Friday”!) I chose Fish and Chips ($11) – beer battered hake, the menu informed me.  The chicken was generous and very nicely cooked with the piri-piri sauce, and yet more garlic on the side.  A practical, if not the tastiest way, of ensuring diners can adjust the seasonings to their own liking.  

My fish had, I suspect, been a long time in the freezer, and was tough from being overcooked.  I thought lovingly of our own home grown flavoursome Bream (Tilapia) so wonderfully cooked by Kerry Wallace of The Shop Café in the next door Doon Estate, and not for the first time wondered why inferior Hake is so widely used in the catering industry. The chips were fresh and well cooked and my salad passable though far from exciting.  We declined the offer of ice-cream for desert, not least because of the cool day but also the generosity of the starter portions.

What Flat Dog lacks in culinary finesse it makes up for in the attentiveness of its staff - the manager whom I remembered from my “prawn special” days told me that he had been there for 13 years, and the chief for 6 years.  Our waiter, though lacking any semblance of uniform, did well, bringing slices of lemon for our well chilled Savannah’s and extra (paper!) napkins and a finger bowl for the piri-piri chicken.  When asked about coffee he told us that there was none, but he would buy some tomorrow - unfortunately we couldn’t wait that long!

No restaurant looks good empty, and Flat Dog definitely has a sad air of neglect.  But there is a basic honesty about its food which appeals to my nostalgia for the good old uncomplicated days when the only chillies in a restaurant were in the food and WiFi connectivity was not an option on the menu!   
Family Restaurant
3 Plates
Expect to spend  $9 to $20 per head

Flat experience at Flatdog Diner
The evening was a bit harsh, so I decided to cheer myself up by grabbing a quick dinner at Flatdog Diner, number 5 Harrow Road, Masasa.  As I drove in I was greeted by a not-so welcoming guard looking after an empty car park.  The first thing I enquired was whether the restaurant had opened for dinner as yet.  When he answered in the affirmative, I quickly assumed that there were probably two entrances and I had chosen the less popular one.  I walked along a neatly paved footpath leading to the restaurant.  The path passes through a breathtaking garden endowed with natural indigenous and exotic plants which are vibrant and really uplifting. By the time I reached the entrance of the restaurant the stressful effects of an otherwise hectic day at the office had been caressed away.  I was ready for the pampering which had seemingly begun even before I had gotten inside. 

As I walked in I was greeted by two waiters and a bar attendant who all looked as if they had congregated to pray for their first patron of the evening to arrive.  The place was empty and looking cold.  Oh my God!  Was this going to be a replay of the experience I had at the Sandawana last year, where I was a lone diner from start to finish?  As I looked at the menu board which was right by the bar counter facing the door, a couple walked in and the Sandawana curse was broken! 

The menu board had a reasonable list including chicken livers, chicken fingers, beef fingers, cheese and bacon balls for starters.  For main courses, vegetable crepe, peri-peri chicken, chicken schnitzel, liver and onion, roast beef, rump steak, hake and trout as well as mussels in a pot.  Wow!  I thought to myself, this was not so bad for a seemingly rather deserted establishment. 

I ordered beef fingers for my starters.  As I struggled to decide what main meal could justify my courage for being the sole soul in a lonely restaurant, an alert elderly waiter - evidently belonging to the old school of waiters – fully trained to massage a customer’s ego and to give royal treatment, came and announced that in addition to what was on the menu board, they could also prepare quick cheese burgers.  I naturally thought it would be a less risky and quicker option and asked him to bring that for my dinner. 

My beef fingers were in delicious gravy of onion and tomato with a hint of mushroom.  The meat was tender and very tasty.  Shortly the Cheese Burger came and unfortunately the chef had decided to be quite economical with the cheese.  If you have tasted Burger Hut’s burgers you will know what I mean.  The lettuce was also not so lively, neither was the piece of tomato it lay with on one side of the burger roll.  The roll itself was not inspiring.  It did not have sufficient freshness to atone for what lacked in the other components.  I had deliberately not ordered a soft drink, preferring instead to force a glass or two of water and then top up with tea or coffee at the end.  Unfortunately I learnt later on that they did not serve tea. Their selection of drinks was also quite limited - they only had coke for soft drinks, and a few local wines.  I was once again face to face with the economic meltdown with which our country is grappling.  The restaurant industry is under severe stress and requires resilience and innovation from the operators if it is to survive.

The furniture was in bad need of uplift.  I did however observe that the greens and oranges of the inside walls matched well with the table cloths and curtains.  The coloured lamps, too, added vibrancy to the restaurant, creating a warm and a ideal atmosphere for dining.  I could not however discern a central restaurant theme to hold the decor together. 

The waiters were generally warm and quite helpful, though their dress and general grooming needed some attention.  A uniform for all of them would definitely be the starting point.  The waiters confirmed to me that business was very low these days and that lunch time tends to bring in more customers than I currently observed.  I could see their fears on their faces.  My advice to the entrepreneur running this establishment is that there is need to market the establishment through different means, including erecting direction signs off Mutare Road.  A small advert in the dailies - even in the small section - to advise that phones are down, and giving alternative numbers, would go a long way.  For example, I had been trying the number for a week, only to know that it was out of order when I had arrived.  Advising the market of your lovely gardens (which can be hired for functions) and gazebo bar could also generate the all needed publicity which will no doubt translate to restaurant patronage. 

Finally, a facelift of the outside wall and the gate would do a lot to draw the attention of old and new patrons.  I think that with the way Zimbabwe’s demographics are changing, there is certainly need to reach out to new market segments as well as retaining existing ones.  Innovation and flexibility are also well tried secrets for success.  The last time I gave such free advice was when I reviewed the restaurant at the “then” Feathers Hotel nearly two years ago.  Towards the end of last year it was sold to a church organisation, hence “the then...”. 
Family Restaurant
2 Plates