Johnna's Pick of the Week: The Butcher Shop & Grill (Johannesburg, SA)

2 flights, 14,000 miles and a man that picked his nose in the airplane seat beside us to give you this review. We love you. This weeks pick comes from none other than South Africa (*You didn't think we'd travel half way around the world and not come back with a review, did you??). The Butcher Shop & Grill is located in Sandton, Johannesburg in what has become known as Nelson Mandela Square. When one is in South Africa, one must try game. After going on a safari a couple of days before, you might wonder how we could wrap our little mouths around a single animal. We just blocked the memories of the beautiful spring boks we had seen trotting through the wilderness and dug into what would be one of the most memorable meals during our time in South Africa.

We started our meal with the beef carpaccio which was thin slivers of beef accompanied by truffle oil, Parmesan rocket & chillies. These came with a bit of a bite and we can attribute that to how the chillies were able to spread throughout the truffle oil which was smothered on top of the beef. We decided against the prawns which is served in what must have been every restaurant in Johannesburg. Since we had heard so much about the game in South Africa, we decided to go for it (*No matter how hard it was for us to block out the images of the safari...). So we went with the ostrich fillet, which appealed to our beef senses. The increased tenderness separates it from any steak we have had but the savory flavor reminded us of a steak we once enjoyed at St. Elmos. It was a hard toss up between the ostrich and venison pie on the menu, but once we took that first bite out of the succulent oval shaped meat (*and the fact that we didn't see a live ostrich on our safari...) we knew we had made the right decision.

The rest of the items on the menu didn't appeal to us, most of it was what you can get at any TGI Friday in the States. Another guest at the table was vegetarian and once again we were faced with the terrible "vegetarian platter" that is served at most restaurants. Why is that every restaurant, even on the other side of the world, think that vegetarians only want cold mashed up potatoes and some green beans?! We demand justice for vegetarians!! Ok, we're calm again, so back to the Butcher Shop. All in all we got what we asked for: game. It was basically the softer, leaner side of a good steak that also matches perfectly with A1 steak sauce. Would we go again?? A trip to South Africa to taste anything, we're in.

*P.S. While walking to our table we saw a cigar/bar area, butcher shop, wine shop and dining room all in one restaurant...all they needed was a CVS and this would be the one stop shop...

Picture source: http://www.thebutchershop.co.za/