Red-hot spice of the East

The front-row seats at the conference went to Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi and Brasilia. You can see which way the wind is blowing

Look, I try to keep up with the times. When I heard that the ANC had invited its Brics partners to its big confab in Midrand last weekend I knew it was time to get on with the programme. I had to start learning my Mandarin and get into the cuisine. Don’t be fooled. Our relationship with China is for keeps.

I know that President Jacob Zuma opened the conference with a long speech in which he said: “[SA] continues to attract foreign direct investment . . . This was worth R43bn in the 2014/2015 financial year and US$3,31bn from January 2015 to July 2015. The UK, US, Germany, Australia and India were the key FDI sources for SA.”

That should make our Western friends happy. But they were not invited to grab the front-row seats at the conference. No, sir. Those went to Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi and Brasilia. You can see which way the wind is blowing, dear reader.

Which is why my lovely wife and I hooked up with our international-correspondent friends Geoffrey York and Erin Conway- Smith to sniff out some interesting Chinese eateries. Geoffrey and Erin both lived in Beijing for years, and they are a fount of knowledge on matters Chinese.

Erin recommended Little Sheep in Rivonia. If you have not been to that part of town lately you’d better hop off there quick. It’s changed. The last time I was there this was known as Rivonia Square and it was one of a dime-a-dozen malls in Jo’burg. It was bought by a Chinese company a few years ago, renamed Oriental City Rivonia, and now accommodates various Chinese businesses.

Little Sheep is just off the street. It’s a bit shabby, but this is where Chinese business people go for a good lunch or dinner. This area has a more high-end, corporate clientele than, say, the Chinese area that’s grown around Cyrildene.

The menu is long, very long, with over 100 items. Erin and Geoffrey were already ticking off a few items for us to enjoy. Little Sheep serves North Chinese cuisine and we were there specifically for the hot pot, which Erin had recommended.

The principle of hot pot is straightforward — it’s a bit like fondue. You order a boiling pot of broth. This is placed on an induction stove in front of you, and Bob’s your uncle: you place your meats, vegetables, dumplings and so forth into the broth, let it cook and feast.

The hot pot’s history stretches back 1 000 years to when the Jin Dynasty and the Mongolians started putting beef and horse meat into a hot broth. It has spread through the dynasties and is now a popular Chinese way of eating.

Hot pot styles differ from region to region, so in SA you also find local dishes — crocodile, anyone? — to add to the broth. We had what’s called a half-half base: one part spicy red chilli, the other a milder broth. There is a variety of additions you can throw in. Besides the usual meats and vegetables, one could go to town with pork brain, duck tongues, beef throat, warthog meat and the aforementioned crocodile.

For starters, before the broth, Erin had selected some lovely salad of parsley and bean curd strips, smashed cucumber and a few other things. It was excellent. Then into the hot pot we put in a whole load of ingredients: beef, vegetables, crab meatballs, noodles and my absolute best of the evening — copious amounts of shaved lamb.

The drinks menu is varied and I look forward to trying the Chinese whisky. That evening we washed the meal down with some light, very cold Tsingtao beer. It was a triumph.

I get the ANC’s flirtation with China now. It’s not the politics. It’s the food.