11 December 2009 FOOD FOR THOUGHT Search for quality By JUSTICE MALALA

The problem with looking forward to the New Year is that you start worrying that it will be a bit like January 2008. You know, rolling blackouts, denials that anything is wrong and, of course, one's neighbours quietly sneaking off to Australia. I mean, Eskom does not have a CEO. Well, it has, but he is the same guy as the chairman. This is good and bad: Mervyn King won't like it, but the ANC's Gwede Mantashe will. Mantashe likes to say that the "general secretary of the ANC and the chairman of the SACP are in close consultation". He, of course, luxuriates in both positions. One thing to admire about Eskom - and Telkom and SAA - is that their mere mention gets the blood of many a South African boiling. Maybe it is because they are nationalised. Julius Malema, please note. But I think it is largely because they are inefficient. Economist Mike Schussler put it in more colourful language the other day at an electricity conference organised by trade union Solidarity. Now the economists I know like to be temperate and confuse people like President Jacob Zuma with graphs. Not Schussler. Plain language is his style. "If Eskom did not give such huge discounts on some of its contracts, it would not need additional funding," he said, decrying Eskom's 35% tariff-hike proposal. "There is enough money... You don't need a fucking finance model." He also could not understand why government needed to give free electricity to poor households. "But government doesn't think that way, they want to be in this Marxist, socialist kak," he vented. I sometimes get into a froth myself, but it is not just the electricity tariffs that make me feel the way Schussler is feeling. My froth these past weeks is that the Capetonians are clearly way ahead of us poor, hard-working Gautengers when it comes to top restaurants. I know, I know. It is the same every year. Eat Out magazine's top-10 restaurant list is out. It is depressing. The only Jo'burg eatery that gets a look- in is Roots at Forum Homini Boutique Hotel, out near Krugersdorp. Nothing else in Jo'burg cuts the mustard. I have to confess I have lunched at Forum Homini twice over the past two years. It is a classy and most agreeable joint. A friend of mine has his birthday lunches there. I shall not name him in the hope - fervent - that I shall be invited again, at least once. As I said, it is an extremely good restaurant in an extremely beautiful bush setting. But really, is it the only one in Jo'burg that can make it into the top 10? The top restaurant, according to Eat Out, is La Colombe at Uitsig in Constantia, Cape Town. This restaurant was on my list of haunts to visit when I went on an "eating, drinking and eating again" trek through the Cape recently with my lovely wife and four friends. Alas, so exhausted were we by the second evening that we did not make it. Clearly, it was my loss. I can't wait for the next time I am in Cape Town. I see the service award went to the Rust en Vrede restaurant in Stellenbosch. My friends Jan Newman and Ben Lowther took me there once on a sultry evening. The food was fantastic. The service really was excellent. Of course, the Tasting Room at Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek makes the top 10, at number 10 in fact, tying with Overture in Stellenbosch. The Tasting Room could have made it on the service front as well - it makes it on all the others - because of its incredible training programme. Durban is underestimated in the food stakes so it was nice to see that the city - now famous for bull killing - has a restaurant at number nine - 9th Avenue Bistro. I haven't heard of it, so it has to go into the diary for when next I am in those parts. Ritrovo Waterkloof Heights Shopping Centre, 103 Club Avenue, Waterkloof Ridge, Pretoria Tel: (012) 460-4367 Obama! Excellent Good Poor Eskom So, I guess Gautengers have to take solace in the fact that the chef of the year is Chantel Dartnall of Mosaic Restaurant (at The Orient boutique hotel in Elandsfontein, Pretoria). Now, I had heard about this restaurant only a week before the announcement of the results because a friend invited us there. Alas, we did not make it for various reasons but ended up at that perennial Pretoria favourite, Ritrovo. What can one say about Ritrovo? The service was excellent, the father and son duo charming and the wine list extensive. It might not have made it into the top 10, but it is still something we Gautengers can be proud of. Unlike Eskom.