Eastern Food Bazaar

If we need somewhere interesting (and cheaper) to eat

Eastern Food Bazaar (Cape Town Central)

Address: 96 Longmarket Street, Cape Town Central. Opening hours: Open daily from 11h00 to 21h30.

If you thought you could no longer afford to eat out in Cape Town, consider the Eastern Food Bazaar in what used to be the Wellington Fruit Growers’ Market. This narrow 1934 building forms a corridor from Longmarket to Darling Street. An upmarket reinvention of the food court concept, The Eastern Food Bazaar offers unbelievable prices, with meals from R20 to R30, relying on high turnover, no-frills service and volume.

The walls are lined with Moghul paintings, ornate wooden screens and carved doors framed by columns to create a faux Indian lane. The floor is paved with stones to suggest a cobbled road and above the sitting area hang chandeliers and wooden buckets. Chairs and tables, some with granite tops stand along one side opposite a battery of stainless-steel food stalls. Halfway there’s a basin with taps for washing your hands. You order and pay at a central counter and collect the food with your chit from your chosen stall. The food is prepared fresh before you.

With the exotic smells and the lively, bustling crowd, the atmosphere is jolly and congenial. Most of the stalls are Indian, but there is an Istanbul stall that dishes up shwarma and hummus with perfectly cooked chips and a salad garnish. The China Town stall serves chicken, panee or vegetables, Manchurian or Szechwan style, each either ginger or chilli, with fried rice or noodles. Bombay Bites does a vegetable curry of the day. The Kebab Counter serves tandoori chicken, tikka lamb and shish kebab.