Food & Wine News South Africa

Gourmet food from around the world at the Community Chest Carnival

The Community Chest Carnival is to feature food from around the world and there will be the new addition of gourmet food trucks. Additionally, the Vineyard Oval Market will be relocating for the four-day duration of the carnival, bringing with it a selection of its regular stalls as well as its loyal customer base, according to market organiser Antonio Mullins.

“We are showing our commitment to Community Chest Carnival through the support from our regular vendors and encouraging our customers to follow us too,” he said.

John Robinson will be bringing his Charming Spitbraai truck, a regular at the Vineyard Oval Market. It’ll be his second year at the event. Also a regular at other Cape Town events, he serves his lamb spitbraai wraps and pita breads, chicken, lamb chops, boerewors, and crowd-pleasing burgers.

“I’m looking forward to being part of Community Chest Carnival again this year and supporting the event and what it stands for: a festival for good. We are happy to be doing our little bit to make the event a success, and making sure it continues for many years to come,” said Robinson.

Gourmet food from around the world at the Community Chest Carnival

Funky diner-style waffle store

Deon van Wulven is a co-convener of the Waffle Emporium, at Community Chest Carnival again this year and run by the Leo Club (the youth wing of the Lions Club).

“We run the funky diner-style waffle store at the carnival and donate all our profits to the Community Chest,” explained Van Wulven.

“I like the vibe and everyone getting together for a good cause. It’s such a great feeling to be a part of it. I love that we work hard all day and end up covered in sugar dust, but I can’t eat waffles for the rest of the year after that!”

The waffles are named for celebrities, with the most popular last year being the Jimi Hendrix with toppings including marshmallows, Astros, hundreds and thousands, and crushed ice cream cones.

Gourmet food from around the world at the Community Chest Carnival

Bringing crispy chip sticks, soft serves and snow cones to the party will be Allan Conn of Shot in the Dark Events.

“We’ve hardly been at any functions where we haven’t been a firm favourite,” he said, “but we just want to be part of it! It’s our first year at the Community Chest Carnival, and we’re really looking forward to being involved with the community at large.”

His signature dish is a 40cm ‘chip twister’ on a stick, with an array of flavours from plain salt to BBQ, cheese and onion, salt and vinegar, or chutney.

He also sells ‘add-ons’ of vanilla soft-serve with dips, sprinkles or flakes, and snow cones in raspberry, cream soda, or orange – but the clear crowd favourite is his rainbow mix.

Fine Indian cuisine

New to Cape Town, Lucille Wassink will be serving fine Indian cuisine at her stall Lucille’s, including butter chicken, biryanis, samoosas, and her signature mutton curry and mutton curry bunny chow.

“I also serve an assortment of vegetables for vegans and vegetarians, and cauliflower rice for those on the Banting diet,” she said. “We don’t have anything like this in Durban, so it’s a completely new experience for me – I keep hearing that’s its really awesome and the vibe is really good.”

The Community Chest Carnival takes place at Maynardville Park in Wynberg from 30 March to 2 April.

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