All Roads Lead To … Protea Hotel Fürstenhof Restaurant

Protea Hotel Fürstenhof is a stone’s throw away from our office.

It’s all just a matter of crossing one road and walking down another and yet, I’ve been there all of once.

Last December, I wandered in, was ushered round back to the spa and spent an afternoon being rubbed, scrubbed and pampered.

But since my spa day, I haven’t been back.

Until this week, that is.

It’s a Monday just before lunch time and I’ve picked it because, well, it’s close.

I don’t have to catch a cab or mission across town so I opt for convenience and mosey on down to the hotel.

Finding the restaurant isn’t difficult.

I walk through the empty lobby and follow the arrows until I’m standing in front of an alarmingly empty restaurant wondering if maybe I walked here in vain.

Thankfully, though, I’m quickly seated.

It’s quiet, but not for long.

Soon I’m joined by other hungry patrons who seem to be around for a conference or something similar.

With the restaurant filling up, I read through the menu for about the seventh time, struggling to make up my mind.

I’m bad with committing to one dish when the others sound equally tantalising.

To give myself, and Protea Hotel Fürstenhof Restaurant, a fair chance, I decide to order a starter first.

I’ve bemoaned the lack of good salads in Windhoek for the longest time, so I’m not sure whether to tempt fate and go for the the biltong and avocado salad. It’s billed as mixed lettuce, onion, cucumber, avocado, feta, beef biltong, orange segments and pistachio nuts.

I’m not all that keen on oranges in a salad but before I know it, my love for avo wins me over and I order a small salad, which goes for N$50.

Supposedly small but arriving as generous as a main meal, the salad has me impressed. It’s big and bountiful and I can’t wait to dig in. I do, and I’m not disappointed. Well… Not really.

Because while the salad is fresh and fabulous, it’s lacking in finesse.

The tomatoes are bigger than anyone’s idea of a mouthful and the feta and pistachios? They’re nowhere to be found.

It could do with a little more love and some precision in the way of knife-work but the salad hits most of the right spots.

My main meal, which I order after more deliberation, however, doesn’t.

The chicken stir-fry (strips of chicken pan fried with onion, garlic, peppers, julienne of vegetables, soy sauce and noodles) goes for N$90 and arrives looking a hot mess.

Easily passing as something cooked up by a 10-year-old, the stir-fry was decent with regards to taste but the only discernible vegetables on the plate were onions. Cooked into the gravy that screams soy sauce more in colour than flavour.

All in all, it’s neither here nor there.

The service is swift but the food is either a hit or a miss. Or both.

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