Pop Stop: Pata Pata has 'flava' no flavour

27 August 2014 - 02:16 By Yolisa Mkele
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Image: iheartideas

Good theatre is supposed to engage, enlighten and entertain us. More often than not, it just makes us hungry.

To help alleviate this problem Pata Pata, a neighbour of the POPArt Theatre in Maboneng, Johannesburg, has taken steps to ensure you get dinner with the show.

The POPArt Theatre itself is the epitome of asceticism. Beyond its doors lies a small stage that can be manipulated to put on any production, as long as it only involves a handful of cast and crew members.

The culinary fun begins after the fat lady has yodelled, and you can go off to Pata Pata to savour its African-inspired cuisine.

The restaurant looks like it may have been decorated by a thrifty saxophonist from the 1950s. The furniture is a throwback to a time when they made chairs the way granny used to like them, and picture frames are strewn across the walls like a face covered in multicoloured freckles.

As is the case with Maboneng, the atmosphere is great and the crowd eclectic. You are just as likely to meet a banker from the bowels of Sandton as you are to meet an art mechanic who seasons her Mopani worms with chilli.

Despite its welcoming atmosphere, Pata Pata is let down by the food. The "African-inspired" food on the menu is distinctly middle of the road and unadventurous.

It is as if whoever dreamed up the menu did not want to offend the tastebuds of Maboneng's regular clientele.

The result of this failure to serve up some really innovative African cooking is that one ends up sitting in a great, comfortable setting listening to some lovely live music with a mouthful of what could have been.

  • Pata Pata is open daily. For more information or bookings contact 011-070-8853
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